Gal Foodie

THIS MONTH’S CONTEST:

Do you LOVE food? Do you LOVE making it for someone special? Then I want to hear about it! This month’s Gal Foodie Recipe Contest is all about dishin’ up love! Send me the recipe you love to make for the person or people you love the most! I’ll post it in time for Valentine’s Day.

I’m giving away a set of the sweetest Stainless Steel Cupid Measuring Spoons, in exchange for your submission of the winning recipe!

Here are the Rules:
1. Send me your favorite recipe for a food that inspires love. The deal, as always, is you also MUST tell me WHY this is “love” food to you. And keep it clean! I prefer original recipes, however if you have one from a book or other resource YOU MUST disclose the source. Entries that appear to be plagiarized with no cited source will be tossed like a salad.

2. If I select your recipe, it will be published on the Gal Foodie website along with your photo and you will also receive a set of Stainless Steel Cupid Measuring Spoons.

3. Recipes will be judged based on taste, originality/artistic flair, ease of preparation/practicality, and appearance.

4. Deadline for submission is February 10, 2010.

Submit Your Recipe

Tags: being in love, contest, cookbook, cooking contest, food, food blog, food contest, love, measuring, recipe contest, spoons, sweets

What I love about old family recipes is that there is usually a story. Over time, the story inevitably gets diluted. The handwriting gets smudged, the facts get a little flour on them, the names become a mystery. But the story always ends the same. “This is a food I know.” And with time-traveling delight, these are the recipes that keep our traditions strong, and the tale of the person who made it before us, tangible. In my family history book, there is a cake. And you can be sure there is a story.

My Grandmother, Marjorie Cattley, 1940

New Zealand is a far away, mythical place for most of us. For my Grandmother, it was home the first few years of her life. While I don’t know the whole story, I know the parts that have helped me understand who I am and where I get my strength and independence. It is the story of Great-Grandmother Lucretia Cattley, who alone, in 1919, packed up her 4 children and a few keepsakes, and crossed a giant sea from New Plymouth, New Zealand, to a small town called Melrose, in the State of Massachusetts. Without a husband to speak for her, she convinced a local bank to lend her enough money to buy a house. With a meager income from odd jobs, she made payments of 50 cents a week to the man at the bank, and alone, she paid for that house, and in it, she raised her 3 daughters, Amy, Eleanor, and Marjorie and her son, Henry.

I love that story.

Surviving the adventure across the sea is a recipe for New Zealand Birthday Cake. My Grandmother’s handwriting on an otherwise neatly typed card in her recipe box states that this is her Grandmother’s recipe. How many women in my family wrote that recipe down, or recited it in a kitchen far away to be made on someone’s special day? That’s a lot of years in one cake pan. At least five generations of my family, and nary a birthday has been celebrated without it.

Happy Birthday to us! November 27th, 2004

My beloved Grandmother is gone now, but for 32 years she and I shared a birthday. Every year she made the two of us the New Zealand Birthday Cake, and never once, did she forget to tell me where it came from. Everything, including the recipe, had been committed to memory, and the most important task in making the cake was telling the story. Last night, for my father’s 63^rd birthday, my sister made the cake and the story was shared again. And all of those women were sitting with us for a slice.

There are no directions on this recipe card, save a scribble from my Grandmother that tells me to cream the first 3 ingredients together, and that 3/4lb of something equals 1 1/2 cups. I have always used my Grandmother’s 9×13” pan. The comment from my Mother is that this is one of the driest cakes she’s ever had the “pleasure” of eating. At the risk of altering the story, I am experimenting with cooking times – thinking that if I increase the temperature and significantly reduce the time in the oven, it may not be so “pleasurably” dry. No matter what, this story always ends with gobs of plain white frosting and homemade vanilla ice cream.

Grandma Cattley’s New Zealand Birthday Cake

¾ lb butter or shortening (1 ½ cups)
¾ lb sugar
4 eggs
4 cups sifted flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp lemon juice
1 tsp mace
1 tsp salt
¾ cup milk
1 jar of citron and ½ cup nut meats
Bake at 340 degrees for 1 ½  to 2 hours.

Find your recipes and share their stories.
Happy Birthday, Dad!

