Why I love Chrissy Teigen

I’ve never been shy about my love for Chrissy Teigen on this blog. She’s hilarious, witty, smart and I have her love of cooking  to blame for my current obsession with making (not just eating) good food. I’ve always said that Chrissy was awesome, but when I say that now, I mean it beyond our mutual love for bacon and Ina Garten.

Chrissy sent out what was, to logical minds, a fairly harmless tweet implying that Chris Brown was lip synching during his Billboard Music Awards performance. What followed was something beyond what anyone, even those familiar with Team Breezy (and their willingness to get beat up by their idol), could’ve imagined. The worst of Chris Brown’s fans started sending vile, vulgar and disgusting tweets. They called her names (including calling her a “hoe”, as in the gardening tool), swore at her and even told her fiance John Legend that he needed to “put her on a leach” (this bunch ain’t winning a spelling bee anytime soon).

And whereas most of us would’ve just ignored the tweets or started spewing back the hate, this is how Chrissy decided to respond:

How Chrissy even replied to these trolls with humor and wit is beyond me. And she even tries to reason with them, writing:

“I am not picking on anyone or telling ANYONE to hate the dude. I like some of his music too. YOU can like it. You CAN. But WHY the insane hate and “team”?? Why can’t you just CHILL THE F**K OUT. I’ve had comments ranging from “kill yourself you stupid HO” to “gold digging c*nt” “get a f**king job”, etc. because I don’t like him? Seriously. This isn’t your f**king job. Stop being psychotic. Be strong women. Listen to opinions without spewing pure maliciousness. Don’t throw around the term ho, c*nt, slut. You’re women. WE ARE WOMEN. And don’t ever think a man can f**king control you. You guys are too young for this shit. Too f**king young. How you can even form these sentences at someone you don’t know makes me so sad.  John has gotten numerous comments about him needed to “leash” me or “control” me. FROM WOMEN. Please stop this. It’s so sad. What are you even doing this for? Some good music and dancing? Good God. DO BETTER. Ennnnnd.”

I couldn’t have said it better myself.

Of course, it didn’t end there. The worst of the tweets were still to come in the form of death threats and wishes that Chrissy get raped and murdered. It’s gotten to the point that even Chris Brown had to ask his fans not to send the threats, although he asked them to stop because “It’s the wrong message! Ur turning haters into victims! And that only furthers their pointless existence!”. Chris has since deleted the tweet, being the upstanding gentleman that he is, but it is worth pointing out that he did not ask them to stop because, I don’t know, it’s wrong, hard stop (not just the “wrong message), twisted and crazy to threaten to kill someone over her opinion.

Even through the worst of the sick and disgusting comments, though, Chrissy has refused to be bullied into shutting up. Some people fault her for fueling the fire and responding to the tweets, and for even making the initial comment on Chris. Some say that she’s in the wrong for fighting back against teenaged children (because they ARE kids, and it’s heartbreaking). But I admire her for standing up for herself and sticking to her guns when every one else (including me) would’ve given up and moved on. It’s maddening, frustrating and exhausting to argue with people who are blinded by their rabid and inexplicable love (can you even call it love?) for an unrepentant woman-beater. But Chrissy does it anyway and in such a hilarious way, too because she wants “better for girls”.

And don’t we all. Even if they don’t seem to want if for themselves.

PS: I tried very hard for this NOT to be a commentary on Chris Brown himself, apart from that bit towards the end. But if your curious of what I really think of him anyway, I think these two posts from elsewhere in the internet will illustrate that: click here and here.

Chipotle Chicken!

I haven’t been shy about my love for Chrissy Teigen and her blog, So Delushious!. I think most of my cooking posts have referenced her or a recipe she’s written about. And if you’ve browsed through her blog or follow her on Twitter (both of which you should do, by the way), you’ll know that the one food she raves most about and gets the most comments/tweets about is her chipotle marinade.

She’s mentioned this marinade ages ago, I think even before she had a blog, and it was actually featured on Young Married Chic first. I wanted to make it then, but I haven’t been able to find chipotle chilies in adobo in Manila (any tips, guys?). So I had to wait for my aunt from the US to bring some over.

My precious stash

I made the marinade on Thursday for Friday dinner. The recipe confused me a bit since it called for TWO chipotle chilies in adobo and, even with all the other ingredients, that didn’t seem enough to make marinade to feed 6-8 people. So I dumped the whole can in, and kind of just eyeballed everything else. My first taste told me that I put too much vodka in (although some people will argue you can never have too much vodka) and TOO LITTLE sugar. I like spice, but one whole can of chipotle chilis have a LOT of kick. I think I put in 5 times more sugar than I originally put. And also more ketchup. And more lime juice to brighten things up. And of course, the chicken thighs and legs.

