Food by Mail: Happy Birthday from Dixieland

Dark Chocolate Dixies -- Richardson's Candy Kitchen, Deerfield, MA

Richardson's Candy Kitchen

Ginger has started a trend.  Of course, this trend only exists between the two of us, and it has similarly only happened twice, but no matter.  We know a trend when we see one.

Namely Because We Make Up Our Own

This particular trend revolves around the fact that we have taken to bestowing each other with mail order food in honor of our birthdays.  

Whether or Not We Actually Address Each Other as "Vodka and Ginger" in Real Life is Up for Your Interpretation

After all, there are a great deal of shippable Best Thing I Ever Ate items to choose from, and what better reason is there to plunk down $30 in shipping charges than the celebration of your fellow friend in eating's life?

We Appreciate Any Food That Comes with Its Own Ice Pack

As you may recall, for Vodka's birthday (which, of note, is in the middle of the SUMMER), Ginger had an extremely festive if completely inappropriate for the season fruit cake shipped to her door.  

Also, Every Birthday Card We Give Each Other Is Some Variation of This Theme: Don't Be a Drunken Fool

Two months later, when it is time to return the favor, Vodka chooses the slightly more portable and mildly less Christmasy dark chocolate dixies from Richardson's Candy Kitchen in Deerfield, MA.

Of Note, Vodka Shipped Said Dixies to Her OWN Apartment. Control Freak for the Win

In a stroke of luck, the day said dixies arrived, Vodka had experienced a random street encounter with her self-proclaimed soulmate, Josh Groban.  Wishing to rehash this experience moment by moment, she persuades Ginger to leave the borough of Brooklyn for the promise of a tasty cocktail and ridiculous story.  "I'll bring your birthday present.  It's food," she tells Ginger, which gets Ginger off of her booze-soaked couch faster than any other phrase could have.

What Birthday Gifts Are Made Of

However, upon reflection, it seems like a rather awkward idea to haul out a box of candy in the middle of a bar, even for two people who have a rather high threshold for humiliation.  For this reason, Vodka leaves the candy box in her apartment, which we drunkenly stumble back to after a splendid "meal" of salad, soup, and French fries.  

The Folks at the Department of Health Would Really Have a Field Day with Our Eating Habits

Ginger tears open the oversized and deceivingly heavy box and discovers the mail order feast that awaits her: a box of Alex Guarnaschelli's Best Thing I Ever Ate NUTTY favorites.  Three neat rows of large chocolate candies await her, one of almonds, another of pecans, and the last of cashews.  

A Dixie in the Flesh

We bite into each of the flavors one by one, and the dixies are indeed quite pleasing.  The chocolate is perfectly bitter, and caramel gooey and sweet, and the nuts salty and crunchy.  We wouldn't go out of our way to consume these things again, but for the moment, they're making for a fairly solid birthday treat.

And Here We Have the Almonds...

...and Now the Pecans...

...and Last But Not Least, the Cashews

And then, as per usual, we turn into complete idiots.

The Combination of Booze and Sugar Tends to Have This Effect on Us

It seems Richardson's is trying to bask in the glory of Alex featuring them on the program (if they had seen some of her previous food choices, they may reconsider this acclaim), as they provide an "introductary brochure" to their dixies, asking us to enjoy them just as much as Alex did.  And this leaflet, as leaflets tend to do, ends up completely confusing us.

Read This With Some Wine Goggles On, and You'll Have a Better Idea of What We Were Dealing With

"I'm surprised you didn't order the polka-dot ones," Ginger says, pointing to the "hedgehog" dixies from the list, which (apparently, to our pea brains) come with a polka-dot decoration.  

"Ooh, I never say that," Vodka says.  "But I think the hedgehogs are chocolate-covered rice krispie treats -- and we needed to eat nuts."

"I wonder what makes them polka-dot," Ginger persists, and we both stare at the list like two illiterates, STILL not catching on as to the pattern going on within it.

Namely, that there is a color listed next to every Dixie flavor -- gold, white, brown, polka-dot....

