Cheryl Lu-Lien Tan

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August 7, 2009 By cheryl

Burgers: A Marriage of Shrimp & Tofu


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I now appear to have a regular lunch date with a gregarious bunch of new friends.

We love to cook and we love talking about cooking — so this little thing about never having met hasn’t exactly stood in the way of our growing friendships.

It all began with a lazy Sunday morning conversation on Twitter when three women, one in Paris, one in San Diego, and one in New York, started craving BLT sandwiches. That blossomed into our first intercontinental BLT lunchdate, which nudged us to new levels of creativity.

Ellise in Paris made a beautiful BLT with chipotle mayonnaise and Poilane bread and Karen in Atlanta created a mouthwatering grilled fontina cheese BLT. Nicole in San Diego actually baked a truly unusual Basque sheepherder’s bread for her BLT. (You’ve got to check out Nicole’s sheepherder’s bread pictures — it was a yeasty architectural wonder if I ever saw one.)

Our virtual lunch left us (temporarily) sated — but hungry for more.

So, for our next lunch, we decided to tackle another standard: Burgers.

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Let's Lunch, Recipes Tagged With: Asian sesame oil, Bacon, BLT, Burger, Chili, Cilantro, David Chang, English muffins, Ginger, Grass-fed beef, Hoisin, Jicama, Korean, Lettuce, Lunch, Mango, McDonald's, Minced Chicken, Momofuku, New York, Paris, Salad, San Diego, Scallions, Shrimp, Singapore, Soy sauce, Tofu, Tomato, Twitter

August 6, 2009 By cheryl

English Muffins: This Story Will Bore You


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Like bagels, English muffins had always been in the category I call “So easy to buy — why bother making them?”

But for the Bread Baker’s Apprentice challenge, I’d already tackled some key standards — challah, cinnamon buns, brioche. So I figured, what’s one more?

And besides, it turned out, making English muffins is easy — so incredibly easy, in fact, that nothing eventful happened.

As I whizzed through the steps, I began to wonder if I should have blindfolded myself or tied one hand behind my back while making them, just to have something fascinating to say about baking English muffins. Oh, the trials that could have happened! The tribulations! The smell of burnt cornmeal filling my apartment again!

Alas, none of that occurred.

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Filed Under: Baking, Bread, Breakfast Tagged With: Bagels, Boules, Bread Baker's Apprentice, Brioche, Butter, Challah, Cinnamon Buns, Dough, English muffins, Marmalade

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