Utensil Bouquet

If you've ever cooked, you'd know that you need a lot of utensils. Spatulas, tongs, strainers etc. It all adds up. I put mine in a vase shaped container that rests next to my stove. It has a masher, a mixer and many other utensils that are necessary for cooking properly. Well, the other day, I had a wacky idea. What if, the heads of all these utensils were painted a different color: red for a stainer, yellow for a spatula, blue for a masher etc. What if the heads were all painted a different color but the stem was green? They'd all look like flowers right? Imagine placing them in a white face with just the heads sticking out. To me, the would look like a nicely arranged bouquet of flowers. Next to a stove or in a kitchen, they'd look great. My idea would be to come up with a line of utensils that fit in a vase and look like a bouquet of flowers. Each utensil would be represented by a different color and would have their own slot in the custom vase. I guess my next step would be to paint the utensils and see how they'd look in a vase. They could look great or they could be unsightly. One never knows until trying it out. Give me some time, I will try this and update this post with a picture of the results. Stay tuned.

Soup Pizza: Real or fake food?

I am a zealous fan of pizza. I will eat it almost anywhere it's served. I've eaten pizza in its birthplace in Naples and I've eaten pizza at a place where you pay for it by the pound. I once helped my uncle Domenic make an authentic Italian pizza oven in his backyard in Phoenix and during my last trip to New York, I took pictures of every slice I ate. In short, there's nothing I won't do for a great pie. Which brings me to my other favorite food: soup! From the creamy chowders to the briny broths, soup can be a complete and hearty meal. So, what do you do when you have two things that you think would taste great together? Combine them! So, my next weird food creation would be to combine the crusty, cheesiness of pizza with the hearty, spiciness of soup. Oh, I know what you're thinking and, oh no, I wouldn't make a watery pizza. It would be a hearty and flavorful piece of inventive food on a crispy piece of dough. Can't you taste it? Have you ever made it? I once ate pasta on a pizza at a Ray's in New York City, but I've never eaten soup on pizza. I'm guessing there hasn't been a good type of soup to put in a pizza but I disagree. How about vegetable tortilla soup on a pizza crust? Yum! If anyone out there is adventurous enough to try this at home, please do and let me know how it goes. Corn chowder on a pizza? I don't know, it could be good. Lentil stew? Tomato? Black bean?

Top Chef: Home Cookin'

I don't watch a lot of television and I do not have a tivo or a dvr but there are some shows I enjoy watching when they are on and I have the time. One of them is Top Chef. I look past the blatant advertising and product placement and try to focus on the meals and more importantly, how they are prepared. I'm not a big meat eat nor do I eat any pork and sometimes I think they use it too much. I enjoy the show and had this idea for a new concept of the show that regular watchers like me can relate to. Instead of making the food so high concept and hard to conceptualize, my season of Top Chef would be to challenge the contestants to come up with new takes on old-fashioned classic recipes. Think of the recipes they could come up with for lasagna, mac and cheese and mashed potatoes. It doesn't sound too sexy but this would force the contestants to think really hard about how to make an old recipe better. The same way new musical artists cover old songs and find ways to bring new meaning to them, these chefs would do the same to classic foods. I'll still watch the next season of Top Chef no matter what it is, but if you're reading this Padma, think about it.