Finally -- FINALLY -- Ginger lifts a Dixie from the box, and with a high level of discovery delight, as if she had just figured out how to split the atom, she exclaims, "Ohhhhhh they're telling us the corresponding WRAPPERS for each of the flavors."

For the Record, We Produced Empty Wrappers in Three Different Colors Before We Figured This Out

And so, to be clear, the hedgehog dixies come in a polka-dot WRAPPER.  They are not, in and of themselves, POLKA-DOT.

Really, it's a wonder we manage to function in the world at all.

Our Blood Type is Essentially Cocktails, Salt, and Stupidity

And with that, another year older but certainly no wiser, Ginger packs up her dixies and begins the long haul back to Brooklyn, content only in the knowledge that should we ever reach old age, we can't possibly end up any more senile than we already are. 

Richardson's Candy Kitchen's Dark Chocolate Dixies: 4 stars

Off the Map: A Marzipan Frog Does Not a Prince Make

Marzipan -- Swedish Bakery, Chicago, IL
Swedish Bakery

After a long-awaited Chicago success story at Ann Sather, we meander up the street to Swedish Bakery, renewed in our spirits that maybe, just maybe, we have stumbled upon the neighborhood holding true Best Thing I Ever Ate greatness.  With Ted Allen's big win with the cinnamon roll, we are confident that we might have the same luck with his NUTTY choice of the marzipan baked goods.

Minor problem: we kind of hate marzipan.

And Now We Have to Eat a Box Full of It

Another minor problem is that we apparently hate people, too, as when everyone and their mother greets us the minute we walk into Swedish Bakery (in all seriousness, they have at least one employee per slice of marzipan), we are instantly overwhelmed and annoyed.

Who Knew the Swedes Were So "Friendly"?

Approaching the person who seems to be the least eager to serve us, we ask for one slice of the marzipan log and one miniature marzipan frog.

Kermit's Tribe

As this employee gathers our choices in a box, a different one asks us what we would like.

"We ordered already," Vodka assures her.

"Well, what about YOU?  What do YOU want?" she asks Ginger.

Um, lady.  Chill out.

Or It's 1-Star for You, My Pretty, And Your Little Frog, Too

We escape from Swedish Bakery as quickly as possible, box of marzipan goodies and silverware in hand (we have obviously learned our lesson from the "WE NEED SOME SILVERWARE" debacle with our concierge).

No Refrigeration Needed If Consumed Two Minutes Later

Finding a shaded bench a street corner away, we dodge hoards of traffic (how do people cross streets in this town?!) and settle down to eat.

Andersonville Shrubbery

Now, our general gripe with marzipan up until this point is twofold: its main use seems to be to hold complicated cakes together, which would not be such a problem if said marzipan weren't grainy, chewy, and paste-like in texture (not to mention virtually tasteless).  It is therefore with mild reluctance that we bite into the lime green marzipan frog.

It's Not Easy Being Green

Inside, we find a large (some would say "excessive") helping of raspberry cream resting on top of a vanilla cake.  The whole enterprise is coated with the green marzipan, topped with large frosting eyes and a chocolate base.  As we chew through our first bites, we find the whole thing a bit dry, and the marzipan itself is, as we feared, creating a very thick coating around the filling.  The taste of the raspberry inside is rather overpowering, and except for the frosting eyes, we are underwhelmed.

Biology Frog Dissection, Bakery Edition

Thankfully, the marzipan log is an improvement over this Kermit figure, as the coating itself pulls away easily and is much thinner.

This Would Be More Palatable If It Were Finger Food

The deeper we dive into the cake, the more taken we become with the homemade whipped cream and soft vanilla (almost angel food-like) layers that rest inside.

Rule of Thumb: Add Whipped Cream to Everything

In fact, the inside components are so much more pleasing than the outer coating that the marzipan itself is rendered completely irrelevant.

Eating Everything But the Marzipan

In the end, we decide that the one thing Swedish Bakery is lacking is ambiance -- with no cafe tables on which to consume the baked goods (only a sad-looking window counter exists), one would have very little impetus to return for a take-out piece of cake.  Perhaps it is time to do away with at least half of the employees waiting to jump down customers' throats and replace them with a zen-like area for sugary consumption.  Let them eat cake, indeed.