Love, Gal Foodie

Tags: baking, birthday, cake, cake-recipe, celebrate, citron, cooking, Dad, family, father, Grandmother, mace, melrose, new-plymouth, New-Zealand, nuts, recipe, recipes, story-telling, tradition, walnuts

I’ve been away awhile. Well, I’ve actually been right here all along, but just this morning I’ve been trying to figure out how to explain to you the analogy between life and running a restaurant. How they are so frighteningly similar, that I wonder why I ever bothered with a restaurant at all, when I already had a life.

Every day is defined by who walks through the door, both in and out. The people who run the place and the people who are just passing through looking for a little comfort, and a little sustenance. Someone quits and there’s a scramble to make up for the lost set of hands, and sometimes something you need doesn’t show up, but something else arrives in it’s place, and you make do with what you have because that’s the best you can do on short notice. Sometimes it’s a perfect night, and sometimes the morning comes way too early. You put your whole heart into it. And then something important breaks and you have to let it all go until you can figure out what it’s going to take to fix it. You stand up, you show up, and you go to your station and begin again every day, because there are expectations to be met and things that need doing.

You just do.
And that is where I have been.
I couldn’t have guessed that I would have had the life or the experiences that I’ve had in my short 36 years, and I couldn’t have seen the life I would be living these last few months for all the tea in China. But it happens, life. And restaurant or not, there’s always someone coming, or going. And there’s always something to do. And plenty to write about.

To begin at the beginning would be a story far too long for a blog post, but to begin at the end, well that’s something I can wrap my head around, because it’s as fresh as today’s bread, and all the stuff between then and now has caused me to take a lot of notes. So here’s what happened next…

I moved and it started to rain. It rained so much that Summer barely had a chance to get here before the Fall. And in the torrents, the love of my life left for greener grass. Even coated in fresh paint, my new kitchen was too dark and depressing to feel good in. I ate by myself, and I cursed the rain. And then I decided that there was too much to be missed, rain be damned, and I ventured out into my new food world and instead of cooking, I met the people who cook. I visited restaurants and started asking questions. I was asked to be a judge for the State BBQ competition, and in so doing, met a wonderful group of very accomplished chefs and authors who opened more doors. (Not to mention I learned that oysters and BBQ sauce don’t mix) I became the co-host of a radio show about food with a gal I had imagined would be a soul mate if only I could meet her. I ate fried olives and fluke ceviche with yuzu ver jus, pickled fresno chili, and sea beans and wondered where they had been all my life. Kitchens were bustling in my presence and tables were filling up. And Gal Foodie was getting her gazpacho back.

And then a phone rang with the horror – a child had been killed in a terrible car accident, and my world screeched sideways all the way back to my beloved Mount Desert Island. The only thing I knew how to do to make it all better was to cook. And cook, and cook. Until everyone at least had a decent meal in their stomachs even if their hearts were bleeding out of their chests. It was that same child that I had fed in my old kitchen for so many years whom I had already said goodbye to a few months earlier. Goodbye to my island, the life I’d built, my sweetest love – No – this eclipsed any farewell I’d ever known. I kissed the tops of their heads and fed their souls but the child was gone, the kitchen was gone. No amount of food could fill that hole. With all the heartache encrusted strength I could muster, I headed once again from the old to the new, determined to find the recipe for moving on.

I made cheese for the challenge of it. I spent time on the Eastern Shore of Maryland and made crab cakes with the real thing and drank cheap beer at a place called Lucky’s Last Chance. A cookbook idea led to fairgrounds across the Northeast, where I consumed foods with names like the Craz-E-Burger. Despite the implied calorie count (who was counting?) there was a story there and so I grabbed for extra napkins and I kept eating. As a judge at the local chili festival, I met even more people who cooked, and people who published magazines about it. I learned how to make bean hole baked beans for 1,000 people, and roast an ox on a spit. I was recognized in public. And I finally started cooking in my new kitchen.

There is no recipe for this. There is no one way it can go. Sometimes you get lucky. You keep trying new things, testing new ingredients and hoping it turns out OK. And you don’t always get to decide who stays and who goes.  You can only trust yourself to keep showing up and doing what needs to be done -  the rest is left to Chance.

Life is so short,

~ Gal Foodie

Tags: baking, BBQ, ceviche, Chance, chili, cooking, crab cakes, family, food, kitchen, lobster, maryland, mount desert island, olives, restaurant, summer

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The cheesemaking process is something that has always fascinated me, despite my aversion to hot milk. As I would stroll through Pike’s Market in Seattle, my destination was usually the fishbowl that is Beecher’s cheesemaking room, to marvel at the SHOVELS full of curd that 2 men in oompa loompa suits were pushing around in a giant stainless vat. It wasn’t something I ever saw myself trying though, since the joke on the gal from the dairy farm is that she’s lactose intolerant…

But.

