What Would Jane Austen Do?

photo via I emailed my pal Emily for some advice about San Francisco food. Here's what she said: How fun is this! Let's think...hot crab dip with sourdough? Anything Chinese, pot stickers?  Shrimp cocktail, artichokes, oysters. We are also the home of green goddess dressing, red vines, Irish coffee and the mai tai. Rice a Roni :) And garlic fries ! I also found recipes for cream of artichoke soup and cream of Anaheim pepper soup, which are sometimes combined at this restaurant outside SF. I think I can get on board with that. So we will have: Cheetos with Old Bay (B) Cream of Artichoke / Anaheim pepper soup (SF) Ricearoni (for Emmet) (SF) Crab cakes (B) Garlic fries (SF) Berger cookies (B) I think I can scare up an Anchor Steam beer, but Natty Boh might be a little more difficult.

So, we have San Francisco vs. Baltimore in the Super Bowl. I asked my friend Meg of Pigtown*Design for advice about what they eat in Charm City. Mamacita: I was disappointed to discover just how much love your fair city has for mayonnaise. It's in everything! I have a whole Pinterest board devoted to this subject of Super Bowl food. The Pit Beef recipe looked intriguing (until I saw the Tiger Sauce recipe with m-a-y-o). The crab pretzels also looked good up until the m---- part. One time I made Berger cookies, but I was a little disappointed with how they turned out. Maybe it was a bad recipe? Meg:  First, looking at your Pinterest board, no one knows anything about Smearcase. To me, it sounds like some ghastly OB/GYN sort of problem. Second, what's the matter with mayo?! Food of the gods - especially Duke's or Hellmans. photo via Roopa's twitter feed Third. Here's the secret recipe: CHEETOS + OLD BAY ! Yep, that's it. I've given ...

On Monday I wanted to make Hawaiian food in honor of the President's inauguration. After rejecting spam masubi and macaroni salad (hurl), I decided that I had everything on hand to make chicken katsu. It's essentially a breaded, pan-fried chicken cutlet. Nothing too extraordinary, although I had never used panko before. Every recipe for the sauce said to mix ketchup with soy sauce and Worcestershire sauce, but those instructions were a bit of a let-down. Also, I couldn't see just pouring ketchup all over the chicken like gravy, and that's what the pictures were showing. So I finally decided to try and make Japanese tonakatsu sauce, which involves applesauce, grated carrots, grated onions, tomato paste, garlic, ginger and soy sauce. And which ultimately tasted like grainy ketchup. Ugh. More successful was dessert, which I didn't get a picture of. This is chocolate haupia pie . Haupia is a flan-like coconut dessert popular in Hawaii; some GENIUS had the idea to...

I made this stew and now I'm telling everybody about it. You HAVE to make it. This is Ruth Reichl's Pork-Tomatillo-and-Dark-Beer stew. Now, let's all feel a little sorry for Ruth, because she has some labor-intensive stovetop method of making it. She doesn't realize that you can just put all the ingredients in a slow cooker and call it a day in the kitchen. Here's the lowdown (seriously make it SOON). Pork, Tomatillo and Dark Beer Stew  1 pound of tomatillos, husked and cut into quarters 1 bottle of dark beer 12 ounces of fresh orange juice 28 ounce can of diced tomatoes, drained 2 pounds of pork shoulder, cut into hefty cubes salt and pepper for the pork 10 cloves of whole peeled garlic (I used less—maybe 5 cloves) 2 large onions, chopped 2 whole jalapenos (take them out before serving) 1.5 cups cooked (or canned) black beans Put all of this into the slow cooker and cook it until it’s done. Serve over rice, and if you like, cilantro, a squeeze of...

I was on the Weather Underground site this morning (flash floods in Houston) and it turns out they have t-shirts for sale . Is this not the cutest thing ever?