Hour Magazine – A List – June 2009 June 15, 2009
Posted by Eli in : Uncategorized , add a commentA-List: June 2009
Inside the Box
We’ve been sipping milk from cartons since elementary school. But somehow, we never made the carton connection with water. Until now. Grand Rapids-based Boxed Water Is Better plans to reduce its carbon footprint by selling water from Minnesota in boxes made almost totally of renewable resources. Boxed Water dedicates 20 percent of its profits to foundations that benefit water and trees. Look for the boxes at a metro Detroit retailer soon. boxedwaterisbetter.com.
Squeaky Green
How to stay clean and help the environment? Suds up with Pangea Organics Bar Soap. When you remove the soap from the seed-studded package, soak the package in water, then plant it. We liked the Malagasy Cinnamon Cassia with Cloves, whose plantable package sprouts into a spruce tree. Other packages transform into flowering amaranth, sweet basil, and other flora. $8/bar at Macy’s and Whole Foods stores; pangeaorganics.com.
Hands-on
Marcia Hovland’s intimate boutique in Royal Oak carries hand-painted ceramic tiles, buttons, ornaments, and jewelry crafted by Hovland herself, as well as other local artists. Top item $28 and bottom item $24, at Marcia Hovland Studio & Gallery, 415 E. Fourth St., Royal Oak; 248-398-2951.
Green Style
Verdant stretches of grass are lovely, but a splash of color improves most landscapes. (Even Tiger Woods dons red on tournament Sundays for good luck.) For style-minded female duffers, Keri Golf offers floral- and geometric-patterned bags, head covers, totes, and duffels — for fashion — if not good fortune — on the links. $85 to $375 at area pro shops.
Who’s the Bossa?
Few types of music suggest summer more than the lilting Brazilian import called bossa nova. And when the whispery vocals of Diana Krall are paired with lush orchestrations by Claus Ogerman, you’ve got a combination that’s as soft and intoxicating as a June breeze. Krall’s 12th album, Quiet Nights, includes tunes by bossa master Antonio Carlos Jobim, such as “The Boy from Ipanema,” “Este Seu Olhar,” and the title tune. But other classics are reshaped, like “Where or When” and “Too Marvelous for Words,” giving them a fresh rhythmic identity. At music outlets.
Textbook Cooks
deally, our culinary education begins at a young age in the family kitchen. Later, the right cookbook makes all the difference. Enter Max and Eli Sussman, two brothers from Huntington Woods, whose childhood household was dedicated to from-scratch cooking. After U-M and MSU, they published Freshman in the Kitchen: From Clueless Cook to Creative Chef (Huron River Press, $17.95) to share their love of home cooking. In addition to recipes for novices and experienced cooks, Freshman offers tips for stocking the pantry and grocery shopping. At area booksellers.
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We are really honored to be included in HOUR Magazine’s The A-List for June. This is without question the closest we will ever get to Diana Krall and we are ok with that.
But here I gotta point out that if we were the editors of Hour we’d ditch “The A-List” and call this page ”The A-Team” in honor of one of our favorite TV shows of all time. And then each month we’d attribute each selected item to one of the 4 main characters. Actually I’m about to do that right now.
Those water cartons (pretty sure tap water has a small carbon footprint) are consumed by B.A. Baracus. He’s gotta stay hydrated with all those heavy chains and he absolutely pities wasteful fools.
Face takes the organic soap bc he’s metro and dirty hands can mess up his awesome suits.
Hannibal snags the clubs AND the Krall CD bc he’s in charge (and dude loves to unwind any way possible with a cigar).
Which leaves Howling Mad Murdock with his very own copy of FITK. He not only flies the chopper but now he can cook dinner for the A-Team as well.
So may the A-Team never go hungry while they battle gangs, try to clear their name and bring about justice all while basically only shooting at the dirt near people’s feet for 6 seasons.
So thanks again for the awesome mention, and yes Hour Mag, feel free to run with this A-team idea. it’s yours for the taking
SC3:Return of the Za June 8, 2009
Posted by Eli in : Uncategorized , add a commentTis summer time, so that can only mean one thing. SEQUELS! Big budget, multi-set piece, celebrity filled tweaks on an existing formula that brought home the bacon the first time, so why not do it again (and again, and again…).
Super Club IS in Hollywood, so in the spirit of the great American blockbuster, we decided that for the sequel to “Supper Club 2: Appetizers” we’d go with a tried and true – the pizza party – but improve on it and make it all our own. So in true Hollywood ”take an existing concept” fashion, we unveiled “SC3: Return the Za”, the Supper Club’s third incarnation.
Our Super Club prides itself on setting the bar high (like achieving at least a 1:1 ratio, persons to bottles of wine consumed) but I was pretty surprised to see how all out my friends at 8449 had gone to make this a truly memorable feast. Not only is 8449 (http://eightfourfournine.blogspot.com/) an unbelievable apt, but they got all Martha Stewart on us and pulled out all the stops for SC3:
Martha’d say of the above: “This table setting is rustic, simple but elegant and ready for guests to cram together and share in an unforgettable meal. Now i’m gonna go change into one of my 50 pastel polo shirts and brush my horses.”
