FoodieBuddha.com

Gummy Bears!  You know them, you love them, and you still eat them.  Their TV show rocked mad musical beats, and all you want to do is pop them like the pills.  But why eat them straight out ‘the package when you can dunk them in a vat of frozen deliciousness?

Yes, at Orleagian Snowballs (or-lee-gin) at the corner of Moreland and Ponce De Leon, you too can grab one of these snowball treasure chests.  Unlike this son of a bitch, marinating gummy bears in fruit flavored syrup is anything but wrong.  It’s Orleagian’s call to arms and makes eating an already delicious snowball just that much better.

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One of the strange little developments of these here internets is the propensity for print content to show up online before it shows up in the stores.  Next month’s issue of Food & Wine Magazine is no exception.  It features a little ditty on boutique outfits that pump out good grub.  Two Atlantans are featured, and as chance would have it, both are gunning for your sweet tooth.

Kristen hard of Cacao Atlanta showed up to talk about all things chocolate.  You can check out her delectables on the Cacao Atlanta website.  In addition, Kamal Grant, the bane of Homer Simpson’s existence, was featured and chatted up his amazingly awesomely delicious Sublime Doughnuts.

Dear Kristen and Kamal, I’m kind of mad at you making it hard for me to continue my “I don’t like sweets” stance.

A little treat before I sit down to watch Top Chef in preparation for this weeks What Ingredient Was That? Here we have a three-layer pie/cake filled with cherry, pumpkin, and apple pie.  Better known as a Cherpumple, it’s pretty damn awesome.  It’s been all over the net for some time, but recently popped up in my news feed again. It’s made by Charles Phoenix, a pretty well known pop-humorist.  My favorite analogy is the comparison to the turduckin.  There’s a recipe on Phoenix’s site, but you’ll come to find out, there are a number of takes on the Cherpumple.

Video instructions after the leap!

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Somewhat beneath the surface, just under the wave of pizzerias and the influx of burger joints, Atlanta’s bakery scene is seeing an infusion of new life.  With establishments like Bakeshop in Midtown leading the way, this new brand of baking is in stark contrast to what you and I may remember as the quintessential bakery.  While some of my fondest memories were youthful excursions to Rhodes Family Bakery (website) on Cheshire Bridge, the glorified home kitchens and come as you are personas are being pushed around by big budgets and treated woods.

Don’t believe me? Look what happened to Holeman + Finch Bakery.  While that no frills storefront suffered from location woes, they too were a bake first, look good second kind of a place.  Consequently, their front windows have been boarded up, leaving those of us who crave delicious goodies scampering to places like Savor Specialty Foods.

Bakeries are no longer places to pick up your favorite treats, talk to your baker about the fam, and dream of all that hippy dippy stuff.  They are now as much sandwich shop and coffee stop as they are dessert purveyor.  It is smack dab in this world that we find Bakeshop, one of the newest explorations from the gang at Concentrics.

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Most of the time, when someone mentions the word Whopper to me … I think of this:

Now, I’ll think of this:

Creamy crunchy and just damn good … that’s the vanilla malt popsicle with whoppers (courtesy of everyone’s favorite popsicle guy).  If you want one, hit up Souper Jenny (website) in Buckhead, the Irwin Street Market (website) in Inman Park.  Also, you can hit him up at Buddy’s Service Station at North and N. Highland.  Me … I just follow him on twitter @theKingOfPops.

I’d like to think that I do a pretty good job of discovering cool things around the Atlanta food scene.  However, when I stumble upon someone who has roughly twice the following than I do, I must admit that I don’t really feel like stumbled across anything super underground. In these cases, I just feel kinda lucky.  Such is the reality with the sweet-toothian goddess known ‘round these parts as Sugar Sugar and whose true identity is Cari Barocas.

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Another day, another day closer to true street food here in Atlanta.  First up, The King of Pops.  Apparently, his cart arrived last Friday, though I totally missed the news!  Today, he’s back at his first location (Buddy’s Gas Station at the corner of North Ave & North Highland) from 3pm until 7:30 (or so…).  Hit him up … and quickly … cuz these $2.50 popsicles sound too good to last.  If you plan on visiting his mobile popsicle stand, you’d best give Steven a follow on twitter, which is where I stole (borrowed with the hope that i don’t piss off the King) that picture.  Anywhere, go try some!

UPDATE: I was originally under the impression that The King of Pops would be able to move around to a couple of locations; however, it appears he’s only licensed for the spot he’s currently in.  For now, his plan is to be open every afternoon at Buddy’s, but we’ll just have to see how that goes.  If you’re in the area, I highly suggest you go … I just had one and it’s FREAKING GOOOD!!!

