Frozen Bananas Dipped in Chocolate:Our Second Blogoversary!

This post marks Sis Boom Blog’s second “Blogoversary”! I'm still blaming and cursing Ms. Fig for this whole thing and now I see she hasn’t even posted since April! Sigh. If I quit I can I blame her for that too? Every time I think I should stop something happens to suck me back in. I am the Michael Corleone of food bloggers. I will get a lovely email of thanks, I make a new fabulous friend, or… and as if on cue today I received some incredible news regarding this blog! It actually gave me the energy to not hang it up on my anniversary. I am back in!

I will tell you about it all in the next several days but this particular post will have to stick to the topic and my annual custom: a simple and reflective annual review. So my beloved “Sis Boom Ten” you will just have to wait!

We are supposed to be in the “lazy-hazy-crazy days of summer”. So how come I can’t seem to muster even an hour to sit quietly and reflect on the last ear? Is this near constant hectic feeling a sign of the times or is it just a sign of MY times? Surely I am not the only one who can’t remember the last time I actually felt ‘bored’ or had nothing to do (or due). Does anyone remember what free time used to feel like? I don’t think I’ve had any in two years. Coincidence? I think not.

Sis Boom Blog has always been purposed with keeping me inspired, creative, and passionate about exploring the ‘new’ in my daily life. In that regard it has succeeded beyond my dreams but man it can take up a lot of time! Shuttering the blog and ceasing operations would certainly open up a big chunck of time and each year I have to admit to giving it some considerable thought but I just can’t bring myself to do it. Especially now that…

I managed to crank out 86 posts during this past year and yet I still have too much more to learn. And much MUCH more to tell you about. Who needs time anyway?

Turns out that Cy Twombly doesn't. He ran out of time and died during the past year leaving me quite sad. This world famous artist was my artistic and thematic inspiration for most of the early life of this blog. My redesign a few months ago moved us along from his inspired look and feel toward the current menu look. I wonder if it that did him in? Nonetheless this great man will be missed. Rest in peace Cy.

I had a lot of fun sharing stories and observations with you along that 86 post pathway. Of course I also shared some recipes as well -- although they often seemed incidental to the post at hand. Truthfully and I’m sure you can tell, I like it that way. The idea reminds me of how the great dinner parties may have amazing food to set the mood but is the company and conversation that is the thing that makes the evening memorable. If you read this blog with any regularity I know you know exactly what I mean!

And guess what? There were quite a few more of you enjoying our dinner parties this year. Sis Boom traffic has gone up nearly 50% from the end of our previous year so if you are doing the math that means that only 6.667 of you were reading last year.

The number one trafficked post of the year was about my itch for a manly lemon bar. In the end my unrequited love, David Lebovits, satisfied me when he came to the rescue with his big, fat lemon bars. Made with the whole lemon, of course. Not content with that success in these parts, David’s ice cream book was probably my biggest inspiration of the year. The gift that keeps on giving! How did I ever get along without an ice cream maker?

The admission of my a steamy summer affair with Nigela Lawson proved to be quite popular and was the second most read of all last year's posts. Candy making for my the first time was also quite memorable as it is one of the few new things I outright failed at and still shared. I persevered and prevailed giving me quite a sense of accomplishment. Recollections of the French houseguest who came to visit and turned my life upside down had even my real life friends and family shaking their heads trying to understand (and remember!)

Of course, any reflection of Year Two at Sis Boom Blog would be incomplete without a nod to my beloved Doristas. In fact I would probably have to subtitle this year: “The Rise of the Doristas”. I coined the term nearly a year ago to describe the wonderfully wacky people I joined up with to inaugurate a communal cooking effort through Dorie Greenspan’s instant kitchen classic “From Around My French Table to Yours” (or something like that.) I have been questioning my sanity ever since.

