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I went to Richmond VA recently, so that i could check out VCU and also so i could visit with some people who I NEVER see. After a night of medium to moderate drinking I was ready for some medium to moderate site seeing and local eats type stuff. Fortunately for me I was in good company.
Meet Peter and Jess. Here we are in the Hollywood Cemetery, throwing sticks at dicks. W e had, at this point, visited the grave of one US president, and the grave of one semi US President, and were waiting on Chatham and Justin to arrive so that we could further explore all of Richmond’s riches. After visiting the capital building, and the home of the first black woman to start a bank, we went to Carrytown Burgers and fries. I have been on kind of a quest to find a perfect burger, and Chatam and Justin suggested that I might find a contender there.
How good is that? If you order like $25 worth of shit they will give you this shirt for free. And the burgers here are really silly. Not nearly as impressive as the hand pattied madness from the Penguin in NC, but still hugely massive. After perusing the one menu available, I asked the owner what the regulars get. But when she told me it involved mushrooms, I opted for the Barnyard Brawl, which says that it comes with “everything from the barn” on it. This included, one burger, cheese, chicken fingers, lettuce, tomato, bacon, and one fried egg. Need less to say, I am at this point pretty much sold.
This is Peter’s lovely picture of the burger in all of it’s meaty glory. I felt sort of guilty for the piggy burger I was about to eat. But only slightly, especially since Chatam and Justin were eating veggie burgers right across the way from the ridiculous meatiness of my own meal. This feeling was soon whisked away down ariver of flavor on a raft of beef , chicken, and egg, with bacon oars.
Actually, while the burger wasn’t exactly sub-par, it certainly wasn’t awesome. I would say that it was less of a Brawl than a squabble. Actually a tiff. However in the big plus category, Carrytown Burgers and Fries has a lot of character and sass, and that goes a long way for me. The fries weren’t bad either.
That’s right kids. Just when you thought it safe to sell bison near me, just when you thought that you could get away with telling me that not only is bison the leanest red meat out there, but that it is actually really good for you, I laugh in your face. Ha. Because I’ve taken care of this meat’s wanton desire to be acceptable to hippies and arterial do-gooders, by crushing it;and by dipping it in egg and flour, then more egg and more flour, and deep frying it so hard an Indian somewhere shed a single tear!
OK, OK, just kidding … any way, at the local Food Co-op where I shop mostly because it is easy to get to, but also because I can get guilt free groceries at a modest price, I noticed a sad looking fridge had been plugged in next to the day old bagels. On it was a sign declaring that inside this sad a tired fridge were several pounds of bison meat, which I could purchase and take home to cook. I was elated. I had been meaning to make some burgers, and this would take them to the next level simply by not being cow’s meat.
BUT, when I got home I realized that I did not have any buns and such, and my plan had been momentarily foiled. So I gave it day, let the meat thaw, and read the book my mom had given me for Christmas entitled “Are You Really Gonna Eat That?” filled with some fun stories by a foodie from Texas with some really great ideas about authenticity and greasy spoons. Anyway, there is a chapter in which he describes what he believes to be a Texas institution, The Country Fried Steak. It is in his honor, that I began the process of deep frying and later enjoying the aforementioned bison.
Here I have placed the bison patties post frying on a plate near a VHS copy of “Dark Days” a 2000 documentary about people living in tunnels, with a soundtrack by DJ shadow, to show scale and grandeur.
A note about Bison before I continue: While I will later say that this was a delicious meal, there were some technical difficulties with cooking the bison that I had not taken into account when I started to cook the meat. One is that because of it’s relatively fat-less make up, the meat has a tendency to become dry very quickly when cooked. This was countered by the fact that I fried it. Another issue is that it’s fatlessnessity means that it’s patty-ing abilities were also weird, the meat just wanted to stay ground… sticky, yes, but sort of like trying to patty tapioca.
SO, in conclusion this was a delicious meal, and in the interest of my greater health i opted not to serve it with a thick ham gravy, but instead a tomato and carrot gravy, and serve it over rice and sugar snap peas! In essence making not chicken fried steak or bison burgers, but Deep Fried Bison Swiss Steak!
Yeah!
It’s that time of year again, kittens! It’s not quite Valentine’s Day yet, and St. Paddy’s is a long way off…which means Easter is even further away. But this is AMERICA, so the beginning of February is the PERFECT time to start selling my favorite Easter candy: THE CADBURY CREME EGG!!!!!
I was at Duane Reade today buying some envelopes and they had a box of these delicious babies at the counter and I fell for it. I bought 2 – one for me, one for thu! I must admit, I practically swallowed the thing whole as soon as I left the store…. Let’s take a look at this egg-citing tradition…I’ve been thinking about that creamy little treat all day!
A Brief History: According to the Cadbury Creme Egg Wikipedia site, filled eggs were first manufactured by the Cadbury Brothers in the early 1920s, but the Creme Egg in its current form was not released until 1971. The eggs are manufactured at the Bournville factory in Birmingham at the rate of 1.5 million per day! Approximately 200 million eggs are sold every year!
The fondant filling is solid when the eggs are made, then injected with an enzyme which causes it to liquify into the gooey substance found in the finished product. Grossify me!
If you must know, here is a link to the Creme Egg nutritional information!
This is a link to the Official Cadbury Creme Egg site, and it’s also pretty weird: http://www.cremeegg.co.uk/
It’s called a History of Goo-ology and features lots of oddities… Seriously their entire marketing campaign is weird, but in a good way. Under the Fantasies section are a bunch of short videos or commercials that depict strange ways for Eggs to get smashed. They’re a bit frightening… There’s an online game called Eggs and Ladders, which is really hard…but anyways, watch those videos, they’re wildly weird.
Here is a video released in August of 2007 for the Cadbury chocolate company. It has nothing to do with chocolate, but Phil Collins is the man.
While we’re at it, Cadbury has some other chocolate products that sound amazing. We don’t get much besides Creme Eggs, Mini Eggs (which are equally awesome), and Caramello’s (remember those?). I wish we could get some of these others in the States, particularly this one called WISPA, apparently making a comeback now from the 80s. It’s advertised as “the bubbly 80s favourite”. I’d also like to try the Picnic (wafer, caramel, peanuts, raisins, chocolate) and the Crunchie (honeycomb dipped in chocolate).
I’ll end this with some of the best uses of the Creme Egg from other parts of the world….who knew?
yesterday jacq and i made buffalo chicken dip for the superbowl. we were originally introduced to this magic concoction while attending a halloween party put on by my brother’s friend in cleveland.we didnt use ranch dressing but instead just threw in some bleu cheese and a little more cream cheese. also, instead of putting into a pan and baking it, we threw it all into a crock pot and let it get awesome. shit was orange and good.
Thu Tran
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