King of Pops Mobile Popsicle Cart
King of Pops website // King of Pops daily location // King of Pops twitter

My readers are full of great info! Dianne Reinhardt and the folks behind the Magnolia Bread Company (website) have decided to launch their own food truck!  Aptly named “The Green Van,” the just launched website is chock full of good tidbits.

The truck will feature a short and sweet selection of sandwiches, seasonal salads, and desserts.  Joyfully enough, all of them will be constructed from organic goodness.  No word yet on exactly where they’ll try and set up  – but I suspect their twitter account will have the deets.

All Hail Stephanie – whomever you are!!!

When you strip away the fame and the talent, Wylie Dufresne is really just another boy with his toys.  Of course, it just so happens that Wylie is talented, famous, and really good with his toys.  Recently, the techies behind Gizmodo took a scamper down to wd~50 in New York City to visit Sir Dufresne.

Dufresne was nice enough to bring the guys back into the kitchen to talk a little bit about liquid nitrogen and to demonstrate how he prepares cookie-covered ice cream balls.  In addition, Adam Frucci has a series of videos he’ll get up this week.  In the meantime, here’s the transcript from the video as the sound recording wasn’t ideal:

What’s getting a lot of sway right now with urban chefs is liquid nitrogen. Liquid nitrogen, much the same way you can a use hot oil to fry things at 375 degrees, with liquid nitrogen you can freeze things at about minus 275 degrees. And you know, people get excited because it’s so cold that when it’s exposed to the air it turns into a gas, which is a very Hollywood or rock and roll sort of thing.

[Pastry chef Alex] takes more or less sort of a cookie, he would kill me if I said this, but not all that far off from sort of an Oreo cookie, purees it, adds some fat to it, purees it into a liquid phase. Then they take ice cream, milk flavored ice cream. They pipe the milk ice cream into a bowl of liquid nitrogen. So it gets super frozen and from there they drop it into the liquid cookie and they roll it after that in cookie crumbs. And what happens is the ice cream is so cold it instantly sets a shell, even though its in a liquid, on the outside and then they can scoop it out and roll it in some crumbs. And then you get, you know, whatever they call those Dibs or Dabs that you get at the movies. This is a much better, much more high end version.

If you are a fan of molecular cooks, you might want to check out my post on the Art of Deconstructed Food.  I wrote it many moons ago, when I was just getting started.  It’s still one of my favorite posts to date.

[via Gizmodo]

Sorry for the dearth of posts lately.  I had family in from out of town; thus, my free time was pretty much usurped the past five days.  Luckily, we got in a couple of noteworthy food stops … no small feat with my little brother – the kid has a seriously restricted palate.  What the hell is up with that Shorty?

Anyway, I’m almost defiant in my love of savory foods.  To get my sweet tooth salivating, someone needs to really throw down.  Luckily, Morelli’s is just such a place.  Though it sits on the outskirts of East Atlanta, the place is all sparkly glowy.  You’ll find it on the corner of Ormewood and Moreland Ave – tucked in with a Little Azio and the new Spoon location.  I managed to wrangle the crowd up at the idea of Atlanta’s best ice cream.  Morelli’s didn’t let me down.

Part ice cream parlor, part hot dog stand (no seriously – they have ‘em!) … they put Howard Johnson’s Ice Cream Parlor to shame.  Who’s with me?  Anyway, the great thing about this place is their selection.  While I’m almost always a “less is more” type of guy – I am sold here on the plethora of options.  Morelli’s manages to offer something for the traditionalist and for the adventurist.  Case in point, my mother ordered a scoop of sweet potato pie ice cream.  It was seriously perfect.  They managed to capture the essence of a sweet potato pie without taking away from the main star: it’s ice cream.

I played both sides of the fence.  For my traditional flavor – I went with cookie dough.  To get out of my element, I went with a scoop of Dolce de Leche Chunk.  The flavors were pronounced and freaking delicious… I hear Homer Simpsons salivating over my shoulder.

Morelli’s keeps things fresh and will rotate some of their more adventurous flavors.  Their ice cream options will sometimes push the envelope; however, I have yet to be disappointed.  The sweet scoops always seem to hint at decadence while reminding you that you are eating something made from high quality ingredients.  I wish I could extrapolate on the mixtures a bit better … but ice cream ain’t usually my thang!  Oh yeah, according to the sign … show up after 6pm on a Monday … smooch your significant other … get a discount.  Sure … kick us single guys while we’re down.  Let’s get it on:

And now … for some sparkly glowy … just cus it’z awesome:

Atlanta Foodies On Morelli’s Gourmet Ice Cream & Desserts:

• Amy On Food On Morelli’s (03.16.09)
• Creative Loafing On Morelli’s (05.21.08)

Morelli’s Gourmet Ice Cream & Desserts Restaurant Address & Information:
749 Moreland Ave SE, Atlanta, GA 30316 // P: 404.622.0210 // Morelli’s Website