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So at 2:15 AM EST someone using Google Pakistan found our blog by searching “italyin family sex pron". Interestingly enough, it was about 12:15 PM in Pakistan. A little naughty lunchtime internet surfing?

Google thought that this post of ours would be a match. I think this Pakistani gentleman was probably disappointed, unless he was looking for a silly video with singing puppets, which ironically validates what he appeared to be searching for in the first place.

for us, of course. *insert additional lame Generation X marketing mantra speak here <---* Our friend Jacqueline Pham of Pham Fatale is hosting a bread baking contest, and I submitted Sara’s 5 braid Challah. The winner gets a pretty knife that is destined to one day sever (at least) one of my fingers. Please help us make this happen by heading over there and giving Imafoodblog a big fat, wet, juicy, passionate, er um, vote…

Do it for the children!

Happy Birthday To Me!

I took the day off from work today because I just could not fathom sitting at my desk for 8 hours on my day of birth. Yuck! And my company was nice enough this year to give everyone a free vacation day in the month of their birthday.

So today I will be getting some stuff done around the house, baking myself a blueberry pie, getting a massage, and maybe fit in a little shopping if there is time. Last night Nick and I went out to dinner at our favorite, most fanciest restaurant in DC, CityZen in the Mandarin Oriental. If you live in or around DC this is a must go to for special occasions. We had the 6 course chef’s tasting menu and it did not disappoint (except for my undercooked lobster, which they made up for). Plus Nick smoothly mentioned that it was my birthday and they gave us a couple nice extras throughout the night including a superb mini red velvet cupcake.

I also hope to be able to write some posts for this blog on my day off, since I seem to be running out of those. Although Nick is currently messing around with our main computer so who knows if any of the pictures that we have saved will make it through to the other side of this latest reformat.

We should be back tomorrow to regular posting with this week’s Craving Ellie in My Belly recipe Oven Baked Onion Rings.

I’ll leave you with this video that I found on You Tube when I typed in Happy Birthday. Watch it to the end. Tehe.

So Michael Jackson is dead. Pretty crazy. I was sad to hear this, but not exactly surprised. I grew up totally enamored by him and his music. Like serious adolescent obsession. In fact me and my sister will still get down to some Thriller on a road trip. and we can “hehe” and “whoo” with the best of them. My sister always laughs at me because I know where all the “oww’s” and “hehe’s” and “whoo’s” are in every song, it’s a gift.

I am still in awe of the amazing talents that he had and even with the child molestation accusations and all the bizarre things that he has done over the years, more than anything, I feel bad for him. He was clearly troubled in many ways. I know the boys at imafoodblog don’t agree with me on this one, but I think Michael Jackson was awesome.

I saw this video that Serious Eats posted of MJ organizing a food fight on the set of Black or White for director John Landis. A fun way to remember the King of Pop, and check out really young Macauley Caulkin. “I’m not gonna spend my life bein a color".

RIP.

About a month ago I was BSing with Joepastry about an idea I had to make a Rose Champagne Panna Cotta. Being the ever engaging and sardonic codger he is, he suggested that I “throw in some Kobe beef and truffles” to boot. Well Joe, consider this my witty retort.

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What I have been reading this week:

Mario Batali - Not an Asshole: This is actually about a month old, but it is a great story about how this blogger met Mario Batali at Babbo. It is nice to hear about a celebrity chef being so nice and gracious to the people who fill their restaurants and their pockets. (Food Hunters Guide to Cuisine)

The English Muffin Experiment: On the very same day that I posted about my first homemade English muffin experience, the team over at Serious Eats posted a whole article about homemade vs. store bought English muffins. This is an interesting read, and the outcome is not surprising. (Serious Eats)

Massachusetts set to pass strict menu labeling rules for fast food restaurants: I think this is a great. I firmly believe that so many people are overweight because they do not even consider how bad the things that they are eating are for them. As a blogging community who is food obsessed, I know that can be hard to fathom, but it is happening. As a consumer who is well aware of what is going into my body, I almost completely avoid any fast food or convenience food establishment that does not have nutritional information for their food available. The fast food companies should embrace this and should feel ashamed that they are fighting for the ability to blindly feed their customers horrendous food.(Reuters UK)