Just kidding. Sort of. Yes, the effort is a huge time hog and takes up quite a bit of valuable blog real estate. The rewards in terms of new online relationships has made it all worthwhile and has taken my culinary adventure to all sorts of new places. I admit to teasing Dorie a bit on these pages but I really do admire her and have to admit that she has rarely lead anyone astray with her many books and recipes. One of my prouder moments of the past year was when she visited this blog and left a comment on one of my favorite “Dorie Posts”. To my knowledge she has never been back! Or maybe she has and didn't appreciate the name “Dorista”?

So there you have it, Year Two. Time to leave you with the traditional brain dead simple recipe. (Last year we did mint tea and that was perhaps a bit too easy?) For me, nothing says lazy-hazy-crazy days of summer than a frozen banana. They take me back to my childhood on Balboa Island where tradition has it the Frozen Banana was actually born back in the 1940's or something like that. That may or may not be true but making them certainly takes me back to that time when my summers actually were lazy, hazy, and crazy.

Nothing could be simpler.

Frozen Bananas

• 6 Bananas
• 4 cups chocolate chips
• 1 cup nuts chopped by pulsing in food processor.

Prepare tray by lining it with parchment or foil. Peel the bananas and remove any stringy fibers. Cut the bananas in half, widthwise, and push an ice-cream stick through the cut end of each half. Freeze for about two hours, uncovered.

Place the chocolate chips in a double boiler and cook on low to medium heat until melted and smooth. Do not over heat.

Dip bananas one by one and roll in the toppings and place on parchment lined tray. Return to freezer for 2 hours. When frozen let sit for 5 minutes before eating. Uneaten bananas can be wrapped individually in plastic wrap and will last a couple weeks.

The Liberté Cocktail

I know its not considered correct these days to say “I need a drink”. As if "needing a drink" puts you one stop short of addiction. But fuck, I really needed this one. I mean NEE...DED. For medicinal purposes or course. I'm sure my doctor would have prescribed one (or two as the case turned out to be.)

I arrived home last night to discovere that it was raining inside my garage. Yeah. Inside the garage.

I wish I could say we were suffering from some kind of global warming weather anomaly but we weren't. That at least would gotten me a ticket to The Today Show to discuss with Al Roker the hurricane in my garage. Nope, it seems my weather phenomenon was just a toilet upstairs belonging to a neighborhad decided to go rogue. (I happen to think that both things and people going rogue are very, very, dangerous (and usually annoying) so my anxiety was well placed.)

Water pouring down in buckets, light fixtures had falling from the ceiling and shattering as the soggy sheet rock buckled. Boxes filled with clothing and Christmas ornaments were soaked. By the time I discovered what was going on the damage really did resemble a post-Katrina newsreel. Unlike Katrina, however, the damage was confined to my garage and I quickly reassessed my 'suffering quotient'. Surprisingly that exercise put me thisclose to being in a good mood.

This cocktail finished the job.

There really was a lot to be thankful for. The rain was just in the garage and nobody was hurt. Other than the complete destruction of the walls and cabinetry there was only minimal damage to personal effects. Mostly its just a huge mess than needs cleaning and a good contractor. Oh, and I have insurance which is more than I can say for the upstairs neighbor. He is the one that really NEEDED this drink.

I was quite thankful for the fully stocked liquor cabinet and tons of recipes on my blog ‘to do' list. It had been awhile since we featured a cocktail and the time just seemed more than right.
This has been one of my favorites and since my garage got destroyed on Bastille Day I thought it was entirely appropriate. It gets its name from the French national motto: Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité! (Liberty, Equality, Fraternity!) My I present The Liberté!


The Lillet Company themselves came up with this so that is French enough for me -- despite the fact that its made with gin. If the French and English can cooperate on The Chunnel then far be it from my to prevent a meeting of the minds in a cocktail glass. From Lillet: "The white stripe on the French flag represents freedom, and so with this cocktail we offer the modern drinker the freedom to do things differently, enjoying Lillet in a martini rather than vermouth."

That is a lot of liberty if you ask me. I needed two.

