(Apologies in advance if photos are upside down or sideways…Got an appointment to see a computer person to get fixed)

I noticed a food critic from a certain newspaper earlier this year wrote a plea to restaurants to stop serving ten certain dishes that are found on many restaurant menus. One of these dishes in particular is salmon with a vegetable and a potato. Some of these ten dishes he just thinks are boring, tiered of, uninspiring or not original enough and other reasons. I find this is a fishy reading to me….

The Food Critic went so far to say something like….If every restaurant just replaced salmon with something original or hard to find that menus would be so much better. I’m not against original or far off creative dishes and I do agree with the critic that many menus choices can be tweaked to be more interesting. That really IS.. a good idea. I just think it’s especially not fair to pick on the salmon dish. That is fishy to me….because…..

The Forking Truth is that this is Phoenix Arizona……. The Desert. We are far from water and it’s usually hot here so very little fish makes it here. You just don’t get much edible fish here. Often on many but not all restaurant menus salmon is the only fish option on the menu. The Forking truth is that most people would want a vegetable and maybe a potato if they were eating salmon. I’d be bummed if I didn’t have a vegetable with my salmon and would feel cheated if the restaurant didn’t give me a potato, rice, a fun grain or noodles with my entree.

I don’t understand why the critic didn’t suggest to to remove a steak from the menu. Isn’t steak a similar dish with a piece of meat vegetable and potato? We have lots of steak around Phoenix and it’s pretty easy to pick up pretty good steak at any of the grocery stores here. Everyone in every home can have a nice steak dinner tonight in the Phoenix area tonight it they prepare it themselves or go out to dine.

Getting back to Salmon I don’t know if I took what he wrote the wrong way but it really bothered me that he partially attacked salmon being on many menus. I do look forward to salmon on menus since it’s a treat that I can’t purchase fresh tasting anytime I want from my local stores. Sadly most of the time it’s not fresh tasting to say the least and more often than not it’s inedible and spoiled and I usually have to make a forking trip back to the market to return it. I almost never purchase what they call fresh fish here anymore. If I want to eat salmon I usually have to go out to dinner to forking eat salmon.

Many of the best restaurants in the country do offer salmon on their menus.

I partially enjoyed this salmon I had in at Bouchon in Napa California.

I FORKING doubt I’d be the one telling a 7 star Michelin Chef Thomas Keller that he needs to take salmon off his menu because it’s boring……….. but maybe a food critic would??? I know I forking wouldn’t.

I also enjoyed this Salmon I had at L’Atelier in Las Vegas Nevada.

I also doubt I’d tell the multi Michelin star Chef,that is Chef of the Century and also Meilleur Ouvrier (France Best Craftsman Award) Joel Robuchon that he needs to be more original. Could you forking imagine that?…….(people have forking been shot for less)…. Here is that piece of fish with vegetables and potato! It was stunning and fabulous among one of the best dishes I ever had. I could never get board of something this well done.

I certainly think Chef Keller’s and Chef Robuchon’s restaurants made exquisite dishes that were amazing and not boring and they were salmon.

I don’t think it’s the protein really that makes the dish fabulous. I do admit a certain skill is needed to make the protein shine….But isn’t it really more about the spices and vegetables and how they work together? It boils down to the flavor…that is what you remember.

Part of the joy of going out for a great dinner are the original, different and classic dishes on menus. It’s thrilling when a dish is made with  ingredients that are very hard to find like fresh truffles, finger limes, bamboo fungus, red sorrel and corn smut  or an unusual spices.

I also would like to enjoy restaurant classics that seemed to have disappeared from most menus like Chateaubriand, Duchess Potatoes, Tables-side service menu items and Real Fondants (lava kind of cakes not frosting).

I sure hope the local restaurants ignore the critic’s plea to rid their menus of salmon. Not everyone out here would prefer offal (organ meat) to salmon and not everyone here has developed a craving for nearly raw eggs in cold broth.

Let’s give this plea a spin just for my amusement ……. I can write that I’m tired of Hamburgers and Chocolate Cake. Because I can find Hamburgers and Chocolate Cake on almost any menu out there almost anywhere. How original is a hamburger? French Fries are always on menus with hamburgers. Can’t Chefs be more creative and figure out something more interesting than French Fries to go with burgers? Every restaurant that serves cake always has Chocolate Cake on the menu. A million other flavors are out there you know. How about Salmon? Ever heard of Salmon Cakes?

Now that is something to write about!

Sometimes you Read Fishy Things!

The Forking Truth

Key Lime Might Be the New Chocolate.I’ve recently noticed that there is a whole world of Key Lime flavored things  co-staring in the sweets department everywhere I go.

