Tom Douglas

What you do on a cruise, part 5/ by Shelley L, Blog Editor

Eat.

January 6th, 2010 | No Comments »

What you do on a cruise, Part 4/ by Shelley L, Blog Editor

Enjoy your balcony…. this is bliss.

January 6th, 2010 | 1 Comment »

What you do on a cruise, Part 3/ by Shelley L, blog editor

Enjoy the ice sculptures and carved watermelons on New Year’s Eve.

January 6th, 2010 | No Comments »

What you do on a cruise, Part 2/ by Shelley L, Blog Editor

Enjoy the sunset.

January 6th, 2010 | No Comments »

What you do on a cruise, Part 1/ by Shelley L, blog editor

Swing your napkins in the air to celebrate the dining staff on the festive second-to-last night’s dinner.

(Our dining staff was great, but I was a bit shocked they didn’t flame the baked Alaskas on New Year’s Eve.)

January 6th, 2010 | No Comments »

My Favorite Julia Child Quote, by Robyn Wolfe/Marketing

I took this photo in Town Hall in San Francisco.

January 6th, 2010 | 1 Comment »

Christmas Tradition: Dim Sum! by Don Sefton/Catering Events Manager

It is an annual tradition in our house on Christmas to go out for dim sum for breakfast and then catch a matinee movie. (“Avatar” was great!)  This year was no different.  Our favorite place for dim sum is Sun Ya in the International District.  We love Sun Ya the best, not only because you can sit down and have a wonderful steaming cart of food at your side by the time you take your coat off, but we find that they have the freshest food, very reasonable, a very large variety, and it is not nearly as greasy and oily as many other restaurants.

We started out with sticky rice, Chinese broccoli, and bean curd (photo right).  I think that sticky rice is the benchmark for the standards in a Chinese restaurant, and this is certainly one of the best that I have ever had!  The rice comes wrapped and steamed in a leaf and has the ubiquitous little Chinese sausage nugget in the center. The rice is perfect every single time and has just the right amount of gluten for all of the grains to want to stick together, but not too mushy, yet not overdone.  The Chinese broccoli with oyster sauce is always perfectly steamed and crunchy with just the right amount of oyster sauce.  The bean curd rolls are always marvelous, and I think this was the best ever!  Nice and hot with the usual slightly sticky sauce.  We always get these 3 items, they are so awesome.

Next we got the deep fried calamari strips which were perfectly fried and seasoned- not overdone, and came to our table directly from the kitchen (photo left).  The honey-walnut prawns, I am certain, are served in heaven!  The sweet mayonnaise sauce enrobing them is addicting.  Our other favorite dish is the incredible mixed herb and prawn rolls- wonderful little rolls which are steamed and then a quick fry to them.

Of course, they serve pots of tea.  It is also necessary to combine hte proper amount of soy sauce and hot chili paste on your plate to accent everything.  We are utterly ravenous every time that we come to this great restaurant!  Bliss I tell ya!

January 6th, 2010 | No Comments »

Probably the last post about latkes until next December/ by Shelley L, Blog Editor

An email from my cousin Phil Lotsoff with this photo and the words:

“Thank you for the recipe!!! They were awesome.”

January 6th, 2010 | No Comments »

Buche de Noel/ by Kathleen Gibbons, Palace Line Cook

This year I decided that rather than bringing wine to my friends’ parents’ houses for Christmas, I would make the dessert.  This year I made three Buche de Noel cakes (also known as Yule Logs) for each of my friends’ families: chocolate sponge cake with almond mocha frosting and chocolate and meringue mushrooms.  These cakes are beautiful, delicious, and intricate, and easily one of my all time least favorite things to make. Every step to making the dessert is easy in theory: make sponge cake, make meringue mushrooms, make frosting, frost cake, roll cake, decorate.  What’s terrifying is the degree to which each step can go terribly, terribly wrong- dry sponge cake, soggy and broken meringue mushrooms, limp frosting, cracked cake.

I remember watching my mother make these cakes every Christmas when I was younger. I remember the taste of the frosting, the look in her eyes when she was pleased with the way the meringue dried, and the way she dragged a fork across the frosting to look like tree bark.  She made it look so effortless, like it was a delight to make.  Now I recognize the stress, anger, and exhaustion that was hiding behind happy eyes, big smiles, and holiday well wishes.  Including drying time for the meringue, as well as all the baking, cooling, and resting times, three cakes took me over eighteen hours to make.

Luckily, this year’s logs came and went with minimal trouble.  When rolling up the sponge cakes to let them cool, I DID roll them width wise instead of length wise, thus leaving me with a very short, very fat final result.  But the crowds still went wild and everything was fine.  I think the main reason my mother and I sacrifice ourselves to the kitchen in order to make the Yule Logs is simple.  We do it for the reaction.  The look you get when you put the Buche de Noel on the table in front of friends and family, the way the eyes of your guests roll back into their heads after taking the first bite, the questions like How did you do this? How long did it take you? Are these real mushrooms??  It’s blatantly obvioius how much work goes into a Yule Log, and the people who receive it always acknowledge your effort.

The Buche de Noel is difficult.  It can be stressful.  It can easily wind up being a catastrophe.   But in the end, the people you love will appreciate what you’ve done (or attempted to do) for them.  And if your loved ones are really appreciative, you might be able to get out of doing the dishes.  It’s worth a shot.  Trust me.  My kitchen is a disaster right now.

(Photo upper left: sponge cake. Photo upper right: meringue mushrooms.  Photo bottom left: finished Buche de Noel.)

January 6th, 2010 | No Comments »

“In the Kitchen with Tom and Thierry” by Producer Katie O

Happy 2010!
Yes dear listeners, it’s TWENTY TEN! And who better to kick off the New Year with than your pals on In the Kitchen with Tom and Thierry??

Amy Pennington of GoGoGreenGarden will be talking to us about meyer lemons (word on the street is she JUST preserved a ton of them herself). And after talking about those tart little numbers, Tom will then go on to talk about something hot and zingy: Hot sauce! He’ll be deeming some everyday hot sauces “delicious” or “not delicious”.

During the 5:00 hour Angela Garbes, one of the lovely contributors to the Seattle Weekly’s blog “Voracious” joins us in studio to discuss the exciting happenings in food in the upcoming year. She and Tom will also get a chance to recap some of their favorite things from 2009!

Mike Teer from Pike and Western Wine Shop will be on air to give you a wine that wont break your bank after the holidays.

All this, plus trivia, a check in with producer Katie O on the streets, and YOUR calls!

Tune in for the first show in 2010!

Listen to the show here!:

First hour

Second hour

Third hour

January 2nd, 2010 | No Comments »