A bunch of Seattle's best chefs are getting together for a benefit hot wings cook-off:

Hot Wing Hoopla at Union Benefiting The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society

SEATTLE, January 7, 2009 — Everyone loves hot wings. And everybody has an opinion about their favorite — from the traditional Buffalo-style to sweet & sour and extra, extra crispy wings.... Grab your favorite hot sauce (if you dare) and bring your appetite — there’s some hot wings to be judged!

...Chefs include: Mark Fuller (Spring Hill), Justin Solomon (Union), Dan Braun (Oliver’s Twist), Brian McCracken (Spur Gastropub), and Vuong Loc (Portage).... Each cook will prepare a pile of hot wings from their own secret recipe and bring them to Union to be eaten and judged. The cost to attend is $50/person and includes all the hot wings you can eat, fries, celery with blue cheese dressing, and tap beer. All proceeds from the evening go to support The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society.... For reservations, call Union at (206) 838-8000.

Obviously this event will be great—they always sell out and it's for a great cause—but not everyone loves hot wings, namely me. I've never met a hot wing I found even faintly compelling. They're little and greasy and virtually meatless, too much work for a lot of weird-sauce-coated chicken-wing-skin. What is the virtue of the hot wing?

The city's ban on Styrofoam to-go containers took effect last Thursday. So when I picked up my teriyaki lunch today, lo and behold, the plasticine vessel my food normally comes in was instead replaced by a clamshell cardboard box. I asked the friendly woman behind the counter what she thought about the new containers.

"It is not as good," she said.

Then a man, who overheard our conversation, darted out from the kitchen to add his two cents. "With the sauces in the bottom, sometimes the customers pick it up, and it falls through," he said. "The city people, they don't care."

Sorry, nice teriyaki woman and agitated teriyaki man, I don't care either. Squeaky Styrofoam containers shift around in the bag and leak sauce, but not this paper container. After 20 minutes on my desk, the box was still sturdy and no sauce had leaked through the bottom. Moreover, my lunch container won't be bobbing around the Great Pacific Garbage Patch when I'm dead.

That would be gauche.

Fast-food restaurants in King County all post the calorie counts on the menu these days. And the finest foods—even 2,100-calorie foods—must be paired with just the right 400-calorie libations.

JANUARY 10, Saturday @ 3—6pm
THE BIG ROAST
Join Caffe Vita and Theo Chocolate as we take you through the roasting of both cacao beans and coffee beans so you can intimately experience how we develop the flavors in both. We will also be celebrating the release of a complex new custom coffee for chocolate lovers and our new coffee-centric confection collection. This event will start at Theo and finish at Caffe Vita on Capitol Hill (round trip transportation will be provided). Every attendee will receive a 6 piece box of our new handmade Theo Chocolate and Caffè Vita confection collaboration.

Cost: $50 (+ tax) per person. Reservations are required.

(Via Ffffound!)

I would rather eat:

(Crayon is your choice of color, regular or anti-roll.)

I'm meeting a friend for coffee tomorrow. I live in Ballard, so I suggested Cupcake Royale/Verite. He suggested that place with toast.

"THERE'S A PLACE IN BALLARD THAT SERVES ONLY TOAST???" I screamed in all caps via text messaging.

"Yeah, how awesome is that?" he calmly responded.

Then we both began praising toast and wondered how glorious a place that serves only toast must be and then he wondered who invented toast. I didn't know, he didn't know, so I looked it up. Turns out, we have the Romans to thank (the Egyptians apparently had something to do with it as well):

Via about.com:

Toasting bread began as a method of prolonging the life of bread. It was very common activity in Roman times, 'tostum' is the latin word for scorching or burning. The first electric toaster was invented in 1893 in Great Britain by Crompton and Co (UK) and re-invented in 1909 in the United States. It only toasted one side of the bread at a time and it required a person to stand by and turn it off manually when the toast looked done. Charles Strite invented the modern timer, pop-up toaster in 1919.

Charles Strite, you're a good man and I thank you for making a delicious and versitile treat so accessible.

As for the place in Ballard, it's called Nervous Nellie's Coffee and Toast. If you've been, let the world know what you think and leave a reader review! I'm dying to hear if it's as awesome as it sounds. Because I really do love toast—dry, with butter, with jam, with butter and jam, with cheese and eggs, with ketchup and mayonnaise, with peanut butter, with peanut butter and marshmallow fluff, with peanut butter and sliced bananas, with peanut butter and honey, with honey and butter, with cinnamon and sugar, with cream cheese and fake ham... (insert Homer Simpson drooling noise)...

But for reasons involving gay bars and last call, this weekend I wound up at the 13 Coins—near Boren Avenue North and Denny Way—twice. Two nights in a row, even. It’s not just that nothing else nearby was open: I went back the second time because the food was amazing at the 13 Coins. And no, I can’t believe I just wrote that.

