I totally did not plan to make a Cinco de Mayo themed post today.  I had tamales all lined up to go, and I woke up and was like…hmmm today is Cinco de Mayo...  crazy!  We made these because Mandi was scouring the internet for other things to steam.  Once we bought the steamer she decided that she wanted every meal steamed from that point on.  The thing about tamales is you are supposed to use a metal pot steamer.  This is because they take over an hour and a half and the bamboo starts to get really soggy at that point.  This is fine, it still dries out and everything, you just have to be careful with it.  They came out great for us and we even got some nice bamboo flavor in the tamales that was delicious.  In a totally unrelated side note to TFIMB fans, check out the web comic xkcd from today and also from Friday.  They are both food related, slightly nerdy, and hilarious as usual.  Be sure to mouse over to see the alt text.

This post stems from a few different things.  First – Mandi and I have been somewhat inspired by some of our favorite chefs, especially Jamie Oliver, in their discussion of the treatment of animals and what your meat goes through on the way to your mouth.  We watched Ramsay purchase baby turkeys on his show “the F word” and build a pen for them in his backyard.  His children would feed and play with them.  Eventually they became Christmas dinner at his restaurant. If you are interested in this topic you can read some great articles here and here

Anyways, because of all this, we decided to try and only eat what mandi calls “happy meat” for a few months (lent).  This may not seem hard to most people in the US.  Just go to Whole Foods, shell out a few extra bucks, and get yourself some hormone and antibiotic free beef and free range chicken.  Here in Bermuda, it’s a bit more of a challenge. Click below for more.

We had revenge on pad thai this past weekend.  I didn’t take as many pictures this time because we had so many good ones last time.  Also because once you get going with this dish in the wok,  you need to be focused and keep the ingredients coming.  If you are serious about trying pad thai, check out chez pim and read her page on it.  It may seem long, but you need to read through it to get the idea of how to make this dish really great. 

Last year for my birthday Mandi made me this burger cake.  She gave me a grill and when I opened it, this crazy cake was sitting there.  I was pretty impressed.  The onions and cheese are made out of that magical friend of Duff Goldman known as fondant.  Fondant is an interesting thing because it does taste pretty good but you can’t eat much of it cause it is gummy and too sweet.  We had both wanted to try it because he uses it so much we wanted to see what it was all about.

If you want to try something like this, you can check out this site.  This is where she looked to get the ideas of people who had done it before.  I think she is one of the best of those pictures.  Some are pretty awful but some are great.  A few are bigger then the birthday girl haha.

I wonder if she has something up her sleeve for my coming birthday this Thursday…..

These pictures are really bad quality, sorry!!

My favorite nerd webcomic xkcd has a great food entry today.  I do agree to some extent and have always thought about this ratio but never had the idea to graph it.  The problem with grapefruit for me is its goodness percentage, when it is good its great, but I can never seem to pick the best ones

Everyone watch the premiere of Last Restaurant Standing tonight on BBC America.  If its any good, I will review it weekly.  I have high hopes for it mainly because I like most food related things on that channel.  Also because I want a new show to watch.


Check out this video for a new web series "cooking with coolio" (Really???)   yes. really.  this might be nsfw depending on where you work and if you use headphones so continue with caution. In this episode, he makes a caprese salad.  "betta use your own spoon girl, I don’t know where your mouth's been."


Tonight I will be making a large batch of pizza dough while watching Last Restaurant Standing because we are having a pizza party Friday night so expect some good pic's from that early next week.