Food Week: San Diego Pizza Smackdown

I am closing out Food Week with a taste-test. Bryan and Veronika have forever been touting what they think is the best pizza in San Diego. I have my own opinion, too, and so decided we'd settle this once and for all.

BRYAN
As a native New Yorker, Bryan claims that the best NY-style pizza in San Diego is at a little place in PB across from the library. An added quirk, he says, is that it's run by an Asian family. God bless America.

You must also bear in mind that, while Bryan touts this place as the best, he hasn't been in six years. When ordering today, we learned that the place had been sold three years ago to an exuberant Italian man named Mateo. Which I thought boded well for BO's choice--pizza from Italy.

VERONIKA
Veronika thinks Bronx Pizza is the best slice in town. This place is tiny and does a lot of take-out service, but you can also eat in their cramped little back room. New Yorkers work here instead of Asians or Italians, and they have the attitude to prove it.

MICHELLE

Since this is my blog, I get a say in the contest, and entered Costco's pizza.

The ground rules:

We each purchased one slice of plain cheese pizza from our favored establishment and brought them to Veronika's condo. We then cut each slice into thirds and put one each on a paper plate, labeling the rim with the establishment's name. One by one, we were blind-folded and tested each pizza. The taster's comments were recorded in a notepad, and each taster had to ultimately pick their favorite.

Bronx Pizza

Veronika: Good spices in the sauce. The crust isn't too hard.

Michelle: Good sauce, good flavor. It has more oregano, I think? The sauce smells a little like pepperoni.

Bryan: I smell spices. The crust is thin. I like that. The sauce is flavorful. Surprisingly, the pizza's a little greasy.

Piccolo Mondo

Veronika: I like it. I like the mix of the sauce and the cheese. Nice consistency throughout.

Michelle: Good. Tasty sauce.

Bryan: Not as aeromatic as the other (Bronx) one. Definitely not as flavorful. But it's simple. It's not as greasy.

Costco

Veronika: The cheese isn't as soft as the others.

Michelle: Nice aroma. Smells good. It has more cheese, less sauce. It's satisfying.

Bryan: The cheese is crispy. I like that.

In the end, while still blindfolded, we each picked the pizza we'd nominated for the contest. But afterwards, we also agreed that Bronx was the most flavorful.

Food Week: Thanksgiving Leftovers

On "Top Chef," contestants sometimes prepare an ingredient multiple ways. "Kobe Beef Two Ways" or "Salmon Two Ways." Today, I offer you a Thanksgiving leftover--yesterday's cranberry relish--prepared five ways.

Cranberry Muffins

I used a basic Bisquick recipe and added 1 1/2 cups of cranberries.

Bryan's rating: 2 turkeys

Comment: "The high points are the cranberries and nuts. But they're a little doughy." I agree. Next time, I'll use a real muffin batter recipe.

Cranberry Salsa

Equal parts salsa and relish, plus a few drops of Marie Sharp's hot sauce.

Bryan's rating: 3 1/2 turkeys

Comment: "Pretty good."

Grilled Brie and Cranberry Sandwich

Bread, brie, cranberries, more brie, a second slice of bread. It's then grilled in a pan with butter.

Bryan's rating: 5 turkeys

Comment: "On a scale of four, it's a five." I agree, this is aMAZing.

Cranberry Vinaigrette

Along with leftover cranberries, we also have leftover apricot-walnut-crouton salad. So I added a little balsamic vinegar, olive oil, and cranberry juice to the relish, and then poured it on the salad. I found this idea online, but can't find the link.

Bryan's rating: 4 turkeys

Comments: "Delightful!"

Cranberry Meatballs

Turkey burgers topped with cranberries would've been to easy. Inspired by the above-linked recipe, we decided to make cranberry-stuffed meatballs. Several of them split open, but not too much spilled out. After the photo was taken, we topped them with turkey gravy.

Bryan's rating: 4 turkeys

Comments: "Now THAT is one satisfying dinner."

It's been a good run, but I hope tomorrow will be cranberry-less.

Food Week: Thanksgiving Day

Nothing I could post here could adequately sum up this Granddaddy of all food days in America. So I won't even try. Instead, I humbly offer you a cranberry relish recipe, which my dad and I first started making when I was in high school. Of course, you can double, triple, quadruple, et cetera the recipe to fit your feasting needs. We also make this relish at Christmastime.