The Key Lime is a small thin skinned seedy lime that turns yellow when ripe.  Key Limes are higher in acid, aroma, sweetness and bitterness than a Persian Lime.The Key Lime is best known for flavoring the Key Lime Pie that is associated with the Florida Keys.

I saw some Key lime Coconut Patties.

Keylime Pie filled Chocolates.

Key lime Cookies.

Key Lime White Chocolate Cookies. (excuse the poor photo)

I never thought I’d ever come across Key Lime Pie Gum.

Some sort of Key Lime Candy Disk.

Key Lime Cake Mix and Frosting

Key Lime Candy Crunch

Key Lime Fruit Slices made by Cavalier Candies.

Key Lime Starlight Mints

I’d never imagined I’d ever come across so many Key Lime Flavored things.

Key Lime might be the new chocolate.

The Forking Truth

Live a little and Forking try a new pepper!

There’s a whole world of different peppers out there and they all taste different.

I decided to try the peppers in my cabinet and will try to describe how they taste.

To taste the spices I used a mild slice of cheese and hoped the flavor of the pepper would get absorbed into the cheese.

I’ll start at about 7:00 on the plate and work my way clockwise till I get in the middle of the plate.

Nora Pepper-Earthy and fruity with a little heat- more smokey/earthy than Aleppo Pepper. Nora Pepper is a staple in Spanish Cooking.

Aleppo Pepper- More sweet and fruity than the Nora Pepper. Slight earthy-smoke flavor with Medium heat.

Malabar Pepper- A familiar all purpose pepper black pepper but very flat one note tasting after tasting Tellicherry Pepper.

Tellicherry Pepper- Sweet smooth black pepper taste that doesn’t burn mouth like the Malabar.  Leaves a hot finish.

Piment D’ Espelette – Unique- Like super really good but better spicy paprika. Fruity, medium spice and more.

Cayenne – Smokey, earthy, hot, slight bitterness.

Shredded Red Pepper – Fruity with mild heat. Almost herbal taste.

Szechuan Pepper – (not a true pepper) Mix of lemon, ginger and tea leaves. Not hot but mouth numbing. To be used with hot peppers so you can enjoy them more.

White Pepper – Taste nothing like black pepper although white peppercorns are just ripe black peppercorns.  To me white pepper has a dusty potato skin taste. Kind of hot. I like to use some white pepper for potato dishes, risotto and gnocchi.

Live a little and Forking try a New Pepper.

The Forking Truth

The Carrot Cake Hershey Kisses are only sold at Walmart stores. I thought this seemed like an interesting flavor of candy as it’s something that I think was never done before.

I found that when you chomp them down you get way more of the sweetness.  This candy runs on the sweet side for candy. I think the candy kind of taste best this way when you just eat it. However you can experience much more complexity if you let the candy melt in your mouth.

To me this candy kind of  taste like you scraped out a spoonful of carrot cake frosting with some of the cake in your frosting followed with a chemical aftertaste when you just eat them.

When you let it just melt in your mouth there is more of a show and the flavors that come to you in layers.

I was hoping to start with a hint of buttery carrot taste that I didn’t get. Instead I just got sweetness that tasted like lower quality white coating of some sort. Then an unpleasant  gritty texture came to my mouth. Suddenly a taste came that was something that reminded me of my childhood…..forking Play Doh-

(a child’s modeling clay) No I never ate Play Doh but I still remember the scent of white Play Doh and that’s what I got in my mouth. Soon the taste changes again and I could taste something that tasted like cream cheese frosting and next came an almost realistic kind of tang like from cream cheese.  Some spices followed that seem a little gingery and lastly I get a bang of a possible raisin or raisin like flavor. Sadly the finish leaves my mouth with that darn chemical aftertaste.

Almost  good!

Rated 1/2 a Fork because it’s a mix of good and not so good

To each his own. This is only my forking opinion and your forking opinion may differ.

The Forking Truth

There is a whole world of salt out there. Why the FORK would you even think of using harsh, metallic, heavily processed table salt when you can use natural mineral rich salt that taste better and actually taste less salty. When you use table salt your food doesn’t taste as good. Better tasting salt helps your food to taste better.

The work horse of the kitchen is kosher salt. It’s less harsh and better tasting than table salt. it works wonders with meat.

The Grey Sea Salt has the most taste. Not sure how to describe it and it’s a sort of briny taste but it doesn’t seem like too much salt. Maybe it’s a balance thing?

