American Flatbread Three Cheese and Tomato

There is so much to make fun of about hipsters. It's almost overwhelming. I don't even know where to start. Likewise, there's a lot to make fun of about American Flatbread, starting with the $10.99 price tag at Whole Foods.Thankfully, this was free, so Keepitcoming and I brought it home and popped it in the oven for dinner. The package was kind enough to include cooking instructions for us fire pit owners, an admittedly small demographic, and also gave directions for using the "Neolithic method" over an open fire. How quaint. (Note: I do not own a fire pit.) It also tells a cheerful anecdote about burn victims, something I love to recall when I am leaning over a hot oven, and delineates itself as "pizza with integrity".
Dinosaurs also have integrity.

With the pizza heating instructions came a terrifying, ominous warning. If we let this bake for more than seven or eight minutes, it would turn tough and leathery. Luckily, we didn't, so the end result was thankfully soft and mushy in a reconstituted texture, new for geriatrics! On this variety, three cheese and tomato, there happened to be much more cheese than some of the other frozen pizzas we've had. It came out of the oven smelling like a rock star and very crispy, so we expected the best.The overall result was, unfortunately, just extremely bland. It smelled and felt like high quality ingredients. The ingredient list even had "good mountain water", just like Ina Garten wants us to use. But when we ate it, there was no feeling of "Sweet Jesus, this is so good that I need to eat as much as I can physically stomach, and then more." The crust was crispy on the outside and gummy on the inside. There was no sharpness or creaminess from the cheese. It was certainly not "the best frozen pizza money can buy," but that's the New York Times we're quoting from, and all jest aside, we can get a better pizza from Amy's at around 75% of the price.

Smith Island Baking Company Coconut Cake

The object that is now on my desk is probably the closest I will ever come to having a live infant. Chances are, I am also taking better care of it. I've never seen a food object this big. It weighs about as much as a normal baby. This object is wrapped in protective cardboard and plastic and enclosed in a firm tin. It takes two hands to lift and is fragrant and sweet. Later on, I will stab it with a knife and consume its tender flesh.This happens to be the ten layer coconut cake from Smith Island Baking Company. Put your phone down. I've extended my birthday to a two-week extravaganza just so that I can say that this is another really excellent birthday cake. The cake company has an extensive history with drama and murder and lobsters, none of which actually happen, but the part that I was excited to hear more about had to do with the composition of the cake. Apparently, the frosting is not buttercream, but cooked fudge, rendering it preserved and able to hang out unrefrigerated underneath its protective dome for up to weeks at a time.This is good news for college students. We love to leave edibles out in the open for weeks at a time, and with a cake of this size and heft, I can't see us finishing it anytime soon. The nine inch cake serves at least sixteen people, and that's with extremely generous slices. Keepitcoming and I chipped away at small slivers of cake, because not only is the cake tall, it's very, very dense.

The cake came covered in coconut with ten layers of moist, soft, pound cake goodness layered with vanilla fudge frosting. The frosting never burnt our throats and was adequately sweet, with a nice vanilla flavor. The cake absorbed all the toppings and ended up staying luscious and buttery. All the flavors mixed perfectly and the coconut was extremely moist.Despite being in thin, thin layers, the pound cake was very filling. It is entirely impossible to eat this in any fashion other than thin, transparent slivers. With the beautiful negligence one can bestow upon this dessert, one could plausibly subside off this for at least a few weeks. It's a really impressive and flavorful dessert that would make a fantastic gift or addition to a party. It comes in a reusable tin for future events. I plan on presenting dinner to Keepitcoming with flourish from now on.

Extra Key Lime Pie Gum

Sugar free gum knows no limits these days. This Key Lime Pie gum didn't show up at my local grocery store at the same time as the Mint Chocolate Chip and the Strawberry Shortcake, but it's probably the oddest of the three flavors.

Once I sample a gum flavor and take pictures, the rest of the pack usually goes on the corner of my desk, both to save my jaw and to share with my coworkers. It doesn't seem like the Key Lime Pie gum is a big hit, at least not compared to the other two Extra Dessert flavors.


The scent and taste were pretty much a dead ringer for key lime pie, but there was something about the cream element that was just a little too sour for me. It didn't stop me from enjoying the gum, but the delicate balance of citrus and cream that didn't translate here. The taste was another Willy Wonka experience, because I could have sworn I sensed a graham cracker crust, along with tart and acidic key lime and that bizarre cream sensation.

The lime and cream didn't play as well here as the strawberry and cream in Strawberry Shortcake, but that weird sour note did eventually go away, and I didn't notice it as much the next time I tried a piece. The flavor faded to a very mild, sweet lime gum pretty quickly (maybe after 2 minutes), and it became a little tough to chew. Still, this was another fun dessert experience from Extra, but not my favorite of the three flavors. Extra gets extra points for trying something different.

B-

Extra website

Baking Quirks

Been baking a bit the past few weeks, and while the treats turned out well, I'm not so in love with them that I need to devote a post to the recipes. A few peculiar and personal quirks were made apparent during my baking, though.

Oatmeal cookies just aren't oatmeal cookies unless they have raisins in them. At least for me, that is. I had to amend this Martha Stewart recipe for peanut butter chocolate chip oatmeal cookies to add raisins after the first batch came out and I found myself pouting a bit.And, while I love upside down cake, I don't love these upside down caramelized apple muffins from The New York Times. It's the muffin form that I have a problem with. I can't help but want to place the flat side down, and the round side up. It disturbs me to no end. It's like a helpless turtle on it's backside unable to get up.

Guess I like things just so.

