IDEAS IN FOOD

Chaos Theory

In times of duress or stress it is important to eat well. The body needs nourishment to support physical activities and mental acuity. Of course these are the times when diets go out the window, we eat whatever is easy and quick, and if sugar and fat are involved, the more the better. We're in the midst of moving into our new home, Mother's Day weekend had it's own unnecessary dramas, and combined with the single biggest purchase and move we've ever made, it's safe to say that we haven't been eating well. It's hard to cook a good meal when you have no idea where the pots and pans are. Tonight after we picked up the cats and finally reunited the family (they've been boarding with family for the last two months) we drew a line in the sand. Alex ran out to the market for a roasted chicken and good salad greens. We cracked open a very nice bottle of wine. There was no bread, butter, or frills and none were needed. It may not have been home cooked but it was a simple, healthy and delicious meal.  Nourishment is what we were after and we rediscovered how much better the world looks after a good meal. No pictures because I've never seen a chicken disappear so fast. We were tearing into it before we even had it on the plates. Tomorrow is another day for fun in the kitchen, today we're just greatful to have had access to someone else's cooking.

The Problem with Ever After

Here's a link to an entertaining and thought provoking post about the the problem with pinning your hopes on happily ever after.

I love the journey from A to B because:
1. The scenery is ever changing,.
2. I learn something new every time I open my mind.
3. I never know what will happen next.

Read the post and you'll understand what I'm talking about.

Best Food Writing 2008

I've been reading Best Food Writing 2008 on my  Kindle, don't get me started on how much I love it--especially the iphone application, it saves my sanity on a daily basis. Anyway back to the book, the 2008 version has a fair amount of politics and strong minded ideals between it's pages, the essay that really struck me today was one by Sarah DiGregorio, The Salami Maker Who Fought the Law, for Gastronomica, about  Salumeria Biellese. Longtime readers know that we're fans of their work, they make some of the best salumi we've ever tasted. The article discusses the lengths they were forced to go to to get approved by the USDA. It's a thought provoking essay that shows that old school methods really do work, although most of the artisan producers will have a tough time coming up with the funds to prove their methods are safe for human consumption according to government standards. We're glad that they were able to push their approval through and we only wish it did more to help pave the way for other quality producers. 

Food and Emotion

Today for lunch I ate cold pepperoni pizza and a chocolate dipped cupcake while I held the baby. As I savored the crumbs of moist cake that stuck to my fingers I remarked to Alex that it felt like a party. Years of birthday parties with pizza and cake were ingrained into my psyche so that even this unorthodox version still made me feel vaguely celebratory as I enjoyed it. My lunch had the upside of not being accompanied by the inevitable small dramas and upsets that occur at any children's party. On the other hand there were no presents or goody bags at the end of my meal. It was a fleeting pleasure that made me think of parties to come as Amaya slowly comes of age.

We've been working on a couple of projects, one about vegetarian cooking. The idea is to create luxurious vegetarian food. My own caveat to this goal is the need to use everyday ingredients so that the dishes are easily accessible and enjoyed. To this end we were talking about texture. Smooth, creamy textures, whether hot or cold, tend to feel luxurious. Much in  the same way that silks and satins against the skin feel indulgent, rich textures on the palate make the dinner feel coddled and cosseted. There needs to be contrast and texture certainly, to awaken the senses and allow the brain and the tongue to participate in the experience, it was just the realization that luxury can be about more than simply ingredients, it can be the way a chef uses the ingredients to evoke emotion.

Both memory and texture came into play in my thought processes.  Actual dishes or combinations can create an experience, like cupcakes and pizza. It makes me wonder, what food combinations resonate for you? What textures make you feel luxurious?

Notes For Sunday

Sunday is really a good day to go through notebooks and post it notes. While in the past we have uploaded full notebooks and they are download-able on the side bar, we feel that sharing a page now and again might spark a few more ideas. I spent a few hours writing today and this is the top page of notes.