The Pink Himalayan salt is suppose to be among the healthier salts with more minerals than most other salts. To me this one taste like kosher salt but that might be because of the grind I have. Maybe it’s normally smoother than what I have.

I like the Australian peach colored flake salt. It’s mild and delicate with an interesting texture. You don’t cook with this salt as it is a finishing salt.

Mediterranean Sea Salt is better tasting than regular kosher salt. Less salty, smoother.

The Salt in the middle of the plate is Red Sea Salt. One web site claims that this salt is number one for mineral content. There is something smooth and delicious about it. It’s almost sweet. I’d sprinkle on desserts. It taste like it would go really well with dessert if you want a little smooth salty crunch.

Lastly the most interesting of the salts is the Blue Persian Salt. It was hard to photo but here is a close up.

Here is another Photo.

It looks like blue in the salt but I read that it is an optical illusion. It’s the only salt I ever tasted that has a cooling sweet finish. It’s also far more expensive than all the other salts. I purchased a small amount just to try it out. It cost about $5.00 for about 3 ounces. I’m thinking this might be very good to rim an alcoholic drink with because of the unique complexity and smoothness.

You opinion may differ from mine but that is the Forking Truth From Me.

Your Food will taste Forking Better if you just get rid of your Forking Table Salt because there is a whole world of salt out there and ALL OF THEM ARE FORKING better than table salt.

The Forking Truth

Strawberry Shortcake M&M’s are special edition M&M’s that are only sold at Target Stores. These M&M’s have a white filling that is suppose to taste like strawberry shortcake. The M&M candy shells are colors of pink, cream and white. The Bag of strawberry shortcake M&M’s comes in is a pastel pink color and features the Green M&M on the bag holding a tasty looking strawberry shortcake on a plate.

I thought I might like these M&M’s for two reasons.

One- I like strawberry shortcake and…….

Two – last month Walmart sold some sort of special edition chocolate covered strawberry flavor M&M’s that were good and seemed natural tasting.

The FORKING Truth is that these Strawberry Shortcake M&M’s to me taste exactly like strawberry artificial drink mix that is blended with vegetable shortening and covered with that sugar shell.

These M&M’s to me seem like a FORKING GLOB of vegetable fat that’s chemically flavored with something that reminds me of strawberry. After trying to let the candy melt in my mouth it now feels all greased up like I was forking sucking on vegetable shortening. These M&M’s don’t melt in the mouth….

The strawberry shortcake M&M’s are among my least favorite M&m’s that I have  ever tried. The flavor for me is too artificial and the greasy non-melting texture I find stomach turning. I’ve tried other flavors of white chocolate M&M’s before that didn’t seem greasy to me so the greasiness of the strawberry shortcake flavor was very unexpected.

Your opinion may differ from mine but to me these strawberry shortcake M&M’s are forking gross and this bag of M&M’s is now in the trash.

NOT Worth a FORK!

My mouth is still forking greasy.

The Forking Truth

I came across the Microplane Spiral Cutter at HomeGoods for about $10.00. It sells on line for about $15.00 and it’s an interesting color of green. It’s small and doesn’t take up much room if you want to keep it to give to someone you don’t like.

I thought Microplane was a trustworthy brand so I took a chance on this one because the Paderno and KitchenAid Spiral Cutters BOTH don’t spiral cut carrots.

It promises to make spiral cuts and ribbons and shows attractive carrot ribbons on the box.

This is all you forking get when you insert a carrot and do a few inches of twisting.

The FORKING TRUTH is that you get little uneven broken shreds that aren’t ribbons and a big waste of carrot that looks like a tiny skinny forking penis-

that leaves you unsatisfied and longing for more.

Not only will the Microplane Spiral Cutter put a cramp in your style it will also put a forking cramp in your hand. It doesn’t fit well in your hand and your hand quickly gets a cramp.

The Microplane Spiral Cutter is hard to clean.

Little pieces of carrot doesn’t come out of the sharp blades and it stains easily and looks like a dirty toilet bowl after only a few twists of use. This photo was taken after scrubbing. Even after a ride in the dishwasher it looks the same.

“Looks like a Forking Stained Toilet Bowl”

This small hand held tool is money down the toilet if you keep it.

Like I said…….

NOT WORTH A FORK!

Back to HomeGoods and I’m getting my $10.00 back even if I can’t get the all the forking carrot or the carrot stain out.

The Forking Truth is that the Microplane Spiral Cutter does NOT make carrot ribbons as promised so for me The Microplane Spiral Cutter is NOT WORTH A FORK!

NOT Worth a FORK!

The Microplane Spiral Cutter Doesn’t Make the Cut!

The Forking Truth