While people we’re casually strolling in, we started with some appetizzees. Mozza is an 8449 favorite so we had some tasty Silverton/Batali creations. I made a Italian stuffed pepper bite size app by slicing baby peppers lengthwise then layering mozzarella cheese, sausage sauteed with garlic and heirloom tomatoes, basil and oregano and then a generous shaving of parmesan cheese over the top. In true Freshman in the Kitchen fashion, it was super easy and took about 12 minutes total including ‘melt time’. There were none left by the time we started making pizzas so I’m going to have to go out on a limb and say that’s made the cut for cbook numero dos.
(Not pictured are the goat cheese stuffed figs wrapped in applewood bacon that were soooo rich, Robin Leach popped out of no where to tell us just how rich they were).
Once we got down to the dirty dirty making pizzas, I constructed somewhat of a masterpeice with my buddy Aaron. Once we had the crust, we gave it a generous heaping shmear of the homemade pesto, then layered grilled zucchini, small peices of broccoli, large leaves of basil, rosemary roasted crimini mushrooms, goat cheese, salt and pepper and some dried oregano. It was essentially the best pizza I’ve ever had. Below is a killer action shot from before we got all the toppings on.
Here’s also a nice shot of the island full of some toppings and some Za. I spent all night waiting to shout out any of my favorite pizza related movie lines but Sal and Mookie from Do the Right Thing don’t go more than 2 words without dropping F bombs and the right opportunity never presented itself.
For any of the below recipes, just contact us through the site . In this economy, we are gonna have to ration them out, so just 1 recipe per person. So if you want to collect all 4, you are gonna have to be sneaky and get your friends to email us.
1) rosemary roasted crimini 2) sausage stuffed mushrooms 3) mini pepper pizzas 4) goat cheese stuffed figs wrapped in applewood bacon
We saw the kid from Slumdog!! June 5, 2009
Posted by Eli in : Uncategorized , add a comment
Zen College Life just started a new award for College Post of the Month. It’s basically like the Academy Awards of monthly blogging that’s college related. We were lucky enough to be selected as a winner from amongst a pool of qualified nominees. We had no idea this would happen, but hey, look here – we wrote down a list of people we want to thank off the cuff. If you play us off the stage with classical music, we will be pissed.
We want to first thank the other nominees (especially Angelina) where are you!? OMG! We told ourselves we wouldn’t be nervous!!(but we are!). The other bloggers, posters, twitter-rer’s, flickr-er-er’s and facebookers all have mad social networking game. We are really just so happy to get noticed. Bigtime thanks to DormDelicious for letting us guest post and then telling us “your post is good” which was excellent for our self esteem which has been suffering as of late.
If you haven’t yet read the post at DormDelicious check it out here: http://www.dormdelicious.com/ideas/dorm_room_cooking_easier_and_more_delicious_you_think
New Press in The Daily Press! June 2, 2009
Posted by Eli in : Press, Stories, Updates , add a comment
Thanks to the Daily Press in Newport News, VA for including us in the graduation gift guide. Getting included in gift guides make us feel warm and gooey inside. If sales in VA spike, we only have one place to thank for that.
Max at Friday Mornings @SELMA May 21, 2009
Posted by Max in : Cooking, Events, SELMA , add a commentFriday Mornings @SELMA is a hub of Ann Arbor’s West Side local food community. Every Friday morning, a different guest chef prepares their take on a breakfast dish. It’s a delicious way to start off the weekend and there’s always ample Roos Roast coffee in addition to whatever the chefs prepare. Here, I should probably reveal that I was a guest chef a few weeks back and prepared two delicious entrees, Hippie Hash and Sweet and Savory Crepes (sounds complicated but really wasn’t). I held the record for attendees for a few weeks until Silvio came by with his Pizza Rustica.
I’ll be there again tomorrow, serving up Breafast Burritos with Jeff’s homemade chorizo, homemade authentic (that means lard, folks) flour tortillas (ok, we made vegetarian too) and a scrambled egg inside. Topped off with some homemade salsa and served alongside a green salad straight from the SELMA hoophouse…what more could you ask for? Stop by between 6 and 10AM for breakfast.
Peach and Apricot Pulled Pork May 17, 2009
Posted by Eli in : Uncategorized , add a commentSo lately, we’ve been pork crazy around here. Max made some bacon the other day, and I decided that I’d try making pulled pork because it’s my hot body, i do what i want. I was sitting at my desk on friday with terrible RSA (restaurant selection anxiety) agonizing over where I should spend my hard earned loot. I was yelping around for some inspiration and really felt like something BBQ’ed or smoked meat item. Just as i was narrowing down my choice, I heard rumblings from the office kitchen. Turns out some meeting had been catered and there was ample leftovers. With that, I abandoned my quest for a tasty restaurant opting for the free option (economy folks, economy). As the day came to a close I still had that subconscious mind and stomach rumble for some tasty meat eats and my mind zero’ed in on pulled pork.
