The Amys' Summertime Dessert Truck Tour

Dessert truck fever has swept New York so Amy and Amy decided to take a tour to discover what treats lurk beyond Coco Helado and the Good Humor Man. The tour began at Street Sweets (55th and Park), a great choice since the truck offers confectionery breakfast fare, the main draw being croissants filled at your whim with any combination of jams, nut butters, honey, marshmallow, Nutella... The Amys took the truck proprietor's advice and enjoyed a sinfully buttery croissant generously slathered with apricot jam and almond butter.

..........

Next, it was down to Bryant Park to sample what the Treats Truck (38th and Madison) had to offer. A tantalizing display of brownies and cookies was narrowed down to a caramel and a chocolate sandwich cookie for the Amys. The oatmeal jammies and peanut butter sandwich cookies would just have to wait for another day.

..........

The Dessert Tour's final stop would be Dessert Truck (55th and Lex), but due to a medical emergency* Amy S. had to make like a banana. Fortunately perennial sweet lover Marina was able to tag in and join Amy C. for a cup of peach sorbet served with an almond meringue, a dollop of creme fraiche, and a sprinkling of blueberries.















*Medical emergency neither diabetic coma nor in any way related to rapid, massive consumption of sugars and fats.

Like two kids in a candy store

After a dinner at Caracas Arepa Bar and some beers at the most ironic bar west of the Williamsburg Bridge (whose jukebox, we concede, made up for the hipster overload -- those metallic loafers were ironic, no?) we found ourselves stricken with a fever that only two things could cure. And one of those things was deep-fried candy. So we grabbed some childhood favorites - Reese's cups, Snickers, Twix - and put our leftover breakfast to use. As Kurt mentions, the key to successful battering is to make sure your batter is at room temperature when it hits the oil and, as we learned here, keep the oil between 325 and 350 for optimal frying.

In the preceding video you heard us claim that Kurt + Amy's cuisine is no more unhealthy than what Paula Deen whips up every week. And while there's no pressing need to back up such a statement with just one single piece of hard evidence, I encourage you to take a peek at Paula's Candy Snack Cake which consists of a chocolate cake slathered in frosting made from confectioners' sugar, three Snickers bars, and a stick of butter. Paula then outdoes herself by jamming a final chocolatey nail into each triple-bypass-provoked coffin: an additional Snickers bar in each slice of cake. I gained two pounds just watching that episode. (I suspect that its absence from youtube is by FDA decree.)

We all screamed

Holy fucking sweet ass intro sequence! Featuring fucking Starship! Kudos Amy, kudos. Let'em say we're crazy --- I don't care about that. I feel like we're legit now, that this has permanence, traction, everything a lauded and award-winning blogger would need. Put your arms around me, baby, don't ever look back.

And beyond that, I'd like to say we're doing something no other deep frying vlogger is doing right now. And that's pushing the envelope. Yeah, I just started a sentence with a conjunction, what're you going to do about it? We deep fried Ice(d) Cream, I think this is the right time to say what what's been kicking around here for awhile behind the scenes at K&A Studios: we're bigger than Jesus. Any two-bit conjurer can take a stroll on a sand bar; deep frying a frozen food is sublime.*

Anyway, despite what the intro claims, I'm not sure this entry is "starring" anybody, least of all the pile of used tissues and empty Sudafed boxes that substituted in for Marina this week. In case anyone needs to know what our ethos is, it can be summed up by not having an ice cream scoop. his isn't the sort of show where the right utensil magically appears in the hands (or first basemans mitts as it were) of the hostess, or the sort of show where we get things right the first time. But damnit we fried haagen dazs.

*Physics joke!

Corn Dogs

Although we didn't take any video at the time, the Fabio Party was not with out deep fried delights. Kurt whipped up a few batches of heavenly gluten-free frickles and corn dogs. Fortunately there were some ingredients leftover so we were able to have a corn dog reprise. We did, however, make the mistake of watching various deep fry television programming during the taping of this episode. Oil overkill, indeed. Don't try it at home. Special thanks to our friends (other) Amy, Lena, the good residents of Clifton, NJ (a scant 10 miles east of NYC according to the Travel Channel), and of course "the burgers cum in my mouth" guy.

Fabio's Birthday!

I know it's been a while since we all gathered together in honor of the big man's birthday, so let this be a winsome look back on just a small sliver of the awesomeness of the Fabio Party '09, which began with a twig-infested wig, ended with a couple of cops answering a "noise complaint" (no, I didn't hire any strippers this time), and had some beefcake and a tragic scratched cornea somewhere in the middle. Enjoy the memories!

All photos courtesy of Lauren -- thanks, lady!

'Tis the Season for Man Boobs

Please indulge me as I veer briefly off the topic of deep frying in order to share with you the following video. With the Fabio party right around the corner, I thought I would take advantage of our blog forum to share in advance the vaunted "Fabio movie" also known as "A Time for Romance." I hope this inspires you to costume yourself in a romantically appropriate fashion for the party, invites to which are on the way. I hope to see you there, but until then feast your eyes on the mini-movie.

My sincere apologies for the teeny weeny screen size. Technical difficulties necessitated taping the movie off my old school TV/VCR combo and besides, if you don't mind my saying, you should know better than to look a gift horse in the mouth...

Superbowl Leftovers

Kurt's Superbowl party yielded such a surplus of food that his guests, so full of homemade empanadas and wings -- served in copious quantities despite warnings from Stephen Colbert -- were unable to consume it all. Luckily, our dear friend Lena was available to emerge from the comfort of her Snuggie(TM) and help us out in tackling the leftover jalapeno poppers, goat cheese balls, and ravioli.

The ravioli are easy enough; simply coat in egg, roll in breadcrumbs, and place in basket. For the jalapeno poppers, we halved and seeded the peppers, then filled them with a mixture of cream cheese and monterrey jack, then egged and breaded them. Finally, the goat cheese balls are simply egged and breadcrumbed as well, but with panko (japanese breadcrumbs). They're all fried together at 350, but the ravioli are going to cook first, and they float so make sure you turn them manually after about 30 seconds. What could be easier.

Anyone with a penchant for inscrutable After School Specials will be tickled by clips of Ace Hits the Big Time (1985). This classic tale of a boy with a stye, whose therapeutic eye patch looks so tough that it gets him tapped by the Purple Falcons who are in a heated gang war with the rival Piranhas, and subsequently by a big-time movie director, and his unwavering conviction that cake triumphs over hate.

Finally, to answer Kurt's question about the career trajectory of Horace "Ace" Hobart portrayer Rob Stone...
It turns out his superbly nuanced interpretation of the role of Ace landed him a sweet spot on the cast of the beloved series Mr. Belvedere (1985-90). Looks like that fictional talent scout in Ace spotted a very real rising star!