While I was napping

That's a clone of a Mars Munch Bar that my husband and Owen  made out of Todd Wilbur's Top Secret Recipes Unlocked yesterday afternoon. You have no idea how rare it is that either of them does anything in the kitchen more complicated than pouring a bowl of Cheerios or opening a carton of yogurt. Owen wanted to buy a Snickers, Husband said no, but that they could go home and make a candy bar. So they did. 

I was shocked and impressed. I ate so much of this candy that I have a stomachache. It's like peanut brittle that doesn't stint on the peanuts or stick in your teeth. The chocolate wasn't called for in the recipe, but works.

Tipsy: Doesn't it make you want to try more stuff in the kitchen?

Husband: No, it just makes me want to make this over and over again.

This one goes to Starbucks

A rare win for Big Food. Starbucks' vanilla almond biscotti (right) trounces Todd Wilbur's bland, gravelly clone from Top Secret Recipes Unlocked.  Better looks, better flavor, better texture. 

On the other hand, the soft snickerdoodles Isabel baked using Wilbur's Pepperidge Farm clone recipe, were incredible. I always thought Pepperidge Farm was a classy brand of cookie -- have no idea why; is it? -- but tasted side by side with a homemade snickerdoodle, the PF version is almost inedible. Apparently, pure butter trumps "palm and/or interestified and hydrogenated soybean and/or cottonseed" oil.

You can read my Entertainment Weekly review of Wilbur's book here, but, unfortunately, the online version doesn't include the chart detailing the various items I cooked. The piece is pretty flat without it. If you see a copy of the magazine, it's on page 91. 

Here are some of the experiments that didn't make the cut: 

 

Homemade Famous Amos chocolate chip cookies (left) were buttery and crispy; the real thing: chalky.

Homemade Starbucks pumpkin cream cheese muffin (left) was fluffy and delicious the real thing: turgid and pasty.

Finally, as some of you might recall, I made onion rings a few weeks ago and since EW doesn't include them in the roundup I can put you out of your suspense.

  A homemade onion ring made using Todd Wilbur's recipe (left) involves dipping actual rings of an actual onion into milk, bread crumbs, and flour, then frying them in a pot of Crisco. They are stupendous. I have no idea how Burger King produces its "onion" rings but they do not contain the rings of an onion. They are more like onion crullers -- batter containing scant bits of onion that is (I would guess) extruded  through a machine into ring shapes, then tossed into a vat of the cheapest possible recycled oil. Sampled side by side with real onion rings, they are truly horrid. 

They are, however, much, much cheaper to buy than to make. They are also tidier to eat and you can get them when you are driving across Nevada, crave a hot, salty snack, and don't want to get out of your car. I would say that the stale, nasty BK onion ring has its place, except why wouldn't you just get french fries? 

I was kind of thirsty when I woke up

That is a chicken quesadilla made by a drunk person. I almost never drink at home anymore, but to alleviate stress from controversial article, hauled the vodka bottle from the freezer last night and mixed a cocktail with lime juice and pomegranate syrup given to us by a friend. Then I made another. I think there was a third, but don't actually remember.

 

After that, I fired up the stove and tackled Todd Wilbur's recipe for Taco Bell Chicken Quesadillas out of Top Secret Recipes Unlocked. Here's what he writes "Taco Bell takes the fast food quesadilla into new territory with three different cheeses and a creamy jalapeno sauce, all of which you can now cheerfully recreate in the comfort of your warm kitchen."

I was cheerful in my warm kitchen and the recipe was easy, which was a blessing. Creamy jalapeno sauce: mayonnaise stirred together with spices and bottled jalapenos. Chicken: breast meat, grilled or cooked in hot skillet. The three cheeses: cheddar, jack, American. The American cheese really did make the quesadilla taste like something crassly satisfying that you might get at a fast food restaurant. These were great quesadillas.

I was going to drive down the hill and buy a quesadilla from our local Taco Bell to compare, but thought better of it. 

Food styling by a drunk person.

In other news, I can't believe I didn't know about the Tournament of Cookbooks. Now I want that Argentinian cookbook, even though Nora Ephron makes it sound absurd. Plus, we have a wheelbarrow.

Another day, another coffee cake

Funny, because I rarely eat coffee cake, preferring to maintain the illusion that I'm on a diet until at least noon. But in the interest of science. . .

