Archive for March, 2009

I love popcorn, it can be a healthy and satisfying snack.  That said, the preparation always irks me.  If I buy the microwave-ready popcorn bags, I feel like I’m ingesting  too much chemical butter.  The butter congeals to the insides of the microwave bag and looks radioactive.  If I buy the good old-fashioned kernels I have to deal with cooking it on the stove – don’t get me wrong, this isn’t difficult, but if you don’t have a full-sized dishwasher then it’s just another pan to clean.  And, I’ll admit, I’m lazy when it comes to snacking.

So when I learned recently that you can pop the regular kernels in the microwave, I was shocked!  You simply pour the kernels into a brown paper bag, fold over the top, and pop away!  It’s the best of both worlds.  Add your favorite toppings – I like a small amount of butter or grated parmesan cheese on mine – and you’re ready to snack happy!  I probably should have realized that there was nothing special or fancy about those microwave-ready bags, but I’m yet again a victim of good marketing.  No more!

Exciting news for all soup lovers – I’m really excited to be a part of a great new site called What’s the Soup.  I’ll be a souper guest blogger on the site.  Keep an eye out for my weekly blog entries on all things soup.

What’s the Soup is a great resource for finding out the soup of the day at your favorite area cafes and restaurants.  They’re adding new restaurants all the time, so keep an eye out for your favorites!

I love trying original, new beers with flavorings of chocolate or fruit, so when I spied Atwater’s Vanilla Java Porter on draft at a pub last night, I was thrilled.

It arrived in its pint glass, dark and thick and enticing.  I immediately smelled it; it smelled like a vanilla bean had been submerged in my lovely porter.  Mmmm.  The taste was complex with overtones of vanilla that carried through from start to finish.  The first detectable flavor was the vanilla, followed by  a barely detectable, fleeting coffee flavor with a mild malted flavor on the finish.  It was sweet but the flavors worked well together and didn’t detract from this tasting like a great porter – no mistaking this for dessert.  (But I do have a sweet tooth, so others might disagree!)    Atwater Brewery has several other interesting ales and stouts including a cherry stout…bottoms up!

Masa Restaurant has two locations – the original is in Boston’s South End, and there is a newer location in Woburn, MA.  I was pleased to learn that I didn’t have to venture into the city to try this “new southwestern cuisine.”  I had drooled over the online menu and was eager to try southwestern food featuring meats like duck and lamb.  Moreover, the cocktails were enticing and the atmosphere looked swanky.

I was initially dismayed to find Masa’s Woburn location to be tucked into the middle of a strip mall, but don’t let this deter you.  Once you enter, you will find a fun and contemporary restaurant with a Southwestern decor fit to match the food.  The ambience is nice and they do a good job of keeping a lively bar area that doesn’t detract from the dining area, despite the close proximity,  the TVs and the crowds in the bar.

I started by ordering a masarita, the restaurant’s specialty margarita that includes apple and orange juices.  The apple juice lent a slightly different flavor to the margarita, but it was otherwise nothing special.  Given the large amount of ice in the drink, I felt it was greatly overpriced at about $8.  I finished it quickly and ordered a raspberry mojito which was perfectly made and well-balanced, but also much too heavy on the ice.  I left feeling as if I’d had less than the equivalent of one full drink for the price of about three.

Before dinner we received a lovely bread basket replete with moist corn bread and a thick-crusted soft white bread, as well as three condiments including a hummus-like bean spread and a honey butter.  The honey butter was fabulous on the corn bread, and it was difficult not to fill up on bread.

We started our meal with the Roasted Butternut Squash and Fall Apple Bisque and the Smoked BBQ Duck and Gouda Quesdilla.  The soup was thick and pleasing, garnished with a miniature jalapeno biscuit which was mushy from being partially sunken into the soup.  The garnish was completed with cold apple chunks – I didn’t care for the cold chunks in my warm soup, but the texture was nice.  The quesadilla was fabulous – the combination of bbq duck and gouda was brilliant.  The duck was tender and beautifully complemented by the cheese.  The bbq sauce was mild and did not distract from the other flavors, instead it made the filling moist and cohesive.

Dinner was good, but it fell short of the appetizers’ greatness.  We were dismayed to see the size of our entrees given the prices – we had plenty of food given that we had filled up on bread and apps, but entrees were not a good value by any stretch of the imagination.  My husband ordered the Adobo Grilled Pork Tenderloin with Cilantro Chimichurri, partly because I was indecisive in ordering and intrigued by the dish.  It was served with creamy rajas (chilies) which were extremely spicy but not especially flavorful or creamy, as well as a stuffing that consisted of blue corn bread and chorizo.  My husband loved the stuffing; I felt the chorizo was a bit overpowering, but we agreed that the texture was lovely.  The pork itself was a bit dry but helped by the delicious chimichurri which had a nice cilantro flavor and a beautiful green hue.

