For NFL players (and smart advertisers), Superbowl Sunday is the pinnacle achievement, but it’s a wildly significant day for food fans, too. Did you know that after Thanksgiving, Superbowl Sunday is the [...]]]> One day a year my two great passions come together in a knock down, smash mouth, gut check collision of football and baking.

For NFL players (and smart advertisers), Superbowl Sunday is the pinnacle achievement, but it’s a wildly significant day for food fans, too. Did you know that after Thanksgiving, Superbowl Sunday is the biggest food holiday in America?

While nothing may ever top the Martha Stewart Big Game Cake I made two Superbowls ago, these two cookie cutters inspired me to at least get back in the game.

This Guy Came From A Thrift Store

This One Came From The Thriftway

I wasn’t exactly sure what to do with them…I didn’t have a recipe or decorating guide, and you know just throwing a Hail Mary isn’t my style. But I remembered seeing a Christmas Cookie I thought I could adapt to my needs.

Watch as I transform a moose into a monster of the gridiron!

After a few failed attempts at decorating, I think we came up with a winner!

Score!

A Win For Team Yummy

One thing my mother [...]]]> While many people do consider my mom a goddess, no one would ever mistake her for the domestic goddess, Martha Stewart. My mom is southern, and to my knowledge, not a felon (not that there’s anything wrong with that). She’s also more interested in art and politics than crafts and baking.

One thing my mother and Martha have in common? They come from a very polite generation. So when Mom came to stay with me for a week, she brought a fabulously thoughtful hostess gift: a fancy crepe pan.

I told Mom I’d never made crepes and we decided to give it a go the following morning, but first there was the matter of seasoning the pan. Both the box the pan came in and the wrap around the pan said to season the pan before using it, but they gave different and yet, vague directions! I went to facebook for advise and got even MORE contradictory instructions. So I did everything! I boiled potato skins, I sauteed potato skins, I heated oil in the pan and put the pan in a warm oven for a few hours. I covered every base for the base of my pan. But here’s my question: how do you know if your pan is successfully seasoned?

After the seasoning, I made the batter and put it in the fridge overnight. The next morning, Mom and I gave crepe making a rip! Nothing like trying something brand new in the kitchen with your mother holding a camera…

So, two tries to crepe supremacy. Not too bad! Mom suggested strawberries and yogurt, which is WAY healthier than the traditional whipped cream or nutella. Yes, these were health crepes. I mascerated the strawberries with a teaspoon of balsamic vinegar and a sprinkle of sugar while we cooked the crepes and they were lovely.

Mom was obviously very encouraging but she’s also a crafty fox. Give your food obsessed kid a new toy and you get a sweet meal out of it. But I guarantee
you, even if my first crepes had been total crap, Mom would have found something in them to praise; that’s what moms are for, right?

The morning after the big snow storm, Mother Nature did her part by [...]]]> Snow, high winds, ice storms, power outages, and buckets of rain; another typical week in the Pacific Northwest. In the previous Shawnologue, I talked about Seattle’s purveyors of pretty helped to get me through these seemingly interminable stretches of pure crap weather.

The morning after the big snow storm, Mother Nature did her part by sending an enormous flock of beautiful birds into Kevin’s front yard.

Red breasted, but not Robins, these birds showed a robust appetite for the red berries on the bush in Kevin’s neighbor’s front yard. I don’t remember ever seeing pretty birds like this here before, and certainly not so many. They were everywhere! Perhaps they’d seen Portlandia and made a beeline to the land who’s motto is: Put A Bird On It.

Can anyone tell me anything about these lovely creatures?

Seattle is a dark city. It’s not just months of rain and nearly year round grey skies; it’s our uniform (dark hoodie, black North Face jacket), our indigenous music (Grunge by definition is miserable music for miserable people), and our restaurant scene. Brunch in other cities is a fancy affair with white [...]]]>  

Seattle is a dark city. It’s not just months of rain and nearly year round grey skies; it’s our uniform (dark hoodie, black North Face jacket), our indigenous music (Grunge by definition is miserable music for miserable people), and our restaurant scene. Brunch in other cities is a fancy affair with white linen tableclothes and sparkling mimosas in sparkling crystal flutes. In Seattle, brunch is hangover food served by the same tatted up hipsters you drank next to at Neumos last night. And let’s not forget how many serial killers have called this area home.