A mad scientist friend of mine suggested we try making fresh mozzarella this weekend and I jumped at the chance. I had no idea where to start, and was given a simple list for shopping. Buy a gallon of pasteurized whole milk and lots of tomatoes. Yup. Tomatoes.

You can probably guess that there’s more to making cheese than milk. And that tomatoes probably don’t have much to do with making cheese. And you’d be right. The mad scientist showed up with citric acid and rennet, 2 ingredients instrumental to creating cheese curd. He also makes a mean tomato sauce.

Mozzarella Cheese Curd

After a bottle of homemade Elderberry wine was uncorked, poured, and partially consumed, we set to making cheese. We probably should have waited to open the wine, as our first batch of curd, well, didn’t really “curd” the way we needed it, because we were too busy being silly, and not busy enough watching the thermometer. In fairness to the scientist,  I should note that as we were reading the directions online, the guy switched from Fahrenheit to Celsius, and this critical after-the-fact find isn’t helpful if you have a sensitive concoction on the stove. So I won’t blame the mad scientist for either mishap. I enjoyed the wine and we didn’t let the first batch of curd go to waste.

The mad scientist went to work quickly on our mishap, straining and draining and squeezing and kneading, and the result was a boursin-like cheese that with a little roasted garlic butter (which we had made a few days earlier to put on our flat irons) and some basic herbs, became a delectable spread that tastes amazing on just about anything.

Solid Mozzarella Cheese Curd

So, did we actually make mozzarella? Yes! After another trip to the store for more milk, and another glass of wine (or 2), we went through the whole process again, and the curd formed a nice solid chunk that we were able to cut with a knife. We then proceeded to go through the strain, reheat, strain, reheat, knead process and the result was cheese curds everywhere and an incredible full-size ball of fresh mozzarella.

Mozzarella Success!

And it TASTED like mozzarella. It actually sliced much cleaner than what you would buy in the store, and because it had not been sitting in a brine for weeks, our palettes were expecting it to be  little more salty, and so we decided that next time, we would add just a touch more.

Homemade Pizza

What we ultimately created was a wonderful afternoon full of good food, wine, laughs and lots of dishes. The mozzarella landed on grilled pizza where the sauce, caramelized onions and the dough were also made from scratch, as well as a few fresh sliced tomatoes with basil and vinegar. We hatched a plan for more cheesemaking in our future, that included buying a few goats (ok – maybe that was the wine talking), and we’ll share that whole experience with you too! For now, see a quick list below of what you’ll need for making your own mozzarella, as well as a link to the instructions we followed.

Tools:

1. Large stainless or enamel stockpot
2. Large mesh strainer
3. Candy-making thermometer
4. Stainless measuring cups & spoons
5. Microwave safe bowl

Supplies:

1. 1 gallon of Pasteurized milk (NOT Ultra Pasteurized)
2. Sea salt
3. Unchlorinated water (we used Pelligrino)
4. Citric acid
5. MALAKA BRAND Liquid Vegetarian Rennet, 0.5 Ounce Bottle (Pack of 2)

Kneading the Cheese Curd

Pointers:

• It is extremely important to watch the heat and the time. Don’t let the milk get above 90ºF.
• Have lots of towels around as making cheese curd is messy business.
• It really helps to have 2 people. The straining process is a lot of back and forth, and it really helped to have one person holding the big pot, while the other holds the strainer and kneads.
• We used this website as our basis for the recipe/process. I suggest you read it through carefully from start to finish because timing and heat is crucial to success.

Grilled Pizza

Pizza Suggestions:
For our grilled pizza, we made 2 batches of  basic white pizza dough ala Cuisinart, and then topped the first with the mad scientists amazing homemade tomato sauce, fresh basil, and dried Italian salami. The other pizza was half BBQ sauce, my homemade caramelized onions, blue cheese, and the other half more red sauce, mozzarella,

Grilled Pizza

Greek olives, basil and salami. We heated the pizza stone on the grill, but would suggest pre-cooking the crust for about 5 minutes before adding the toppings and putting it back on the grill. Watch the bottom! It will burn fast if the heat is too high. Add a couple of cold beers, and a great view and you have yourself a really nice afternoon.