Liberté

• 3 oz Lillet Blanc (As Sandra Bernhadt says, "Mmmm. Lillet. It's like an upscale Manischewitz.")
• 1 oz Hendrick’s gin
• 2 healthy dashes orange bitters – (I used Angostura Orange)

Stir ingredients on ice and strain up into a chilled coupe or martini glass. Garnish with an orange peel, expressing the oils by snapping or twisting the peel over the glass before dropping into the drink.

Pistachio Ice Cream

It goes without saying that foods bring about memories but did you ever stop to consider that they also have a duty to impart life's more simple lessons on us? Obviously I knew about the memories part for I wouldn't even have a blog if memories weren't part of most recipes. That said, I hadn't really stopped much to think about whether the cook's notes in my favorite recipes contained "life's lessons". It turns out they do. I just hadn't really stopped to listen for them before.

Then I met this particular ice cream and failure to listen was just not going to be an option. I tried to to just eat my newly minted ice cream in peace but it wouldn't stay quiet. Pistachio Ice Cream just kept screaming some of life's lessons at me without letting up. Scream-ing. Pistachio's lessons were more of the kind you might expect to learn in kindergarten than the kind you learn from a therapist. Nevertheless, I certainly didn't expect to hear them from my food.

"If you are going to do something, do it right."
"Don't look for the easy way."
"If at first you don't succeed, try, try, again."
"Patience is a virtue."

and finally,

"Excellence is its own reward."

Man this was some really preachy and verbose ice cream wasn't it? I usually don't respond well to the preachy types around me but in this case I found pistachio ice cream quite hard to ignore.
Because it was right!

I had attempted pistachio ice cream before with somewhat tragic results. Essentially a plain vanilla base and using a pistachio extract. The result reminded me of that weird green stripe of ice cream found in cheap supermarket spumoni. It tasted as much like real pistachios as elementary school banana pudding tastes like real bananas.

I didn't give up and knew I had to try again. I began to feel silly for thinking I could get a good result using an extract. If you are going to do something do it right. There had to be a better way to make this but how? Pistachio paste! If you are patient you can order it online and it is well worth the wait. You can look around for a Greek or Middle Eastern market as well as as there is a lot of it found there too. Either way, trust me that it is worth the wait. Patience is a virtue and all that.

This batch was gone before I realized it! Dear husband surreptitiously packed up the unused portion and sent it home with my sister-in-law without asking me! She didn't even like nuts and yet she succumbed to its magic. She couldn't stop raving and so it was now hers. As I watched the pistachio ice cream walk off to my sister-in law's-house I thought, "fine --let it scream platitudes at her now so I can get some rest. Wise ice cream is her problem now."

As the Pistachio Ice Cream walked out the door it turned around to leave me with one more pearl of wisdom; one of my grandmother's favorites:

"Just eat your ice cream while it is on your plate."

Only when she said it she wasn't talking about ice cream. Pretty smart ass ice cream that Pistachio. If you're smart you'll make this and find out what else it has to teach you!

Pistachio Ice Cream

Eat Real! July 16 and 17 in Los Angeles!

In Los Angeles and looking for something fun and inexpensive to do this weekend?

Why not check out the Eat Real Festival in Culver City at the historic Helms Bakery? As they describe it it is "part state fair, part block party." And far from being just another "Taste of [fill in the name of whatever city you are in]" type event, this one focuses quite a bit on teaching food craft, beer making, and all sorts of other do-it-yourself type projects.

I hear that over 20 of LA's top food trucks are going to be there and that is reason enough for me to check it out as I am all over this culinary phenomenon as some of the best food around is found on these trucks.

And get this...the cost to attend is zippo. Nada. All the edibles are only $5 or less! Doesn't this sound like a good time and a great place to get inspiration for all sorts of new cooking projects? Cheese making, beer making, charcuterie and the like. You will probably find me at the Butchery Contest" to see "butchers dismantle a hindquarter in a fast paced frenzy." How could I resist?

