Archives For foodie

If you haven’t gathered by now, we love food. Cooking, sharing food with friends and family, and experiencing edible art are a few of our favorite things. One of the things I love about food is that it’s ephemeral. You can have the same dish multiple times, but you’re never going to have it in exactly the same way. Ingredients will vary: one tomato is not exactly the same as another tomato, even of the same variety because ripeness, flavor, and aesthetic differs from one to another. Preparation of dishes also varies. A chef may do their best to achieve uniformity, but there’s going to be small differences every time you have the same dish on different occasions. That’s the nature of chopping, cooking, and pouring– there are so many factors that it’s imprecise to some extent, even at its most masterful.

When you eat delicious food, it’s a transitory moment that you can’t experience in the same way ever again– and I love that. I love forcing myself to focus, to be mindful of my senses, and to thoughtfully process what I’m literally taking in as part of myself. This is why– despite the ridicule of being another basic Instagram girl– I love photographing food, as a reminder of an experience, a memory of a feeling.

Because food is the source of so much of our happiness and gratitude, for Jeff’s birthday we decided to do a progressive dinner around Salt Lake City, visiting our favorite haunts and ordering a dish or two per stop. It was unlike anything we’d done before and not for the faint of heart: 10 straight hours of eating and walking around the city with a couple of our closest friends. It was quite the event, and below you’ll find our itinerary and a documentation of our adventures.

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avenues proper

If you follow me on Instagram (@AshleyGeekGirl), you’ll find I un-apologetically snap photos of all the delicious morsels we eat– both that we make ourselves and that we find dining out. Whether I use our fancy camera (bought for the sole purpose of photographing food) or my phone, I love documenting our culinary adventures. Well,  today it has finally paid off. One of my photos is featured on a Utah news site, KSL, along with a shout-out to Geek Appetite and a quote from me, gushing about the perfect happiness that is a steak from Avenues Proper. Check out the article here.

New York Mouth

Ashley Walton —  February 21, 2013 — 1 Comment

New York Mouth is one in a million. You can order high-quality small batch foods, shipped straight to your door. Plus, I could easily spend hours perusing their gorgeous site, complete with colorful pictures of all the food and specific descriptions of each product– some with hilarious six-word reviews. There’s something for everyone—gluten-free, vegan, and carnivore customers alike. And as awesome as their website looks, the packages they send are even better. There’s so much attention to detail, with a personalized note, a free chocolate, and a free canvas tote bag (that I now use to take lunches to work). Plus, each of the items is carefully and individually wrapped to make sure it survives shipping. It can’t get any better.

What NYM offers changes with the seasons, as good food should. There’s lots of stuff we still want to try, but we wanted to give you a look at our first shipment. We can’t wait to order more and possibly ship goodies to friends. Some highlights that we’ve loved so far: bourbon smoked sugar, peanut cocoa butter, and drunken monkey jam. We still have our eye on some outrageously good-looking stuff, such as  The King candy barblack truffle salami, and red wine poached pears.

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Deadly Good Sundae

Ashley Walton —  September 4, 2012 — Leave a comment

It’s a good night when you have an awesome dinner and then your significant other says, “Let’s go get stuff to make some half-baked cookie sundaes!” We promptly ran to the store, picked up some vanilla ice cream, Pillsbury chocolate chunk dough, and marshmallow cream topping and added it to something special we bought from Froma in LA: chocolate raspberry cabernet fudge.

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Chicken Divan

Ashley Walton —  June 8, 2012 — Leave a comment

In reality, this isn’t quite chicken divan; it’s our more delicious version of chicken divan.

What you’ll need:

3 pounds chicken breasts
3 C fresh broccoli (or frozen broccoli if you prefer)
1 box quick rice (we use Rice-A-Roni chicken and broccoli)
1 C mayonaise
1 can cream of mushroom soup
1 can cream of chicken soup
1/2 C dry white wine (we use pinot gris)
1 C grated cheddar
2 Tsp lemon juice
Dash of curry powder
Salt and pepper to taste
1/2 C breadcrumbs
1/2 C fresh grated parmesan
Butter for greasing pan

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Ashley’s grandmother was very Swedish, and she inherited the stereotypical rosy cheeks, blonde hair, and blue eyes. But she also inherited some Swedish recipes– ones that we’ve tweaked and made easy peasy. We love this recipe because we can usually make it from stuff we already have on hand.

What you’ll need:
1 pound ground beef
1 egg
1/2 C bread crumbs
2 Tbsp milk
1 medium onion
3 C water
1 box quick rice (or white, if you prefer)
1 envelope Liptons onion soup mix
1 clove garlic
1 1/2 C flour.

For the spinach all you need is
1/2 bundle of fresh spinach
2 cloves garlic
2 Tbsp olive oil

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Whenever we make homemade spaghetti, it reminds us of Goodfellas, and we’re pretty sure this recipe would make any Italian grandmother proud. It just so happens that this recipe is insanely delicious and pretty healthy: 400 calories per serving (4 servings per recipe).

1 pound lean ground beef
3 portobello mushroom tops, chopped
1 medium onion, chopped
4 cloves garlic, chopped
1/4 C parsley leaves
3 fresh sprigs thyme
1 small bunch fresh basil
1 egg white
1 28-oz can tomatoes
1/2 C low sodium beef broth
2 Tbsp olive oil
Salt and pepper to taste
12 oz whole wheat spaghetti
Parmesan

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Eggs Benedict

Ashley Walton —  May 22, 2012 — Leave a comment

After throwing out the hollandaise sauce and several failed eggs on the first try, we made some pretty awesome eggs benedict. It’s funny, because on Archer, he yells at his lovers and butler alike, “Seriously, how hard can it be to poach an egg?” as he throws their clothes over his balcony. Upon viewing this, we laughed. But it turns out poaching an egg is pretty damn hard. You gotta get a system down.

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Okay, it isn’t so much “world-famous” as much as it is famous amongst our family and friends. But still, that’s quite a feat. We have very discriminating peers. They would tell us if it sucked (probably).

The secret: this is waaaay easy to make. This blog post might as well be an ad for Bisquick, which we use for an awesome crust. Dudes, you may think you’re not a true cook unless you’re making all the things from scratch, but there are some things that usually turn out better from a pre-packaged mix (unless you’re Wolfgang Puck), so let your inner turmoil go and give in. We live in an age of delicious mixes, just begging to be taken advantage of.

Cucina

Ashley Walton —  May 4, 2012 — Leave a comment

This is the secret of The Avenues. We went to Cucina on a whim and were blown away. Although, we made the mistake of ordering side dishes with our main course– the portions are huge and these photos don’t really do them justice. Everything was delicious, the service was lightning fast (although we were there for a late lunch, not peak hours), and we have zero complaints.

The winner of the day was a ham, cheese, and squash pie in a flaky, golden crust. This was to die for, though it was a special and not necessarily always on the menu. When you walk in, there’s a counter gleaming with all sorts of beautiful dishes made daily, and these rotate.

(ham, cheese, and squash pie, with caprese salad)