Twist It Froyo

Times have changed! When I left for college three summers ago, my town had nary a frozen yogurt place. Yet Shoprite soon added a self-serve froyo station, and my brother told me that he and his friends had some froyo a 10 minute drive away, and all of a sudden, at least three froyo places have sprung up in vacant storefronts, and local water ice and ice cream places have shut down (or continue their seasonal operation). People are furiously eager to buy into this "sophisticated", ostensibly healthy and low calorie treat, with "healthy" fruity flavours and sundry toppings (cheesecake bites, brownie bites, chocolate, cereal...etc).

The standard price is 49c/ounce in both my town and Philadelphia, which makes adding any topping a huge rip-off. For example, gummy bears ($2.5/lb), dessicated coconut ($1.5/lb) and mango chunks ($3/lb) end up being $7.84/lb. If you're going for froyo, you might as well be paying for froyo, which you can't conveniently make yourself.

In any case, I'm not a huge fan of froyo because it's soft-serve froyo, stupidly pricey for self-service (as a comparison, the self-serve hot foods at Wholefoods is $7.99/lb and includes vegan chicken, real chicken, pasta salads, etc. Here, I am strongly against the people who complain about how expensive Wholefoods is, yet go out for froyo every other week), and melts entirely too fast. The cups are enormous, evidently to encourage people to buy a pound of froyo. In comparison, a 32-oz container of yoghurt ranges from $2-4. However, I do concede that if froyo motivates people to eat less sugar and fat, and stealthily transport calcium and protein to kids, it may not be such a bad concept. This, however, is just a small positive dent in the general dissatisfaction I have with the self-serve froyo business. I reckon I am dissatisfied with the ice cream store business too, and diners, and some other eateries, but I should only complain about one thing at a time.

Anyway, as I was only home for about a non-consecutive 14 days from May to August, I didn't really get to hang out with my high school friends as much as I wanted. This is saying something as I don't really have that many high school friends. I did get to play frisbee once though, and I also went with MP to Twist It, a froyo place competing with the Starbucks for the way-too-cool high schoolers. Twist It is nicely decorated with beach chairs, fish, and blue tiles (for the sea). The weighing/pay counter is adjacent to the froyo, meaning that workers can't see customers dispensing froyo unless they lean out over the toppings and cash register. In other words, both workers did not see a husband refilling (to double the brim) and hurriedly slurping up his sample cup at least three times, while his wife tottered around choosing different flavoured blobs of froyo.

But I saw him...and didn't confront him because it would've been awkward.

I tried some root beer froyo (even though SP loves root beer, it is still icky to me) and some banana froyo (bleh...), and ended up getting coffee, Irish cream, tart, and mint. They have interesting color schemes, especially with the two-colours-in-one-flavour. I got some strawberry boba for the topping, since it's not sold anywhere non-wholesale. It turns out that it's just strawberry goo, processed via spherification, like the poppy drink I got at Cube Cafe last summer.

Portal Cake!

Today I made a Portal cake but failed at making jelly. This is a very sad day.

My brother finished his AP exams today, and as he is going to college next year, this is a graduation/belated birthday/end-of-high-school/congrats on [college name]! cake. I wanted to make a Team Fortress 2 cake but I couldn't figure out what object to make. Pyro? Sandvich (in other news, I got a Dalokohs bar yesterday!)? Natascha?

So, I stuck with Portal's black forest cake, even though none of us like fake cherry flavouring or maraschino cherries. My brother likes orange juice though, so there's orange juice in the cake and jelly. He also likes coconut, so the whole cake is covered in chocolate coconut ganache.

Unfortunately, he has not eaten the cake (and I don't think he will) because he had a bad day with bad news and dinner was ruined.

On the bright side, this means that the cake is now mine. Look at the lush back yard. It's been barely a week and the lawn needs mowing again.

The cake recipe is from here.

Changes I made:
1. I substituted 100 g flour with whole wheat flour, and 15 g with wheat germ. No one will notice!
2. Instead of 240 ml of milk, I used 120 ml milk + 120 ml orange (put in LAST--acidic, reacts with baking soda).
3. I used 1 tsp baking soda instead of 1/2 tsp.
4. Less sugar! ~250 g instead of 400 g.

I made three layers because I only have 17-cm diameter cake pans (6.69-inch, as opposed to 9-inch). Later, I realised that the Portal cake only has two layers!! Boo. I used all three layers in the end though. My cakes weren't flat, so I shaved off the cake tops until they were parallel to the bottom of the cake, meaning that each layer was thinner.

