How good were my guesses?

Last night was Oscar Night. Below pictures from our dinner are the results and how right/wrong I was.

We made Chicken with Cranberry Sauce and broccoli rabe for dinner. The chicken recipe is from Martha Stewart.

First I made a flavored butter with salt, thyme, and pepper and smeared it on the chicken breasts before they baked.


Then I made a sauce with grilled onions in butter, cranberries (we used sweetened dried ones), chicken broth, thyme, and salt and pepper.


Then we plated it with broccoli rabe and red peppers.


This was super yummy. The sauce was sweet and savory at the same time because of the onions and cranberries. The chicken was baked well. It might not have been as moist as it should because it was skinless, but it was still very good. Normally I don't like broccoli rabe but with the red peppers, it wasn't so bitter.

Then I made some chocolate chip (well, chunk) cookies for dessert. I'm getting pretty good at these. I finished them in about 40 minutes.


Onto Oscar viewing... We DVRed it so it only took about 2 hours to watch instead of 3.5 hours. I loved the kids from Slumdog Millionaire. How cute were they?

As for my Oscar predictions... out of 12 awards I guessed on, I got 50% right.

My results...

Performance by an actor in a leading role

• Richard Jenkins in “The Visitor”
• Frank Langella in “Frost/Nixon”
• Sean Penn in “Milk”
• Brad Pitt in “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”
• Mickey Rourke in “The Wrestler”

(wrong - Sean Penn)

Performance by an actor in a supporting role

• Josh Brolin in “Milk”
  
• Robert Downey Jr. in “Tropic Thunder”
  
• Philip Seymour Hoffman in “Doubt”
  
• Heath Ledger in “The Dark Knight”
  
• Michael Shannon in “Revolutionary Road”

(right - Heath Ledger)

Performance by an actress in a leading role

• Anne Hathaway in “Rachel Getting Married”
• Angelina Jolie in “Changeling”
  
• Melissa Leo in “Frozen River”
• Meryl Streep in “Doubt”
  
• Kate Winslet in “The Reader”

(right - Kate Winslet)

Performance by an actress in a supporting role

• Amy Adams in “Doubt”
  
• Penélope Cruz in “Vicky Cristina Barcelona”
  
• Viola Davis in “Doubt”
  
• Taraji P. Henson in “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”
  
• Marisa Tomei in “The Wrestler”

(wrong - Penelope Cruz)

Best animated feature film of the year

• “Bolt”
  
• “Kung Fu Panda”
  
• “WALL-E”

(right - Wall-E)

Achievement in directing

• “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”, David Fincher
• “Frost/Nixon”, Ron Howard
• “Milk”, Gus Van Sant
• “The Reader”, Stephen Daldry
• “Slumdog Millionaire”, Danny Boyle

(right - Danny Boyle)

Best foreign language film of the year

• “The Baader Meinhof Complex”, Germany
• “The Class”, France
• “Departures”, Japan
• “Revanche”, Austria
• “Waltz with Bashir”, Israel

(wrong - Departures)

Achievement in music written for motion pictures (Original score)

• “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”, Alexandre Desplat
• “Defiance”, James Newton Howard
• “Milk”, Danny Elfman
• “Slumdog Millionaire”, A.R. Rahman
• “WALL-E”, Thomas Newman

(right - A.R. Rahman)

Achievement in music written for motion pictures (Original song)

• “Down to Earth” from “WALL-E”, Music by Peter Gabriel and Thomas Newman, Lyric by Peter Gabriel
• “Jai Ho” from “Slumdog Millionaire”, Music by A.R. Rahman, Lyric by Gulzar
• “O Saya” from “Slumdog Millionaire”, Music and Lyric by A.R. Rahman and Maya Arulpragasam

(wrong - "Jai Ho")

Best motion picture of the year

• “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”
  
• “Frost/Nixon”
  
• “Milk”
  
• “The Reader”
  
• “Slumdog Millionaire”
  

(right - Slumdog Millionaire)

Adapted screenplay

• “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”, Screenplay by Eric Roth, Screen story by Eric Roth and Robin Swicord
• “Doubt”, Written by John Patrick Shanley
• “Frost/Nixon”, Screenplay by Peter Morgan
• “The Reader”, Screenplay by David Hare
• “Slumdog Millionaire”, Screenplay by Simon Beaufoy

(wrong - Slumdog Millionaire)

Original screenplay

• “Frozen River”, Written by Courtney Hunt
• “Happy-Go-Lucky”, Written by Mike Leigh
• “In Bruges”, Written by Martin McDonagh
• “Milk”, Written by Dustin Lance Black
• “WALL-E”, Screenplay by Andrew Stanton, Jim Reardon, Original story by Andrew Stanton, Pete Docter

(wrong - Dustin Lance Black)

My Oscar Predictions...