I ordered Braised Lamb Enchiladas with Cranberry Raisin Chutney.  The enchiladas didn’t look like typical enchiladas but instead like small taquitos – there were three tightly rolled bundles and the tortillas themselves didn’t appear to be browned.  The lamb filling was good but not especially memorable.  However, Masa should bottle and sell the chutney as this really made the dish.  The plump golden raisins added a nice chewiness to the dish and the cranberries added added a pleasing tartness.  On the side, I had a pureed hominy which was creamy and mild (if you haven’t had hominy, it tastes sort of like a milder and slightly less sweet version of corn).

Despite being fairly satiated at this point, my husband and I were out celebrating, so we ordered two desserts.  Mine was a chocolate tamale of sorts – a sort of cross between a brownie and chocolate pudding served in a corn husk.  It was garnished with a drizzle of a berry sauce which was far too sweet and cloying for the dark chocolate yumminess.  The presentation was creative, though; I have never seen a corn husk incorporated into a dessert.  My husband had a chocolate banana dessert.  The presentation was impressive – hollowed out bananas filled with soft chocolate – but the dessert was average.  You can’t go wrong with fried bananas and chocolate, but they did nothing to elevate this classic pairing.

Overall, Masa is a bit pricy – I feel this is less justifiable at their suburban location – but the food is creative and the restaurant has an enjoyable atmosphere.  Watch your wallet, but enjoy some delicious appetizers.

My birthday was earlier this month, and my husband was determined to make this a great one for me.   (Last year’s was, well…lacking, due to many extraneous circumstances…) 

So what does a nice guy get for his wife to make her birthday special?  Flowers?  Jewelry?  New clothes?  All great presents, no doubt about it.  My husband’s gift was a gesture that shows he understands the things I just can’t live without , though (besides him).  Great cheese and great chocolate.

The cheese was mail-ordered from a wonderful place in Utah that we discovered while watching the Food Network one night.  The Beehive Cheese Company has several cheeses that you can have shipped across the country and I can attest to it arriving cool and fresh.  I received the standard Box-O-Cheese, but there are other boxed arrangements as well.  I couldn’t open all of the cheeses at once, due to a fear of some of them growing moldy before I could eat them, but so far I have tasted, and enjoyed, three of the cheeses.

I was especially excited to try cheese curds, more specifically the Squeaky Bee Curds, for the first time – as an avid cheese-lover I somehow had missed the experience of eating curds.  The curds are wonderful and taste like a mild cheese, similar to mozzarella.  My curds pull apart into bite size pieces and remind me of a gourmet version of string cheese.  They are simple and delicious.

The SeaHive cheese (a fun play on words) is rubbed with sea salt and wildflower honey.  I’m not a big salt lover, so I worried that I might not like this variety.  I couldn’t have been more wrong.  So far, it is my favorite of the Box-O-Cheese.  It doesn’t taste overly salty at all, instead the salt seems to bring out all the wonderful inherent flavors of the cheese and the honey.  This cheese has a full spectrum of flavors.  It starts out mild, turns pleasantly sharp and a little tangy and finishes with a light, sweet flavor.  I could eat it by the pound – but I won’t.

Finally, I have also tried the Apple Walnut Smoked Promontory Cheddar.  This cheese has been smoked with walnut shells and apples.  It is my least favorite of the three cheeses that I’ve tasted but is still wonderful.  I cannot detect any hints of walnut or apple, it does have a strong smoked flavor that lends itself well to being melted in sandwiches of all sorts.

I have a few cheeses yet to open and taste, so keep your eyes out for another cheese-related blog in the not too distant future!

As for the chocolate, wow!  I was reading a recent issue of Gourmet magazine and came across an article on Taza chocolate.  Not only was this a fascinating article about a new style of chocolate, but I discovered that the company is based locally, in Somerville, MA.   I love trying new chocolates, and I love supporting local businesses.  This chocolate is unique because the chocolate is stone ground and their whole chocolate-making process is special.  They ethically trade directly with farmers in Central and South America to obtain organic beans.  There are several steps of the chocolate-making process (see their website for a full explanation) but the key component is that they stone grind their chocolate so that the beans are mininmally processed and, thus, they retain more of their inherent flavors.  Most chocolate companies conch their chocolate which is a much more agressive way of processing the beans, from what I understand.  The process may be slightly lost on me, but the taste is not.  My husband bought me two bars: 70% dark and 80% dark.  When I first bit into the 70% dark I was disasppointed – it seemed dry on the palate and very hard.  As soon as you start chewing, however, the most intense flavors are released and it no longer seems too dry or hard.  I keep breaking off small pieces in an attempt to find a fitting way to describe this chocolate (ok, my dedication to my blog isn’t the only reason I keep compulsively eating this chocolate).  The best I can do is to describe the taste as a mix of a deep, dark chocolate mixed with wonderful fruity, berry flavors like I’ve never tasted before.  It’s like discovering a new fruit and chocolate all at once.  It is possibly the best dark chocolate I’ve ever eaten.  The 80% dark is also quite good, and, not surprsingly, more bitter.  I find this bar has less intricate flavors.  The texture is still unique, but the taste is more similar to other dark chocolates that I’ve had. 

I can’t recommend the 70% dark highly enough to anyone who enjoys dark chocolate.  We all need our antioxidants, after all!

Happy cheese and chocolate eating!