Last night was a celebration night of 10 Years of Lord of the Wings, and a few friends came out to celebrate with me.
Desiree, Priya, Sally and Nathan joined me at Duff's, one of my favourite places for wings in Toronto.
Their dill dip with celery - creamy, dilly, delicious.
Crispy naked wings with sauces on the side: medium, honey garlic, spicy honey garlic, bbq, spicy bbq and some super hot. Also some crispy fries. I was very happy.
Artistic re-rendering of a blurry wing photo.
Such great friends, I was going to treat them, but they treated me! Thanks everyone!
Back in the early 2000's I was living in Toronto, and had been trying to develop a website about my chicken wing adventures, but I was technologically challenged. Along came Blogger, and I decided a wing blog was the way to go.
In the beginning there were some bumps and stumbles, and it would be several posts before I got into a rhythm of how I wanted to post information. 10 years later and the blog has come so far.
I set out to find the best wings out there, but I found so much more along the journey. Good food, good friends, and good times.
My adventures have included:
Judging
Interviews
Road Trips
Eating Challenges
Review
Recipes
News
Consultations
Social Media (Twitter, WKTV on Youtube)
Who knew that all of this could come from eating wings?
I decided to put together a quick time line and a LOTW by the numbers infographic. Enjoy:
It's been a long road getting from there to here. Thanks to all my friends, family and followers for reading and being a part of my wing experiences. If this is what the last 10 years has brought about, I can't wait to see what the next 10 years bring.
Keep checking the blog for more #LOTW10years retrospectives, info and posts.
Did you know that this week will mark 10 years of Lord of the Wings???
Crazy, I know.
Tomorrow, Thursday May 28th will be 10 years since I started this blog. I'm going to have a retrospective, some updates and celebrating with some folks over wings.
So keep checking in and see where LOTW came from, and is going!
I have no idea how or why they started this line of questioning, but it's the fist time I was impressed with a TMZ interview:
Highlights:
"I like mine super spicy"
"someone brought me boneless breaded wings after I beat Sarah Kaufman and I cried. I literally cried. It has to be naked, an it has to have bones in it, and has extra hot sauce, and blue cheese"
"I like to take the two bones split in half and suck it off entirely on both sides"
This Ronda knows what she wants in a wing and I appreciate that. The passion for the wing, and for eating them after beating the crap out of an opponent, means I won't correct her that it's a wingette and a drummette (all wing) and not a leg . . .
It's Star Wars Day, May the 4th, May the 4th Be With You . . . get it?
I decided to honour today with a chicken wing recipe.
I searched the net to see if others had done star wars chicken wings, but I couldn't find anything. I wanted something that would tie into the star wars world, but food isn't very important in this franchise, so I had a pretty clean slate.
Now I'm an Empire man myself, a vetern of the old TIE Fighter gaming series, and the AT-ST's & AT-AT's seemed like a way to go - but nothing tasty seems to fit. Then it hit me, X-Wings have wings right in the name! And they shoot lasers, so blaster/hot/spicy was a natural conclusion.
But I wanted to elevate these wings to another level, and that meant a secret ingredient, worthy of the force. Ketchup Pop Corn Seasoning.
INGREDIENTS
Wings (1 pound)
Ketchup Flavoured Popcorn Seasoning
Cayenne Pepper
Spanish Sweet Paprika
Red Pepper Flakes
Garlic Powder
Baking Soda
Flour
Liquid Smoke
Butter
Hot Sauce (3rd Degree)
1-2 eggs (for egg wash)
For the most part, these are pretty straight forward, breaded, deep-fried wings with just a few blaster zaps of flavour to make them nuanced.
Adding some liquid smoke to the wings for, well, smokey flavour. Then a quick dusting of flour to give something for the egg wash to hold on to.
Next I dipped the wings into the eggs, then dropped them into a paper bag with the flour and seasonings. It might be hard to believe, but that`s a drummette in the above photo, and not a leg drumstick. The wings I got at the butchers were massive on this visit.
A little shake shake shake in the bag and these wings were properly breaded. They went onto a wire rack and chilled in the fridge for just over an hour.
Then the deep fryer was heated up and into the oil bath they went.
The wings came out as crispy, delicious looking fried chicken. Not only could you just eat them sauced like this, you could also just eat this as fried chicken.
Now here`s where the "blaster" part of these wings come in - a mix of chili flakes with the ketchup popcorn seasoning. This seasoning came from Bulk Barn, and it's a good quality seasoning. If you are like me, I love popcorn, but love popcorn with various seasonings even more.
The ketchup seasoning doesn't have a strong tomato taste, but rather the sweet yet acidic/sour properties of ketchup. Be generous in your sprinkling of this secret ingredient.
Again, at this stage the wings would be ready to eat as a very tasty dry wing. But these wings need to take on the Empire . . .
. . . so we add a spicy hot sauce/butter mixture that was placed in a squirt bottle and drizzled over. These aren't supposed to be saucy, because you might loose the crispy skin and that ketchup seasoning with spices.
I also decided to have some 'blue milk' that Luke's aunt Beru served on Tatooine. It was just chocolate milk with blue food colouring.
The wings turned out crispy - the skin was deep fried just right. The seasoning mix was tart, sweet and spicy and tasted like no wing I've ever had before. There was also that hint of smoke that gave another layer. The sauce gave that nice lubrication that complimented, rather than detracted. I kept licking my fingers it was so good.
So if you are looking for something unique this Star Wars Day, my Rebel Blaster X-Wings are the way to go. Sharp and accurate, just like an X-Wing's blaster, with a residual smoke trail following.
I did ask the galaxy what they would do, and here are a few good ideas too:
Anyway, May the 4th Be With You . . . Always. And enjoy the new Star Wars trailer if you haven't seen it yet:
