January 19, 2023
Bye Bye Lil Sebastian: The Perfect “Parks & Rec” Finaleby Randi / February 28, 2015
Hey it’s Purim! Last year it was better than Halloween; this year it’s better than Mardi Gras. (I learned that the latter is a more apt comparison because of the costumes or the food orrrr the time of year.) It feels like just yesterday when I shared the story of Purim on the blog. Since it would be silly to write a different version of the story, and also I’m tired, I’m going to share last year’s before we get to the new recipe.
[Purim is] about when King Ahasuerus got super drunk and ordered all the young ladies to line up so he could pick his favorite to be his wife, and he picked Esther, a Jew who didn’t let on that she was a Jew, who had been raised by her uncle Mordechai, which is a name that you always have to say with the required Yiddy question mark at the end. So the king’s Jafar, named Haman, decides to kill all the Jews, but then Esther tells her hubsking, ‘Hey I’m Jewish! You can’t kill the Jews!’ and the King is all ‘Oh man you are right! Jafar Haman get thee gone! You are evil! We are going to celebrate this holiday by making delicious cookies in the shape of your three-cornered hat! I don’t know why the celebratory traditional food should be in the villain’s honor, but there we are!’ So that is Purim.
It still stands. So, I wanted my hamantaschen this year to have a fruit filling, but fruit in London is too expensive for me to waste by cooking and then putting in cookies so I used jam. In hindsight, my decision to open the fancy jar of rhubarb preserves that we bought in Paris and have been saving seems a little more extravagant than buying fruit that’s 20c more than I want to pay, but eh it’s a holiday and I’m permitted to have some errors in judgment. You can make your own jam if you want to be a baller about it but ain’t nobody got time for that.
This year’s batch capitalized on the coconut caramel I made for a test run of vegan Samoa (Girl Scout) cookies that didn’t get thick enough. So, not good enough for my Samoas, but perfect for this! Last year’s dough was puffier and a little sweeter. I changed up the dough a bit to make it a little denser and a little less sweet. Pick whichever you want, but I highly recommend making both fillings, last year’s rosewater baklava and this year’s rhubarb caramel. Yummm!
This year’s batch capitalized on the coconut caramel I made for a test run of vegan Samoa (Girl Scout) cookies that didn’t get thick enough. So, not good enough for my Samoas, but perfect for this! Last year’s dough was puffier and a little sweeter. I changed up the dough a bit to make it a little denser and a little less sweet. Pick whichever you want, but I highly recommend making both fillings, last year’s rosewater baklava and this year’s rhubarb caramel. Yummm!
RHUBARB CARAMEL HAMANTASCHEN
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For the dough
Ingredients:
Directions:
For the caramel
Directions:
ASSEMBLY
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 Yes this is last year’s pic but I didn’t have a good starter and also the bowls are so much prettier.  Balls o’ dough! And my little pink recipe book.  Roll out your dough on parchment paper for an easier time! Also have more surface area than I do.  My circles  My beautiful? caramel sauce    I put the extra sauce in a squeeze bottle because so fun! |
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That Time I Finally Went to Vegan Treats (Mecca)
After a very busy weekend as a bridesmaid in my best friend’s insanely fun wedding, and after being awake and hyperactive for most of the past three days, I wrapped up my bridal party duties and hopped in a car to Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. In that little town of Bethlehem, we raise our glass – you bet your ass – toooooo VEEEEEGAAAAAN TREEEEEAAAATS! La Vegan Treats!
Ok, anyway, I’ve been wanting to go to this very best, most famous vegan bakery for years. However, I could buy a lot of VT’s products at restaurants and cafes in Philly and NYC, so I just didn’t deem the trip urgent. I should have. Going to Vegan Treats in person is of course much more exciting, but also you get fresher baked goods, a wider selection, and, most importantly, soft-serve! Special thanks to my friend Elli for finally taking me!
Ok, anyway, I’ve been wanting to go to this very best, most famous vegan bakery for years. However, I could buy a lot of VT’s products at restaurants and cafes in Philly and NYC, so I just didn’t deem the trip urgent. I should have. Going to Vegan Treats in person is of course much more exciting, but also you get fresher baked goods, a wider selection, and, most importantly, soft-serve! Special thanks to my friend Elli for finally taking me!
Pumpkin & vanilla soft-serve
Those of you who know me know that soft-serve is one of my top five foods. It goes kale, chickpeas, quinoa, peanut butter, soft-serve. It’s the best thing ever, and I will go anywhere for it. House-made soft-serve at Vegan Treats is just another reason why making the trip to the storefront is so worth it. Today’s flavors were pumpkin and vanilla custard. Of course, I got the two flavors swirled, and it was insane. The pumpkin was very subtle, thankfully not overspiced or overcinnamoned as so many pumpkin goods often are. Somehow, the ice cream did not melt as fast as other ice creams would have on this warm sunny day, and the texture remained incredibly thick. I don’t know how they do it, but they concocted a crazy amazing texture. So delicious!
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Elli and I also pretty much bought out the bakery case. How beautiful is this! That whole third row is filled with gluten-free goodies, which is cool, but they cost more, which kind of sucks. We spent obscene amounts of money, but everything freezes well, so it’s like an investment!
The best Vegan Treats creation is the famous chocolate peanut butter bomb, which you can see in mini form on the top far right. I think mini form might actually be preferable to the full size, because the ratio of peanut butter cream to cake is much higher (i.e., there’s more cream). I don’t know how they make that, but it’s mind-blowingly perfect, light and the right amounts of salty and sweet. At right, you can see the daily specials, which of course we bought and of course were delicious beyond belief. On the left are donut sandwiches filled with Bavarian cream. Man alive these were good. Somehow, the cream was light and thick and left absolutely no aftertaste, as so many vegan creams do. The donut a little sturdier than their other ones, in order to hold all of that cream. So good. On the right are cinnamony-sugary-appley? donut pretzels. Of course these were great, come on. I love soft pretzels so much, and I could get used to one in donut form.  Donut pretzel with crackly sugar coating |
 The most beautiful thing! Except for the car reflection  Wow  You can see where all the magic happens in the back  |
There’s also a selection of cookies, candies, cupcakes, whoopie pies, and more. It’s overwhelming but amazing. I really bought way too much. Let’s check out my haul!
Clockwise from top left: S’more cheesecake, donut sandwich with Bavarian cream, peanut butter bomb, Boston cream pie donut
Clockwise from top left: carrot cake, another peanut butter bomb, vanilla cake with peanut butter, vanilla, and chocolate parts, and a brownie with chocolate peanut butter icing. I love peanut butter. You can see where my mom already dug in the second she saw this box, before I could take a picture! Most of this is now frozen. Make sure I don’t forget about it, please!
The cannolis are also splendid
Do you believe how much I got! And I was trying to limit myself. Everything is too delicious for words. Most of this haul is safely frozen now, as everything freezes and thaws very well. Of course, I did eat a lot of it, and of course after days without rest I feel prettayyy prettayyy horrible right now. But it’s worth it! I can’t wait to go back when they have the rumored salted caramel soft-serve. If you are ever in eastern PA with a car and time on your hands, definitely make the pilgrimage to the wondrous Vegan Treats!
Vegan Michelin: The Most Epic (& Vegan!) Meal at Alinea, Chicago
As a vegan, I don’t feel much incentive to follow the fancy world of gourmet-level dining, what with their Zagat ratings and Michelin stars and whatever other rankings people in that spectrum of dining covet. In fact, there was a time when all I knew about Michelin stars came from the movie “Ratatouille”. (Great film.) I’m sure it’s interesting to some people, but it sounded odd to rank something as subjective as good food. Moreover, aside from the ratatouille, the honored restaurants and their prize dishes are pretty much the opposite of vegan-friendly. Why would I ever want to go to a restaurant that was lauded for its foie gras, or thought it was commendable to do weird things to all kinds of animals? Nope.
