[hhlodesign]

kiliki, on Aug 29 2006, 05:32 PM, said:

To save myself the time of looking for the Holy Shit sign..exactly which stand did you get those peaches?

Sosio's

Sorry, I didn't want to post the name because I felt like I was cheating on Frank.

[judiu]

Kim Shook, on Aug 29 2006, 06:51 PM, said:

Iron Chef competition:  This is a draw, in my opinion.  Sorry, Lorna, I think that you'll have to stay another week and blog for us again  !  A Ling & HhLodesign playoff!

What she said!

[LindsayAnn]

My vote is for Iron Chef #2.

I would have to say Iron Chef 1 = 8pts
Iron Ched 2 = 9 pts

:)

[rjwong]

Lorna & Henry,

You are so sneaky! I wouldn't be surprised if you two decided to switch menus:
Henry cooks Lorna's menu, Lorna cooks Henry's. That would add to the drama, ehh??

IC#1: 7 (Henry)

IC#2: 8 (Lorna)

I'm definitely in the minority, but what else is new?

Not being able to taste the dishes, I hesitate how successful the multi-component dishes of IC#1 are. Some say complex. I say a bit busy. And shouldn't the peach be the featured item? IC#1's dessert: Why mint ice cream, when you have all those peaches??!! If you look carefully at the less-than-perfect tartlet, I was wondering whether Henry made the tartlet, or Lorna did while in a hurry ...

IC#2's soup looks wonderful. Simple, elegant, with the peach "foie gras" front and center. To me, that dish shows the peach in a leading role. Unfortunately, the sandwich concept doesn't work for me. What would be really nice is replace the roll with some peach (?) hush puppies to go with the pulled pork and the peach slaw.
The dessert reminded me of the deconstructed mojito I had as one of the desserts at a Los Angeles restaurant that both Henry & Lorna are familiar with. Is that where you got that idea??

[iguana]

Lovely blog. I thoroughly enjoyed the Iron Chef competition, but where is your Chairman? Did noone have the wardrobe?

IC#1= 8
IC #2= 7

[CharlotteM]

Very, very pretty pictures, and great blogging! I love the Iron Chef competition.

IC#1 - 8
IC#2 - 7.5

[GourmetLight$]

I hope I'm not too late since I'm in the same time zone.

I vote: IC # 1 8.9
IC # @ 9.3

Since I'm obviously too late to vote for tonight's dinner, I wish you both a very special 5 month anniversary tomorrow night at Union! Tell both Ethan's I said "Hi!" and look forward to seeing them at the Pig Roast this weekend!

Cheers,

[Ling]

Hye everyone, we eneded up gong to Elemtnal onight because Sista and Spruce was c losed! We took a tpicture. Anwyay, we both had a great time at elemetnal, we too k pic tures and had way tooo much to drink... I tnink I had ike 10 drinks tonight and my limi ts is usually 2 or 3 drinsk,s we il l post pictures torooow because we are too drunk and henry already fell asleep .

here's what we have lined up fr you'

tomorrow" we are going to see one of seattle's (if not america's!) biggest private cookbook collectins. we are super excited to show you this! it is owned by egulleter "heyjude" and she graciously lends me her cooking/baking books

tomorrow night's dinner is at union

tnuirsday: since moorpheous will b e out of town for his sister's bday celebration, we are going to Porcella with the sous chef at Mistral (Charles) a d his wife Melissa/

Thursday night we are going to a wine bar with Wiillaiam (the chef at Mistral)

obviously i am too drunk to be posting about Elementa tnight so see you tomorrow morning!

(p.. s . the above post has been edited to the best of my abilty ) goodnight!~

[Ling]

judiu, on Aug 29 2006, 12:19 PM, said:

Ling, on Aug 29 2006, 01:04 AM, said:

Here's a peach I poached and peeled. Isn't it gorgeous? I was eating peaches, ice-cream and pork all afternoon. I ate more food in the last 8 hours than some people eat in 2 days, I bet. 

Ling, can't you get arrested for pornography like that? TOO beautiful, and your talent for lighting is supurb!

Thanks, what a kind compliment@ we are both very much amateur photographers and just try o take pictures of wha looks good to us, thank-you!

[Ling]

rjwong, on Aug 29 2006, 07:00 PM, said:

Lorna & Henry,

You are so sneaky! I wouldn't be surprised if you two decided to switch menus:
Henry cooks Lorna's menu, Lorna cooks Henry's. That would add to the drama, ehh??

IC#1: 7 (Henry)

IC#2: 8 (Lorna)

I'm definitely in the minority, but what else is new?