The first and only "black forest cake" I've ever had was on my 10th (or 11th?) birthday. We bought it from ParknShop, and although it was labelled as "black forest cake", it was actually a chocolate swiss roll with jelly and cream filling. I wanted to emulate that, so I made cherry orange jelly for the filling of the Portal cake. However, although the jelly set, it was extremely watery and had the consistency of thick jam. A lot of it oozed out so I ate it. I'll just pretend it's chocolate cake "infused" with cherry orange flavouring...

The chocolate ganache recipe is from here, although I changed it up a lot.

All you have to do is simmer the heavy cream and throw in all the chocolate, and then all the coconut.

100 ml heavy cream (but maybe fatty milk will suffice?)

150 g dark chocolate chips

150 g shredded coconut (sweetened...but you should use unsweetened)

You MUST wait for this to cool down as much as possible before you spread it on the cake or else it's just going to drip/fall off. As it was super sticky, I couldn't figure out how to ice the cake with it. It turns out that you can scoop some ganache onto the back of your giant spoon, and spread it UPWARDS onto the sides of the cake. After an hour or so, the ganache will be solid enough that when you poke it, only some oily substance gets onto your finger (as opposed to a glob of ganache).

This coconut ganache gives a great "Portal"-esque texture to the cake. Initially, I was going to make a zillion chocolate shavings to press onto the cake. I am EXTREMELY glad I didn't have to endure that tedious task.

The white icing is fat free yogurt + powdered sugar + coconut, in a ratio of 1:6:6. You only need a tiny bit. The red blobs, which are supposed to be maraschino cherries, are actually gum balls that we are never going to eat. We only had 7, so I cut one in half (to make two halves).

We don't have real candles so I used a peppermint stick thing taped to a paper flame that says "congratulations!" on it. I took a lot of pictures because this cake looks really pretty (and tastes good, according to me and my sister, who ate a lot of cake scraps and icing).

A Walk Down South (St)

The weather site stated that there would be a 100% chance of rain at 5pm.

There wasn't.

It didn't rain at all in Philadelphia the past week, even though rain was forecast for every single day of the week.

It doesn't interfere much with my life, though, because I've decided to start swimming more and running less, since my knees are kinda shot and I do want to be able to walk properly in another 60 years (hopefully!)

TJ and I walked from 41st all the way to Penn's Landing on South St. Of course, we stopped primarily at food stores and we did glance around some clothes stores but I'm not interested in clothes that much. One lady did comment on the skirt I was wearing, which is pretty funny (okay, digression: Some five years ago, my mum and I were walking to the bus stop after my

piano exam/practice in HK, and I saw a really small shop and they had a box of clothes outside for 20HKD; ~3USD. That's where I got this lovely skirt from...I wonder what else was in that box, because I don't remember anymore).

I forgot to bring my camera, which was extremely unfortunate because we went to Govinda's Vegetarian Restaurant, Phileo Froyo, and Wholefoods. The bright side is that I'm going to Govinda's again soon so I can actually write a real review of it. I probably won't go back to Phileo's just because I'm not a froyo fanatic.

I got the Pepper Steak Cheesesteak made with soy protein, green peppers, mozzarella cheese and oil, on a whole wheat bun. It was hot, umami, and the bread was nicely toasted. There was a LOT of filling, and the texture was phenomenal. Although more pricey than "real" steak cheesesteaks, it was still delicious, juicy, and worth the walk. I'll do a real review in a week or so, when I get to take pictures. In short, I'm probably going to Govinda's at least another 3 times in order to try the Chicken Cheesesteak, the Sloppy Joe, and the Kofka/meatball sub (not to mention the desserts!). Maybe Govinda's is my favourite restaurant now. Yeah, actually, I think I've decided that my favourite restaurant is Govinda's To Go.

Phileo Froyo: Philadelpia, Phila = love, "Fill-y-oh", "Philly-Yo"; it's an awesome shop name. I tried a sample of tart kiwi froyo, which was extremely delicious!! For actual froyo, I got the peach, the cookies and cream, and the lychee. I also tried a bit of TJ's coconut, which had actual shredded coconut pieces in it. The lychee flavour is simply the best; it tastes light and watery, just the way real lychees taste! The flavour is exact! (Okay, a bit creamier) The peach flavour was ... peachy. Mild. Cookies and Cream tasted more like ice cream than light froyo, and reminded me of this time I got chocolate gelato, which didn't taste as good as rose gelato... so, I suppose if I want to enjoy froyo for being "froyo", I should get the fruity flavours instead. Still, nice experience.

At Wholefoods, TJ and I each got a sample of Fage Greek Yoghurt with honey, because they were having a sale of $1/150g container - BUT ONLY THE 0% fat honey, 2.5% fat honey, 2.5% fat cherry, 2.5% fat strawberry, and 2.5% blueberry. No plain flavour :(. No 0% fat cherry :( WHY!! I love 0% fat [real] cherry yoghurt.

