Cupcake Craze: It's Not Just for Kids Anymore!

By: Brandon Nichols
 

If you have spent anytime walking the mean streets of DC, you have, most likely, noticed a cupcake place…or a few. Hello Cupcake. Georgetown Cupcake. Red Velvet Cupcakery. Sprinkles. The list goes on and on. It is enough to make anyone’s head spin. Everyone seems to have chosen a side in this battle for cupcake glory. However, some are left wondering: what is the preoccupation with cupcakes?

Since we were young, cake has been a cornerstone of our upbringing. For any celebration, there was most likely a delicious cake involved. Wedding. Birthdays. You name it, there was cake. Now, a cupcake allows us to experience this same rush of sugary, joy in an easy-to-handle travel size – assuming your cupcake makes it out the door of the store (mine usually does not). Everyone wants experience childhood every day once in a while. Count me amongst them!

Below you will find a heart-breakingly delicious recipe for red velvet cupcakes. Make them and see if you can keep them around for more than a few hours ;-)

Red Velvet Cupcakes

Ingredients

• 2 1/2 cups flour
• 1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup butter, softened
• 2 cups sugar
• 4 eggs
• 1 cup sour cream
• 1/2 cup milk
• 1 (1 ounce) bottle McCormick® Red Food Color
• 2 teaspoons McCormick® Pure Vanilla Extract 
• Vanilla Cream Cheese Frosting:
• 1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese, softened
• 1/4 cup butter, softened
• 2 tablespoons sour cream
• 2 teaspoons McCormick® Pure Vanilla Extract
• 1 (16 ounce) box confectioners' sugar

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Mix flour, cocoa powder, baking soda and salt in medium bowl. Set aside.
2. Beat butter and sugar in large bowl with electric mixer on medium speed 5 minutes or until light and fluffy. Beat in eggs, one at a time. Mix in sour cream, milk, food color and vanilla. Gradually beat in flour mixture on low speed until just blended. Do not overbeat. Spoon batter into 30 paper-lined muffin cups, filling each cup 2/3 full.
3. Bake 20 to 25 minutes or until toothpick inserted into cupcake comes out clean. Cool in pans on wire rack 5 minutes. Remove from pans; cool completely. Frost with Vanilla Cream Cheese Frosting.
4. Vanilla Cream Cheese Frosting: Beat cream cheese, softened, butter, sour cream and McCormick® Pure Vanilla Extract in large bowl until light and fluffy. Gradually beat in confectioners' sugar until smooth.

A Happy Birthday Moment!

By: Eliza Yoder

 Unlike our drivers, our client service coordinators, or our dietitians, those of us in Food & Friends’ Development Department don’t have a lot of direct contact with the individuals who receive our services. It can be easy to get bogged down in the minutiae of office work, budget goals and data entry, forgetting the stories and faces of the clients who give meaning and purpose to the work we do.

To combat this disconnect, as a department, we adopted our own delivery route. Each Thursday morning two of us collect the groceries and prepared meals packed in Food & Friends red bags and head off to deliver literally to our neighbors –clients who live near our facility in Fort Totten.

After three years delivering to individuals on this route I feel a connection to the area and to our neighbors in North East DC. I know the streets and houses of clients whose doors I have knocked on, and who I’ve stopped to chat with and had the privilege of being thanked by. Each delivery outing reconnects me to the mission of Food & Friends and reinvigorates the time I spend at my desk.

I was fortunate enough to experience earlier this month what I consider a quintessential Food & Friends moment while on deliveries. One of our clients was receiving a birthday cake in her meal delivery that day. I noticed the label on her bag as I walked up the steps to her door. When she opened the screen and greeted me, I asked, "Do you have a birthday coming up?" She looked at me with surprise and replied "Today. How did you know?" Her eyes welled up when I let her know we had baked a birthday cake for her and it was in with her meals. I don’t know how old she was turning – 65?…70? - I wish I had asked, but as I wished her a happy birthday on the first sunny day in weeks, she smiled at me and said, “I am just happy to still be here.” And at that moment I was so thankful to be even just a small part of making that birthday wish come true.

Exciting Nutrition Study Funded by Kaiser Permanente of the Mid-Atlantic States

By: Nick Halasz, RD

  Recently, I was hired by Food & Friends to spearhead a one of a kind study measuring the impact of their nutrition services. When I arrived, I learned that Food & Friends became the recipient of a $200,000 grant from Kaiser Permanente of the Mid-Atlantic States to fund our popular Groceries-to-Go (GTG) program and a nutrition outcomes research study. GTG is our program designed for clients and their families who are healthy enough to prepare their own meals, or who have a caregiver to do so.

This study will be used to evaluate the effectiveness and impact of our services on our clients by measuring changes in nutrition knowledge and behavior. That’s where I come in. As one of the newest members of Food & Friends, I’m excited to be a part of the first ever study of its kind for our organization. Our team has been working hard to recruit clients receiving GTG to take part in the study. I will be hosting cooking classes, leading grocery store tours and conducting tele-seminars for clients to call in and discuss a variety of nutrition topics. We hope to not only increase the nutrition knowledge of our clients, but to identify areas of improvement within the Food & Friends nutrition education program to strengthen services for future clients.

We are excited to begin sending out our initial survey to clients who have kindly agreed to participate. This unique data collected will help set Food & Friends apart among those organizations in the Washington, DC area providing meals and nutrition services for those in need. Most importantly, the study will allow Food & Friends to better serve those we come to work for everyday; our clients. Having solid research and data to back-up this mission will allow us to continue to receive funding to serve clients healthy, nutritious meals, as well as the highest quality nutritional services.           