The topper—seems risky to order this—was the best calamari I’ve ever tasted. I wasn't just buzzed. Eating most calamari is like masticating thick rubber bands crusted with saltines. But at the 13 Coins, they cut strips from a hefty squid steak, which, when battered and fried, turned into crispy blond corkscrews that steamed from the center. The Caesar salad was umami-rich with anchovy.

How can this be? The interior looks like the bridge of the Starship Enterprise, upholstered in grandpa-brown leather, and is notorious for serving overpriced pablum from a food replicator.

The 13 Coins had gone downhill and lost customers for several years, says 13 Coins manager Spencer Fairbanks. “Customers said it wasn’t worth it.” But about a year ago, he says, Kassandra McGregor—formerly the executive chef at the Broadway Grill and the Red Lion—took over as the head chef.

“Now customers say that the flavor is back and the taste is back. It is kind of how they remember this place,” he says. “Everything is prepped here and made here. Nothing comes in a bag or a box or anything.”

And while many items on the menu are still exorbitantly priced ($50 New York steak, anyone?), some stuff is reasonable ($13 ham and cheese three-egg omelets with hash brown and toast, or a $20 chicken parmigiana that feeds two). The portions are massive, and it's impressive for American food when the birds are sleeping. Who knew?

In 1995, my dad ordered a butterscotch milkshake at Kidd Valley and this happened:

I laughed forever.

I grew up in the north end (Matthews Beach! Holla!), and even though I am now fused to Capitol Hill like that lady who became one with her toilet seat, I still have tender feelings for Wedgwood and Sand Point and—be still my heart—Lake City. One of my north end friends took me to task the other day for Thursday's suggests item about Chiang's Gourmet. How could I be so disloyal to my homeland? The north end isn't that far away. I owe it to the north end, she said, to show some love.

Some love:

I paid like $12 for this feast, btw.

Hae-Nam Kalbi & Calamari
15001 Aurora Ave N, Shoreline

I love this place. There's a little plastic Peter Rabbit lunchbox thing on each table (adorable and slightly WTF-y) filled with spoons and metal chopsticks. The service is sweet and attentive. There is tea. I've been to Hae-Nam three or four times, but every time I get the Bi Bim Bap (see above) because it is so effing good. Everything else on the menu looks amazing though, and—seeing as I have tried neither the calamari nor the kalbi—I'm starting to suspect that I am a complete dumbass. Next time I'm getting MEAT.

Though I am openly carnivorous, I have a tendency to experiment with fake meat. Sometimes, as with Gardenburger's fake beef patties, it doesn't work out so well. Other times, as with Soyrizo, it works out just fine. Sometimes, as with the Quorn fake chicken (or, as I like to refer to them, "fricken") patties, they're better than the "real meat" frozen equivalent. Last night, because I knew I would be eating alone and wouldn't be inflicting my whims on anyone else, I decided to make a Tofurkey.

Tofurkey is, at least, pretty easy to make. You just cut the thing out of its plastic wrap, surround it with vegetables (I used what I had lying around in the kitchen: carrots, cabbage, onions, and Italian parsley) and then cover it with a mushroom gravy that comes in the box with the Tofurkey. Then you roast it for an hour and a half-ish at 350º.

The good thing about Tofurkey is the fact that the middle of the loaf is stuffing. And because the stuffing is surrounded by tofu, it's moist, and it's delicious bread stuffing. The other good thing about Tofurkey is the mushroom gravy, which is one of the better preprepared gravies I've ever had.

The bad thing about Tofurkey is the Tofurkey. It's edible, and I guess it tastes a little like turkey, but it's got a weird gluey aftertaste that's not appealing at all. The consistency was okay—not meat-like at all, but it's more solid than regular old tofu at least—but it's just not that good. I think most makers of vegetarian meat-like products (excepting the pressed mushroom that In the Bowl and Teapot serve for beef and the aforementioned Quorn fricken) would be better trying to invent something new. If they sold the stuffing and gravy separately, I'd be all over them. As it is, I swear I will never eat Tofurkey again.

Or, what I would have brought to the office party if I hadn't been snowed in:

Baguette Croutes with Brie, Avocado Mousse, and Sundried Tomatoes

(Recipe and photo via Serious Eats)

Or just bored? Let me suggest my aunt Astri's Potato Chip Cookies:

3/4 cup butter
3/4 cup sugar
1 egg yolk
3/4 cup finely crushed potato chips
1 tsp vanilla
1 1/2 cup flour
1/2 cup chopped pecans (or cashews or walnuts)

Cream the butter and sugar, then add the egg yolk and vanilla.
Mix in flour, potato chips, and nuts.
Roll into small "walnut-sized" balls, then roll in granulated sugar. Flatten each ball with the bottom of a glass.

Bake 12 mins at 350 (or 9 mins on a non-stick sheet).

Happy holiday times!

Who knew? Get the recipe here. It really is delicious.

Man eats 46 latkes in 8 minutes.