Not being able to taste the dishes, I hesitate how successful the multi-component dishes of IC#1 are. Some say complex. I say a bit busy. And shouldn't the peach be the featured item? IC#1's dessert: Why mint ice cream, when you have all those peaches??!! If you look carefully at the less-than-perfect tartlet, I was wondering whether Henry made the tartlet, or Lorna did while in a hurry ... 

IC#2's soup looks wonderful. Simple, elegant, with the peach "foie gras" front and center. To me, that dish shows the peach in a leading role. Unfortunately, the sandwich concept doesn't work for me. What would be really nice is replace the roll with some peach (?) hush puppies to go with the pulled pork and the peach slaw.
The dessert reminded me of the deconstructed mojito I had as one of the desserts at a Los Angeles restaurant that both Henry & Lorna are familiar with. Is that where you got that idea??

It is exactl 12 midnight so I guess I can address some of your comments. for the record, most of you guessted correctly--i am iron chef #1 an henry is iron chef #2.

im response to rj's comments--i did the mint ice-cream b/c peach ice-cream would be way too obvious. i do think ii kept the peach as the main ingreidnet in the dessert course, as it was a peach tarlet. the less-than -perfect tarlet--well, i didnt pay much attention to the other tartlets i made, amd possibly photographed one at an angle that shows a small chip on the ruffle. believe me, i see that. but at the same time, it is hard to get every singe ruffle completely intact when you try to use a softer tartlet dough (i.e. i lower the amount of gluten by using a lot of ground nuts or cornstarch, in this case i used hazelnut flour) especially when you are lifting the tartlets out of the mold and dont have the luxury of scraping every tartlet whose edge does not c ome out completely perfect. i dont think the tartlet looks horrible, but i know i could've done better if i had more space and was working under different conditions.

i do think that you were all very generous in your scores--personally, i would give myself (iron chef 1) a 7/10 on presentation/taste/originality, and i normally think i turn out much better dishes when i am cooking alone in the kitchen, or with henry. it is just SO HOT and SO CROWDED when you are cooking completely different menus in the same kitchen...i definitely understand when real iron chefs tell the audience they are 70% or 80% satisified with their dishes, bc that's what I feel...i give myself 7/10 n execution, and would probably rate my normal multi-course tasting menu dishes 8.5/10.

anywaym ui really should be giving more insight into our iron chef thing tomorrow morning when i am sober...i just know i amd ging to read this moorrow and cring.e...so goodnight agian`1

[Ling]

Renka, on Aug 29 2006, 04:34 PM, said:

Just curious.  I've noticed a blurry spot in the lower left hand corner of all your pictures.  Is that normally there (i.e. I read somewhere that some cameras do not take 100% clear images) or is there, um, a smudge on your lens?

Hmm..methinks that's a smudge@

[Pan]

Lorna, I know this will sound odd, but thanks for posting while drunk. Everything you wrote was totally understandable and made sense, but your posting was slurred.

So that way, we got to share the experience of all that wine vicariously.

May you have a sound sleep and wake up with no hangover!

[Chufi]

Yeah, I als really enjoyed your post Lorna, I read it while I was drinking my morningcoffee before really addressing work-stuff ("okay let's check eGullet one last time and then I will really get to work but I need to see what happened to Henry and Lorna!" ) and I was jealous!

[CharlotteM]

Lorna, your (inebriated) posts cracked me up ...must have been a very good night, indeed. Sleep well.

This post has been edited by CharlotteM: 30 August 2006 - 03:51 AM

[Smithy]

ObMeToo: your late-night "slurred" typing is waking me up faster than my morning coffee! (Don't even think of editing it today.)

[H. du Bois]

Loved the drunken typing!

I wouldn't be able to choose an iron chef winner from photographs alone, but I can tell you that I so wished I was eating at that dinner table. Thought the peach foie gras was a fascinating touch. My only feedback, beyond saying that everything looked enticing, is that the deconstructed Bellini would be a terrific amuse. Put that at the head of the meal and finish up with the other dessert, and all would be heavenly.

[Swisskaese]

Pan, on Aug 30 2006, 11:26 AM, said:

Lorna, I know this will sound odd, but thanks for posting while drunk. Everything you wrote was totally understandable and made sense, but your posting was slurred.

So that way, we got to share the experience of all that wine vicariously.

May you have a sound sleep and wake up with no hangover!

Lorna, you are funny. Brings me back to my crazy college days.

[I_call_the_duck]

Lorna,

I love your drunken entry!

You mentioned that it was hot and crowded in Henry’s kitchen, but it seems that otherwise you work well together. How do you coordinate your cooking when you're not doing an Iron Chef competition? Can we have a kitchen shot, or did I miss it?

Wow, that was some first date! Has he been up to Vancouver yet?

This post has been edited by I_call_the_duck: 30 August 2006 - 07:11 AM

[racheld]

HEY, MODERATORS!!! Somebody kill the "EDIT" button before Ling can fix this!!! She needs to see it in the light of day!