Hungry Girl’s Capn Crunch Shake: Good for you or good for killing you?: This is a funny yet true article by one of my favorite bloggers Jenni, The Online Pastry Chef. How do you feel about so called healthier eating by substituting all kinds of synthetic and unnatural products to make something low fat or low calorie? I hate it, and I hate that this philosophy makes it so hard to find quality cookbooks that have light and truly healthy recipes. This is why I love myself some Ellie Krieger. (The Online Pastry Chef)

Homemade Mustard: While Nick (not my Nick, another DC blogger named Nick)over at Macheesmo is on vacation (lucky bastard!) he asked his friend Corey Wood to fill in as a guest poster. Corey enlightened us all about making your own mustard with 4 different recipes. I have never made homemade mustard, or ketchup for that matter, but it makes perfect sense that it would be totally delicious and better than the bottled stuff. Nick actually reminded me that our good friend Greg at Sippity Sup also made his own homemade mustard recently, he even ground the mustard seed up with a mortar and pestle. I would expect nothing less from him. (Macheesmo)

Happy reading and happy weekend to everyone!

Yesterday I was reading a post from Aggie of Aggie’s Kitchen where she said that she is getting a free cheese each month from Ile de France and then blogging about it. I was jealous. Cheese, for free, every month?!

Her first cheese was Saint Andre. First of all, I am in love with cheese (who isn’t?). And second of all, Saint Andre is up there in my top 2-3 favorite cheeses of all time. It is so creamy and delicious, it is basically almost butter. We have even featured it on our site with our bacon and potato ciabatta bread.

So, I am directing this post to whoever is in charge of giving free cheese to bloggers at Ile de France. Here at imafoodblog.com, we would happily eat and blog about your cheese each month for how ever many months you wanted to send us free cheese. If not, that’s okay. We will still buy your delicious cheese.

No Tuesdays with Dorie this week. I was away until Sunday night and had to work late on Monday, no time for extraneous baking. Instead, I thought I would share some photos from my Passover Seder with my family. We only had Seder one night, but it was quite a feast. Above is my family’s Seder plate. If you are unfamiliar with this plate, each item symbolizes a part of the story of the Jews exodus from Egypt. Not surprisingly, my people made each symbol edible and made sure to work snacks and booze into the Seder. We get cranky when we are hungry.

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Last night, I attempted to make this. Clearly, something went awry. This was supposed to be an all butter pie crust (pâte brisée) for next week’s Tuesdays with Dorie. It turned out to be a big mess.

Okay, so I just wrote that paragraph and went off to find my link to the ever trustworthy Elise’s recipe on Simply Recipes. I stopped off at a few other search results along the way to see what other bloggers had written. After reading other recipes and rereading Elise’s recipe, I can’t be 100% sure, but I am pretty certain I remember adding 1/2 CUP of sugar to this dough instead of the 1 1/2 TEASPOONS of sugar the recipe called for. Oops. A 1/2 cup of sugar is 24 teaspoons. That might make a difference, huh? I am a non attention paying dummy. I am embarrassed for myself.

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I know I say this about a lot of things on this blog, but I really love citrus of all types. My favorite citrus fruits that I get excited over and oogle in the grocery store are ruby red grapefruits, Key limes, & Meyer lemons. Meyer lemon season is on its way out, but I just picked up my first bag of Key limes last week. They were actually a little sorry looking, but I couldn’t help myself. I have a problem. Expect to see some sort of Key lime confection here in the near future.

However, the lemon is probably the most commonly used citrus fruit and I think it is one of the most integral ingredients a cook can have in their kitchen. Lemons are on my perpetual list of groceries each week along with onions, garlic, milk, & eggs. No matter what I am making throughout the week, chances are I will use at least 1 lemon.

While I do use lemons all the time for cooking, lately I have also been a little obsessed with using lemons in my baking. So, I decided that this week will be all about the lemon here at imafoodblog. An ode to lemons, if you will. Most of the posts this week will revolve around delicious baked goods that I have made with varying degrees of lemony flavor. Stay tuned for lemony goodness baked into muffins, cakes, tarts, and pancakes. Hope you enjoy!

Lemon Week Posts:
Lemon Poppy Seed Muffins
My Favorite Ultra Lemony Yogurt Cake
Almond Lemon Yogurt Cake (TWD)
Lemon Blueberry Souffle Pancakes
Whole Lemon Tart & Pasta Frolla Dough