My dear friend and former Fig Jammin' partner Caitie (who has her own blog at De Nada Limonada by the way) turned me onto to this good time when she decided to join up and help promote the event. Caitie makes some of the best jams I have ever tasted so once I found out she was disqualified from entering the contests I decided it was safe for me to play along. I submitted a new Fig Jam recipe into the "Sweet Spreads" contest: Honey Fig, Lemon and Thyme Confiture. Its a fig and lemon marmalade with just a hint of thyme infused into the mix.

Wish me luck!

Be sure to check out the website for additional information, demonstration schedules, contest information, driving directions and all that. Arrive hungry!

Salmon and Tomatoes en Papillote–FFwD?

Summer is finally here which means nobody I know has any time for anything. I got home at 8:30PM tonight and I certainly didn’t have time to cook a French dinner (or even a "French" dinner.) But hey, its Thursday and I started this French Friday w Dorie project and even though I never invited hundreds of bloggers to depend on me each week (only 10 of you read this blog) I still feel a small sense of obligation to the cause. If not to my fellow Doristas then to my husband who prefers to eat actual food for dinner each night. (Although we do have a box of eggs and a jar of protein powder for emergencies.)
It appears our French Fridays with Dorie "leaders"  don't have time either as they have all but abandoned us  Doristas as evidenced by their apparant lack of  having the unimaginably brief 10 seconds required to post a link enabling us to share our efforts with each other. See? Time is now officially scarce.

At this writing it has been one week since Beet Salad day and still no "Leae Your Link" post for that assignment.  While Doristas around the world were slaving away on beets and salmon our leaders were out playing frisbee at the beach or perhaps picnicking.  I do know that if they don't have the 10 seconds required to post each week they certainly don't have the 15 minutes necessary to make this remarkably simple and surprisingly elegant dinner.

 Their loss while I actually found the time!

"Lack of time" is the theme for this week's submission. So I'm going to run with it because running with it is what I do here at Sis Boom blog. This Salmon and Tomatoes en Papillote is perfect when time is of concern and attention to detail is not. Not only does it take less than 5 minutes to prepare but it is also so brain-dead simple even a FFwD blog leader could do it. That is, if they had the time.

I didn't even have the extra minute to worry about the lighting, set up a decent photo or make a nice plate of it but it hardly matters. Only 10 people read this blog anyway and while I love each and every one of you, I really didn’t have the time to get home and cook before the sunset.

For those reading without enough time to Google it for yourself (hi Mom!) "en papillote" means "in parchment". To my view it looks as if  Dorie didn’t have enough time to go buy actual parchment so instead calls for foil which probably works better with a very hot oven allowing it to steam more quickly since the steam can't escape the less tight folds of parchment.

Who knew this method was even French?  I used to cook like as a Boy Scout. Only back then we used an awful unnatural camping cooking oil and we never had fresh herbs packed with us. (Something I would now take great delight in bringing with me on a backpacking trip.)  We never had a  hot enough cooking fire either but somehow managed even though that skinny river trout never tasted as good as this.

So the verdict is: I loved it. I’d make this one even if I had more time and I’ll make it again when I don't have any more time. Any time, even no time, is a good time for this one.

Oh, and Dorista Pubahs, I know I’m being a bit snarky here but it is only because I will be quite sad if you have put together this fine little cooking group only to abandon us for lack of time.  I would hate to think that Berry Terrine is our last assignment.

Besides, what would I do with all the extra time?

Salmon and Tomatoes en Papillote

SALMON AND TOMATOES EN PAPILLOTE
Makes 1 serving:

• 2 teaspoons extra-virgin olive oil (more to taste)
• 4 grape tomatoes
• About 6 basil leaves
• One 5-ounce filet of salmon (skinless or not)
• 1/4 lemon
• 1/2 spring onion or 1 scallion (optional), finely sliced
• 1 sprig thyme
• Salt and freshly ground white pepper

Center a rack in the oven, preheat the oven to 475 degrees F and have a baking sheet at hand. Cut a piece of foil that is large enough for you to lay out the ingredients, lift up the edges of the foil and seal the packet with an inch or two of air space above the fish.

