Just some horn-tooting on my end here: My recipe for ginger-scented chicken broth was chosen as a finalist by the editors of Food 52. It’s the same broth I made for the Vietnamese-inspired chicken and rice soup from this post. I’m elated! The other recipe up for the win is really creative — a chicken broth that uses chipotle chili peppers for some bite. The winning recipe will be included in the eventual Food52 cookbook. 

So if you’re a Food52 member, please vote! (If you’re not, you can sign up and join the community.) I’m partial to my own recipe, of course, but I think either recipe up for the win will benefit the cookbook. Thanks for reading!

Hey guys, here’s a chance to eat in the name of charity: Stir It 28 is a nationwide food blogger event organized by Bren from FlanboyantEats.com, Chrystal of The Duo Dishes and Courtney at Coco Cooks. On Sunday, Feb. 21, there will be events in Atlanta, Chicago, Los Angeles and Manhattan, with all proceeds benefiting Share Our Strength and Yele Relief for Haiti. If you’re in Southern California, please come to the event! I, along with other local food bloggers, chefs and caterers, will make sure you’re well-fed. Did I mention there’s alcohol and free valet parking, too? Here are the deets: 

• When: Sunday, Feb. 21 from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. 
• Where: At the lovely Hollywood Hills home of Greg from SippitySup.com. (You’ll get the address once you purchase the ticket.)
• Why: To raise money for Haiti Relief! And to meet your fellow food bloggers in an afternoon of deliciousness. 
• How much: Tickets are $30 in advance, $35 at the door. All proceeds go to charity.  

Who: Sample some dishes from: 
Gisele, Small Pleasures Catering
Austin, Austio’s Catering
Barrie Lynn, The Cheese Impresario
Chrystal & Amir, The Duo Dishes
Michael, Southbay Foodies
Diana, Diana Takes a Bite
Cathy, Gastronomy Blog
Andrea, L.A. Easy Meals
Esi, Dishing Up Delights
Greg, Sippity Sup
Patti, Worth the Whisk
Erika, In Erika’s Kitchen
Cynthia, Furey and the Feast (that’s me!)
Krissy & Daniel, The Food Addicts
Josie, Daydreamer Desserts
Jennifer, Domestic Divas
Nastassia, Let Me Eat Cake
Nancy Goodman, Food Art LA
Anisha, Food Is My Nish
H.C., L.A. and O.C. Foodventures
Mary, The Food Librarian
Craig, Hipcooks

Grey Goose vodka and LA brand attaché Christophe Namer partner with Natalie Bovis-Nelsen of TheLiquidMuse.com. They will create a signature cocktail called “Hearts for Haiti.” The Liquid Muse’s wine bar will have sangrias featuring Fre Alcohol-Removed Wine and Sutter Home Wine and the Sparkling Pomegranate Snowflake “mocktails.” Additional sponsors include Trader Joe’s, Ralphs and Party City. (Click on link below for ticket information.)

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Oh, my.

So it’s been a little over a month since we’ve had the official taste test of this Jones Tofurkey and Gravy soda. That’s mainly because, in the back of my mind, I’ve spent this entire time trying to come up with the adjectives to do it justice. I still haven’t fully come to terms with my experience, so please bear with me as I scrape the bottom of this barrel for the phrases necessary to convince you to never, ever try this soda.

But no matter what I say, you’re just going to try it anyhow. I know from experience: When you’re in a position to take a sip, curiosity over this trainwreck-in-a-bottle will get the best of you. But that’s OK. It’s all in good fun.

Jones dreams up these limited-edition soda flavors and sells them every year right around the holidays. A Turkey & Gravy soda made its debut in 2003, and other flavors followed almost every year after that, most notably 2004’s Mashed Potato soda and 2007’s Christmas Ham soda. I have no doubt that Tofukey & Gravy will return for Holiday 2010, because it’s got appeal to people who used to get a kick out of eating things their friends dared them to. Which is almost everybody, I think. Oh, and it’s vegan. That scores Jones some points from those who don’t partake in the holiday poultryfest.

So when you go to the Jones Web site to place your order, there are a couple of strategically placed red flags, all of which you will ignore. The first is the soda’s tagline, which reads in exaggerated sans-serif font, “Soda you can chew on.” Has anyone ever really wanted that?

The second warning is a turkey holding a sign that reads “Turkey approved.” But look closer: this turkey is absolutely terrified. If you Photoshopped a gun to its head, it would resemble a possible hostage situation. Its blue eyes are almost pleading with you to go back from whence you came. But you won’t listen. You’ll place an order, and the box will arrive on your doorstep fairly quickly. Just in time for a party, where you and your bravest friends will pass the bottles around in a circle and compare stinky faces after you take your first sips. “Ugggh,” “Whoah…eghh” and two octaves worth of gurgling noises soon follow the slightly sweet and overall rancid flavor of gravy, diluted Dimetapp and artificial sweeteners.  Hey, the turkey warned you. Sorta.