Happy Cheese Curding!
~ Gal Foodie

Tags: basil, Beecher's, cheese, cheesemaking, citric-acid, cooking, corona, curd, elderberry, pizza, rennet, seas-salt, tomato, wine

Not only do I love good BBQ (I’m planning my next road trip to the South based around the Lee Bros. Southern Cookbook) … I’m a V.I.P Judge for the State Competition this Saturday!!

So, if you love BBQ, and want a fun afternoon, come visit me at the BBQ tent on Saturday, August 8th, to see the Iron Chef BBQ competition in action! I’ve posted all the details below…

Maine State BBQ Competition

VIPs Judge Iron Chef at BBQ Competition

Five food experts judge at the Celebrate MAINE Festival’s (www.celebrateMAINEfestival.com) inaugural event, “Mainely Grillin’ and Chillin’ Country BBQ State Competition” in Eliot, Maine.  They will be judging Iron Chef Competition on Saturday, August 8th.

The event’s sponsor, J.P.’s Shellfish (www.jpshellfish.com), will reveal the “Secret Ingredient” at 10:30 a.m.  The teams will then have just over four hours to prepare their signature dishes for turn-in to the VIP judges at 2:00 p.m., at the Main Tent.  A total of twenty competition-level BBQ teams have signed up for a chance to win the bragging rights of “Mainely Grillin’ and Chiilin’s Iron Chef.”

The esteemed panel of judges includes:

James King, Director of Marketing, J.P.’s Shellfish. James has worked with shellfish throughout his entire life.  He expanded this experience to a professional level through 20 years of work at premium restaurants and distributors.  Raised in the coastal community of Kittery, Maine, James took the ocean like a fish takes to…He really liked it.  At a very early age, James came to appreciate the Earth’s oceans as an invaluable, yet terrifically fragile, resource. He champions environmentally sustainable fisheries and the premium product distributed by J.P.’s Shellfish.

Chef Paul Kirk, Baron of BBQ. Chef Paul has a huge reputation within the BBQ community.  He has won over four hundred and seventy-five cooking and barbecue awards, including seven world championships.  He is the author of several notable BBQ cookbooks, including his latest work, co-authored with Ardie Davis, “America’s Best BBQ.”

Jean Kerr, Editor, Taste of the Seacoast Magazine. Jean Kerr has been writing and publishing books for more than twenty years. She is Editor of Taste of the Seacoast, the Boston-Portland, Maine food and wine magazine. She is author of Mystic Seafood, Union Oyster House Cookbook, and the forthcoming Windjammer Cooking: Recipes from Maine’s Windjammer Fleet.

Ali Goodwin, blogger, www.galfoodie.com. Ali Goodwin, a.k.a Gal Foodie shares her passion for great food through stories and recipes surrounding her day-to-day culinary adventures @GalFoodie.com. An award-winning specialty food designer and former restaurant owner, Gal Foodie shows you what she’s cooking, where she’s dining, her “foodie” favorites, and more. Life is short. Eat well!

Kathy Gunst, World Renowned Food Entrepreneur. Kathy Gust, former Culinary Editor for Food & Wine, is the author of 13 cookbooks. Her most recent books, Stonewall Kitchen Breakfast and Stonewall Kitchen Winter Celebrations will be out this fall, Chronicle Books. She is the “Resident Chef” for WBUR’s award-winning show, Here and Now, heard on over 150 public radio stations. She writes a blog for Down East called “Notes from a Maine Kitchen” found on www.downeast.com.

Rachel Forrest, Food and Dining Editor & Content Manager, Dow Jones Media Group & The Portsmouth Herald. Rachel Forrest is the restaurant critic, food writer and food editor for the Portsmouth Herald and Dow Jones Local Media Group. She has written about food and drink for Taste of the Seacoast, Accent, Yankee and NH Magazines and is co-authoring a new cookbook all about Maine cuisine with Arrows Restaurant chefs Mark Gaier and Clark Frasier due out  next year. Her radio show, Wine Me Dine Me can be heard on alternate Wednesdays at noon on Portsmouth Community Radio.