The Oscars are tonight! FI and I will be doing some cooking and baking for the event, but otherwise it's a quiet evening in.

As part of the festivities, here are my Oscar predictions. Mind you, I haven't seen most of these movies. It's been a poor movie watching year. But based on what I've read in the entertainment blogs, articles in the Washington Post, Television Without Pity, and an article by Nate Silver, here are my picks in bold.

Performance by an actor in a leading role

• Richard Jenkins in “The Visitor”
• Frank Langella in “Frost/Nixon”
• Sean Penn in “Milk”
• Brad Pitt in “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”
• Mickey Rourke in “The Wrestler”

Performance by an actor in a supporting role

• Josh Brolin in “Milk”
  
• Robert Downey Jr. in “Tropic Thunder”
  
• Philip Seymour Hoffman in “Doubt”
  
• Heath Ledger in “The Dark Knight”
  
• Michael Shannon in “Revolutionary Road”

(I think this one is a given, but I really hope RDJ got the win cause he was hysterical in TT.)

Performance by an actress in a leading role

• Anne Hathaway in “Rachel Getting Married”
• Angelina Jolie in “Changeling”
  
• Melissa Leo in “Frozen River”
• Meryl Streep in “Doubt”
  
• Kate Winslet in “The Reader”
  

Performance by an actress in a supporting role

• Amy Adams in “Doubt”
  
• Penélope Cruz in “Vicky Cristina Barcelona”
  
• Viola Davis in “Doubt”
  
• Taraji P. Henson in “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”
  
• Marisa Tomei in “The Wrestler”
  

Best animated feature film of the year

• “Bolt”
  
• “Kung Fu Panda”
  
• “WALL-E”

(Loved, loved Wall-E. I wish it had been nominated for Best Picture. This is such a cop-out award.)

Achievement in directing

• “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”, David Fincher
• “Frost/Nixon”, Ron Howard
• “Milk”, Gus Van Sant
• “The Reader”, Stephen Daldry
• “Slumdog Millionaire”, Danny Boyle
  

Best foreign language film of the year

• “The Baader Meinhof Complex”, Germany
• “The Class”, France
• “Departures”, Japan
• “Revanche”, Austria
• “Waltz with Bashir”, Israel
  

Achievement in music written for motion pictures (Original score)

• “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”, Alexandre Desplat
• “Defiance”, James Newton Howard
• “Milk”, Danny Elfman
• “Slumdog Millionaire”, A.R. Rahman
• “WALL-E”, Thomas Newman

(The music in Slumdog was off the wall. So pulse-pounding and totally captured the craziness of Mumbai.)

Achievement in music written for motion pictures (Original song)

• “Down to Earth” from “WALL-E”, Music by Peter Gabriel and Thomas Newman, Lyric by Peter Gabriel
• “Jai Ho” from “Slumdog Millionaire”, Music by A.R. Rahman, Lyric by Gulzar
• “O Saya” from “Slumdog Millionaire”, Music and Lyric by A.R. Rahman and Maya Arulpragasam
  

(Since I voted for Slumdog for best score, I'm going split my vote and give it to Wall-E for best song.)

Best motion picture of the year

• “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”
  
• “Frost/Nixon”
  
• “Milk”
  
• “The Reader”
  
• “Slumdog Millionaire”
  

Adapted screenplay

• “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”, Screenplay by Eric Roth, Screen story by Eric Roth and Robin Swicord
• “Doubt”, Written by John Patrick Shanley
• “Frost/Nixon”, Screenplay by Peter Morgan
• “The Reader”, Screenplay by David Hare
• “Slumdog Millionaire”, Screenplay by Simon Beaufoy

Original screenplay

• “Frozen River”, Written by Courtney Hunt
• “Happy-Go-Lucky”, Written by Mike Leigh
• “In Bruges”, Written by Martin McDonagh
• “Milk”, Written by Dustin Lance Black
• “WALL-E”, Screenplay by Andrew Stanton, Jim Reardon, Original story by Andrew Stanton, Pete Docter

(The thing about Wall-E was that half the movie was in silence. It's not writing dialogue that's hard, it's the description of the scene and then being able to recreate that.)

I'll post again on Monday with food pictures and a results tally of how well I did with my guesses.

Practicing my drawing skills...

In the new year, I've added another baked good to my portfolio - sugar cookies. I use a recipe from Martha Stewart (recommended by FI's sister). I bought a gigantic set of cookie cutters from Bed, Bath & Beyond and some icing tips from Michael's.