• Pistachios braised in clam juice   
• Kimchee bbq sauce
• •    Kimchee braised shortribs
• •    Pear kimchee
• •    Kombu cured squab
• •    Coconut toast
• •    Cabbage cappuccino
• •    Kudzu base in ice cream
• •    Hash browns in the style of loaded potato skins
• •    Duck leg chorizo
• •    Chicken and foie gras tater tots
• •    Apple like lychee, lychee like apple
• •    Recipes and creativity
• •    Use twine to scrape lamb bones
• •    Mozzarella dumpling base: 230g buffalo mozzarella, 55g mozzarella water, 160g ricotta
• •    Cornflake crusted shrimp
• •    Cornflake cavatelli
• •    Cornflake tempura balls
• •    Corn flakes as a medium for flavor
• •    Cornflake polenta
• •    Madiera dashi with grilled bacon skins
• •    Cream cheese poundcake
• •    Kobe beef with barley miso, white asparagus and fresh thyme
• •    Miso mole: cocoa nibs, black sesame seeds, red miso
• •    Marcona almond sponge cake
• •    A second gellan skin, first drop calcium into gellan to form a skin then drop into calcium rich to form an outer shell.
• •    Cornflakes with minced shallots, foie fat, chives
• •    What shape can we make our corn flakes in? triangle, rounds
• •    Sugared and salted corn flakes
• black pepper cornflake brittle
• •    Tuna loin crusted with sweetbreads
• •    Tendon lardo
• •    Cauliflower porridge
• •    Add vadouvan to beef bourgognon sauce puree
• •    Beef heart tartare, chorizo flavors
• •    Caramel cornflake pudding
• •    Cornflake soup, ice cream, cake, bread, poundcake
• •    White miso whiskey
• •    Foie gras chorizo
• Bourbon-raisin flan
• Whiskey-Cherry upside down cake

What You Have, What You Need

In the continued exploration of life, which in our world often revolves around food and wine, questions, important questions pop up. Let us take a look at wine cellars. Why do people collect wine? Why are wines cellared? As we are packing up our wine cellar I come to question our reasons for collecting and wanting to cellar wine. When we started it was difficult to get on boutique vineyard mailing lists and the availability of specific wines was scarce for those not in the know. Today, almost anything is available if you know where to shop. Sure, at times you may pay a premium though ask yourself what it would have cost you to buy a cult bottle of wine and store it properly from day one so that upon drinking it is at it's peak. If you were buying cases and had the opportunity to buy cases then perhaps you are a wine investor with disposable income which can be tied up in the world of wine. I wonder about that world today when any bottle of wine seems to be only a click, or at most a phone call, away. You may pay more for a single bottle although when is the last time you sat down to drink a case of wine?

So now let us look at restaurants. Why are wine lists so important? Is there a better way? I believe there most certainly is although I'm not sure the best way to articulate the change. If there is a more efficient model for buying and storing wine, why aren't we looking into it? In the same vein, perhaps this thought process could be applied to the purchase and use of ingredients, particularly for those interested in seeing and tasting quality food and drink without major funds to invest. It's definitely something to ponder in the current and future economic conditions.

Describe Your Food

Cooking is a journey to be savored. It’s about exploring the possibilities to be found on the way to delicious. Some days we become so focused on the end goal that we miss opportunities along the way. Learning to balance the need for experimentation and the need to achieve goals is a skill that needs constant refinement. It's the blending of ingredients that creates something truly special. We hear talk about comfort food, molecular gastronomy, classic French, down home Southern, fine dining, diner food, the list of pigeon holes goes on and on. We're simply about food that tastes great and looks appetizing, perhaps even beautiful, although flavor always comes first. This is a concept that gets a lot of lip service in various forums and still when it comes down to describing a particular chef or restaurant's food we often fall back on easy labels that don't do them justice. We all want an easy explanation when the reality is that truly great food often resists an easy definition. Inspirations are drawn from all the experiences in a chef's life and from the experiences of any cook working alongside them. It's impossible to draw distinct lines around any cuisine and yet we are often compelled to try.

In our own cooking we fall down the rabbit hole again and again, searching for new perspectives and ideas. When we surface from the kitchen we are asked again and again what kind of food we cook. The answer stumps us every time. There is no single category that defines our food, or even that of any other chef we know. Peer into the pantry of the classically trained chef and you will find hydrocolloids and Activa on their shelves. Tiptoe into the kitchen of a "New American" chef and you will find truffle oil and Espellette pepper. Eyeball the menu in a classic American steak house and you will probably see some Wagyu beef from Japan. These are just ingredients, techniques have traveled so far and so fast that we are hard pressed to find ones that are used for only one purpose or cuisine. This melting pot is what makes food so fascinating and cooking so much fune. We are privileged to live in a time when information travels at the speed of light and we can share methods across thousands of miles and adapt ingredients to our individual visions of delicious.