The best thing out of the whole deal was the collector’s metal lunch box the soda came with — but even then, I didn’t feel right about keeping it because it had a cute little cartoon depicting an animated wad of Tofurkey at the circus. I dislike both Tofurkey and the circus. Wait, why did I want to try this soda again?

Photo credits: Turkey and lunchbox photos are from Jonessoda.com.

Hey all:

Please forgive me for the obvious plug you’re about to read, but I just can’t contain my excitement. (Plus, a little horn-tootin’ never hurts in moderation.)

So: The California Strawberry Commission this week launched its iPhone app featuring 50 recipes from chefs and fellow bloggers. One of my recipes is included (toot!). There’s all kinds of stuff in there ranging from cocktails to desserts, and some of the recipes featured come from some of my favorite bloggers like Cookin’ Canuck, Michael Ruhlman and Ravenous Couple. It’s great to be included in a group with bloggers I personally hold in high esteem.

I hope you can check it out! Click on this link to open iTunes on your computer and download. 

Regular posting resumes next week. Good weekends to all, and thank you for reading.

Let’s take a look back at the year in food, shall we? Here are just a few of my favorite links from 2009. 

It was destined centuries ago that 2009 would be the Year of the Ox, but you could have fooled me. Another four-legged animal seemed to dominate – in fact, the same one that dominated 2008. Pig was everywhere. 2008 was also a good year for pigs, but the animal’s staying power seems almost herculean. I mean, swine flu? Though they say you can’t catch H1N1 from pigs, the unfortunate naming of the influenza strain didn’t ease our demand one bit. We still love bacon. Long live. 

When this 2006 NY times story ran about Amazon.com selling Tuscan Whole Milk, 1 gallon, 128 fl. oz, there were a few hundred comments on Amazon. Flash forward three years, and the comments have steadily grown to more than 1,100. (For those keeping track, Tuscan milk is the OG, coming way before this year’s Three Wolf Moon craze.) What I love? You can waste all kinds of precious time on Amazon reading about how peoples’ lives have changed worldwide over Italian milk. The latest comment is an expertly written poem that echoes of Poe’s “Raven.”: 

“Once upon a mid-day sunny, while I savored Nuts ‘N Honey, 
With my Tuscan Whole Milk, 1 gal, 128 fl. oz., I swore 
As I went on with my lapping, suddenly there came a tapping, 
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at the icebox door. 
‘Bad condensor, that,’ I muttered, ‘vibrating the icebox door - 
Only this, and nothing more.’” Read more here. 

Then there’s Nick from Foodie at Fifteen, who elfed himself into a Christmas hip-hop music video with Eric Ripert, Thomas Keller and Michael Ruhlman. Totally genius. 

Anthony Bourdain writes an Op-Ed piece for the Times, pinpointing 2007 as the year that put food and chefs on the map.

After Conde Nast announced Gourmet’s demise, I kept waiting for somebody — anyone — to announce they  were buying the mag and reviving it from its deathbed. It was wishful thinking on my part, but I’m not alone. Tributes and farewells popped up everywhere, including Thank You Gourmet, a site with sweet memories and tweets about the mag. 

After five years of trying, Adam of The Amateur Gourmet finally scores a reservation to El Bulli. It’s a lively post with all kinds of photos that seat you right at his table. 

Mobile food, paired with Twitter, exploded this year. Here’s hoping 2010 will continue the trend of restaurants bringing the food to us, or at least meeting us halfway. 

And lastly, I’d like to add to Bon Appetit’s Best of 2009 list by saying that this was the season for homemade gifts. Given the economy and the spike in food interest, everyone seemed to be giving homemade delights as gifts. Check out jam and cookies from the Chickenless Kitchen, a slew of Christmas goodies from Naturally Ella, Christina Eats’ chocolate covered pretzels, La Fuji Mama’s chocolate dipped caramels and homemade vanilla extract from the Italian Dish. 

And here are your top picks from my little slice of the Internet. These most-viewed posts on Furey & the Feast have a lot to do with brulee-ing and satisfying those sweet cravings. Starting in 2010, I’ll aim to give you a weekly double-dose of F&F, posting twice a week. 

1. Strawberries in bruleed marshmallow creme
2. A memory, bruleed
3. Bread pudding with chocolate and cinnamon
4. Like Home (Nutella brownies)
5. Gimme S’more (s’mores cupcakes)
6. Chocolate pots de creme, chocolate mousse
7. A Viet Hapa tackles (authentic) Vietnamese pho
8. Go for Croque
9. March Madness: Taylor’s Refresher
10. Green, velvety bliss

A safe and happy new year to all!

– Cynthia Furey

A few weeks ago, I stumbled upon Drop In & Decorate, a fantastic concept dreamed up by Rhode Island-based food writer Lydia Walshin. The idea is that you have a party and set up a station for people to decorate cookies for the charity of your choice.

So I had a Christmas potluck last weekend with Drop In & Decorate as a focus. I supplied the booze and blank-canvas cookies, and my friends each brought a dish and their labor. As you can see from these photos, I’ve got some pretty talented friends — all whom have steady decorating hands and imagination to boot. There was a whole smorgasbord of royal icing, sprinkles and edible spray colors. All in all, 30 people dropped in to decorate 120 cookies (and, you know, to eat and booze it up).