The sugar cookies came out pretty well and I wanted to ice them and learn how to make beautiful designs. I used an easy royal icing recipe from the Food Network, courtesy of Alton Brown, and added food coloring to make pink and blue icing.

After making the icing, I split it into 2 batches and then added food coloring.


Then I filled an icing bag, attached the tip, and started drawing.


It was fun to think of fun designs for the cookies. I had made stars, circles, and baseball hats. For the circles, I kept trying to think of different sports balls and how they look. For the hats, I either drew the seams or tried to put logos on them. The stars I just made patterns.

Here's a batch I decorated with pink icing.


After icing cookies in just blue and pink, I started switching between both colors.


By the end of the evening, some of the cookies were pretty colorful and a little psychedelic looking.


It was pretty hard to draw straight lines and circles. Whenever I started and stopped, it made an extra blob on the cookie. The lines were pretty thick too. I bought a pretty narrow tip but still the icing was pretty bold and thick.


While I was able to do a lot of fun designs, now I know why beautifully iced cookies cost $3 or $4 each. At least the icing dried nicely and the patterns were pretty cool to look at. The cookies were good to eat too.

Dinner at Paladar

Last fall, FI and I went to Paladar for dinner. I had wanted to go since I heard LeeAnn Wong speak at an "Asian chefs in the media" event at the Asia Society and named Paladar as her favorite restaurant in New York City.

We decided to do an all-appetizer dinner since after looking over the menu, we couldn't decide which ones we didn't want to get.

We started out with sangrias. This were pretty strong and had a great variety of fruit, such as citrus, pineapple, berries, etc.


We enjoyed the chips and salsa and black bean sauce. The chips were super fresh, still hot and crispy from the fryer. Another reason why we ordered only appetizers - chips are yummy and you eat a lot of them waiting for your food.
First we had Arepas (Venezuelan corn cakes topped with tomato, chorizo & crema fresca). These were really rich and filling. We actually just split one and took the 2nd one home. (It was still very tasty the next day.)


I picked this appetizer because I love pumpkin and will pretty much order anything that has pumpkin listed as an ingredient. This is Ensalada de Calabaza (roasted pumpkin, walnuts and Cabrales cheese over bitter greens with pomegranate vinaigrette). The greens and cheese were savory and contrasted nicely with the sweet pumpkin and walnuts.


Then we had Costillas 'LES' (pork spare ribs with guava BBQ sauce, served with mango, jicama & cabbage slaw). The spare ribs were delicious and tender. The slaw was really sour and crunchy. I'm surprised the mango didn't make it sweeter.


Finally we had Anticuchos de Carnero Panca (glazed lamb skewers with mint mojo, white bean & piquillo pepper salad). The skewers were delicious, again tender and sweet. The white bean salad was really light and tasty. The flavors weren't super spicy or overwhelming.


The meal was great. We ended up full but not overwhelmed and had yummy leftovers for brunch the next day. Looking over the Paladar website, it looks like their menu is seasonal so we should go back and try their new stuff.

Fabulous Color Combinations

As I've written before, our wedding colors are lavender/purple and yellow. As I peruse wedding websites and looking at pretty pictures, I've kept my eye out for purple and yellow themes.

I also try to enter as many contests as I can in the hopes of getting a gift certificate or some custom designed accessory. And I finally won one! I just had to comment on my wedding colors and I won a copy of a wedding magazine. Not only that, my colors were featured in a blog post and she sent me some more inspiration boards.

inspiration board from Kelly Oshiro Events

From bridalcanvas.com
From She Walks in Beauty (original source unknown)

From She Walks in Beauty (original source unknown)

I love the color combination and her blog post has even more examples of the colors together.

And as I told her in my comment - the color theme came about as a result of an ice cream FI and I shared on a date. We were at Sundaes & Cones and order mango and taro ice cream. The mango was a bright, pale yellow and the taro was a lovely lavender and I was entranced by how pretty those two colors looked next to each other that I tucked the idea into the back of my head and kept it until we were engaged and starting to plan this wedding.

A cookie of any kind...

Another one of my favorite baked good recipes is a Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe from the Food Network. This recipe is great because not only is it super easy to make (I'm done with cookies to eat in about an hour), it's super forgiving with the ingredients.

I have substituted the chocolate chips with peanut butter, toffee, and butterscotch chips and they all taste great.

Once I forgot to put in the white sugar and only put in the brown sugar and they still tasted delicious, so now I just use brown sugar and basically halved the sugar in the recipe. (I wonder how much healthier it is now?) I've also used Splenda in place of the sugar as well.