I’m not complaining. I like my town, but it always surprises me when I come across Seattle people, places, and things that buck the dark and dreary trend and represent a more…colorful aesthetic. Enter The West Seattle Fabric Company.

I stumbled upon this exceptionally pretty shop when I was looking for buttons to replace on a duvet cover. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a shop of any kind so well curated. Every bolt of fabric fit with the colorful but unfussy aesthetic.

The shop was so inspiring, I wish I’d paid more attention in my own sewing classes as a child, but not to worry, owner Monica Skov makes sewing projects easy: classes for you and your kids, sewing parties, sewing machine rental, and my favorite, the “No School Early Release Day” Sewing Club.

And while I’m on the topic, a couple of other Seattle shops that aren’t ashamed to pour on the pretty: Swink Style Bar and Trophy Cupcakes

Why not pop in to one of these instant ‘mood elevators’ on the next rainy Seattle day? Look out your window, that day is here!

That’s some sage advice, my man, and I took it to heart today as I headed [...]]]> As the great philosopher Mr. T taught me on an after school special: if you do something absoludicris, you have to recoup. Here Mr. T helps a hapless youngster make the most out of an embarrassing on-street stumble:

That’s some sage advice, my man, and I took it to heart today as I headed back into the kitchen to recoup after my public stumble: less than perfect chocolate chip cookies.

I wanted to make something new, but something I thought I could handle. I mean, when you’re ego has taken a little beating, why set yourself up for more failure? That’s sage advice from me!

I went back to my Foster’s Market Cookbook and attempted “Nutty Buddy Shortbread” pictured below.

My results?

Boo-yah! That’s a recoup. But, and isn’t there always a big but when baking is involved? The recipe was a little scant on details and since I don’t want to see you do anything absoludicris, some notes.

1. The recipe doesn’t clarify how it wants you to mix the butter into the flour. Since it didn’t specify using a stand mixer, I used a hand one.
2. Even after I mixed in the espresso, the dough never formed a ball, so I just kneaded it a little with my hand and then shaped the rectangles.
3. The recipe doesn’t tell you how to create the little design on top, but it’s just a fork poked in at an angle after you cut the cookies, but before they go into the oven.
4. Once the cookies are out of the oven and cool, you can trim down the side with a big sharp knife for a more edged appearance. It only takes a second but it really gives your treats a more tidy quality.
5. Use a small bowl for the melted chocolate because that makes the pool a little deeper for dipping.

I also recommend sharing them with friends. This is my friend Cesar who rescued me from my cabin fever today. Cesar not only seemed perfectly happy to eat an entire bag of the “failure cookies“, he took me to lunch, shoveled my walk, played with Charlie and chopped some extra pecans while my hands were full with melted chocolate. Now that’s a Nutty Buddy!

Last night Kevin and I took a trip down memory lane, watching song after song by our beloved hometown band The Replacements on youtube. Inevitably, the conversation turned to why the band’s founder, Paul Westerberg wasn’t as famous and beloved as guys like Eddie Vedder and Kurt Cobain, why The ‘Mats live [...]]]>  

Last night Kevin and I took a trip down memory lane, watching song after song by our beloved hometown band The Replacements on youtube. Inevitably, the conversation turned to why the band’s founder, Paul Westerberg wasn’t as famous and beloved as guys like Eddie Vedder and Kurt Cobain, why The ‘Mats live performances were an exercise in frustration for fans (I saw an entire First Ave Show where they did nothing more than drunkenly attempt to play ‘Hello Dolly’ for their entire set. Kevin saw a show that ended abruptly when Paul pulled Bob’s dress down and Bob punched Paul in the face), and why the band never became a household name.