Our charity of choice was the Ronald McDonald Family Room and House in Orange, Calif. The programs put in place at the family room and house allow for families to stay close to their children who are undergoing treatment at the hospital, which is just across the street. Some of these children are in there for weeks, and the House acts as a second home to their families.

The cookies would be served at a Christmas party the House was throwing for current and past families who’ve stayed with them over the years. Thanks to my friends who came to my potluck to spread some Christmas cheer to these families. If you’re thinking about throwing your own event, visit this link. It’ll tell you everything you need to know.

Hope you all had a great Christmas, and that the warm fuzzies and love continue on into the New Year!

– Cynthia Furey

At a homecoming dance my freshman year of high school, I belted out the lyrics to the Red Hot Chili Peppers cover of the Ohio Players’ “Love Rollercoaster.” It went something like this:

• “At the bus stop/of lo-o-ove
• At the bus stop/whoo-ooh-ooh!”

It wasn’t until years later that I realized my enthusiastic warbling of those lyrics was totally wrong. (For those who haven’t heard the song, the real lyrics are “Rollercoaster/of lo-o-ove.”) Luckily, I’m not alone in my public embarrassment.

There’s this site called Kiss This Guy, which houses thousands of other unfortunate misheard songs and lyrics. (And lo, I wasn’t the only one singing about a bus stop.) Between page clicks and our tears of laughter, my bf and I noticed a trend: Many of the misheard lyrics were about food. For example, Elvis Presley’s “Viva Las Vegas” is turned into a heartfelt love song about everyone’s favorite meat candy:

• “Bebo, loves bacon/
• Bebo, loves bacon”

Real lyrics:

• “Viva, Las Vegas/
• Viva, Las Vegas”

So who’s Bebo?

(Click on “Read the rest of this entry” for more of my favorites.) (more…)

Thank you all for entering this little contest here. To recap, entrants had commented on this post about their worst cooking disasters — and there were some doozies for sure!

The grand prize winner receives a personalized painting from the talented Lisa Orgler. Three random winners will each receive 8 ounces of Chuao Chocolatier’s cacao powder for baking.

So without further ado, the grand prize winner is:

MEFX, who suffered continuously while making pies. In her words:

“Crazy holiday baking story? I’m in my third year of law school, and it’s the first time I’m not going home for Thanksgiving. A group of friends is getting together to share the holiday meal and play an ever-raucous game of mafia. (Don’t you wish you were a fly on the wall during those games?) I volunteered to bring the desserts – pumpkin pie and apple cobbler. I had previously mastered the distinct parts of these recipes, but had never put them together…made the pumpkin filling, but w/ a frozen crust…made the crust myself, but w/ a different pie filling…etc. So the night before comes and do I ever have a plan. 1) make pie crust, 2) make pie filling, 3) finish pumpkin pie, 4) while pumpkin pie in oven, prep cobbler crust and filling, 5) bake apple cobbler, and 6) attain sense of achievement.

“Best laid plans or something like that. My lovely, flaky pie crust shrinks to 1/2 its original size in the oven. So I start over and make another pie crust, doubling the recipe and using all of it. Even with so much extra, the crust shrinks again, but less this time. And at 12:30 am, I remove from the oven a sub-par, but still delicious pumpkin pie. I finally get the cobbler into the oven, and it’s worth loosing sleep to have one presentable dessert to bring.

“No such luck. On the drive over to my friend’s place, a car in front of me stopped short, and I followed suit. Guess whose pumpkin pie flew off the back seat and landed in the cobbler? Mine. So I show up with two imperfect but salvageable desserts. I have such great friends; they didn’t care, and I carefully reconstructed the desserts.

“When dinner was over, I pulled the pumpkin pie out of the fridge and set it on a burner on the stove and put the cobbler next to it. “I’ll warm the pie up,” I thought and turned on the burner. About 5 minutes later, somebody smelled smoke, and it was my lovely pumpkin pie. Rushing to remove it from the burner, I merely touched it, and the pyrex baking dish blew up and shattered, sending shards of glass, bits of pie crust, and globs of pie filling everywhere, including into the cobbler. Love’s labor lost.

“After cleaning the kitchen, we searched out ice cream and cake and discussed the liquid qualities of glass in its ability to expand and contract. And then the townspeople killed me in mafia.

“ps – I have still not solved the mystery of the shrinking crust.”

Man. Shrinking crusts, burning pies and shattered glass is almost more than a person should bear in a single day. Maybe this win for her epic story is the silver lining?

The three random winners were chosen by using randomizer.org. Each comment was assigned a number and the computer chose three. The winners are:  Kristin(2), Susan Wozniak-Hakim and Claudia Davis! You’ll all receive an e-mail from me later today.

Please visit this post to read all of the wonderful (and cringeworthy) cooking disasters. They sure kept me entertained!

And stay tuned for tomorrow’s post: Thomas Keller’s Ad Hoc brownies. Thank you for reading!