When I was younger I would regularly attend Grateful Dead shows, The Glastonbury Fest, Lollapalooza, the Oregon Country Faire, and the like (this was pre-Burning Man). At the end of each of these festivals, I would head back to reality wiping away tears, sweat and grime, stunned by the thundering display of humanity and spirit present during the gathering of so many souls. Speaking generally, a fair bit of mood-heightening substances would likely have been consumed over the course of several days, which helps to splay the psyche and let crude emotions come pouring in.  Rejoining with reality felt like spluttering through the stratosphere then crashing into the atmosphere without a parachute. No amount of arm-flapping could protect me from the splintered thwack of contact with unyielding earth. The International Food Bloggers Conference was much the same, but without the drugs and rock and roll. (There was plenty of sex. Food bloggers have DIRTY minds, as you’ll see if you follow the #IFBC hashtag running commentary of the conference on twitter.)

Jason Stratton, best new chef, finishes a Spinasse dish

I am trying to cull my thoughts into a cohesive stream of information that might be useful for my readers, but I feel like a saturated band-aid has been ripped off a still-seeping gash. There was so much information to parse, my brain is spinning like a cpu looking for various nooks and crannies in which to store chestnuts of data. The best part about the conference was not the speakers. It was not the questionable temperature control, the wrapped mints and urine cakes in the glamified porta-potties, it was not even the food. The single-most powerful thing about attending IFBC was the glorious mind-meld that inevitably takes place when over 300 (aspiring and actualized) industry leaders from a burgeoning field come together to eat, drink and be merry. The sum of every individual was raised to the highest common denominator of our parts. We were all able to surreptitiously bask in the “picture-making” sepia glow of what it might be like to be Penny De Los Santos, if only for a too-brief, visually orgasmic slide presentation. We all felt the collective heave of wrenching back what is right from The Man when Robin Goldstein successfully wrestled the ethical golden ticket away from Robert Schroeder of the Federal Trade Commission with only the use of his skillful silver tongue and the cerebral heft behind his words. After so many displays of awesome talent, I am left nearly bereft of words, and those are the things I always have in abundance. Five second pacts over tamales and Kilt-lifter cemented friendships for life, leaving me simultaneously gnashing at the bit to make a masterpiece with my words, lens, hands, and high heels, and also just a little bit verklempt- overcome by the utterly-endowed group of brilliant individuals.

Vignettes. Shauna from Gluten Free Girl made everyone feel extra special when she invited the lot of us to sample a berry crumble she had made along with her husband from berries gathered outside their Vashon doorstep on a dewy, late-summer morning. Chef John from Food Wishes let me in on a brilliant upcoming post idea he has involving twitter streams-of-consciousness, whilst we drank sherry after sherry from cups we stacked end to end as though we were at a keg party. I played hookie with some cool kids like Michael Natkin and Georgia Pellegrini during lunch, wherein we traipsed over to the bar-formerly-known-as-The-Triangle and downed drinks brought to us by none other than Captain Jack Sparrow.  A speaker took the stage at the first moment they started to project the live twitter stream for all to see in the front of the room. The first tweet to hit the screen: This speaker moonlights as a phone-sex operator. Written by Yours Truly, projected by accident, prompting gales of laughter much to the confusion of the speaker, totally unbeknownst to me that it would be there for all to see. I sheepishly hunkered down in my seat, and they quickly removed the feed. Nathan Myhrvold, author of the upcoming, controversial, exhaustive tome, Modernist Cuisine, won my heart as he completely geeked out during his presentation on all things sous vide, foam, gel, and Maillard. He showed us how he cuts things like Le Creuset dutch ovens and Weber Grills in half to get his remarkable images, as well as throwing in some gratuitious shots of slo-mo popcorn popping and wine glass shattering. Incidentally, the price of the book (which oscillates from the high $400 to the mid $600 range on Amazon) does not seem outlandish to me considering that the Oxford English Dictionary sells frequently and historically for $1000, and with that you don’t get images or recipes.

The sheer strength of social media and the realization that I am entrenched in that- a little fava in a big pod- brought out an unparalleled evocative emotional response in me. Collectively, we have the power to incite food revolutions, get generations back in the kitchen, and knock-back an impressive amount of wine while we’re doing it. I cracked jokes and made light of issues with the best of them (I’m looking at you, Seattle Food Geek and Chef Reinvented) but inside, a little ember of surging possibility kept me warm with a surefire, confident knowledge that the future is indeed, very bright.

Sometimes I get to feeling a bit guilty when I don’t post as often as other supa-bloggers. We all get busy and we all make excuses for the things that bring us away from out passions, so mine aren’t necessarily valid, but they’re actual. I’ve been getting all up in the catering world business, and I’m noticing that things I make for other people don’t entirely reflect my personality. I guess I can’t keep not posting, though, so I’m going to share a dose of what I’ve been working on lately, despite the fact that it isn’t what ended up on my dinner plate last night.  Besides, who knew I would have so much fun rolling hundreds of grissini and testing umpteen variations on gelato affogato in limoncello (lemon gelato drowned in limoncello liqueur)? Have fun I did, so I’ll share a few thoughts. When you’re piping ice cream, gelato, sorbet, or what have you into champagne flutes and you want a perfectly piped effect, get your tip down low to the bottom of the glass, pipe fast, and pull up hard. Nothing about that sentence was meant to sound sexy, but it all did somehow, didn’t it? Next up, again on the perfect piping, if you want ideal variance between the liqueur you’re using- in my case limoncello- and the gelato/ice cream, you’ll want to use less liqueur than you might think. I piped a few perfect ones, then I realized those people probably wouldn’t have very much fun, so I stopped worrying about visual glory and started worrying about getting Aunt Mabel drunk enough to give Uncle Peter’s peter a second glance after the rehearsal dinner for which I was doing all this piping.

Next, I moved on to rolling long skinny tubes between my palms in order to make them hard sticks.  Who knew the culinary world could be so dirty? Grissini are marvelous examples of breadsticks, and extremely pleasurable to make after you’ve downed a quarter litre of limoncello, to be sure. You can have great fun with the ingredients, like I did, adding exciting things like sundried tomatoes, truffle salt, and extra pinches of sarcastic wit. Grissini are great space-savers, since you can serve them vertically, bursting forth from your favorite vase as a table centerpiece. The limoncello and the grissini were the highlights of the day and they represent the last time I’ll likely be able to cook for a few days given the fact that I’ll be attending the International Food Blogger’s Conference this weekend. It’s three days of information, food, networking, and likely a time where I’ll need my drinking shoes. Although bloggers have been encouraged to document the event, I’m not sure my usual style of writing up what crazy thing I’ve concocted will make it easy to stray. I’m sure I will learn a great deal and come back to this blog with all sorts of fancy ways to R to the OI and S to the EO. Have an enchanting weekend and put something amazing in your mouth for me.

I submitted an entry into the Queen Anne Farmers Market Holy Tomato! Contest last week. The objective: showcase the glory of the tomato. The parameters? None. What would you do? What do you think I did? Apparently I’m predictable as all get out, in more ways than one, since everyone who saw my dish (who knows me or my blog) took one look at it and knew I created it. I guess that means I have a niche, but sometimes it’s a little frustrating to be pigeonholed, especially if it’s the same hole you’ve been pigeoning around in more or less your entire life. I’ve always been, how do I say this properly, fringe-y. The first award I ever won was “most shocking pumpkin” at a pumkin-carving school contest when I was seven. Apparently sticking two meat cleavers on either side of the jack-o-lantern face was shock-inducing. Imagine a kid bringing that pumpkin to school in this day and age- seems crazy now that they let me get away with it.