Any questions as to why we believe so strongly in the power of The Replacements can be answered by listening to and watching the video for ‘Bastards Of Young‘ where they managed to be brilliant and say, “F you” to their record label and the MTV culture similtaneously. Hey, they won’t even let me embed the video. Still being frustrating after all these years!

My conclusion? People who are true geniuses, like Westerberg, are terrified of success and will do anything and everything to sabotage it. People who are average, like, say me, are terrified of failure, that we’ll be discovered for what we really are, not exceptional. So average people seek success to hide their lack of genius and genuises hide their brilliance in order to pass as average. That’s why true genius often goes unnoticed (take Van Gogh) and average folks run the world (take Kim Kardashian).

So rather than hide my failure today, I’m going to let you see it. And if you’re around, taste it!

During our dusting of snow, I settled in to bake my most foolproof recipe: Foster’s Market Chocolate Chip Cookies. I discovered these cookies at Foster’s when I was attending my niece Ail’s graduation from UNC in Chapel Hill. The owner is a former catering partner of Martha Stewarts, and her restaurant and bakery are beautiful and inviting.

These cookies are virtually impossible to mess up; they’re big, soft, and delicious. I’ve made them more times than I’m proud of. I think an entire one of my thighs is filled with this cookie dough. But yesterday’s batch was a bit of a disaster.

I wasn’t paying attention (another reason to hate Eli Manning, but I digress) and I chopped a large quantity of walnuts and when it came time to add the amount the recipe called for, I absentmindedly dumped the whole bunch in. Add to that I improvised on the chocoltae chips and added a little bittersweet because I didn’t have the whole quantity of semisweet the recipe called for, and that I didn’t measure at all. The cookies came out flatter (too much oil from the walnuts) and gooier (too much chocolate in general) and a whole sheet morphed into a giant blob of ineatible. So little miss fancy blogger failed! And learned a great lesson, too. Write in your cookbooks! I’d been meaning to note that the cookies where a little too chocolaty anyway, and to ease off a bit. But I didn’t. And more importantly, go back to basics. Don’t improvise. Who do you think you are? The Replacements?

Only with radio people the conversation usually goes, “I’ve worked in Omaha, Vegas, San Diego, Philly, Vegas [...]]]> We’re like gypsies, radio people. We go where the format takes us. Get a room of radio folk talking and it ends up like that scene in Jaws where they one up each other over battle scars.

Only with radio people the conversation usually goes, “I’ve worked in Omaha, Vegas, San Diego, Philly, Vegas again, Omaha, again and finally Chicago where I’ve been hired and fired by the same station twice.” Moving is the nature of our business. I feel lucky; I’ve only had 3 radio homes: The Twin Cites, Philly, and Seattle.

You also work crazy hours in radio. I’ve always said radio is like a crying screaming baby you can’t hand to someone else. You work nights, weekends, and holidays, so your co-workers become like a satellite family.  I got so close to my WXPN family that when my boss announced to the staff at our company holiday party that I was leaving to move to Seattle, he cried a little, and his wife leaned over to me and said, “He didn’t cry at our wedding.”

I don’t have an kin here in Seattle so John Fisher and Marty Riemer have acted as ersatz siblings to me for 11 years. Marty does my taxes, my real estate consulting, contract negotiation, general hand holding and career counseling. JF and I have literally been through birth and death, not to mention work.

John and Shawn

I caught up with Marty last week, and today with John Fisher.

When I first left Minneapolis and I was openly pining for those I’d left behind, my mother said, “You can’t make old friends.” Ain’t that the truth! At least now after 11 years here, I feel like I’ve earned these two.

Speaking of old friends, but not because John and Marty are bananas, I revisited another old friend today: the banana bread recipe from an earlier post. You might be asking why not try something new with those 6 ripe bananas on the counter? To which I’d reply, “Why bother? Why go looking for the shiny and new, when you can trust the old and reliable.” Yeah, John and Marty, I called you old!

Banana Bread