Senior Review

First of all, you should all read this letter written to a food blogger from a 60 year old man in the UK who doesn't know the first thing about cooking and is trying to figure out where to start.

Now then. My Senior Review is on MONDAY. At 9AM. And it's supposed to be cold. I'll be spending 30 minutes presenting my work and another 20 getting feedback. Among the pieces showcased will be this one -- KitchenWar. I'll be spending a lot of time on this because it's a big project, and I think it would be impudent, bordering on rude, to talk so much about food without serving some to my panel.

I need suggestions for what to serve. I will not be able to cook anything there, though I will be able to plate it. I was originally thinking about Russian Creme with raspberries, but that's more summery than is appropriate for a 40 degree Monday morning. So now I'm thinking potato soup. Not really a breakfast food, but it's warm and hearty, and I can probably keep it warm on the way to campus. I was also tempted to do some skillet popcorn, though I don't know how well that will travel. Maybe home made muffins...? I think there's a microwave in my review room, so I suppose I could cook them the night before and warm them up.

Red Velvet Cupcakes

I'm always wary of trying recipes for foods that I've never tasted because while I can distinguish between "delicious" and "rancid motor oil", it's hard to know if things taste the way their supposed to.

Red velvet cake in particular was a terrifying prospect. I wanted to try it because in addition to a stunning presentation, it had this weird not-quite-chocolate-but-not-really-vanilla thing going on. People say it's a chocolate cake, and it does have cocoa, but recipes generally call for 2 Tbsp of cocoa per 2 layer cake. That's not chocolate cake the way I think of it.

Red velvet cake is also scary for an entirely different reason involving food coloring. The recipe uses a lot of it. Reader reviews were issuing warnings about using latex gloves and not rushing, lest your hands and kitchen look like a murder scene.

I started looking up recipes and it turns out that red velvet cake is a very southern, very traditional food and southerners are as opinionated about how to make it as I am about my cheese steaks.

The cupcakes are really good. This cupcake recipe calls for 1/4 c of cocoa, which is more than normal, but I really like the

So the bottom line is I have no idea if this is authentic red velvet cake, but these cupcakes are the lightest, fluffiest, and most moist cupcakes I've ever had. I'm happy.