10 Questions With Teanna DiMicco Of Spork Or Foon

Last but not the least in our nominated via Twitter food-bloggers to be interviewed on this blog is the lovely Teanna DiMicco. With a witty, tongue twister of a blog name "Spork Or Foon", Teanna immediately piques your curiosity and you wonder what must go through that brilliant mind of hers. Well, there is the obvious love of food and a sense of adventure and a tongue-in-cheek writing style that had me grinning. Then there are all those gorgeous recipes and food pictures. So, without further ado I present to you Teanna’s delightful interview. I hope you have as much fun reading it as I did. Teanna can also be found on Twitter @sporkorfoon

Thank You for doing this interview Teanna. We really appreciate it!

1. Your latest food discovery?
Eno Fruit Salt. It is a mix of Sodium Bicarbonate (46.4%), Citric Acid (43.6%), Sodium Carbonate (10%). It is mainly used to cure indegestion, but it also can be used in baking. It can be used as a substitute for baking soda, but does not have the aftertaste. I like multi-purpose things. How many things can help make things that will give you indigestion and then be used to cure it? It is genius.

2. What cookbook has inspired you the most?
I’d have to say Baking: From My Home to Yours with Dorie Greenspan for so many reasons. I started my blog, Spork or Foon?, because I wanted to join the Tuesdays with Dorie group.  Because of Dorie’s book, and the inspiration from the other members of TWD, I have learnt that I do not need to follow recipes to the letter and has opened up my mind to experimentation. It also taught me that homemade cookies are actually NOT supposed to be hard as a hockey puck and that oven temperature settings listed in the recipe are not up for interpretation. Baking something at 450 degrees that should be cooking at 350 will not make it cook faster nor will it make it taste better.

The Spork Or Foon Blog

3. Your fondest food memory?
Oddly enough, I did not like food until about 4 years ago. I wish I could tell stories of my youth where I was at a county fair and had my first taste of caramel ice cream. Or that I was on a boat in France where I ate my first oyster. But unfortunately, my favorite dish was a turkey and american cheese whole wheat sandwich… with relish. So my fondest food memory are pretty recent. My boyfriend and I went to Komi, a relatively new restaurant in DC where reservations are made months in advance. It is in a tiny little townhouse in Dupont Circle and is modestly decorated, so the food is the star. We had a 15 course (yes, 15), three hour dinner. The first 10 courses are one bite dishes that included dishes like raw hamachi sprinkled with sea salt, inside-out Caesar Salad (crouton on the outside) filled with liquid Caesar Salad, foie gras cream puff and goat cheese S’mores with red pepper gelee, brioche filled with salmon caviar, and sea urchin pasta. The funny thing is, after the 6th course, or bite, I was still starving. Two bites later, I thought my stomach was going to explode. Two bites after that, our main courses came out. A course after that, the waiter came out with a pork leg from a suckling pig the size of both of our heads put together and seven dipping sauces. Then a cheese course and two courses of dessert. I wanted to cry – for the amazing dining experience, my sanity, and my ruined diet. But it was so worth it.

4. Your most trusty kitchen companion?
My kitchen scale.  Before I had it, it seemed like one of those kitchen appliances that wasn’t really necessary as long as I had measuring cups.  But ever since I bought it, I find myself wanting to toss my measuring cups out of the window and yearn for recipes written in the metric measurements.

Tiramisu Bread Pudding From Spork Or Foon
 

5. Quick, tell us 10 things that are in your fridge right now! 
Buttermilk, Almond Milk, Whipping Cream, Eggs, Carrots, Celery, Roma Tomatoes, Mascarpone Cheese, Caramelized White Chocolate, and an unopened bottle of champagne. Looking at this list, I think I should have a party.

6. One ingredient that frightens you the most? Why?
Cilantro. It is the devil.

7. What are you doing food wise to be more ecologically responsible?
I always try to buy seasonally and locally. I often shop for the ingredients when I need them, rather than stock up and end up not using half of items I buy. I also grow my own herbs (I wish I could grow more, but I live in an apartment and think it would be weird if I tried to grow heirloom tomatoes on top of the air conditioning unit in my living room).

Honey Peach Bellini Ice Cream With Caramelized White Chocolate Sauce From Spork Or Foon

8. Which celebrity chef would you invite to dinner? What would you cook for them?
Johnny Iuzzini. He is the executive pastry chef at Jean Georges and makes some pretty amazing creations. I would start off the meal with an amuse buche of cauliflower soup with a small scallop, caramelized leeks, and topped with caviar, then a rabbit pappardelle pasta dish that is fresh and filled with flavor, then finish it off with some "tiramisushi" – tiramisu cake with chocolate and mascarpone filling rolled in cocoa powder and served with cookie "chopsticks". And for a palate cleanser, a little honey peach sorbet.

9. What vegetable are you?
I really struggled with this question. I don’t know what vegetable I am, but if I had to become a vegetable, I’d like to be a jicama. They produce a natural insecticide to repel pests. That is pretty awesome.

Monkfish Corndogs With Mango Ketchup From Spork Or Foon

10. Comfort Food?
Ice cream. I am contemplating just turning all of my meals into ice cream sundaes so that I can eat all ice cream, all the time. Which would make tonight’s dinner of deconstructed eggplant parmesan consist of eggplant, breadcrumb, egg, and mozzarella ice cream topped with a hot tomato sauce. I guess it sounds much better in theory.

Thanks for the interview Sneh!

Thank You Teanna for that really fun insightful look into your kitchen and for sharing some amazing food experiences with us. It was a pleasure to have you on the blog!
[All personal and food images are copyright of Teanna DiMicco and Spork Or Foon Blog. They were reproduced here with permission]