I ended up buying a box of twelve 0% fat honey because

0. I enjoy eating yoghurt, especially Greek yoghurt.

1. $10.80 vs. $21.48

2. 12 days of high-protein/calcium breakfast covered! 13 g protein! 0g fat!

3. Now I have something sweet for dipping my 100% unsweetened baking chocolate.

Taste of Penn Part IV: Nancy's

This is part of the series about the Taste of Penn.

"What makes you special?"

My question. I really need to come up with a better, less cliche question, but that's all I had for the Taste of Penn. I really didn't need to ask, though, because Nancy's dairy honestly tastes different.

The cottage cheese actually tasted like something! It was tangy. Flavourful. Sour. The cottage cheese I get at Costco/Shoprite is usually much more mild tasting, and perhaps even bland, which is the way I like it because I'm not a huge cottage cheese fan. This cottage cheese, however, was thick and distinctly - may I say it - "gourmet"!

(no picture unfortunately)

I tried some of the yoghurt and it was also extremely sour-tangy. The fruit was also apparently homemade. I don't think I'm used to the strong taste, because I've grown up eating milder, sweeter yoghurts, but for those of you who want to try stuff with a zing, or who are dairy fanatics... this takes the cake. I mean, this takes the parfait.

I had never had kefir before, so I don't have anything to compare with this kefir. Maybe kefir is an acquired taste but I just thought it was okay.

The representative to whom I talked emphasised the whole organic thing, with cows from Oregon, and the presence of live cultures in the products. One thing that never made sense to me was that if we are digesting the foods we eat, how much of the probiotics (i.e. live bacteria) actually get to our small intestines intact? They'd have to survive a pH of 2 in our stomachs! According to my past two nutrition classes, research on this has been (what a surprise...) two-sided, with no conclusive evidence of probiotics aiding in digestion in the small intestine.

Dude, I love Yakult and yoghurt so much though, purely for the taste, and not for the probiotics component, that I'm not too concerned with this (apart from the fact that it's a huge advertising gimmick).

Kiwi Froyo

Kiwi.

Previously called "Sprinkles". The most popular flavours in Philly include vanilla, chocolate, original tart, and cookies and cream. Seasonal flavors turn up every few months.

Owned by Ryan and Matt Mealy, Kiwi is a frozen yoghurt (okay, for this post I will spell it "yogurt") store located on 36th and Chestnut, and I signed up for a Preceptorial lead by them. A preceptorial is basically a 2+ hour class that isn't going to be graded, and I suppose Penn gives them out because it's a way for students to learn things that aren't part of their majors/requirements. For instance, I signed up for a Thought Experiments Preceptorial, which is... well, philosophy, right? There was also one called Wine Tasting, and I got accepted into it but I'm not 21 yet so I can't actually go, legally.

I thought that this Kiwi Preceptorial would be interesting because it would open my eyes up more to the commercial/production aspect of food companies. I also hoped that there'd be a tour of the actual store, including what ingredients are used and how flavours are created. This wasn't the case though; the Preceptorial focused mainly on business. Ryan and Matt are businesspeople. They love food, sure, and they love frozen yogurt, but they are fully focused on the -open-more-stores- & -promote-Kiwi- & -sell-more-. They grew up in a family-business household, they have business degrees, and they decided to open up a frozen yogurt store because frozen yogurt was a business-grabber, with it being touted as "healthy" and all. If, for some reason, the frozen yogurt business dies down (although I highly doubt it, with more and more people believing that frozen yogurt is healthier than ice cream), they claimed that they are ready to pursue a different fad, including non-food ventures.

See, if I was going to open a bakery/patisserie, it'd be because I like food and I love baking and I want to cut out the stigma that pepper, vinegar, and chili "are too weird to put into sweet cookies/cake". So, this Preceptorial showed me why businesses expand and why Aramack and Campbell (and all the other places I applied to for internships) want Management and Marketing degrees. Thanks. Biology (and Chemistry, even though I really don't want to admit that) gets thrown out of the window. Actually, I take that back. I did ask Ryan whether they created their own froyo from scratch, and she said that they currently didn't. "However," she said with a grin, "my husband, who is a scientist, will be working on it at some point, although he doesn't know it yet."

Which goes to show that I should marry a Whartonite. Haha. I think that I prefer Engineers.