The Gourmet Today buttermilk coffee cake beats out both Starbucks and the Todd Wilbur Starbucks clone recipe. Taller, fluffier, more substantial, prettier, though the same general rich batter/cinnamon streusel idea. All I would do to improve this cake would be to use more nuts and leave them in biggish pieces for crunch.

In other news, the turkey is tragically lonely. I would think she was sick if I hadn't seen her traipsing widely and seemingly cheerfully around her original home with her turkey companions just a few days ago. Now she just stands in one place for hours and makes hiccuping sounds if anyone approaches. I have picked her up, and she's this heavy, warm, throbbing armful of bird and I hate that she is so glum. She's barely eating, and although I've forced her beak into the water bowl, have not seen her drink. I'm sorry I didn't buy one of the other turkeys to keep her company, and have considered going back to correct my mistake, but it's a very, very long drive to French Camp and the plan was never to keep this bird for long.

If I get more turkeys, which I'd like to do in the spring, I'm going to get heritage turkeys, and start them from poults. This turkey is a painfully awkward animal -- she can't fly and can barely navigate the stairs because she's so top-heavy, so buxom. I suspect she's a broad-breasted white, the Frankenstein breed developed for factory farms. I'm sure you can have a very nice life as a clumsy, top-heavy, flightless bird -- but only if thoughtless people don't also separate you from your BFFs.

I really might have to go back and buy that other turkey. That is crazy, right? Yes. It is crazy.

Coffee cake v. coffee cake

At left, Starbucks coffee cake made at home using Todd Wilbur's recipe out of Top Secret Recipes Unlocked. Price: $4.34 for the whole cake, including fuel to heat oven.

At right, coffee cake purchased at Starbucks: $1.95

Wilbur's recipe made twelve squares. So: 36 cents a piece for homemade, which was tender and buttery, if a bit messy to cut. Starbucks coffee cake was tidy and rigid and the topping tasted very slightly rancid.

No smug lectures. I understand why people buy Starbucks coffee cake. I've done it myself and will do it again. But if you ever think it's "not bad" you need to make Wilbur's clone recipe -- or any coffee cake recipe -- and taste side by side. It's pretty bad and they're not giving it away. 

Interesting fact: Most expensive single component of homemade coffee cake is butter, followed by vanilla. Everything else is almost trivial.

Gourmet Today: this marriage can't be saved

I'm feeling no passion for Gourmet Today. Last week I was happily cheating on Ruth Reichl with Todd Wilbur who is so completely sleazy he uses margarine in some of his recipes. I bought margarine, which is simply wrong and just goes to show how bored I am in my primary relationship.

Wilbur's longtime schtick is to try to "clone" brand-name recipes -- Popeye's biscuits, Pepperidge Farm cookies, McDonalds' shakes, et cetera -- and I was messing around with his latest book, Top Secret Recipes Unlocked, for a review that is presumably going to appear in another venue shortly. (After that, all details about onion rings, donuts, and more will be revealed) The project was extremely fun and funny and surprisingly delicious. 

 

The other morning, on my own time, I made Wilbur's version of Starbucks' pumpkin scones. He calls them "orange triangles of goodness," which is typical of his prose. They really were orange triangles of goodness -- soft, sufficiently pumpkiny (rare), like a muffin married to a scone. We didn't bother cross-tasting them with the store product as I have recently sampled enough Starbucks baked goods to know that they are all substandard and overpriced. These were like the Platonic ideal of a Starbucks scone. 

 

As for Gourmet Today. Sigh. I keep fishing out the recipes with the lowest "active time" which is a bad sign. To wit, the other last night: hoisin turkey cutlets (active time: 15 minutes), panfried Romaine (active time: 20 minutes) chocolate sorbet (active time: 15  minutes.)  

Writing about this drab weeknight convenience food feels like a sad joke. Plus, just look at it. 

The turkey was fine.

The sorbet  was fine.

The panfried Romaine was better than fine. You buy packaged hearts of Romaine , cut them in half lengthwise, wash well and dry. Heat olive oil, put the Romaine hearts face down, salt, sear for a minute, flip, cover, cook for two minutes more. I loved this and will make it again.

The next night I made a Gascon white bean soup (active time: 30 minutes) that was fine, and baked apples with candied walnuts, (active time: 15 minutes) also fine. 

It's all fine. But this whole book feels like fine leftovers someone has turned into a casserole by topping with a little cheese and reheating.