Celebrate MAINE Festival (www.celebrateMAINEfestival.com) is an authentic family event that honors the people, places and products that make Maine so attractive to visitors from around the world.  It is held August 8-9 from 10 a.m. – 4 p.m. at the Raitt Homestead Farm Museum, 2077 State Road, Eliot, Maine.  Admission is $5.00 per person, children 12 and under are free.  Plenty of free on-site parking.  FMI: (207) 748-3303.

Premium sponsors of the event are Prime Motor Group, J.P.’s Shellfish and Piscataqua Landscaping. Supporting sponsors are Shipyard Brew Pub, Jasper Wyman & Son, Cabot Creamery Cooperative, The Greater York Region Chamber of Commerce, Sturgeon Creek Enterprises, LLC, DennyMike’s ‘Cue Stuff, Maine Veterinary Referral Center and Raitt Signs. The media sponsor is Taste of the Seacoast. The festival will also highlight Maine BBQ products from Maine Grilling Woods, Wicked Good Charcoal, Raye’s Mustard and Vic Firth Gourmet.

The Raitt Homestead Farm Musuem (www.eliotantiquetractorandengine.org) is dedicated to the preserving farm history and promoting valuable farming heritage.  The 33-acre farm on Route 103 in Eliot is only five miles north of the Kittery Outlets.

Don’t miss it!

~ Gal Foodie

Things are changing in the Gal Foodie kitchen. And actually, the kitchen is literally what is changing. The whole idea of change is bred into us Mainer’s as something to be avoided. “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” as they say. Well, things here are “broke” and I’m about to fix it. And wow, has it gotten a little stressful around here.

Us islanders thrive on rumors, and this one is true. We’re moving. It is bittersweet to leave Mount Desert Island, and a lot of tears have already been shed for the lifestyle, place and people I’m about to give up. It has been a challenge living here – a hard life, surrounded by a beauty that can’t be denied. It’s a place that captures your heart… if you can survive the winter, of course.

There’s so much to look forward to where we’re going. Farmer’s Markets, and restaurants, and specialty food shops, fishmongers and grocery stores (!!). Family and friends and the familiarity of a hometown. And at the very least,  a burger and a beer within a reasonable distance! (That’s not even an option here 9 months out of the year!). Ben and I are excited about the change, and overwhelmed by the task of making it happen. So, to help relieve the anxiety, I looked no further this week than to the comfort of a food that hasn’t changed in my life in 36 years. Nana’s Brownies.

brownies

My mother is famous for knowing exactly when a giant pan of these needs to be made. We kids always called it “brownie brainwaves.” We would come home from some crazy adventure, and mom would have the brownies already done and cooling on the counter. How did she know?  I’m pretty sure my Nana had the same talent, and I’m pretty sure this recipe was created to ease the heart and soul in times of change. What better way to take your mind off the moment than falling head over heels into a pan of warm brownies?

Nana’s Brownies
1 1/4 cups Shortening, Melted
12 tbsp Cocoa
1 1/2 cups Flour
1 tsp Baking Powder
3/4 tsp Salt
4 Eggs
2 cups Sugar
2 tsp Vanilla
1 cup chopped walnuts or semi-sweet chocolate chips

1. Melt shortening and add the cocoa mix (I do this right in a glass mixing bowl in the microwave for 30 seconds)

2. In a separate bowl, beat eggs and add sugar and vanilla. Beat until smooth.

3. Add egg mixture to cocoa mixture

4. Add dry ingredients and stir until smooth, adding walnuts or chocolate chips (or both!)

5.  Grease a 9×13 pan and bake at 350 for about 35 minutes. Do not over bake.

6. Sit down, relax, enjoy the moment as you bite into the warm,  gooey yummy that is… Nana’s Brownies.

As my Nana said to my mother, and my mother to me, “This too, shall pass.” And so it will, even if I have to bake brownies every day until I’m in my new kitchen, starting my new life on the mainland.

Pass the milk and the packing tape, please.
~ Gal Foodie

Tags: anxiety, brownie, brownies, chocolate, chocolate chips, dessert, island cooking, island living, island recipes, Kittery, MDI, mount desert island, moving, nestle, nuts, recipe, stress, walnut, walnuts

For those of you who are regular readers of this blog, it’s been no secret that there has been little to no activity here in the last few months. It’s not that we’re not eating. Oh, we’re eating! It has more to do with as the warm weather starts to pick up the pace, so too, do we, and change, my friends is coming.

I’ll be posting soon about the new kitchen, the new food, and the “new life” menu. But for now, I’ll share that for the next 10 days, yours truly will be dining, dancing and driving across the deserts of the Southwest.