However, my boyfriend is into all of that, and while he goes to those places with friends, I felt a little bad that he couldn’t enjoy these places with me. I’m fun company. But then we were planning a trip to Chicago, and he wanted to go to Alinea. He wanted to go there BAD. So bad, in fact, that he scoured the internet trying to find something that said they could accommodate a vegan. Luckily, he didn’t have to search too long, thanks to the lovely Lagusta, who in 2009 blogged about the vegan menu at Alinea. That’s right – anyone can request a vegan menu at a freaking top world restaurant with freaking THREE MICHELIN STARS. I was in! (I mean, I wasn’t paying. Of course I was in.)
However, my boyfriend is into all of that, and while he goes to those places with friends, I felt a little bad that he couldn’t enjoy these places with me. I’m fun company. But then we were planning a trip to Chicago, and he wanted to go to Alinea. He wanted to go there BAD. So bad, in fact, that he scoured the internet trying to find something that said they could accommodate a vegan. Luckily, he didn’t have to search too long, thanks to the lovely Lagusta, who in 2009 blogged about the vegan menu at Alinea. That’s right – anyone can request a vegan menu at a freaking top world restaurant with freaking THREE MICHELIN STARS. I was in! (I mean, I wasn’t paying. Of course I was in.)
Our seating area was really dark, so the pictures aren’t great, but there is a pretty amazing video at the end showing the epic final dessert. I’ll do my best to remember what we had, but mostly it’s just all a blur of happiness to the point of near-comatose mind-blowingness.
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First, the menu. It’s so vague, I’m obsessed. Any other restaurant and I’d be like, could you put another word in there so I have any idea what you’re talking about? I mean — do you see the one about halfway through? It just says ‘fennel’ and then TWENTY QUESTION MARKS!!! What the what?! But it’s cool because it was all as awe inspiring as food can be.
Also, at the end of your meal, they give you a copy of your menu in a black folder. How nice! When we sat down, this ice block was on our table, on a bed of stones. We thought it was just a weirdly appropriate centerpiece for a molecular gastronomy restaurant, but it came into play with our food! I think…it’s hard to remember because of the aforementioned hallucinatory blur of amazingness. So, we’re going to mostly rely on pictures.
The fun of molecular gastronomy really came through in this early dish. First, that tall glass arrived with that white vegetable balancing on top. You were to let it marinate while we ate other things, and then drop it onto that black rock (which was 1000 degrees) on the sand in the other glass to cook. Then, you dipped it into the sauce in the coconut shell. I appreciated being allowed to play with my food like an adult.
I don’t really remember what was happening here, but I do know that it is ON FIRE. I love this picture, because crazy stuff was happening at every table as meals progressed, yet the other diners seemed business-like. I think they were just trying to act cool and stoic but inside were like Ahh fire!!! Oh except for the two little girls at the table next to us – yes, some family came with two children. To Alinea. And the kids were picky and so ate little of the amazing stuff put in front of them. I just…can’t…no.
I’m not really sure what this picture is of, but it was great, I’m sure. Then, we had a little palate cleanser of pineapple slush. 
Chunks of pineapple with ice crystals that melted into a slush
This bowl at right was so funny because it was eerily reminiscent of puffed wheat cereal, like Sugar Smacks without the sugar. A fancy and delicious soupy version, of course, mixed with herbs and some vegetable.
The next section of our dining experience was my favorite savory part. See my plate, at right? Well, you were to mix each bite with two or three pieces from the below chess board of deliciousness, to create your own insane combinations. It was SO fun and so incredible. |
That Fennel line still makes me laugh
I have no idea what this is, but it was delicious
Sugarless Smacks!
Each perfectly cooked vegetable was to be paired with whatever you fancied on the huge slab below
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Smorgasbord!
