Is That Tofurkey?

I posted a couple of months ago with a link to ThisIsWhyYoureFat.com.  I submitted something that a friend and I made, hoping it will make it into their book or on the website.  Seeing that the other things are all so ridiculous, I figure mine isn't ridiculous enough.  So, in case our creation never makes it into the book or on their page, I'm going to post our creation in this blog.

I feel it is very necessary to provide some background on this.  I am part of a student organization called Business Council, which is basically the student voice of the business school.  It is composed of 101 students from the student body, and within that group, we are divided into "families".  Each family has parents, and I was a "mother" of a family.  

Each year around Thanksgiving, Business Council hosts a "family" potluck for its members, where each family is assigned a dish to which they are responsible for supplying the other families.  Being an avid baker, (my "husband" and I baked weekly for our "family"), we were appropriately assigned desserts.  We really wanted to shock everyone, so we decided that we would make a gigantic cake in the shape of a turkey.  I had seen some pictures online of glazed turkey cakes, but we decided this would be too complicating for us.  So we basically made up our own concoction.  

We bought 4 boxes of yellow cake mix and prepared them like normal in rectangular pans.  After layering them, we carved it into the shape of a turkey.  We were pretty impressed with how accurate we got the shape, so we decided to begin icing.  Little did we know, making brown icing has got to be one of the hardest things ever.  We started mixing every color together, hoping it would give us a nice, dark brown, but we ended up with a pale, nasty pinkish brown.  We kept trying for about 20 minutes until I found some cocoa powder in my cupboard and decided to just use that as a final dusting to give it a brown finish.  So we used the colored icing that we made and lightly dusted the cake.  We even cut little booties for the turkey legs and placed vegetables around it to give it the visual appeal of a Thanksgiving gobbler.  

We arrived to the potluck with our turkey cake and set it on the end of the table where the other desserts were.  Many were impressed, but others were confused.  "Why is that turkey sitting by the desserts?" "Is that a TOFURKEY!?"  Pictures were shot, jaws were dropped, and we just smiled.  We definitely shocked everyone like we intended, and it was a heck of a lot of fun.

While this turkey cake wasn't as beautiful as we envisioned it, it was still pretty darn close to looking like a turkey.   And it may have only tasted like a normal yellow cake dusted with cocoa powder, but our "family" appreciated all the hard work that went into it.  I'd say we spent probably a total of 4 hours preparing it, which provided us good bonding time.  And besides, preparing a (real) turkey is no simple task.  

I'd be impressed to see our turkey cake in a book or on ThisIsWhyYoureFat.com.  Maybe I'll be as shocked as the other "families" at the potluck when they first laid eyes on our dessert/entree(?).  

Chicago Dog

Last month, I made another trip to Chicago. In a recent post, I talked about Lou Malnati's in the windy city and mentioned how I didn't have enough time to try a Chicago dog. I made it a must-do on my list this time around. Fortunately, I got a hot dog in the ultimate American setting - at a Chicago Cubs game.

I'm not exactly a hot dog fan. There's something about scrap meat jammed into a clear casing that doesn't lead me to salivation. But perhaps I was in the right mood, right setting, and right level of starvation that this Chicago dog left me lapping up my drool like a dachshund.

I opted for pretty much everything on the dog to get the full experience. The price tag to gobble one of these was pretty high, but I guess that's what you pay to eat the all-American fa(s)t food during an all-American pasttime. I wouldn't say it's worth the price, but it's definitely a lot better than the dog I've had off the cart in New York or the ones my family grills at home. My family isn't big on hot dog grilling, but your family may put Wrigley Field's hot dog business to shame.

The first bite had a beautiful snap that any good hot dog should have, and it had a bit of a spicy taste. I thought the heat married nicely with the cold tomatoes and my mouth appreciated the texture and heartiness of the chili. This dog was much longer than any other dog that I had ever seen anywhere else, so it was quite filling. I ordered a side of fries (I decided to indulge and make my body hate me) with the dog and left that stadium stuffed. If you're a small person with a regular appetite, I would recommend just getting the dog. It'll fill you pretty well.

I had some other food adventures during this trip in Chicago, but I will write about those in a later post. There are so many things that I've been taking pictures of but haven't had time to write about. Hopefully I'll find some time now that I'm relieved of school. Next time, look out for cannolis, monkey cakes, or filet mignon. I wouldn't recommend eating all of those in one sitting.