Housewarming Party

Food:
Egg salad on crackers
Cream (cheese) pie

Music:
"Sex Machine" by Konishi Yasuharu
"I'm Not a Know It All" by Clammbon

Egg salad on crackers (adapted from Amanda Hesser's NYT recipe)
8 eggs
1/4 cup olive oil
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
1 tablespoon mayonnaise
8 slices of bread or crackers (water, sesame, water with cracked pepper).
Fill a pan large enough to fit the eggs in a single layer with 2 inches of water. Bring to a boil. Gently lower eggs into water and cook for 9 1/2 minutes. Drain. When cool enough to handle, peel the eggs. In a bowl, mash the eggs, then add olive oil, mayonnaise and mustard and continue mashing until smooth and pale yellow. Season to taste with salt. Top each cracker with a dollop of egg salad. If using bread, remove crusts, toast bread and cut in half diagonally. Crack fresh pepper on top of egg salad.
Yield: 4 servings.

Cream (cheese) pie (adapted from my petits choux recipe)
1 1/2 cups milk
8 ounces cream cheese, softened
1 box instant vanilla pudding
1 ready-made pie crust (graham cracker or Oreo cookie).
Beat cream cheese in 1/2 cup of milk. Add the rest of the milk and then add the pudding powder mixture. Beat until smooth and it begins to thicken. Pour into pie crust. Refrigerate for at least 2 hours until ready to serve.
Yield: 8 servings.

Le Fooding

Food + Feeling + The French = Le Fooding

I Am So Hungry

My favorite type of swag is edible swag: Godiva chocolates, fizzy drinks flavored with raspberries, Meyer lemon-infused olive oil, caramel popcorn and so on. As I write this, I am glancing periodically at a golden box of divine truffles, sitting on a table some six feet away. I also like to collect recipes, particularly those passed down from families, not only from my family but also from my friends' kin, who come from all corners of the world, whether it be Colombia or Singapore. But stuffing my mouth would be no fun without some sort of rhythm to pace the noshing. That is why I organized The Food and Music Club. The theory is that I gather a bunch of people to cook, eat and listen to great music and then record the confab for a podcast. Due to copyright restrictions lobbied by the Recording Industry Association of America, I will play only music from foreign bands. I also will include the recipes on the site as well. I may be a little possessive about my recipes. It's the latent Southern housewife in me. Don't worry; I won't deliberately mislead and substitute salt for sugar in the recipes. As I am working on an idea for a Vietnamese cookbook, I may not include some recipes in a public forum. (I will share them privately.) But I am recruiting foodies to join my club. All you'll need is curiosity, podcasting software and a healthy appetite.