I think maybe those last seven "drinsk,s" did her in.

Ling, on Aug 29 2006, 11:52 PM, said:

Hye everyone, we eneded up gong to Elemtnal onight because Sista and Spruce was c losed! We took a tpicture. Anwyay, we both had a great time at elemetnal, we too k pic tures and had way tooo much to drink... I tnink I had ike 10 drinks tonight and my limi ts is usually 2 or 3 drinsk,s we il l post pictures torooow because we are too drunk and henry already fell asleep  .

here's what we have lined up fr you'

tomorrow" we are going to see one of seattle's (if not america's!) biggest private cookbook collectins. we are super excited to show you this! it is owned by egulleter "heyjude" and she graciously lends me her cooking/baking books

tomorrow night's dinner is at union

tnuirsday: since moorpheous will b e out of town for his sister's bday celebration, we are going to Porcella with the sous chef at Mistral (Charles) a d his wife Melissa/

Thursday night we are going to a wine bar with Wiillaiam (the chef at Mistral)

obviously i am too drunk to be posting about Elementa tnight so see you tomorrow morning!

(p.. s . the above post has been edited to the best of my abilty  ) goodnight!~

[alanamoana]

at least lorna can't give henry a hard time about his spelling anymore! you know how you show your "true" self when drunk...

i know i can check out henry's last blog to see what his kitchen looks like, etc., but lorna, this is your first blog, right? can you tell us a bit more about yourself as much as it can relate to food?

well, it's only 8:30 am on the west coast, so i'm sure you're still sleeping soundly

edited to add: i notice that lorna often gives cantonese names for chinese food and henry gives mandarin names. but lorna, you said your mom comes from shanghai (one of your parents at least) and the other from guangdong...do you speak any chinese? henry, you speak mandarin, right?

This post has been edited by alanamoana: 30 August 2006 - 08:37 AM

[Ling]

OH GEEZ! I woke up early because I remembered the drunken post and I was going to edit it before too many saw it, if it was really bad (AND IT IS!!)

...but I guess I will leave it up...I guess it does make the live-blog thing more "real".

I_call_the_duck: Usually when Henry and I are cooking together, we write a menu and we both tackle different tasks on the same dish (i.e. in the case of the Wedding Present dinner from a few nights ago, I did the wattleseed pastry, and then shelled those damn peas ( !!!!) for the soup while Henry sauteed the lamb for the filling and made the pea soup.)

We were just talking about it over dinner last night--I am so glad to have met someone who can cook, but at the same time, it was/is kind of weird giving up "control" in the kitchen. All my life, I've been used to doing my own cooking/baking from start-to-finish. (My parents don't touch my stuff when I'm cooking/baking, it's like an unspoken rule in my family...I think it is because my mom hated it when my grandma would dictate what she should do in the kitchen). So when I met Henry, it was kind of strange having someone work on a dish with me. I think I can be kind of overbearing in the kitchen, even though 95% of the time I bite my tongue and try to remember it's his dish too, and he can do it how he wants. Still, the vast majority of the dinner photos we've posted on EG were plated and photographed by myself...I still have to work on that.

I'll try to get a picture of us working in the kitchen together later this week!

[Ling]

alanamoana, on Aug 30 2006, 08:35 AM, said:

i know i can check out henry's last blog to see what his kitchen looks like, etc., but lorna, this is your first blog, right?  can you tell us a bit more about yourself as much as it can relate to food?

well, it's only 8:30 am on the west coast, so i'm sure you're still sleeping soundly 

edited to add:  i notice that lorna often gives cantonese names for chinese food and henry gives mandarin names.  but lorna, you said your mom comes from shanghai (one of your parents at least) and the other from guangdong...do you speak any chinese?  henry, you speak mandarin, right?

I'm going back to bed for a bit...I just woke up because I remembered the drunken post and wanted to get to it before too many people saw it, and I come online only to find out people actually liked it!

So I'll post more about my background when I wake up...

Yes, I can speak Chinese. I speak Cantonese but I took a few years of Mandarin classes so I can speak a little bit of Mandarin too. And yes, Henry speaks Mandarin. He thinks he is speaking Cantonese when he randomly bastardizes Mandarin words by changing them slightly...it sounds sooooo horrible, but it's so funny.

[hhlodesign]

IRON CHEF RESULTS

Course 1 scores

Lorna - 7, 9, 5, 10, 9.5
Henry - 7.5, 8.6, 6, 9, 8.5

Course 2 scores

Lorna - 6.5, 7.6, 6, 8, 7.5
Henry - 6.5, 8, 6, 9, 8

Course 3 scores

Lorna - 7.5, 9, 7, 8.5, 9
Henry - 7.5, 8.6, 8, 8, 9

total "live" scores

Lorna - 117.1
Henry - 118.2

average "virtual" scores

Lorna - 8.43
Henry - 7.815

Final Scores

Lorna - 125.53
Henry - 126.015

While it appears that I squeaked by, I'll say that we fall within statistical error. So we tie! Rematch next year.