How cool is this! These little bites were incredible. See that white pillar in the upper left corner? It was like sweet delicious chalk. I don’t know what they freeze-dried to make it, but it blew my mind. So many little fried vegetables, purees and gels of wonderment. I’m obsessed. Also, this entire plate is vegan! Molecular gastronomy is so vegan friendly, because it’s so weird, I guess.
And then it just continued in its amazingness. The next two dishes were like ravioli, already on a spoon. Just one piece (raviolo, then), but it’s all you need. These bites, especially the one on the right, exploded with the most perfectly matched flavors I’ve ever encountered.
And then it just continued in its amazingness. The next two dishes were like ravioli, already on a spoon. Just one piece (raviolo, then), but it’s all you need. These bites, especially the one on the right, exploded with the most perfectly matched flavors I’ve ever encountered.
I don’t know what you were, but I loved you
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The most perfect raviolo in the world
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The final savory dish (well, at least that I took a picture of! There was so much more! But I didn’t have a blog yet, so you can’t be mad) was this wooden slab of mushrooms, grain crumbs? orange? and foam that evoked a lovely meal in a remote log cabin, probably with Ron Swanson if he ever cooked more than meat. I can’t describe how excited I was for a decent amount of foam, because pretty much all I knew about molecular gastronomy going in was the use of foams.
If Ron Swanson were vegan
How good does that look! It tasted even better, obviously, with the mushrooms, foams, spiced crumbles, and that crispy green leaf blending together so well it was like it was sponsored by Vitamix. Such a great finish.
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Or so we thought. We figured we’d have one or two dessert-y courses, but no. After the above plate, we got FOUR more wonderful things to eat. First, we had this great palate cleanser of five different pieces of ginger. I love ginger, so this wiry thing being placed in front of me made me really happy. Some pieces were sweet, some were really spicy. It was the best thing to have between the savory and dessert courses.
And then even more magic happened, each round more entertaining than the last. Next up were a few dollops of puddings surrounding a fruity liquid that you drank with that silver straw pictured. |
Pieces of ginger
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I loved this dessert. I loved that you could drink the liquid inside, which was light and refreshing and not too sweet. On the dish, there was a sesame-laden blob, a fruity red blob, and this blob of rice pudding, made with rice milk, that was superb. In fact, my boyfriend, who got the regular omnivore menu, got a rice pudding that he said was yogurt-y and tart, and not as good as mine. He even suggested to the staff that the vegan version replace the regular one, because it was that much better!
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The next thing is just hilarious. It’s a balloon. A balloon made of green apple taffy filled with helium, so all night we saw waiters carrying actually floating balloons throughout the restaurant, and people got to eat them. It was so much fun. Insanely messy (taffy all over your face, pretty much), but fun. We were instructed to ‘kiss’ the balloon and then suck the helium out, mainly so the waiters could laugh when we talked and sounded like chipmunks! Then, with the taffy balloon deflated all over our faces (tip: put your hair back), we could eat it. My face automatically puckers at the mere thought of sour fruit candy like Sour Patch Kids and the like, but this had the right levels of sweet and sour. (I mean, obviously it’s going to be better than commercial candy.)
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The final dessert was just epic. A team of waitstaff removed everything from our table, rearranged the table, chairs, and us, and covered the table with a silicon mat. Then came the head chef, alerting us, “You’ll probably want to take a video of this.” Thanks to him, here is the video for your envy-filled pleasure. You can kind of hear him explaining what the purees are, what the liquid nitrogen-spewing ball is holding, and what the chocolate crumbles are made of. It’s mostly like insane astronaut style ice cream but much better.
Dinner at Alinea was without a doubt the most…the most. Like Jack Donaghy in college, it’s getting voted just ‘most.’ If you ever have the opportunity to eat here, do it. It’s mad expensive, and it’s hard to say it’s worth it when it costs more than, like, rent, but if you can swing it, it’s absolutely worth it. I’m not even going to do my usual little roundup of water/service/food/bathroom because obviously this was beyond known ranges. Amazing!