Chhaya

There seemed to be some skepticism in the air when Chhaya opened a few months ago on Passyunk Ave. A cafe that was a coffee house specializing in sweet and savory waffles during the morning and day, then, on weekend evenings, a cafe serving small plates?

It's really not as complicated and schizophrenic as it sounds. Chhaya is simply a cafe that serves up better than average food than most coffee houses.On the surface, Chhaya's small and bright cafe looks like any neighborhood coffee shop, with people dropping by the counter for a latte to go, and people settling in at a table with a cuppa and their computer. If you're a coffee snob, know that Chhaya prepares coffee to order using the siphon method.If you'd like a little more sustenance, Chhaya offers the likes of bagels, muffins, vegan cupcakes, scones, yogurt parfait, pancakes, eggs, home fries, salads, wraps, and paninis. Most baked goods are made in house, with the exception of baguettes (sources up the road from Artisan Boulanger), and bagels.

Of course, don't miss out on Chhaya's specialty — waffles!
If you have a sweet tooth, order the whipped cream-topped, thick Belgian-style waffle with either fresh fruit or chocolate chips. Classic, sweet, and simple.Feeling savory? The chili, cheese, and fried egg- topped waffle is in order. The mildly spiced vegetarian chili is studded with black and kidney beans, carrots, tomatoes, onions, and celery. Would love to see a corn meal-based waffle paired with the chili, but the not-too-sweet standard waffle batter works here.

An Eggs Benedict waffle topped with a poached egg, ham, and Hollandaise sauce is also on the menu. There is also a waffle of the day. On our visit, the waffle of the day was chicken curry. Yum!

Chhaya is a BYOB, so bring your champagne for brunch mimosas, or a bottle of wine for Friday and Saturday evenings when the menu changes over to small plates.

Weekend evening small plates feature dishes like olives, roasted eggplant relish, tomato salad, white bean hummus, charcuterie plate, warm figs with blue cheese and prosciutto, marinated white anchovies, and Tuscan style meatballs with white wine sauce.

See, it really is a coffee shop with better food. Just look at this spread of food! Must return for dinner soon.

Chhaya
1823 E. Passyunk Ave., Philadelphia, PA 19148
215-365-1100
Mon-Thus: 7am-7pm
Fri: 7am-10pm
Sat: 8am-10pm
Sun: 8am-3pm
BYOB

Boo Berry Fruit Roll-Ups

Holy cow, it's fucking October. I now have a reason, nay, a motivation, to start breaking out the sweet Halloween snacks. Now that I have a Target a mere five minutes away, temptation beckons with her sweet painted fingernails and shows me a bounty of Halloween themed edibles that need to show up on the blog.

So bear with me for the next month and let's hearken back to the imaginary filaments of my youth- a Hollywood tainted childhood coupled with Fruit Roll-Ups, Lunchables, Capri Sun, and Hey Arnold. Finding these Boo Berry snacks was a double header for me, because not only did it combine the crushing yearly disappointment of Boo Berry, but also brought me back to the 4th grade.Swagger and I sat in his impossibly adorable car and ate these to an audience of shoppers. They were jealous of our swag and we knew it. Everyone who has passed through elementary school knows the basic composition of a Fruit Roll-Up, so I'll cut to the chase. Quintessential chemically creamy smell, often printed with pixelated images that put Girls Gone Wild to shame, and flavored with any fruit on a slab of candy resembling linoleum. For the record, I am proud to say that I have never seen acai berry in one of these.Unfortunately for Boo Berry, it fails to deliver any of my completely unrealistic Halloween expectations. I mean, you don't understand. I opened seven packages to find the best dyed picture of Boo himself and got almost nothing. The flavor was simple, despite acting under the name Razzle Boo Blitz. Pimp or fruit snack? It was like eating the dried remnants of blue raspberry sno-cone syrup, and wasn't really anything to write home about.If I looked really closely, I saw a slight sparkle, so I'm assuming this was either a small, snappy design snark at Twilight, or the aftermath of a night of watching Big Money Rustlas and eating burritos. Aside from that, it was pretty standard.

Nevertheless, this was a much better start to Halloween than filming myself dancing to The Monster Mash in my dorm room. I hope you agree.

Starbucks Salted Caramel Hot Chocolate

Boy, oh, boy, was I excited to write this. That's my current synapses at this point. Whenever I get hungry, it's no longer, "Should I eat?" but rather, "Should I write?"

I think my influence for making decisions about what I eat is heavily influenced by this blog. Not necessarily in terms of health or caloric investment, but more in terms of expanding my scope of consumption. I go for the strangest thing on the menu. I'm no longer relying on the good graces of a chicken sandwich. It feels good to try new things and see what I've been missing.

Of course, anything with salted caramel is a no-brainer. Fucking salted caramel is one of the most perplexingly good combinations, ever. Seeing this just solidified my affirmations of needing to stay at Starbucks and gawk at the people passing by.The weather was dreary, so I eschewed my preferred iced drink for something hot, in this case, the hot chocolate. I watched my barista pour on salt with glee, like a child awaiting a treat, and eagerly recepted my drink.

Unfortunately, it was not to par with an artisan salted caramel. Shit, this drink couldn't even give a Werther's a run for its money. It tasted like the ejaculation of a crappy latte, with an overly sweet, syrupy flavor and texture and very little salt. Only once did I taste the astonishingly simple flavor of burnt sugar. The grains of salt that did not melt were tasted at the end of the drink, in the dregs of chocolate and grainy sips. What little chocolate flavor I did glean from this drink was about as pure as a drug-addled adolescent Swiss Miss.The texture was too thick for a hot drink, like a poor imitation of better, pudding-like European hot chocolates. I found it to be viscous and slimy and definitely not a good representation of its quality combination.