[Ling]

I think I was totally robbed by the judge who gave me a "5" on my first course!!!

Oh well...re-match next year!

[Daniel]

I was thinking the same thing.. How could one person give you a perfect score and another person drop the bomb like that.. I think you might have invited that French Ice Skating Judge..

[Swisskaese]

Ling, on Aug 30 2006, 06:41 PM, said:

OH GEEZ!  I woke up early because I remembered the drunken post and I was going to edit it before too many saw it, if it was really bad (AND IT IS!!) 

...but I guess I will leave it up...I guess it does make the live-blog thing more "real". 

I_call_the_duck: Usually when Henry and I are cooking together, we write a menu and we both tackle different tasks on the same dish (i.e. in the case of the Wedding Present dinner from a few nights ago, I did the wattleseed pastry, and then shelled those damn peas ( !!!!) for the soup while Henry sauteed the lamb for the filling and made the pea soup.)

We were just talking about it over dinner last night--I am so glad to have met someone who can cook, but at the same time, it was/is kind of weird giving up "control" in the kitchen. All my life, I've been used to doing my own cooking/baking from start-to-finish. (My parents don't touch my stuff when I'm cooking/baking, it's like an unspoken rule in my family...I think it is because my mom hated it when my grandma would dictate what she should do in the kitchen). So when I met Henry, it was kind of strange having someone work on a dish with me. I think I can be kind of overbearing in the kitchen, even though 95% of the time I bite my tongue and try to remember it's his dish too, and he can do it how he wants. Still, the vast majority of the dinner photos we've posted on EG were plated and photographed by myself...I still have to work on that. 

I'll try to get a picture of us working in the kitchen together later this week!

I know what you mean. David and I decided it is better for us to work on separate things. Otherwise, we would drive each other nuts. Sometimes, we are each others sous chefs, but generally we prepare dishes or meals separately. In the beginning of our relationship, David used to criticize every dish and it used to piss me off. Now, I understand that he was just trying to suggest things.

[Ling]

Daniel, on Aug 30 2006, 09:33 AM, said:

I was thinking the same thing.. How could one person give you a perfect score and another person drop the bomb like that..  I think you might have invited that French Ice Skating Judge..

I agree! Ah well.

I also got robbed by the judge who didn't like fresh mint ice-cream, but likes the GREEN STUFF you buy at the supermarket!

[hhlodesign]

Some commetns from the judges:


"Daring flavor combination, gastrique made it work."
"This is the best thing ever!"


"Interesting presentation. Peaches a little tart."
"It's like summer in a bowl."


"Gorgonzola flavor too mild."


"Pork a little dry."


"Very refreshing."


"Crust a little thick, great flavors."


I should note that the thinking for my dessert course was this:
Having seen the size of Lorna's tart and ice cream, I didn't want to overwhelm the judges with a large dessert of my own. Espescially since even the "savory" courses were sweet as well. So I thought a small "pre-dessert" would be perfect.

[Ling]

Swisskaese, on Aug 30 2006, 09:37 AM, said:

I know what you mean. David and I decided it is better for us to work on separate things. Otherwise, we would drive each other nuts. Sometimes, we are each others sous chefs, but generally we prepare dishes or meals separately. In the beginning of our relationship, David used to criticize every dish and it used to piss me off. Now, I understand that he was just trying to suggest things.

Yes, it's much better when Henry and I work on separate components of the same dish, and bring it together at the last moment. That way, we're not getting in one another's way.

[Pontormo]

I personally am glad the gorgonzola flavor was too mild since the rest of the second course suits me just fine. One of the reasons I objected to the blue cheese here is that it strikes me as being at odds with the wonderful, wonderful marriage of peach, corn and pork. The chutney components add the pizzazz; the blue cheese just interferes with it. The longer explanation of the relationship between the chutney in main dish and the components in the dessert increased my already high opinion of Lorna's sophistication.

I may have played with the American Idol comparison (forgive me, but I have never seen Iron Chef), but its lessons prove true. I gave IC #1 a .85 advantage over IC #2, but didn't cast a vote. I can't say there's a large contigency of dizzy 14-year old girls from the South anointing Henry the victor in THIS case, but I will congratulate the new Iron Chef and look forward to a rematch.

Now, Lorna: let's see that stash of chocolate you keep at Henry's place.

And what did you two have for breakfast to recupe from last night?

This post has been edited by Pontormo: 30 August 2006 - 09:58 AM