The next award came along in junior high (this is not counting all the statewide spelling bee’s I so nerdily won, mind you) when I was voted “snazziest dresser.” WTF did snazzy mean in the 1990’s, people? I’m sure it was for the time I made a pair of bellbottoms out of upholstery fabric I found at the Goodwill and then tied 20 bells around the cuffs of each leg. I got sent home because my outfit was “disruptive.” Then in high school I was voted “most likely to be on the cover of Rolling Stone.” I have no idea where that one came from considering I haven’t played an instrument since the cello in sixth grade, and even though I KNOW I can sing, I’ve been assured by everyone else who’s heard me that I can’t carry a tune nearly as well as I can carry a glass of vino to my lips repeatedly, which is apparently my true Olympic talent. It was around that time I realized my calling was Halloween costume contests. I’ve never met a Halloween contest I couldn’t win, and enjoyed much success in that realm, due, in large part, to the fact that I’ve never dolled myself up like a “ho” and blasphemed the holiday by using it as an excuse to look cheap and tawdry. Not that I haven’t gone nearly nude, it’s just usually in more of an intellectual, complicated sort of way, and there tends to be fire shooting out my nipples or something equally as startling.

All this is to illustrate the fact that I’ve been eternally shoved into the odd box and I can’t seem to get out, no matter how hard I try to do something that might compel the masses. I’m really not counterculture- I have friends who drive Range Rovers, live in Beverly Hills and Bellevue, have fake boobs and get botox injections. I’m sure I know a Republican or two, even. I guess I just have a place in life and I might as well make myself comfortable and kick up my heels. Which is why I should have known my tomato entry would win “most creative” before I ever thought up what I was going to make. I don’t mean to sound like I’m complaining- I am thrilled to add a notch to my bedazzled, Gaga-fied, chartreuse, shiny dragonskin belt. I just sometimes wish the ideas that come into my head as perfectly normal things to do wouldn’t be met with comments like “that’s so original” or “how on earth did you ever think of that?” I don’t try to be “creative” “original” or “complex,” especially on the plate. I just try to combine classic flavors in ways that seem delicious to me.

Once again, I deconstructed the classic BLT sandwich and presented it in frozen format. I did this last fall and I was not 100% thrilled with the outcome, so I went back to the drawing board, changed the “bread” to a maple-pecan Pizzelle, tweaked the bacon ice cream (by adding lots of bourbon), substituted pea shoots instead of lettuce in the sorbet, and finally messed around with egginess and creaminess in the tomato gelato. I garnished the plate with a candied heirloom grape tomato sitting on top of a pea shoot and piece of homemade bacon. It was pretty. It was classic. It was delicious (if you don’t mind me saying so). But I guess it was also “creative.” I’m just one big self-fulfilling prophecy so I better get used to it. The thing is, who wants to eat “creative?” Wouldn’t you rather eat “fan-fucking-tastic?” It’s kind of like the adjective I use when someone asks my opinion on something and I don’t want to insult them- “that’s interesting.” Or something you’d say to a five-year-old who just made you an indiscernible fingerpainting. “Very creative, little Suzie.”

photo courtesy of Queen Anne Farmers Market

That being said, I was thrilled to have won the award, and the ultimate accolade came when the lone chef at the judges’ table took out his iPhone and snapped a few shots of my dish. I don’t know what he was thinking, exactly, but whatever it was must have been inspiring enough to want to remember, so that made me very happy. All three judges popped the candied tomatoes like crack, and luckily I had brought an extra plate of them so was able to share some candied tomatoes with the crowd. They are so easy, and make great additions to other canapés and appetizers. For example you can candy a tomato and set it on a basil leaf perched on a round of mozzarella, or if you’re feeling really decadent top a cracker with a candied tomato and a slice of seared foie gras. I will leave you with the candied tomato recipe, though if you’re really interested in one of the frozen component flavors, let me know and I’ll email you that as well.

Candied Tomatoes

Note: increase the sugar and water as necessary if you have more tomatoes, or if your pan is not a very small saucepan, as you want enough depth to the candy syrup to be able to easily dip your tomatoes and coat them.

• 1.5 c granulated sugar
• ½ c water
• 24 grape tomatoes with stems intact, washed, and thoroughly dried

1. Boil the sugar and water in a small saucepan stirring constantly until the syrup reaches 330° as measured by a candy thermometer. Remove from heat. Working quickly, use tongs to dip the tomatoes into the syrup by their stems. Place them on a parchment-lined baking sheet to harden. If you want to affix them to the surface on which they will eventually set, do so within fifteen minutes so they retain some tackiness, but not right away, as they’ll be too hot.