The madness of the holidays is almost over and many of us are about to turn over a new leaf in 2011. Maybe one of your resolutions was for more efficiency and less waste? Well then I have the Giveaway for you. The Senseo Stay or Go Personal Coffee Maker.
Confession: I have resisted the individual coffee makers and pods for a while. My first experience years ago didn’t leave a favorable impression. So I stuck to my old school methods of grinding my beans and brewing. With it just being Certain Someone and myself, that could lead to a lot of expensive wasted coffee. Then I was lucky to get a Senseo Stay or Go to try and I have used it daily for the past few weeks. So easy and convenient with no waste. I have very large mugs and like to make it strong with two Senseo pods. You can fit your travel mug or cup underneath. Ironically after receiving my Senseo from Hamilton Beach, I have been seeing everyone is on the Single Serve Coffee maker trend at all the houses I visited over the holidays. Most important was taste. Certain Someone and I cant agree on coffee and strengths, but both of us are mutually pleased. He’s picky you know.Germans are the worlds biggest coffee drinkers , besides beer.
So to kick off 2011 I am giving away a Senseo Stay or Go Single Serve Coffee Maker which comes complete with an assortment of Senseo Coffee pods. Its going to be a week of Giveways to kick off the new year. All I need you to do is leave a comment here. If you join my Coco Cooks Fan Page or Tweet this, that counts as double vote. Please be sure to tell me you joined my Fan Page or tweeted in your comments. I will be picking the winner on Saturday , January 8, 2011.
I wish you health, happiness, joy, and prosperity in 2011.
*Coco Cooks received a Senseo Stay or Go Single Serve Coffee Maker from MWW Group for review and for a Giveaway.
Merry Christmas to all my readers who celebrate . Thank you for reading and I look forward to providing you with more content in the new year.
One of our traditions to is to look at the Christmas Mass at the Vatican on Christmas Eve. I leave you with a clip of the beauty and grandeur of the Vatican/ St.Peters Basilica , Certain Someone captured last fall.
… And now back to our regularly scheduled programming…
Yesterday was hot day at Coco Cooks. But now I’m shifting my focus back to holiday baking. Certain Someone took me to New York last week and I didn’t get a chance to post week three’s cookie from Saveur. So today I’m doing a double post ( weeks 3 and 4), so there is still time to get some cookies in your repertoire.
For my final two cookies I chose the complex and rich Basler Brunsli from Switzerland
and a Tozzetti from Rome,Italy.
Both were relatively easy to prepare. Allow for time with Basler Brunsli as it requires a drying out and rest time of three hours. The appealing part of the Basler Brunsli is that it is a Gluten Free cookie, for those that need a good gluten free recipe. Originating in Switzerland its composed of ground almonds, chocolate, cloves and cinnamon. I cheated and took a cue from some other bakers and used almond meal rather than grind my own.
For the Tozzetti, I took Bakers License. I didn’t have all the ingredients but variations of it. I mixed Anise extract with rum, rather than anise seed and Sambuca. I didn’t have whole hazelnuts, but chopped. And I only had ground almonds which I toasted with the hazelnuts. The flavor profile didn’t change, just the presentation of whole sliced hazelnuts in the Biscotti. This is a different recipe from other Biscotti , as you don’t mold a slab but pour the batter in a jelly roll pan and bake. But it works. I like them as they are not too sweet.
I would call both of these cookies the Grown Folks cookies. The flavors are more sophisticated and complex. They are sturdy cookies that will pack well in your holiday gift boxes. You can find the recipes for Basler Bunsli here and for Tozzetti here.
Check out the other Smart Cookies in our Holiday Baking Pursuits.
Racism is a word a lot people want to avoid or deny. Most racism is insidious and just kind up creeps up and pops into place where you hardly imagine. As I walk in a Black woman’s shoes, my perceptions of incidents are my own and not always shared by my friends of other races. It could be for various reasons, they don’t believe it , or don’t want to believe it.
For example, a few years ago I was at a dinner party consisting of a crowd of those in the medical profession, scholars and attorneys. A normal crowd for me and one in which I grew up in. Anyway I was having a discussion with a so called liberal woman ( the type who find you find in Evanston or Hyde Park near the universities) as she grilled me with the usual questions:
How I knew the couple? (What you went to school with them?)
Where my accent came from (because I don’t have one.)
Who my people where (smile)
Where I work, what do I do
…and a whole bunch more of the kind of questions you get when a so called liberal can’t figure you out because you don’t fit their perceived stereotypes.We were talking about Opera ,and she assumed my association with it was that I was a singer, not a patron of the arts or leader of a junior board. At the end of our conversation she said…brace yourself… “You’ll go far Blackbird”. I was shocked and appalled because she just threw it in like a Molotov Cocktail in a genteel club. Out of no where and totally from left field. The polite private school, educated in Europe woman,I am didn’t go off on the woman but excused myself and immediately told my host and friends, who did not believe me and were dismissive. One even said she was trying to make a compliment.That incident was jarring and revealed a lot to me about my so called friends at the time and society. See I grew up sheltered in a predominantly white society and my Mommy always warned me, but I was to naive to see some things. Nor did I want to.Because who wants to actively search for the ugly aspects of life?