Thank you to all who contacted me about your favorite (and not so favorite) places to dine in Las Vegas. After many attempts at dinner reservations, we still do not have one for Sunday night. I may just wing it, and we may just end up in a long line for the all-you-can-eat Prime Rib dinner for $1.99.

Angel Food Cake with Strawberries and Whipped Cream

I’ll leave you with a photo of one of my favorite meals from this week. This guy mysteriously appeared on my desk, smiling happily up at me in the flicker of the midnight oil. Ben, how did you know?

Life is short. Eat dessert first!
~ Gal Foodie

Tags: acadia creative, angel food cake, bally's, blackjack, buffet, desert. dessert, dessert, dining, Las Vegas, prime rib, strawberries, travel, vacation

You all continue to amaze me with your creativity, your interpretations of my contests, your stories and your delicious recipes! The winning recipe from last month’s Celebration Food contest was chosen not just for the recipe, but for the reminder to get outside and walk, look for the buds in my gardens, and smell the change in the air. After a long winter, I am feverishly celebrating Spring every day here on Mount Desert Island. Mindee Curtis, thanks for this month’s winning recipe!

Celebration…what comes to mind for me is the changing of seasons, especially the transition from winter to spring.  The chance to once again go out for walks, see the first spring flowers, and eat those delicious spring vegetables like leeks and asparagus, are reasons for me to celebrate.  I feel that this recipe is a reflection of that type of happiness.

Bacon Wrapped Asparagus Benedict
Submitted by Mindee Curtis
18 asparagus spears
6 slices bacon
Salt and pepper
3 egg yolks
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup (1/2 pound) melted sweet butter
1 tablespoon lemon juice
2 tablespoons vinegar
6 large eggs
3 English muffins, halved and lightly toasted.
Fresh dill sprigs for garnish (optional)

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Separate asparagus into bundles of 3 stalks each. Carefully wrap a piece of bacon around each bundle, starting about 1/2 inch from the bottom of the tip.  Transfer bundles to a rimmed baking sheet. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Roast, flipping halfway through, until asparagus begin to wilt and bacon is brown, 20 to 22 minutes.

2. Make hollandaise sauce.  Place egg yolks and salt in blender, blend for a few seconds at high speed until you have a smooth frothy mixture. Still at high speed, start adding hot butter in a thin, steady stream, not too slowly. As you add butter, the sauce should thicken. When half the butter has been added, add lemon juice. Continue blending until all butter is used.

3. Poach eggs.  Bring large saucepan of water to boil; add vinegar. Reduce heat to medium-low. Working with 3 whole eggs at a time, crack eggs open and add to simmering water. Cook until whites are set, about 3 minutes. Using slotted spoon, transfer 1 egg at a time to a plate, repeat with remaining eggs.

4. Place a toasted English muffin half on each of 6 plates. Top with a bacon wrapped asparagus bundle, then poached a egg, and hollandaise sauce.  Garnish with dill sprigs, if desired.

Delicious, Mindee! (Any food with “benedict” in the name is enough to keep me at the table!)

Happy Spring!

~Gal Foodie

Tags: asparagus, asparagus wrapped bacon, bacon, breakfast, brunch recipes, celebration food, easy-recipe, eggs, eggs benedict, englich muffin, fancy breakfast, hollandaise sauce recipe, poached eggs, recipe competition, recipe contest, recipe contest winner, Spring, wrapped bacon

At the end of April, Ben and I are headed on a family outing to the great state of Arizona…by way of Las Vegas! I’ve been to Vegas several times and have experienced a little of everything when it comes to the food – but I haven’t been there in several years – and many new, amazing places have cropped up as fast as they can build casinos on the strip. There are so many choices – and if you want to think of it Vegas-Style – there are so many countries and cities to dine in. How does one choose?

It would be ridiculous to think I can plan a vacation without looking at the dessert list. Help us out by offering your “Foodie Favorite Picks” for dining on the Las Vegas Strip. We’re there for 2 Dinners, 2 Lunches and 2 Breakfasts.

What happens in Vegas, gets posted here.
Well, that goes for the food anyway…

~ Gal Foodie

Tags: bally's, Bisbee, Bouchin, buffet, dining out in Vegas, gampbling, Grand Canyon, Las Vegas, slot machine, steak house, vegas baby!