Dawn Mixing the Icing

In the Oven

Fin

Melty Peanut Butter Buttercream

As usual, our icing came out runny.  In this case I blame the Kirkland Organic Creamy Peanut butter we get from Costco.  It is fantastic peanut butter but continues to not work for baking (peanut butter cookies excluded).

So I’m going back to a food diary.  Nothing too extreme, yet.  I’ve never been one to count calories but as my last weight loss came due to routine workouts, cutting portions and eating slowly, I plan on just monitoring servings.  I’m basing it off of my current PBT but probably keeping it in a spreadsheet rather than online.  For some reason ease of use never really transferred when it came to food logging on Blood Team.  So starting today, it begins again.  Lets hope I can stick to it.

Longo's Pizza Crust

Probably not worth the money I spent on them but it was a fun little experiment.

Milk Crumbs

Baking

Two Sticks of Butter, 1.5 cups of sugar

The Final Product

Coffee
Kahlua
Bailey’s
Whipped Cream
Cinnamon

Delicious girl drinky goodness.  Screw their giant wine-list.

Also this came out for iPhone and iPod Touch today.  Buy it!

I’ve been to a bunch of these places around the city although they are by no means solely the domain of Pittsburgh.  The waitstaff is well dressed, usually in service tuxes.  They have a nice wine list and linens.  They have valet service and a coat check. You see a lot of young, inexperienced couples as well as handfuls of older locals who seem to know the staff.  The decor is wallpaper and painted wood, and in this case the paint was chipped.  Around the room lights had burned out and were not replaced. The hallway to the restrooms was filled with hardware and the men’s restroom itself had that vaguely damp, shiny painted floor and unkept toilets.

When our waiter rattled off a huge list of specials, we were intrigued.  Tons of seafood, wild boar, lamb shanks, duck.  I had the lamb shanks and Dawn the duck, and when it arrived it was…eh.  I’m not too well schooled in lamb but what I received was too fatty, not very well seasoned and just kind of blah.  The duck was ok.  Our salads were smothered in thousand island dressing, and I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was eating a Big Mac.  Sides came eventually and while the rice was good, the mixed vegetables seemed thrown together and old.  They also served homemade potato chips and they tasted fine but by the time they got to us they were soggy.  And why chips anyway?

Ultimately, it was a fine dinner, but I was struck by how restaurants of a certain vintage seem to fall into this trap where they stop caring about how the place looks or how food culture has changed and are content to do things as they always have.  They coast along on their reputation as the place literally falls apart and then one day the lights are out and the doors locked, as they’ve idled their way into oblivion.

I’ve joked with my friends about how malls and big box stores are the shantytowns of the future, and to a degree I wonder if there isn’t some truth to that- what happens when those stores go out of business or decide its not profitable to have five giant shopping centers surrounding a dying city.  The thing is that even though a lot of minimalls are giving up their storefronts to pawn shops and check cashing fronts, there are also a number of genuinely good places to eat popping up in these otherwise barren symbols of lost prosperity.

Happily, Cucina Mendoza was one of them.   When we arrived it looked like so many storefront ethnic eateries- plastic chairs, fluorescent lighting, ugly tile floor.  Once we were seated we realized that they had set up a pretty nice bar, and our server quickly brought out homemade tortilla chips and fresh, delicious salsa.  When it comes to Mexican food, I really could care less about “authenticity.”  Authenticity at this point usually means strict adherence to old ideas that are no longer even relevant to the culture they’re derived- food for tourists.  I do however love a nice plate of beans and rice, some fresh salsa and something to put in a couple warm tortillas.  They got it good.

I ordered the “Reboz0″- a plate of meat, pork, chorizo, peppers, onions, mushrooms and pineapple with a generous helping of melted chihuahua cheese on top.  It was served with a few flour tortillas and an incredibly spicy salsa.  The inclusion of fresh vegetables and pineapples(!) was new to me as far as mexican goes and the whole dish was delicious. Dawn got some enchiladas and steak, which were also served with beans and another generous helping of fresh vegetables.

Afterwards we headed across the hills to another suburban ruin- Lebanon Church Road and the tusk of the Century III mall.  Delicious ice cream at Handel’s was had and at that point, we were ready to see our kid.  All in all, a nice, low key night out.