Not exactly the safest thing to do...

No guys, I didn't burn it. It was just the light. I promise.

Don’t be fooled by the way it looks… this stuff is SOOOOOOO GOOOOOOOOOD. It’s like the flavor baby of barbecue and buffalo wings, only, drunk with vodka and with garlic breath. The hotness of the chipotle chilies is unlike any other I’ve ever come across. They have a deeper, more complex flavor than just the pure fire most chilies have. And it creeps up on you very slowly. My first bite went like this: “Oh, that’s juicy, oh spicy… ohhhhhhhhh that’s hotttttt… oh, I want moooooooore.” Nomnomnomnomnom…

I would add more garlic (I love garlic everything) the next time I make this. Other than that, there’s really nothing I would change to the marinade (although my mother wants me to tone down the spice. Boooo.). Except maybe make more, more, moooooore…

Finally: Bacon Yardbird!

I’ve been itching to try out this recipe when I read about it Chrissy Teigen’s blog (which you really, really, really should read) and I finally made the Lemon Garlic Bacon Chicken (a.k.a. Bacon Yardbird, as renamed by Chrissy’s Twitter followers) tonight.

Now, the thing is, I live in a country where some ingredients are not easy to find, which is annoying. I went to three stores this morning and ended up without poultry seasoning (although I already knew that was going to be very tough to find) and fresh thyme (I substituted dried). I almost ended up without chicken stock as well, if I didn’t find the one carton hiding behind cartons of vegetable stock at Rustan’s.

So, anyway, it was surprisingly easy to make, and I think it only took about 20 minutes to get from here:

Pale and a little sad looking

 to here:

Oven ready!

The cooking process itself was less of a breeze. You have to leave it the oven for the first half hour and then start basting and basting for the last 30-45 minutes. We don’t own a baster, and our oven barely managed to fit my pan, so I had no wiggle room to baste and had to take out the entire pan every single time. So, needless to say, I’m buying a turkey baster tomorrow.

But all that exposure to hot oven air was forgotten when I took this out of the oven:

There’s a relief that comes with your attempt at a recipe at least looking the way it should. It’s affirmation that, at the very least, you did some things right (like, not burning it).

But the real test, of course, is on the taste. And the verdict is… it was good, but there’s room for improvement. I put in a tiny bit too much lemon and way too little garlic, for starters. I also think that lack of poultry seasoning was telling, since without any gravy or the juices from the pan, the chicken was a little bland (my brother says it isn’t but I think he was just being nice. Awwww.) . I also plan to use less of the drippings from the pan and more chicken stock and seasoning in the gravy that I made since the gravy ended up tasting way too much like the juices.

The chicken itself, however, was lovely. It was tender and juicy and did not dry out at all, despite the high heat it was cooked in (400° for the first half hour). And neither was it raw, which is obviously a big no-no for chicken.

So I’m definitely making this again and am looking forward to the results once I’ve made the adjustments I’ve mentioned above. Now if I just knew how to get my hands on some poultry seasoning here in Manila…

I want to cook!

Look at this.

Some of my favorite things in the world in one dish: bacon (duh!), lemon, garlic, chicken and Ina Garten. Obviously, Ina is not IN the dish, but this is Chrissy Teigen’s version of a classic Barefoot Contessa recipe. Click through the picture to get to Chrissy’s post about cooking this and check out the rest of her hilarious blog as well. If reading it doesn’t make you laugh and make you want to eat, you may have something seriously wrong with you.

Anyway. Back to the chicken. I saw Ina make this on her show and it looked delicious. She covered the whole chicken with friggin’ strips of bacon, how can that not yield fantastic results? She made it with a whole chicken, though, and for some reason that always intimidated me. Chrissy, on the other hand, made hers with just thighs and drumsticks, and in my weird head, that made things a lot less scary. The recipe seems simple enough, although I hate that it takes so loooooooong to cook. But I suppose one hour and forty minutes is a small price to pay for (1) not getting food poisoning and (2) garlicky, lemony, bacony chicken goodness.

So yeah. I cannot wait to make the Ina/Chrissy chicken.

And then just this last weekend, I had this at La Nuova:

Again, some of my favorite things all in one dish: garlic, sundried tomatoes and sausages. I can’t get over how simple this dish is, how delicious and why I haven’t thought of it in the first place. We make a version of this at home, but one with chicken instead of sausages. The version with chicken is pretty quick and simple to begin with, and replacing it with sausage will make it even quicker, since there’s no need to pre-cook the chicken.

So, this is one more thing I can’t wait to make.

Watch this space if I actually do get around to making them. I rarely ever get the itch to cook, so this could be… interesting. Haha.