If you want to "sear" the tomatoes, warm 1 teaspoon of the olive oil in a small skillet, then saute the tomatoes just until their skins are wrinkled and bubbly, about 3 minutes.

Working in the center of the piece of foil, make a bed of basil leaves, keeping 1 leaf aside. Sprinkle the leaves with a little salt and pepper, put the salmon over the leaves and season it with salt and pepper too. (If the salmon has skin, lay it skin-side against the basil.) Put the tomatoes on one side of the salmon and grate the lemon's zest over everything. If you're using the spring onion or scallion, scatter the pieces over the fish and tomatoes. Give the salmon a squirt of lemon juice, then cut two thin slices from the lemon and put them on top of the fish. Top with the last basil leaf and the sprig of thyme; moisten with olive oil.

Seal the packet, making sure it's airtight and that there's puff space between the fish and the top of its cocoon. Put the packet on the baking sheet, slide the set-up into the oven and bake for 10 minutes, if you like your fish pink and slightly jiggly in the center (great for salmon); bake 2 minutes longer if you want your fish better done.

You can either put the packet on a dinner plate and open it at the table, or open the packet in the kitchen and arrange the ingredients on a plate. If you plate the fish, you might want to finish the dish with a little minced basil or some snipped chives.

Cy Twombly: April 25, 1928 – July 5, 2011

I'm sorry to interrupt your regular food programming but today I was saddened to read of artist Cy Twombly's passing just yesterday. He has nothing to do with food but quite a lot to do with this blog. Does this piece of his entitled "Cold Stream" (from 1966) look familiar? If so you are one of my earliest readers!

When I first envisioned writing a blog I had intended to write about the myriad of crazy and usually trivial and fleeting personal interests, political concerns du jour, technological and diet obsessions, family quirks and childhood memories that made up my somewhat semi-conscious idea stream each week. I had thought I could weave their somewhat disparate qualities into a tapestry of meaning. (Ha!) I am a long time fan of Twombly's large-scale scribble style graffiti paintings, specifically the one shown above, and I saw a connection to the 'vibe' I wanted here. So I gravitated towards them to serve as my thematic inspiration.

Although I very quickly latched onto food (or devolved to food?) as my device for the inane, random and and not-well-thought out dross featured here, Twombly's visual style would continue to inspire Sis. Boom. blog!'s graphic look for its first year and a half. (The recent design change was meant to finally come to grips with our food theme yet I tried to keep its irreverence with the hidden and not so hidden salutes to the modern graffiti artist Banksy.)

This blog's early page backgrounds, banners, and even the side panels were all a blatant ripoff of his masterpieces or actual artistic details scaled and/or slightly altered to fit the Blogger space requirements:

Twombly's work showed me see that even free-flowing and unhinged artistic expression could have a beautiful order, meaning, and larger expression of thought. Qualities I wished for my shared writings and thoughts.

Now I cook and write about beets. Sigh.

Please take a moment to scroll through this gallery of his work to see if it might inspire you as well. How could you not love an artist who inspired the following sentence from Jerry Saltz's terrific memorial to his artistry:

[Twombly]... erupted with a series of tantalizing, orgiastic scenes of scrotal shapes, flying vaginas, floating pudenda, abstract anuses, and a liquidity that art critic David Sylvester once compared to stains left on bed sheets after lovemaking.

If only I saw the same things as David Sylvester I would have made a banner out of this one!

Tonight I lift a glass (and possibly more) to you Cy Twombly!

Lime Mascarpone Sorbet

I'm sure you are tempted to start in on me with some"that's not sorbet, it's sherbet" stuff. I wouldn't blame you. Most definitions will turn on the introduction of a dairy to move the dish from sorbet territory into sherbet-land. My boyfriend David Lebovitz will still tell you he sees "the terms used interchangeably, even by professionals"; and he wrote the book. So there.

This recipe doesn't come from his book but rather from Nigel Slater's and I can't tell you why he decided to buck popular convention and call it a "sorbet". He just did and who am I to argue with Nigel Slater or his copy editor? Perhaps he felt that despite the inclusion of mascarpone the flavor is still pure sorbet and just as light and refreshing. Here the mascarpone compliments the intense lime taste perfectly: mellowing it out while not dumbing it down. The 'out of the freezer scoopability' it brings is great too. If you love lime you will love this.

