Barbecue Spice Girl

The orange residue of shame

I’m sure I should prefer the fruit. Or even the circa 1980s pasta salad. But the shameful, orange-tinged truth is this: I’d rather have a side of barbecue potato chips.

I really can’t tell you why, on occasion, I lust for BPCs. After the first bite or two, they always leave me feeling dirty. And I’m not just talking about the residue (which, by the way, is as hard to clean up as fingerprint powder but that’s another story).  Even all-natural BPCs take on an aura of chemical fakeness about ten chips into your basic bag.

More evidence: an empty bag

So I wondered, as I always do—what’s the attraction?  Standing in the checkout line at Fresh Market, I flipped over the perfectly respectable bag of kettle fried barbecue chips and looked at the ingredients.

Well what do you know? Paprika is a major ingredient. And as it happened, I had just put a can of smoked sweet paprika in my basket. Maybe a batch of homemade barbecue potato chips would help me get to the root of the thing.

Dessert Donuts

Donuts at Rustic Canyon Wine Bar

Hold onto your canned biscuits Paula Deen:  fried dough has gone upscale.

I’ve been to at least three restaurants recently that offered donuts on the dessert menu: Local in Dallas, the chic Stephan Pyles Restaurant also in Dallas, and Rustic Canyon Wine Bar in Santa Monica.  At Stephan Pyles and Rustic Canyon, on the hearty endorsement of wait staff, I ordered them.

Both were served with fancy-shmancy cups of hot something for dipping—espresso at Stephan Pyles, hot chocolate at Rustic Canyon.  It didn’t matter.  Gorgeous though the presentations were, the fried nuggets of dough came up short.  “They’re our favorite,” my waiters promised.

But I kept thinking: my white trash donuts are better.  Was I wrong? 

Paying for Airplane Food

The (TE) Special

About half-way into a four hour flight to LAX, I realized I was hungry.  Starving.  I didn’t even eat airplane food when it was free.  Was I really going to purchase something?

Apparently.

I asked for the menu.  Peanut M&Ms for $2?  Or the chicken pita?  I was leaning toward the sure thing when I noticed a (TE) beside the Grilled Chicken Gyro in Pita.  (TE) means this is a Todd English designed entrée.

Todd English.  I vaguely know who he is.  Top Chef, restaurants, dark hair.  My favorite part of Jacques Pepin’s wonderful memoir is when he writes about trying to make the food at Howard Johnson’s taste good.  Maybe “award-winning chef” TE, proudly featured on Delta’s menu, is trying to do the same thing here.

Taste Test: Sports Drinks

Gatorade Alternatives

After my lousy 17-mile training run, I conceded that maybe I need a little more than water to keep me going.  But I can’t bring myself to drink Gatorade.  Don’t know why.  Maybe it’s the color.

So I started looking around for an alternative, something that offered replenishment, something that’s flavor wouldn’t make me gag.

Online, I found a recipe for a homemade sports drink–basically water with a splash of orange juice, a spoon of sugar and a pinch of salt.  It was drinkable if not wildly delicious.

Then I found two more options at a grocery store–coconut water and a natural sports drink.  I gave them a try this morning, after a run.