Recipe:

6 cups fresh cranberries

1 1/2 cups water

1 1/2 cups water

4 seedless tangerines, peeled, sectioned, and cut into chunks

1 tart apple, peeled, cored, and cut into chunks

1 1/2 cups dried apricots, cut into small chunks

1 cup walnuts, coarsely chopped

Put the water and sugar in a large pot and allow to boil, stirring occasionally. Once it boils, turn the heat down to medium and add the cranberries. Let these cook for about ten minutes, or until the cranberries start to pop and cook down. Then add the tangerines, apple and apricots. If the relish is boiling and splattering, turn heat down to medium-low. Finally, add the walnuts and allow the relish to continue cooking. If it seem too thin, raise the heat and some water to boil off. Finally, turn off the heat and allow to cook. Relish can be served either warm or chilled.

Food Week: Dog Donuts

With tomorrow's impending gluttony, I just couldn't eat something good enough to post about (despite a lead on a Peruvian restaurant). Thankfully, Louie--the cockapoo with a bottomless stomach--agreed to take one for Stray Carrier Pigeon, and let me cook for him.

While the canine carrot biscotti was intriguing, I don't make anything for a dog that requires more than five ingredients. I hardly cook anything for myself that requires more than five ingredients. So Louie got garlic-spiced donuts. I've never had a garlic-spiced human donut before, but they do exist.

Onto the preparations:

(Cutting out the donuts with a measuring cup and pill bottle top.)

(Louie waiting patiently.)

(Cooked and cooling.)

(He's polite enough not to bite my finger.)

(Not bad. They could've used a little more garlic, but I'm declaring them good enough for a celebrity to eat.)

It's been two hours and Louie hasn't shown any signs of stomach distress, so I am calling these biscuits a success.

Food Week: Yogurt World

Today I was in El Cajon to observe an ESL class. On the way home, I went to Mission Trails for a run. After that, I stopped at Yogurt World.

I first heard of Yogurt World from a student last semester. He came into class with a slurpee-sized cup of frozen yogurt. When I asked when he'd gotten it, he said, in the most obvious tone, "Yogurt World."

Of course.

Today was my first visit to one of the chain's locations. It's self-serve with yogurt and toppings, and you're charged thirty cents per ounce.

I opted for acai-blueberry and mango yogurt swirled together. After many happy years of Souplantation patronage, I fancy myself a yogurt-swirler dilettante. Today, my swirling was just average. Which was fine; I covered up the oblong spiral with toppings.

The extremely happy woman behind the bar helped me choose what to add to my yogurt. Of course there were sprinkles and strawberries and sno-caps, but those are too boring for Food Week. I settled on three toppings.

Long-yen: This is my phonetic spelling of the word. It's a fruit that looks like very large, peeled, white globe grapes. They have the texture of fibrous lychee and are sweet. They taste like something I've eaten in Central America that I can't place right now. Not termites, though. Those taste like carrots. There's one long-yen visible in the bottom of the photograph.

Candied fruit: These are the red, yellow, and white strips visible in the picture. Sweet, they remind me most of really thick Jell-o Jigglers.

Sweet white beans: These are white beans that have been soaked in sugar (brown sugar?) and cooked. They taste like, well, white beans in sugar.

And to think, after finishing my run, I could've drank Gatorade and missed out on all this colorful, Asian food fun.

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Food Week, Day Two: Peanut Butter and Butter Sandwich

With yesterday's deep-fried turkey post, and Thursday being Thanksgiving, I am making this Food Week at Stray Carrier Pigeon.

Day two:

A few weeks ago, I referred to the peanut butter and butter sandwich of my youth. This is a snack/meal that I loved to make. Today, I reprised it for lunch.

How was my dining experience? It wasn't a sandwich that I particularly enjoyed, although I did eat the whole thing (too much energy to fix something else). I chalk the pb&b up to youth and an immature palate. Bp& j is successful because it combines creamy peanut butter with sweet jelly. Just like butter and jelly on an English muffin (a pre-run favorite!). Or waffles with butter and syrup. Of the pb&b, I think Tom Coliccho would say it lacks flavor range.