My Fried Kool Aid Experience

First off, my apologies for not having updated. Between the mediocre third season that was Top Chef Masters and the craziness of moving back home post-graduation, starting a new job, and eating my face off without shame, I found little time to blog. But now I'm back!

My most adventurous food escapade of the past month or so came in the form of Fried Kool Aid. As someone who loves Fried Dough, Funnel Cakes, Fried Oreos, and pretty much everything battered and thrown in a deep fryer, I was intrigued by the concept of Fried Kool Aid, which was buzzing around the internet after its debut at county fairs across the country. Much to my luck, a local fast-casual restaurant was serving it up last weekend, so my boyfriend and I took the plunge and picked up an order when I got out of work.

Now, when I had seen Fried Kool Aid on the internet, it looked much like this...

However, when I got home with a steaming hot, sweet-smelling order of our very own, it looked like this...


The first photo looked more like Fried Oreos to me, while what we were served looked like a disassembled Funnel Cake. We each had our first bites, and it had the same consistency of Funnel Cake without the crunchiness. And while it was sweet like Kool Aid, nothing about the taste of it fried knocked me out. Some of the bigger chunks had a lot more concentrated flavor that was a bit more to my liking, but for the most part I just wasn't crazy about it. Frying the Kool Aid in this matter didn't change the Kool Aid in the same way that frying dough or Oreos does. When you fry an Oreo, it takes a solid, crumbly cookie and turns it into a warm, gooey, decadent ball of deliciousness. All frying did for the Kool Aid was turn a liquid into a solid, which while frying a drink was a really cool innovative concept, the execution just didn't work for me.

Maybe if the Kool Aid had been fried into a ball instead of this stringy stuff, it would have been more to my liking, because I can imagine that it would have been more like a Fried Oreo. And everything else at this restaurant has been nothing but delicious and of the highest quality, so it's not a fault of theirs. Perhaps I've just found something fried that I'm not into. After all, I don't like every single type of donut.

But I like most donuts.

Top Chef: Rollin' Like a Rockstar

This season of Top Chef Masters is just enough to tide me over until another Top Chef season. There's something about the fact that Masters competes for charity that takes away from the magic of the show. Watching the Top Chef contestants work their butts off to achieve their culinary dreams and to really jump-start their careers is just so much more interesting and compelling than watching already established chefs on Masters compete for a cause.

That being said, I adored last season of Top Chef Masters. It's actually what got me into the Top Chef franchise. The caliber of chefs competing was primo, with the likes of Susur Lee and Jonathan Waxman, two chefs I'm just in awe of. The difference this season may be because the first few episodes of Season Two were a ton of chefs competing for spots in the actual competition, while Bravo chose to just choose the chefs from the beginning for Season Three, which I feel has kinda toned down the quality since they kinda weeded out the weak chefs from the get-go. Right from the beginning of Season Three some of these chefs didn't seem up to the Top Chef task. Several of them didn't even finish the first Quick Fire! /fail.

It's only a few episodes in, and my "picks" have already been kicked off. My boyfriend and I always make "picks" during the first episode of each season of Top Chef for who we think will win or who we want to win. This season, I picked George and Suvir, who were kicked off one after the other! So while I no longer have people to root for, I still enjoy watching the show every week. Hugh is always entertaining and lovely, and Naomi is just a powerhouse.

Tonight's episode found the chefs competing in a 7-minute quickfire, and later they cooked for Maroon 5. They had to prep and cook in RVs, which caused them some problems. Not only was there a limited space to cook, but the chefs were forced to make food while the RVs were moving! I love Top Chef for the ridiculous cooking circumstances they put the chefs in, and seeing the ways they work around them to create amazing dishes is so interesting. I can barely cook in a fully equipped, unmoving kitchen, so I'm impressed when they cook five-star dishes in a challenging environment.

Each episode, there's always a dish that I'd love to try myself. This week I was really interested in the Vegan Enchilada made by Alex. He made it without cheese, which sounds very strange for an enchilada, but without cheese or a tortilla I found it to be the most unique dish on the table. Unfortunately, the dish put Alex in the bottom three, but I still applaud his effort.

Seeing Alex go home at the end of the episode was definitely sad, because he's made some interesting dishes and worked very hard. He was almost one of my picks, so I'm feeling like I'm losing everyone I care about on this season! I'm just happy Hugh is still around.

Until next week, that's a wrap on my first Top Chef Masters blog!

So, why donuts?

I can't remember the first time I ate a donut.

But I can't remember a time in my life when I didn't LOVE them.

Donuts are the perfect food. They combine every amazing and delicious quality about food into one, round, heavenly object of dough and sugar. They're sweet, they're soft, they're gooey, they're sticky. They ALWAYS taste amazing. And the amount of different flavors, shapes, sizes, and colors make donuts the most diverse pastry available for consumption. Mmm.

I used to have a donut every day for breakfast. My mother would buy them in bulk from Shop Rite and freeze them, so I'd pop them in the microwave and eat them piping hot. My grandfather would bring my mother, my brother, and I a Dunkin' Donuts dozen every Sunday morning after church. I usually was the one to eat them all. And that was before all the "trans fat" initiatives that fast food places have taken, so the donuts were terrible for me. But oh-so delicious.

When I would cry as a child, or get hurt, my mother would always hug me and sing to me. Then she'd get me a donut. It was pretty much assumed that this would make me feel better. It usually did.

And let's not talk about how much life changed when Krispy Kreme came along. When that hot light was on I couldn't drive by without going in and getting a free glazed donut, which would usually lead to me buying a dozen and eating half of it on the drive home. It's probably a good thing they're going out of business.

Donuts have pretty much defined my eating practices since. I never can get enough of the foods that I like, and when I'm upset I want the foods that I like. My habit of binging and eating emotionally pretty much began as soon as I realized donuts could be achieved just by opening the refrigerator door. Though I've since limited the amount of donuts in my diet, and they've become a bi-weekly treat or indulgence, they're still my most favorite food, and they've come to define me as a foody.

omnomnom.

Welcome!

Hey there, internet!

I've been wanting to start a food blog for awhile, so here it is! Every week I'll be live-blogging my favorite cooking show, Top Chef Masters, as well as sharing any delicious recipes I've discovered, any awesome food I've tried, or a new restaurant that I've heard of.

A little bit about me: I'm a 22 year-old student, about while I'm about to finish college, I'm only just starting to try my hand at cooking and learning more about the world of food. While I'm on Weight Watchers, food is a huge love and passion of mine, and I'm really excited to learn more about it!

This week's food discovery of mine, much to my surprise, was bubble tea! My suitemates and I went out to Texas Roadhouse for dinner on Sunday night, which while delicious, wasn't anything out of the ordinary. But on the way home we stopped at the bubble tea place right by our college campus. I had heard mixed reviews about it so I didn't order any for myself, but I took a sip or two from my friend's drinks and I was almost instantly converted.



If you're not sure what bubble tea (or more commonly known as "pearl tea") is, it's basically various flavored teas, some milk based, with small balls of tapioca at the bottom. I thought it sounded disgusting, but it's actually delicious and really refreshing. The balls of tapioca are a great compliment to the tea, and turns the tea from a beverage into a kind of delicious, refreshing snack. Of the various tea flavors I tried, my favorite was Green Apple Milk Green Tea, a milk-based drink with a combination of Green Apple flavoring, Green Tea, and milk.

I'm really excited to try more bubble tea this weekend at our school's Spring Fling, and other kinds of delicious treats, and tell you guys about it! I hope this blog makes you try some new things and explore some new recipes!

Until next time,