Victory Deferred

By: John-Manuel Andriote

  One of the most touching songs about AIDS over the epidemic"s three-decade history so far) never mentions the word AIDS. "Is it someone you know, or only a stranger?" sings Patti Austin. "If we have to ask, then we’re all in danger," she continues. "We're all in this together."

When Food & Friends, back in 2000, explored the idea of offering its meal delivery services to people with life-challenging illnesses besides AIDS, the agency was exploring unknown territory. Would clients feel stigmatized by receiving nutritional support from an "AIDS" organization? Would donors restrict their contributions only to serve clients whose particular diagnosis fit their own commitments or mission?

Eleven years later, Food & Friends has proved that when it comes to caring for and serving the nutritional needs of people with serious illness, the lines blur between who has what. What is most important is to provide nutritional support for those in the community who need it. Period. Making the agency's services more widely available has proved a fantastic thing for the community and for Food & Friends.

In conducting dozens of new interviews across the country for the new edition of my book Victory Deferred: How AIDS Changed Gay Life in America, I’ve observed many AIDS service organizations struggling to remain relevant as funding tightens and effective medical treatment means there are far fewer seriously ill HIV-positive people who require such services as home-delivered meals.

I've come to appreciate more than ever the foresight and generosity of spirit with which Food & Friends has been able to maintain its vital role in the D.C. community, and as a model for other organizations originally created to serve very ill people with AIDS that are now trying to sort out their role in the epidemic's changed landscape.

I’m grateful, and proud, that Food & Friends has so generously organized a special event on Thursday, September 22, to launch the "updated and expanded" edition of Victory Deferred.  I can't think of any place I’d rather be than with these good folks whose work every day attests to their belief, which I share, that "we're all in this together."

Fudgy Peanut Butter Caramel Brownies

By: Brandon Nichols

  Hello fellow food aficionados! Over the past couple of weeks Tropical Storms “I” through “L” have dumped buckets of rain on the area, leaving many to scramble for cover. I don’t know about you but I love rainy days. To me, rainy days are the perfect baking weather! Mostly, because no one wants to step outside. Also, rainy days can be a little dreary, so we all need a little pick me up!

Ever since I was a kid, my favorite pick me up has been a brownie. The warm, fudgy goodness of a fresh brownie is unparalleled! Now, there are a lot of brownie variations out there and below is my personal favorite. I belong to the school of thought that the chocolate in brownies should not be overwhelmed by the other ingredients; subtle flavoring makes for a superb brownie.

This recipe was adapted from the Boudin Bakery Brownie recipe found in the LA Times Food section. It is sure to be a crowd pleaser!

Try it and tell me what you think!  I would love to hear from you and would also love to know what your favorite brownie recipe is.

Ingredients:
2 sticks of butter
8 ounces of bittersweet chocolate
5 eggs
21 ounces of sugar (3 cups)
1 tablespoon of vanilla
1 teaspoon salt
6.38 ounces unbleached all-purpose flour (1 ½ cups)
12 ounces semi-sweet chocolate chips
14 ounces of caramel candy (I used Werther’s Original Chewy Caramels)
1/3 cup heavy cream
2/3 cups of crunchy all-natural peanut butter (feel free to use more or less depending on your preference!)

Directions:

1. Heat the oven to 350 degrees. Line a 9-by-13-inch baking dish with wax paper. You can butter the pan; however, wax paper makes for much easier clean up! 
2. In a medium sauce pan, melt the butter and chocolate over low heat, stirring occasionally. Remove from heat and set aside. 
3. In a stand mixer using a paddle attachment, or in a large bowl using an electric mixer, beat together eggs, sugar and vanilla until light and fluffy, 5 to 7 minutes. With the mixer on low speed, beat in the melted chocolate, then the salt and flour just until combined. Gently fold in chocolate chips 
4. Spread about half of the mixture into the pan. 
5. To make the caramel filling, combine the caramel candies and cream in a medium saucepan over medium-low heat.  Heat, stirring frequently, until melted and smooth.  Stir in peanut butter.  Immediately spread the caramel mixture over the bottom brownie layer.  Pour the remaining brownie batter over the caramel layer, taking care to pour and spread it evenly otherwise it will be difficult to spread evenly over the caramel layer. 
6. Bake in the center of the oven until puffed and almost set, about 45 minutes. Remove and let cool.

There's Always Room at Our Table for One More

By: Craig Shniderman


You can probably imagine how hard it is to do “little things,” like cook a meal or go to the grocery store, when undergoing treatment for HIV/AIDS, cancer or any other life-challenging illness.  Then imagine having no one in your life who can help you and you’ll have a pretty good idea of what our clients cope with every day.

Here at Food & Friends, we work hard every day to provide the safety net needed to ensure that our neighbors in need are cared for at the most difficult time of their lives.  How do we do it?  With the help of more than 11,000 volunteers and nearly 100,000 donors. When I became Executive Director in 1995, I was amazed at the 700 people who gave of their time and energy.  To think we have 16 times the volunteers in just over 16 years is astonishing.  We can never thank them enough.

We have a great story to tell about the people who need our services and those who step forward — staff, volunteers, and donors — to be sure they have nutritious food as they fight their illness.  We’ve launched our new website to help us tell that story more effectively to more people, and we’ll be telling our story on this site, on Facebook and Twitter, and through this blog.  We look forward to your feedback, comments and observations.

I hope you’ll take a moment now to sign up for our free email updates and even peruse the Get Involved section of this site.  It is because of interested and interesting people such as you that Food & Friends will remain a force in the fight against HIV/AIDS, cancer and other life-challenging illnesses.  And, with your support, Food & Friends will be able to make room at our table for one more.