De Baking Psychopath

Penzey's is a chain store that sells fine spices and extracts. There's one in every major city, but pretty much that's it. We're lucky enough to have one here, and it's a really great place to find 4 types of cinnamon and buy it in bulk, or vanilla so strong you actually taste it when you put it in baked goods. They put out a catalog every season, and there are several recipes strewn throughout the listings of spices, including the cookie I bring to you today. The funny thing about this cookie recipe is that without the secret ingredient, it's basically the Toll-House chocolate chip cookie recipe, verbatim. But just adding this one thing takes it to a whole different level. And the secret ingredient is: a box of vanilla pudding mix! It makes these cookies have that catering/store-bought, soft, chewy cookie texture that you just don't usually get at home. Guilty pleasures...... Wynonia Moss's Chocolate Chip Cookies (from Penzey's Spices Harvest ...

A third goodbye in the lab within the last 8 months, and the heralding of the end of summer. At least there's cake to make it a little better. I have a love affair with the pairing of orange and chocolate (amongst other things), and I have exploited this well-matched flavor combo on more than one occasion, usually in a drunken cake of some sort, often involving Grand Marnier. I always forget how strong this orange-flavored liquor is (40% alcohol, can you believe it?!) and add too generously, resulting in a chocolate cake with an orange punch in the face. So I made the same mistake this time too, but I tried to remedy it by cooking the jam-liquor mixture on the stove a little bit to burn off a little alcohol. Whether the sugar melded with the liquor enough for me not to notice it as much, or if it really burned off, I can't tell, but in any case, it's already soaked into the cake, so too late! The cake comes from Nigella Lawson , the decadently sensuous Brit who makes her...

Chinese BBQ pork, or "Tsa Sao," is a happy childhood memory for me. I remember my mom bringing home seasoning packets from the Chinese grocery, marinating lean pork cuts for hours, and roasting the meat in the oven. The meat is an eerie pink-red hue, due to the salt peter that is in the mix (it's the same stuff that makes corned beef the same eerie pink). But it's one of those neon bright colors that one associates with the dish, and therefore one believes it's supposed to be that way . Fast forward to Summer 2007, when I visited college roommate Jess in Boston, where she was doing a summer internship after her first year of grad school and rocking it out in Beantown (funny coincidence, since one of her childhood nicknames is Bean...a Bean in Beantown...I wonder if she ever noticed that). We stopped by a used bookstore and decided to check out what gems were hidden amongst the shelves. Far and away the best book there was one on phrenology , which unfortunate...

First, I wanted to make a shameless plug for Pandora Radio , which is basically an Internet radio service that will take your favorite artist, song, or genre and make a "station" out of it, and you can tweak it as you go along. I've made stations based on "I'm Yours" by Jason Mraz (this is my favorite amateur music video , by Wong Fu Productions) and "Daylight" by Matt and Kim ( Bacardi commercial version , or the original music video ), two songs I've been pretty obsessed with lately. It's been pretty fun, and now between Pandora and my new Sansa Clip , I am completely iTunes-free! Do I get any money for that plug? I guess if my hero Stephen Colbert can blatantly product-place and beg for money, then I can try too. =) In other news, we dug up the old Jewish bakery cinnamon buns from the freezer and tasted them side by side with my freshly-baked babka rolls. Figure 1. Above left, old cinnamon rolls; above right, new babka cinnamon rolls....