The Diference Between Men and Women

This is not about food, here's a link to a very funny post on one of my favorite non-food related blogs: The Lipstick Chronicles. It's a great illustration about the difference between men and women via shoes. I read it to Alex this morning and he insisted that I post it here. Now if you change the shoes to kitchen equipment and reverse the roles, well then you have both sides of the story...

PS: the post after that one is about restaurant peeves from both sides of the table so there actually is something industry related for people who must have their fix.

Cookies, Not Just For Breakfast

These are healthy cookies. At least I tell Aki that since she "snuck" a bit of oatmeal into these peanut butter and peanut M&M cookies. I could say that we sit down to oatmeal for breakfast almost everyday. These cookies and some Counter Culture coffee make four am a whole lot more doable.

On Ice Cream

Michael Laiskonis has a very important, informative and inspiring post on ice cream and cooking. Its principles speak and define cooking today and for the future. Michael gets it and shares it.

Jay Rayner at El Bulli

For those who haven't seen this, it's a brief recap and video of Jay Rayner's day with Ferran Adria. It's an interesting glimpse into the world of El Bulli in Adria's own words, especially for those of us who have not been lucky enough to make it out there. You just never know what you'll find over on the Word of Mouth blog.

Notes of a Chef

the way food is presented is changing

        enhance effects
frankincense is the crystalized sap of a tree and should be utilized more in cooking
                            modernizing a craft
violet brined sea urchin                    applying the values of cooking

dashi brined seafood in shells

marrow and minced meat

foie gras minced meat                                contrasting flavor

                                                brandy butter

follow your instincts

understanding flavors

tea for doughs
anything may be a tea
the flavor of a little burnt

what may be fat?

the evolution of creativity...you get what you give

insight into the world that inspires

honest approach to food

open source innovation
where do we find flavors?

Too Much Information?

The last part of the round table we participated in last Friday centered around "hot topics". It started with a discussion of buying local produce. They started with a story about an independent chain of supermarkets that is known for it's sourcing of local products. The caveat was that the company does not hold the local producers to the same quality standards that are required from the national suppliers. This is turn sparked some debate among the professors present as to whether or not this was actually true since the chain in question was training their local sources in order to bring them all up to the minimum standards by next year. Regardless, the next question posed was whether buying local produce (meaning from within the state, and yes there was a discussion of what the term local actually means and its fluidity from person to person) from Walmart was in the same spirit as buying local from the farmer's market or independent store.

We moved on to a discussion of  virtual water, which is basically the amount of water that goes into creating a food product. This is important because there are billions of people on this planet without access to clean, potable water. The suggestion was made that as chefs and restaurateurs we should base some of our decisions on the virtual water value of ingredients and perhaps even boycott products coming from countries without clean water resources for the population in an effort to create change. I'm sure that I don't have to tell you that these statements sparked all kinds of debates, both for and against using virtual water value as an assessment tool in food service purchasing. Either way it gave us plenty to think about.

We talked briefly about animal husbandry and organics. It was pointed out that organic farmers have no incentive to treat  sick cows with antibiotics because then the cows must be quarantined and can no longer be used for milk that is certified organic. The reasoning was that the animals are made to suffer for longer periods of time because farmers actually delay treatment in order to avoid lowering production. It was also pointed out that regular, non-organic milk is screened for antibiotics and no milk with any trace of antibiotics is allowed to be sold in the United States. The question posed was why do people choose to buy organic and is it really better.

From there we moved on to carbon footprints. We all know that rising price of gas has greatly impacted our food system. The idea of eating locally is one that has been embraced for reasons of sustainability, economics and pollution. At the round table it was pointed out that for those of us living in New York, wine transported from France actually has a smaller carbon footprint than wine that comes to us from California because the wine from France travels by ship and wine from California travels by truck. So if you use the carbon footprint as your gauge for being a responsible consumer it is better to buy wine from France if you live on the east coast. Again, this opened a rather large can of worms from many different viewpoints not the least of which is whether or not buying American is better than sending the money outside of the country and whether or not some wineries ship by train and whether that has a smaller carbon footprint than the ship that travels from France.