Most grocery stores route you through the fruits and veggies when you enter (gives your mind the perception that everything in the store is fresh and not packaged – trust me, I’m a food psychologist) so I decided that a pulled pork would be awesome with a peaches and apricots sauce. Now that I had my ingredients, I was ready to head home and get started.
Pork N' Peaches (and apricots)
Back at Kitchen de la Freshman, I busted out my trusty dutch oven purchased at Surfas (www.surfasonline.com/) with a bday gift certificate. Into the dutch oven went some broth, lotsta cut up peaches and apricots and some cayenne pepper. I seared the pork first in butter (hey it’s not like this meal was every progressing towards the “light and healthy” quandrant anyway) and then popped it into the already simmering liquid. I covered it and put it in the oven at 275 for 4.5 hours.
my roomate walked in as i was lighting this shot with a lamp and when she turned the corner and stumbled upon this food porn shoot i could clearly tell was out of her comfort zone
After 4.5 hours, I removed the pork, pulled it, and place it into a seperate dish. I then reduced the remaining fruit and pork meat broth for 2 hours by simmering it on the stove top. I added more salt and pepper, some chili paste and some brown sugar. After 2 hours it was a thick paste with awesome viscosity. Since it was past 2am, you might think I went to bed and would try the porks of my labor the next day. Well, you sir would be wrong. I busted out a baguette, popped it in the oven to toast it a bit, spread the apricot/peach pork meat dripping sauce i’d reduced and pilled that pulled pork high. I poured myself a 7 and 7 plopped down on the couch and chuckled to myself with glee.
Note: i thought I took a picture of the finished product but it turns out i actually smashed that sammy before I could even snap one but no fear there is still plenty of pulled pork and sauce so I’ll twitpic a sambone pictorial later this week.
Bacon Makin’ May 12, 2009
Posted by Max in : Bacon, Cooking, Recipes , 1 comment so farMuch to the chagrin of our parents here’s another post on a delicious adventure involving a pork product. This time it’s Max’s first attempt at curing and smoking bacon.
In order to make bacon you need to start with a pork belly. These are available at any good butcher and I got mine via eve from Heritage Foods. First thing is you need to rub the belly with a blend of sugar, salt, and spices. Next wait about a week to let the cure do its thing as the salt and sugar soak in to the belly. It’s not an exact science and I use my favorite technique – poke it to see if it’s done. I used the smoker set-up at SELMA (thanks Jeff!) which is very basic but gets the job done.
On the left there is where we put the coals and once they cooked down a bit we threw some hickory sawdust on there. If you a good smoke going you can walk away which is what I did. Two hours later I had some intensely smokey delicious bacon!
However, the best part was later that night, since Kate and I were already planning on making burgers. Then some friends brought over some fresh morels they found earlier that day, so we made some bacon-morel cheeseburgers–a perfect way to finish the day.
A few pics from New York
Posted by Max in : Pictures, TODAY Show , add a commentPeople in New York think it’s weird when you ask them to take a picture of you in front of a random window with a poster in it, especially when the Empire State Building is just out of frame (that’s a poster of us at Barnes and Noble on Fifth Ave.)
Here’s one of Eli signing books for the masses…there’s that famous signature that I’ve been working on forging.
May 9, 2009
Posted by Max in : Press , add a commentThanks to FriendsEAT for the awesome interview!
Anyone who has gone to college is well acquainted with what used to be the Freshmen 15 and has now turned to the Freshman (or woman) 20. It’s those extra pounds that come on due to late night study sessions, sometimes a little binge drinking and the oh so fabulous meals made up of creamy chicken ramen, ready made stuffing, delivered pizza and dining hall murder burgers. Lucky for the new class of Freshmen (as well as anyone who wants to learn to make a quick and delicious meal on a budget and on a time constraint, Max and Eli Sussman have authored the cookbook Freshman in the Kitchen: From Clueless Cook to Creative Chef to make the culinary college experience a little more delicious, healthy and quick.
LAist interviews FITK May 5, 2009
Posted by Max in : Press, TODAY Show , add a comment“I’m making pork belly tacos and fresh orange sorbet served in oranges,” Eli Sussman said, when asked what he was currently working on in the kitchen. The twenty-three-year-old LA resident and Detroit native has a passion for food – specifically making great food affordable and accessible. However, the radio promotions manager has no professional culinary training…which is all the better as testament to Freshman In the Kitchen, a cookbook he co-wrote with his brother Max, designed to inspire and take novice chefs on a step-by-step journey through the kitchen. The cookbook starts out with easy and simple recipes and techniques and gradually increases in terms of difficulty. Like many of us who spent at least some of our time in college living in a huge house with a bunch of friends and an often dirty kitchen, Eli used his first-hand experiences to write a book that a college student (or new chef) could relate to and understand. LAist had a chance to talk to Eli about the cookbook process, why it’s important to cook, the LA food scene…and their national debut on The Today Show.