The British just like to be different anyway. They call cookies "biscuits", eggplants "aubergines", and pickles "gherkins" so if Nigel wants to call this sherbet "sorbet" perhaps he is just following his own customs? Whatever you want to it it is in regular rotation around here and as any food blogger will tell you, it is a real badge of honor when we make anything more than once. Just sayin'.

Lime Mascarpone Sorbet
(Adapted from Nigel Slater's, Real Food.)

• 3 cups water
• 1 1/4 cup sugar
• the juice and finely grated zest of 5 limes
• 8 oz. mascarpone

Put the water and sugar in a saucepan and bring to a boil. Stir in the lime zest and set aside to cool for a few minutes. Stir in the juice and the mascarpone. Mix well. Push mixture through a sieve if it is lumpy. Scrape into plastic container and chill in the refrigerator for several hours or overnight. Freeze in an ice cream maker according to instructions.

Yogurt Marinated Chicken Kebabs w/ FFwD'sChunky Beet & Icy Red Onion Salad &Cardamom Rice Pilaf

"Just eat your beets then you can have dessert."

I can still hear the sound of my mom's voice admonishing me as a kid to just finish them. I let her do it but I never did tell her my secret. When beets were served I would always save them to eat them from the plate last. She served them rather plainly: cubed and steamed with their greens with a very small amount of butter and salt on top. By doing this she would think I didn't like them but the opposite was true. I loved them which was why I saved them for last.

The sweet beets were my 'pre-dessert' and here she thought I was trying to avoid them altogether. I suppose like everyone else mothers and sons will sometimes suffer from simple miss-communication.

I often still make beets this way even though I have added quiet a few other beet dishes to my arsenal. Most of them are salads and the best of them are as simple as this one from Dorie Greenspan's "Around My French Table". The beets don't need much help to be savored when they are made into salads and this simple roasted beet with red onion, fresh oregano and a simple sherry vinaigrette needed no adjustments from me. I'd post the recipe but I kinda just did!

Oh, and look Doristas!

I finally got to that Cardamom Rice Pilaf I skipped out on a few weeks ago. Time has been so rare these days but I knew I would eventually get to it. Cardamom is one of my favorite flavors and while the Persians I know love to use it in pastries and other sweet dishes I get more intrigued by it when it is used in savory dishes.

I made Dorie's recipe to the letter except for the handful of pine nuts I threw in to make it as enjoyable cold as it was warm with our dinner.

Alas, there is nothing sadder than seeing a great salad at a party without an appropriate date so I strung together these yogurt marinated chicken kebabs for the main course. If you are smart you will try them. Marinade the chicken for at least 4 hours and they will turn out extremely tender and full of flavor. This keeper give my peanut chicken kebabs a run for their money at summer family barbecues for sure. So will the beet salad by the way.

Yogurt Marinated Chicken Kebabs

• 4 skinless boneless chicken breasts
• 1 cup plain yogurt
• 1/2 cup chopped cilantro with stems
• 1/4 cup chopped white onion
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 T. Lime Juice
• 1/2 T. garam masala
• 1 teasp. kosher salt
• 1/2 teasp. fresh ground black pepper
• 1 1" piece fresh ginger, peeled and chopped

Soak wooden skewers in a pan of water. Cube chicken breasts into no more than 1" pieces. Try to cut them as evenly sized as possible. Transfer chicken to Ziplock bag.

Combined all remaining ingredients into a food processor and blend until smooth. Pour yogurt marinade over the chicken, seal bag, and turn to coat. Set into a bowl and marinate for at least 3 hours in the refrigerator. Remove from refrigerator at least 30 minutes prior to cooking.

Build a medium fire in a charcoal grill or use medium heat on a gas grill. Brush grill with olive oil and grill kebabs turning every two minutes until done.