Oyster Tasting

Who knew that eating an oyster should be compared to tasting wine? Bill and I were in Toronto in June 2008 when we went to Rodney's Oyster House, which was recently named by Travel + Leisure Magazine as one of the top 25 oyster bars in the world. We went with the intent of eating oysters but "tasting"? Not so much. Their menu was so long that we put our faith in our waiter to choose our oysters for us. Not knowing that I'd have a food-themed blog a year later, I didn't think to really pay much attention to which types they were, but he chose 3 different varieties, 4 of each total. I do remember that 2 varieties had the traditional oyster shaped shell but 1 variety had the creepy, gnarly looking shell. (And I'm sure you all know exactly what I'm talking about right?? :) I don't know how else to explain it.) Anyway, the waiter explained that people typically just get their oysters and then top them with whatever they prefer - cocktail sauce, horseradish, crackers, mignonette - and suck 'em down without much thought. Gee, sounds like me. What he told us was that each oyster should be tasted just like wine to determine the brinyness, grassiness, sweetness, etc. He had us taste (and by taste, that meant chew) one oyster of each variety plain and then the second one topped with our choice of accoutrements (which, as a side note, is my new favorite word). It was a really eye-opening experience and we were shocked at the difference in taste between the plain version and the souped up one. We preferred some of them with our toppings which actually enhanced the natural flavors (similar to what food can do for wine) but others were better without. Made us wonder how many other yummy oysters' flavors we had masked by automatically reaching for the horseradish. I urge you to try this yourself but fair warning, if you do this, you may discover that you don't really like oysters at all and what you really like is cocktail sauce. But on the bright side, oysters aren't exactly cheap so you'd save yourself some money when eating out!

Also, some of you may have heard that you should only eat oysters during months containing the later R. While this was based on truth - before the days of refrigeration, oysters would spoil in the heat of the other months - this is no longer true. So eat up!

Top Chef Season 6

Top Chef season 6 in Las Vegas starts tonight!!! 9/8c Watch it!!!

Frugal Tip

Bill and I just starting growing our owns herbs this year, although I should say "herb" because so far we only have mint. We've always talked about doing this but just never get around to planting anything. Even the mint was pre-planted from Bill's parents house. (LAY-Z!) But what a money saver! We buy fresh parsley and cilantro every week from the grocery store. Now, it's only like $2 total but still, that's over $100 bucks a year. Anything more fancy than that like basil or sage costs $2.50-$3.00 and comes in this cheap plastic box that still allows the herbs to go bad in about 2 days. When you only need a few tablespoons per recipe, that's not money well spent. (Keep in mind that this is grocery shopping in Iowa. You may have a better selection in your town.) I know that if we had herbs right on our patio, we'd use them much more often. So my tip to you is to plant your own herbs. Be careful though, use pots because many spread worse than weeds. Even with our pot, we think we're going to have mint around our patio's perimeter come next year. Did someone say mojito party?

Another tip that I cannot claim as my own comes from the newest Food Network celebrity - Melissa D'Arabian. She just won the Next FoodNetwork Star and is really great. She's not professional trained but somehow whips up these clever and super yummy looking meals. I wouldn't be surprised if she became the next Rachael Ray. Anyway, her tip is that once you get down to the whites of scallions (green onions), put them in a little bit of water and watch them grow. Bill and I are currently working on this experiment and you honestly would not believe how fast they've been growing. The picture below is after 1 week and I've changed the water once. Notice that they're skinnier than what you'd buy in the store so I'm not sure if they'll fill out or just keep getting taller. We'll see I guess! I'll report back.

Food Shows

Two food shows that are must sees are Man v. Food on the Travel Channel - Wednesdays at 10 EST (new season starts tonight) and Top Chef on Bravo - Wednesdays at 9 EST - new season starts on 8/19. Set your TIVOs/DVRs!

On Man v. Food, the host (Adam) goes around to different towns and vists two restaurants to showcase their food. At a third restaurant, he takes part in a food challenge - things like, how many burritos can you eat or how quickly can you drink 15 milkshakes. Outrageous challenges that I would not partake in, although he did have to eat 15 dozen oysters in 1 hour which I would have LOVED. It's really a fun show and Adam is really likeable. Plus, you get to see fun restaurants to go visit on your travels.

Bill and I took a roadtrip down South a few weeks ago and one of our stops was to visit a friend in Atlanta. Sadly, we were in town for just a little over 24 hours so we only got to eat 3 meals but we definitely made the most of what we ate. One stop was Vortex (featured on Man v. Food naturally) known for their killer burgers.....literally. One burger is the Double Coronary: Topped with two fried eggs, four slices of American cheese, and 5 slices of bacon, with two grilled cheese sandwiches replacing the buns. GRILLED CHEESE SANDWHICHES FOR THE BUNS!!!! Are you even comprehending this??? No, as (un)appetizing as that sounds, we did not get this burger. Instead we ordered the Blue 'Shroom Burger (blue cheese and shrooms) and....wait for it.....the Elvis Burger. Yep! You guessed it - peanut butter, fried bananas and bacon. It - Was - Awesome! Honestly, it was better than the shroom burger. I won't lie, we're pretty fearless when it comes to our food but even we were thinking we were insane to even consider trying it. But man-oh-man was it good and we can't wait to make it again at home. We think the bananas may have really been plantains but whatever, I'm sure we'll like it either way.

Another Atlanta highlight was cheesy grits which turned into a theme throughout our trip. We're trying to find coarse stone ground grits here up north but no luck so far. We might have to breakdown and order them online which I really don't want to have to do - unless someone knows of a brand to buy and where?

I'm Baaaaack

......and pregnant! This was what explained my long absence (at first); recently I've just been lazy. I was so sick with morning sickness in my first trimester that I couldn't even log into this site without gagging - I kid you not. Anything food related made me sick to my stomach so blogging was impossible. Anyhoo, that all cleared up in early June (thank God) and since then I've been thinking of many posts I should add but just haven't gotten around to writing anything. So - I'm back. I think I still owe pics of our Food Extravaganza so those will be here soon. Since we talked last I traveled to Boston, Berkeley and took a roadtrip down south. Lots of good eats to talk about. In the meantime, here's a pic of me at 23 weeks.