February, 2003

I LOVE Alton Brown’s food network show Good Eats!! It is extremely entertaining! In my personal opinion, he is the most talented celebrity chef on the entire network and his pop culture humor and outlandish foodie pride are hilariously amusing. On his programAlton shares interesting tidbits about WHY food does the things it does, HOW to make it behave for you and even historical information about whatever he is preparing that day. For example, yesterday he was dealing with chocolate and made some awesome fondue. Did you know that fondue was invented during a Medevil Holy War by a soldier who was trying to make his bread less rock-like?! Ding! Plus, the intro to Good Eats has the hottest food graphics EVER! I highly reccomend this show. But beware, it will make you want to cook. I’m going to try out some of his brownie tips tonight (just to see how these tips work in real life, not because I have any desire to actually EAT a brownie).

In other news, stay away from Imitation Cherry Extract. That stuff’s nasty, son. I encountered it for the first time yesterday out of desperation. Let me just tell you that it tastes worse than the worst cough medicine you’ve ever experienced and smells…ugh, the scent is just indescribable. I wish I could put a little scratch, sniff and taste sticker on here so you could all experience it. The stuff is like toxic waste, yo!

COMING SOON
I went to visit Carrie & company this weekend and had an exceptionally great time–fabulous fotos to come!!
Jen’s Birthday Celebration is tonight! Stay tuned in for pictures!

Hoo Ha! Can you believe all this snow? We enjoyed at least a foot of new snow today in Binghamton–on top of what we already had–making for some pretty exciting outdoor excursions!! Some of the girls and I frolicked in the icy precipitation for about an hour–there is a GIGUNDO snow bank in our parking lot that we happily took advantage of. Dawn and Jen introduced me to garbage bag sledding (in which you sit on a large plastic garbage bag that quickly propels you down aforementioned snow bank). We also experimented with rolling down the bank, which proved to be even more fun (if you can believe it!) than the impromptu sledding. When our limbs were too numb to move, we decided to head in for our Snow Sundae mise en place. This is an extremely easy and highly enjoyable winter treat that all of you who are blanketed in snow should try out!

Snow Sundae
1. Fill a cup with CLEAN (and preferably new) snow.
2. Pour several tablespoons of your favorite syrup on top of the snow in the cup. [Traditionally this recipe calls for maple
syrup, but I tried it today with chocolate syrup and liked it even better. I think it would also be excellent with Godiva’s
(or some other brand’s) chocolate liqueur].
3. Mix with spoon (Go ahead: revel in those crazy textures!), and eat!! Yummers!