Tag: Ben Star
-
Venison Meatballs
Venison is one of my favorite meats. The last meal I cooked before leaving to film MasterChef was venison tenderloin. (Ironically, the dish that sent me home in 5th place from MasterChef was venison tenderloin…I was trying to cook it the way Ramsay cooks it, rather than my own special way.) Venison is the most…
-
Merry Christmas to All!
Today is Christmas. 2012. Christmas is a holiday celebrated around the world, and though it is claimed by Christians as a celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ, and the holiday is named thusly, its roots predate Christianity and it draws on ancient celebrations from many religions. I have always been drawn to Christmas for…
-
1-Hour Hazelnut Cranberry Sticky/Sweet Rolls
When I’m making a very special breakfast, I often choose my Overnight Cinnamon Rolls because they get rave reviews. Any kind of yeast-risen roll for breakfast is a winner…but sometimes you can’t prep the night before, or don’t have HOURS to prep that morning. So I’ve been developing a series of 1-Hour yeast risen recipes…
-
Pumpkin Cardamom Souffle
Souffles are one of those things you see on cooking shows and MAYBE you’ll make one or two throughout the course of your life. I’m not sure why this is the case. Perhaps it’s because there is an old myth in the kitchen that souffles are temperamental and impossible to get right. This is malarkey! …
-
“Pumpkin”nickel Bread
You all know how obsessed I am with pumpkin. This recipe was birthed years ago for one of my legendary Fall Dinner Parties where I wanted to marry the dark autumn flavors of pumpernickel bread with my favorite ingredient: pumpkin. The first incarnation was not a success, I have to say. Recently, for our all-pumpkin…
-
Burning Man 2012: The Pilgrimage
If you’ve been following me since my season of MasterChef aired last summer, you know how fanatical I am about the Burning Man festival. Trying to describe this event is practically impossible. Each summer 60,000 people from all over the world assemble on a dry desert lake bed in northern Nevada and build a city…
-
Today: 10 Years
Today my partner and I celebrate 10 years together. 10 wonderful years filled with travel, food, and amazing friends and family. Most people who look back on a decade of a relationship tend to say, “We’ve been through good times and bad times.” But I have a hard time pinpointing any bad times along the…
-
A Post-Masterchef Perspective
I have just spent the past 5 hours reading a fraction of the 949 tweets, 549 emails, and 1752 Facebook messages that have been posted in the 300 minutes since MasterChef finished airing on the East Coast. (Update, as of 11pm August 10, about 24 hours after the show has ended, my email inbox has…
-
MasterChef: Celebrities and Cake
Did all that just REALLY happen? Watching it felt like a blur. These were easily the two most intense and personally trying challenges I experienced on MasterChef. I’ll try to condense them into words, but I’m not sure it will work. Team leader. That’s nothing new to me. I’ve been president of this or that…
-
MasterChef: Hats!
Some of you have been commenting about the hats and wondering what the story is with them. Before I left for MasterChef, my Mom made me a bunch of hat/apron combos to take with me to the filming. (She’s a very accomplished seamstress.) After a couple of days wearing the different hats, Gordon got frustrated…