Swedish Bakery's Marzipan: 3 stars

Off the Map: Don't Make the Mistake of Ordering a Whole Pizza

Boston Bibb and Watercress Salad -- Figs, Boston, MA
Figs

Before Vodka can go any further into her Boston Best Thing I Ever Ate eating adventures, she needs to describe how she spent the morning prior to her lunch at Figs.  Specifically, how she took a trolley tour of Boston by herself.  And by "by herself," she does not simply mean "without a companion" (though this was also the case).

Somebody Come and Play

No no -- Vodka took a two-and-a-half-hour tour of Boston aboard a trolley with NO ONE ELSE PRESENT.  Well, except for the driver/tour guide, otherwise known as Vodka's new best friend.

This Would Be Humiliating If It Weren't So Hilarious

Being that the image of Vodka's solitary Paul Revere-like ride through Boston is pretty much the entire punchline of that tale, there is not much more to relate.  But needless to say, Vodka has now not only cemented her place as a) a Trolley Tour VIP, b) a Trolley Tour annoyance who refuses to hop on OR off, and c) an overall lunatic.

You're Welcome for the Tourist Dollars, Boston

After Vodka finally deigns to depart her fateful tour, she wanders across Boston in search of Figs, where she is meeting another college friend in order to consume Duff Goldman's favorite NUTTY dish, the Boston Bibb and Watercress Salad, featuring toasted walnut dressing and Maytag blue cheese.

Well, "Blue" Is Relative in This Case

Despite her lengthy one-on-one escort through the Boston streets, including the very one that Figs is on, Vodka at first walks right by the place and then has to do some major backtracking down the quaint ambiance of Charles Street.

For Christmas, Boston Bought Me a Building

When she eventually arrives at Figs, the place is packed with lunchtime diners, and it is, unfortunately, dreadfully loud.  Restauranteurs really need to start looking into acoustics when they design their spaces, or Ginger and I are going to be deaf by the time this eating tour is through.

Deaf and on a Doctor-Imposed Low-Carb Diet

In front of me, two middle-aged women are badgering the hostess about when a table for three will open up.  The hostess tells them a half hour and offers them the option of three bar stools instead - an option that would completely ruin my immediate life as only four bar stools are present.  Luckily, the women take just long enough pondering their decision for me to hop on two of the remaining stools and await my (apparently one and only, based on the morning's trolley tour) friend.

That's What Friends Are For

When my friend arrives, we set about ordering our lunch - Vodka the Best Thing I Ever Ate salad and her friend, the gnocchi.  Though the pizza looks luxuriously tempting, Vodka's former roommate had warned her that morning, "Don't make the mistake of ordering a whole pizza" (a mistake which, ridiculous as it may sound, the roommate had obviously made at Figs before), and so Vodka is conscientious not to do so.  After all, she still has a full evening of Boston eating ahead of her.

And She Has Already Gotten Sidetracked by a Non-Itinerary Bowl of Chowder Earlier in the Day

When our lunches arrive (along with, naturally, our wine, presented in Ginger's hated teardrop glasses), Vodka instantly writes the gnocchi off as being mushy, though her friend finds it enjoyable (frankly, no gnocchi will ever be able to compete with the scrumptiousness of that served at Jane).

Dear Restaurants, Please Study What "Al Dente" Means and Start Applying It to Gnocchi

The salad, in contrast, is full of crunchy texture and is exceedingly fresh.  While each ingredient tastes as if it were procured mere minutes before, the combination of them all is slightly off-putting to Vodka's tastes.  First of all, the blue cheese, as blue cheese tends to be, is pungent.  Very pungent.  So pungent that it would take a very strong flavor to overtake it, which the salad tries to do in the form of the overtly sweet walnut dressing.