So it doesn’t surprise me, yet I’m still surprised ,that the Duncan Hines Incident barely made a ripple on the internet. I have seen more outrage and commotion over a top bloggers mistreatment or slight, a medieval pie recipe being plagiarized with snark retorts, a poor lunch served at a major conference, or a shortage of canned pumpkin in the Fall. When my journalist friend sent me the link to this insulting video on Twitter, I was appalled. I forwarded it to others and posted it to my fan page. Barely a murmur. The only ones indignant where my friends Bren, Chrystal, and my journalist friend who showed me. The one thing we all have in common besides writing, love for food, is that we are educated influential Black women.
A hot shot Chicago ( don’t get me started on Chicago’s racial divides) director named Josh Binder, no stranger to controversial ads ,conceived this Black face parody for Duncan Hines of Hip Hop cupcakes dancing to what is most definitely NOT Hip Hop music. Harmless, fun with baking ?An ode to modern culture? I think not. The derogatory signs are blaring.
Why bring Hip Hop into the equation? There is nothing Hip Hop about it.
Can’t chocolate glaze be shown another way?
Why not show the lone Vanilla cupcake dancing too?
Why is the lone vanilla cupcake singing off key?What it’s not Hip Hop enough?
Why are the eyes and lips pronounced like the most stereotypical derogatory offensive images of Blacks that have plagued us since slavery?
As someone in sales management , I ask what marketing and leadership teams teams allowed this minstrel show to pass through the endless meetings and planning stages? Where there no self respecting African Americans or other minorities on the Duncan Hines or advertising teams or were they just to intimidated to speak up? Duncan Hines has pulled the Amazing Glazes Video from You Tube but you can still see it on various sites. Finally their management saw Amazing Glazes Chocolate Cupcakes going Hip Hop wasn’t so wise .They realized African Americans have huge buying power and don’t want a negative fiscal impact, especially with the peak holiday baking . A few sites such as Huffington Post and others who have the clip ,carry comments and polls showing most people don’t feel the ad was racist. This country is so politically and racially divided that some of the comments I saw left a nasty after taste in my mouth.
What do you think? In my opinion Duncan Hines and Pinnacle Foods can take it’s minstrel show and Kiss My Brownie. Ironically Pinnacle Foods Group also owns Aunt Jemima , who has been transformed from the most demeaning do ragged Mammy type image, into a modern day homemaker with relaxed hair.No matter how you dress her, the hurtful insensitivity still lingers.
So that’s my two cents. I have a lot of things to post about right now that are more in keeping with the Holiday Spirit, but I felt compelled to write this. Agree or disagree, but this is how I see it as a Black woman. It’s shameful and sad because while I have far evolved in my baking from the box mixes, I remember learning how to bake with Duncan Hines products.Please check out my other fellow Brown Bloggers opinion on this matter. We feel as bloggers of color we needed to say something, even if the rest of the food blogging community chooses to ignore or dismiss it as harmless cupcake fun.
Thanks for all the great responses.Most of it has been pretty positive and a few negative comments. The purpose of this post was to create a dialogue about cultural sensitivity in corporate America and the media, and that we have. As a result some other Bloggers from all walks of life and cultures have also posted their views .
I have been told since I travel a lot , I offer up and expose a lot foods and traditions that are new to some people. I take it all for granted, but if that’s whats my blog is known for, I love it. I hate to see people living in a narrow closed world where food is concerned. You don’t have to buy an expensive ticket to travel in the culinary world. Your passport is your open mind and hunger.
Last fall , in Stockholm, I had the pleasure of accompanying Anne of Anne’s Food to an event given by Scan. Scan is a major Swedish producer of pork. They are most known for their meatballs (kottbullar).For those of you that don’t know what a Julbord is, think of it as a Christmas Smorgasbord consisting of cold and hot meats, herrings, and desserts. After attending the afternoon event , I realized the Swedes take the whole Christmas Ham (Julskinka) very seriously. Many hams were on display cooked in various ways. Scan’s own butcher in his metal chain mail mesh glove, demonstrated how he breaks downs hundreds of hams daily. It was all so effortless when watching him.
While the presentation was in Swedish, I got the total experience by sampling the many offering from Scan’s chefs of sausages, meatballs, hams, terrines, appetizers, cured meats and warmed by Glogg ( spiced wine). In my opinion the Swedish really know how to do Christmas. One of my favorite things is comparing how other cultures celebrate common holidays. So I want to give you a glimpse of Julbord offerings that will perhaps inspire you this Christmas. In a perfect world, I would love to throw my own Julbord party next party with Certain Someone. We shall see.
Some classic Julbord dishes:
Herrings
Cured Salmon ( Gravlax)
Cheeses
Breads
Pickled Vegetables
Head Cheeses, Terrines, Pates
Swedish Meatballs ( Kottbullar)
Pork Ribs
Fried Sausages and small Hot dogs (Prinskorv)
Jannson’s Temptation ( a potato casserole with anchovies)