The Kiwi story, as I said, starts off from a family business; Ryan and Matt had a bunch of experience helping out in the family furniture company. They claim that each company needs to offer something "new", and to stay within that niche, in order to get recognition. The "new" thing for their furniture company had been that they offered same-day delivery, and the "new" thing for Kiwi is that the frozen yogurt is self-serve. I had never gone to Kiwi before, so, yes, I agree that this is indeed new. Unlike Flurt or any ice cream stores, Kiwi gives you a container and 14 flavours from 14(?) machines to choose from (16 in other Kiwi stores; only Philly has 14 flavours. I think that this is due to the fact that there is not enough wall space to stick in more machines here). For 49c / ounce, you can fill out however much of frozen yogurt you want; you just pull down the lever and let the frozen yogurt flow. Then, you can add toppings/fruit, and you weigh the bowl and its contents, and pay. I suppose this is great because it

1. Offers customers customizable sizes.

2. Offers customers every single flavour in one sitting.

3. Offers customers the ability to have 90% toppings and 10% froyo, if they really wanted to.

4. Means that employees don't have to be trained to make the perfectly pretty froyo. When I was at Carvel, I had to make sure that the ice cream on the cone looked pretty. If it looked wonky, customers would appear a bit upset, and I'd look unprofessional.

5. Means that only 1 container needs to be ordered. There's no such thing as a "small", a "medium", a "large", an "extra large", or a "kiddie cup".

6. Is "new".

Initially, Ryan and Matt were going to Franchise, but they decided that they should just open their own store, and they were going to call it "Wondercream", which has various connotations, one of them being inappropriate and another of them meaning "fat" (if you think about the word "cream", you will instantly think of "fat". Yes, you will, because the Media said so). Technically, they're still registered under the name Wondercream, although the name Kiwi is "fresher" seems to make customers like it more.

Back to the story. Ryan and Matt opened a store in June 2009 in Cherry Hill, NJ, and it was a really tough time up to that point because literally no realtors wanted to rent to a new company. Apparently, that's how it is in the business world; you're of zero value until you stick a dent in your market. (This is where I think the story got confusing, because Ryan said that they had started searching for location, equipment, interior design etc. in "December 2008" and that "after 16-17 months, we finally opened", which would imply that they started in December 2007. Nevertheless, the point is that they took a while to plan everything.) They ended up signing four leases before even opening the first store, and because nearly no-one turned up on their opening day, they had this huge "Grand Opening" and gave out unlimited free ice cream to everyone at their Cherry Hill Mall place. Both these events demonstrate how confident they are; apparently, they gave away 15000 oz of frozen yogurt to ~2000 people. Matt laughed about how it was a huge business risk, but that summer, they averaged 700-800 people per day.

This was a different story in Philly though; when Kiwi opened here in September 2009, the unlimited free froyo idea made people line up and just TAKE AND TAKE and be CRAZY! It's pretty interesting to see both Ryan and Matt laugh at all these events, which one could consider to be "failures" or "setbacks"; again, they're really confident people. They "want to dominate", they say.

So, here is the advertising component of Kiwi from Ryan and Matt. I'm typing it down because it's true, although I'm not sure how much more likely I am to buy froyo from them when I would rather buy bread since I like bread more:

1. Customers are greeted every. Single. Time. //I guess I'm indifferent to this part, unless I get discounts or something if I become a loyal member.

2. 30 toppings. //Thanks for the choices, but I'm not paying 49c for an ounce of marshmallows or an ounce of sprinkles. I'm paying 49c for an ounce of frozen yogurt.

3. Clean. //Whoot!

4. Fruit delivery 3 days a week! Fruit is also freshly cut!//See comment 2

5. Short shelf life of everything; no HFCS, no preservatives. //Whoot!

6. Good place to go for lunch. //But is there a nutrition label somewhere? See, I would pick a sandwich over this because I know that I will get enough protein and iron from eating whole wheat bread. For froyo, how much sugar did you add?

After the preceptorial, we all went to Kiwi to get some froyo. Everyone got 25% off, and I got $5 off because I was one of the lucky 25 people out of the 40 or so people who signed up at the right time. $5 gives ~10 oz of yogurt, and since I actually didn't bring any money with me (hey, with a prepaid meal plan, what else would I be using money for?), it was really useful having a few sets of scales sitting there so I could measure my yogurt content. I ended up with 8.7 oz of various flavours, but not all of them. The restaurant environment was pretty cheerful, but that may have been because of the swarm of people in there from the Preceptorial.

I tried original tart, peanut butter, green tea, chocolate, strawberry, mint, cheesecake, mango, and I want to say pomegranate but I'm not even sure that flavour exists. I just know there's another flavour buried underneath the ones in the pictures. The peanut butter flavour actually tasted like peanut butter, which is a change from "peanut butter flavoured" items such as Clif bars or cookies etc. The green tea flavour was light and poofy, as was the original tart flavour. Actually, all the flavours tasted very light (but NOT BLAND) and watery/icy. Another word I would use to describe Kiwi froyo is "fragile" because it melts mad fast.

Yes, I'll go again next semester, when I don't have a meal plan. I'll do a proper flavour review because I was too preoccupied talking to someone new (who I guess I will never see again, unfortunately) who I had met at the Preceptorial.