Holy Lot of Cheese, Batman

Unfortunately, while I like sweet and salty things together, I take less of a liking to sweet and pungent couplings, and I begin trying to eat each component of the salad, including the actual walnuts, separately.  Finally, there is the issue of the crouton-like bread fixtures scattered around the plate, which are not garlicky enough to really be croutons and seem to be jam-packed with raisins or cranberries (which is a whole other mismatch in flavor).

Are They Croutons or Olive Garden Bread Sticks?!

I will say that despite my friend's warning, the pizza looks like it is the best thing on the Figs menu, and I would venture back again if only to try it (the bathroom, however, is so teeny that I fear I wouldn't fit inside after such pizza consumption).  I would also make it a point to arrive after 2:00pm, when the restaurant became all but silent and I no longer felt like I was dining in a middle school cafeteria.

Cafeteria-Style Plating? You Be the Judge

After we leave Figs, we head to the Cheers gift store down the street so Vodka can purchase some "Where Everybody Knows Your Name" shot glasses, proving that, once again, she has never met a tourist trap bar she doesn't like.

Especially one that is featured along Vodka's very own Boston trolley route.

Whether or Not They're Always Glad You Came

Figs's Boston Bibb and Watercress Salad: 3 stars

Priscilla, Queen of the Dessert Macarons

Coffee Macaron – Payard Patisserie (Francois Chocolate Bar)
FC Chocolate Bar

"[She] becomes All About Eve meets Cruella de Vil when she's having a party.  It becomes like psycho Nazi warfare." -Bethenny Frankel

The second weekend in June means one thing and one thing only to Vodka and her long-suffering friends: Vodka’s annual Tony Awards Rager.

This Pretty Much Encapsulates Ginger's Behavior at the Party

Vodka, having been obsessed with Broadway shows since seeing Cats at age five, goes full-tilt crazy on Tony night, naming each of her sixteen dishes after the nominated shows and drowning her guests in Bernadettinis and Rogeritas (and if you can’t figure out who the drinks are named for, you have not been paying attention*).

We Also Finally Tried Vodka's Namesake. It Tasted Like Toothpaste

Needless to say, the Tony Awards Rager is not for the weak of heart.

Now that this Best Thing I Ever Ate quest has taken over our lives, however, Vodka decides to try to incorporate an untasted Best Thing I Ever Ate dish into her menu.

Upscale Sandwich Cookies

For this reason, we encounter a great deal of opinions concerning the star-rating of Wolfgang Puck’s favorite NUTTY dish, the coffee macaron from Payard Patisserie, from the various party guests.  Rest assured, these opinions are not factored into our final rating as, in the words of Vodka’s infamous high school band director, “This is not a democracy, it’s a benevolent dictatorship."

And Only Those Who Buy the Goods Get to Have Opinions

The coffee macarons, which Vodka actually purchased from the Payard offshoot, the Francois Chocolate Bar in the Plaza Hotel, are given the label “Priscilla, Queen of the Dessert” (which is different from the Broadway show by one letter.  Good luck).

I'd Like to Buy a Vowel

When Vodka bought the macarons, she was told that they should be refrigerated until use.  Fine.  What she was not told is that they should be left at room temperature right before service, or biting into them will be reminiscent of charging through a gummy version of a Klondike bar.  Note to all: warm up your macarons before consumption.

Unless You Have a Thing for Gummy Ice Cream

Once these delicacies are back at normal temperature, they’re quite good: the “crust” is flaky and soft, and the coffee-infused insides are sweet and comforting.  Tan in color, they are less visually interesting than their more colorful macaron siblings, but this blandness does not distort their taste.  Despite being featured on the NUTTY episode, they taste mostly of coffee.  If anything, the coffee flavoring overwhelms any other taste, and it may even be a bit heavy-handed.

Perhaps it is ironic that such a delicate pastry finds itself saddled with the moniker of a Broadway show about drag queens, but on Tony night, the showtunes rule both the palate and the party.

Macarons In Need of a Feather Boa

*Bernadette Peters and Roger Bart.  Really, if you had to check for the answer, you should be ashamed.


Payard Patisserie (Francois Chocolate Bar)’s Coffee Macaron: 4 stars