Another time, I didn't have enough flour left in the kitchen, so I combined the rest of the white flour, the last of the organic flour (which usually didn't work too well for me), and some all-purpose baking mix that I found in our cupboard, to make the requisite 2.25 cups, and the cookies still came out light and chewy and yummy!

Here's my crinkled copy of the recipe, with my changes (less sugar, less time in the oven) noted.

Assembling all of my ingredients "mis en place".


The stick of butter...


The dry ingredients sifted together...


The melted butter with eggs, sugar, and vanilla.


Mixing the wet ingredients together.


Adding the dry ingredients to the wet. You don't need a mixer for this at all.


The mixed batter.


Adding the chips in. This time, these were butterscotch.


The batter with chips folded in. This is always my most difficult step since the bowl is pretty much filled with batter and chips and I don't want anything to spill over. But I do want the chips to be pretty well distributed throughout the batter. (Although according to my operations professor in b-school, this won't happen because of the Poisson distribution.)


Then I wet my hands and start rolling little balls of cookie dough. I've tried to keep the balls small because these are pretty rich cookies. And then they go in to bake for 10 minutes. Our oven is pretty hot, so I start checking around 8 minutes. They also keep cooking after you pull them out so you have to account for the extra browning that might occur.


Requisite shot of my trash bowl.


Finished cookies! Don't they look delicious? They're soft and bendable and super chewy. (Which I always prefer over cr

Celebrating Valentine's Day (a day early)

For Valentine's Day this year, we went to L'Ecole, the restaurant for the French Culinary Institute. It's an actual restaurant that is staffed by the senior students at the institute. I really hoped there would be large windows into the kitchens and we'd be able to watch the students at work. But alas, it was like a real restaurant, with a bar, and tables and seats, and waiters going in and out of a door with plates of food.

The water bottles for each table had the restaurant's logo on the front and a little information on the back on how the water was filtered.

A very simple and pretty table arrangement of orchids and leaves. The neat trick about this was that underneath the flowers and leaves were tied together, so they all stayed put nicely in the wood vase.


We had L'Ecole's 5-course prix fixe meal. Each course (except for the salad) had 3 options to choose from. And as FI and I always do when we go out to eat, we coordinated our choices so we each got something different so we'd have double the dishes to try.

FI's appetizer was the Lobster Consommé with Lobster Tortellini. The consomme was very tasty. It was light and clear and not over salty or fishy either. I could drink it up. The tortellini however was not very good at all. The pasta wrapper was super thick and hard to chew through - almost like it was frozen and thawed out. It did not taste like fresh-made pasta (or even good store-bought pasta) at all.


I had the Escargot with Red Wine and Gruyère Cream for my appetizer. This was really tasty. The escargot were flavorful and soft to eat. They weren't chewy or tough or drenched in butter. FI and I actually used pieces of bread to sop up both the escargot sauce and the lobster consomme while we waited for our next courses.


FI's fish course was Seared Scallops, Pickled Grapes and Smoked Potato Cream. This was his favorite dish. The scallops were grilled really nicely and were tender to eat.


I had the Poached Halibut, Potato Terrine and Spiced Chicken Consommé. The sauce on top of the halibut was a creamy lemon sauce. The combination of the halibut with the lemon sauce and consomme was really good, a great contrast of flavors.


FI's meat course was the Hanger Steak with Pommes Boulangere. The steak was nice and rare and easy to eat. The red wine sauce was very tasty too, especially with the potatoes. I think that was spinach underneath the meat.


I had the Juniper Smoked Rack of Lamb with Pickled Chanterelles and Sunchoke-Cheddar Purée. The lamb was extremely tender and flavorful and I loved eating the bits of lamb of the bone too. The puree was a bit sour and cheesy, which made it work.


Then we both had a Digestive Salad, which was greens with Montegro cheese and a pear sorbet. I kept giggling at the name "digestive salad".


For dessert, FI had Milk Chocolate Hazelnut Tart with Malt Ice Cream. The tart was really rich but not overly sweet. The malt ice cream was delicious. It definitely tasted like a frozen malted shake. The white block at the bottom was a soft marshmallow.


I had the Trio of Pot de Crème. They were lighter than puddings, kind of like mousses, and very delicious. The flavors were, from right to left, butterscotch, coffee, and chocolate. FI and I both liked the coffee one best because it had the lightest texture and was almost like a flan in consistency.


It was a great meal for only $42 for each of us. It was fun to feel like you were participating in the education of perhaps the next great cook. I took care to fill out the comment card with our feedback on each of the dishes (particularly if we didn't like them or really loved them). While it wasn't the most exquisite meal I've ever had, I enjoyed immensely what we did have, because it was a lot for the money we paid.

Happy President's Day! (a day late of course)