Now these were brief presentations and meant to be provoking. I've been making my way through Marion Nestle's book What to Eat and so I found all of this pointed controversy both interesting and exhausting. There was one person at the table who actually asked the question "why should I care about these things?"  His point was that if the government doesn't get behind these issues and there is no change in policy and regulations and his bosses aren't interested in supporting these choices because the consumers dining in his restaurant don't really care, what is his incentive to jump on the bandwagon and spend the time and effort to research all of these issues and make considered choices? One answer was preserving the planet for his children. He acknowledged that he would like to do that but that because the choices are so convoluted and that the information is relatively hard to find, that the amount of work that would go into tracking down the information was more effort than it was worth in terms of the actual impact his decisions would have on the problems.

It's a conundrum. I was sorry that they left these topics for the very end of the discussion when there was so little time to explore them. At the same time I have to admit that the more information I receive, the more complicated the choices become. Buying local seems like an easy choice until you start dissecting what local means, how local supplies are processed and the carbon footprints involved. The question is how much information is too much? How informed can our choices be? Most importantly how economically viable are responsible choices. I don't have any answers as of yet. I know that we try to make the best choices that we can. I just don't always know if they are the right ones. The more information I get, the less sure I am of the right answers.

Fried Brains and Viscous Thoughts

These are the final results of driving to Ithaca and back in the same day. We participated in an interesting round table up at the hotel school at Cornell, ostensibly about menu development and really about a variety of issues that are cropping up in the restaurant industry today.  It gave us lots to think about and after two long drives on top of days of travel, our brains are fried. We'll post more about the round table tomorrow.

We'll just leave you with this question to ponder, interestingly, the theme for the Star Chefs Congress next weekend. What exactly is the responsibility of the chef? The basic answer is creating and executing great food and all that entails, the more complicated answer encompasses education, responsible sourcing, staffing, and safety. So what do you think? What is the responsibility of a chef or a restauranteur in these modern times?

Are You a Shoemaker?

In a workshop today a chef related a story about working at the old Le Cirque. He told us that Jacques Torres would often refer to the savory cooks as shoemakers because they were always fixing dishes at the end of the preparation process, adjusting the seasoning and compensating for any mistakes. On the other hand pastry chefs weighed and measured all of their ingredients each time they made a recipe and so the dishes were prepared properly from start to finish. It was an interesting anecdote because scales are becoming much more common in the savory side of the kitchen. As cooks the transition to weighing and measuring was not a natural one. We chafed at the tyranny of the scale before realizing how much easier it made things in the end. As Wylie once said to Alex, "How can you reproduce a dish if you don't know what went into it?" How indeed. These days the scale is never far and scribbled post it notes decorate the kitchen cabinets. We've learned to embrace precision, although heaven knows there times when we were guilty of being shoemakers without ever realizing that it was happening.

Wednesday Shopping

In our world Wednesday is green market day. We may occasionally venture out to Union Square on a Friday or a Saturday, though Wednesdays are a given, if we're in town to do some cooking, we're at the green market on hump day. This morning was rainy and overcast so we decided to go out for breakfast first to give things a chance to clear up.

We drove off the Williamsburg bridge and headed straight for the Clinton St. Baking Company. We had heard great things about this place and we weren't disappointed. My blueberry pancakes were enormous and light, with extra blueberries scattered about. I must confess that I prefer real maple syrup and butter to their  hybrid maple butter, but the chorizo on the side helped bring things into balance. Alex's southern breakfast with soft scrambled eggs, fried green tomatoes, cheese grits, and a hefty serving of bacon was awesome and that's probably what I'll order next time. There will definitely be a next time.

After breakfast there was time for a quick stroll to the Sugar Sweet Sunshine Bakery to pick up an assortment of cupcakes before heading over to the green market. If you've never tried these cupcakes, you really should. They are not too big, not overly frosted, extremely moist and tender, and pretty damned tasty. We had a cupcake tasting after dinner tonight and although the lemon was the clear winner, the runners up were pistachio and chocolate with vanilla frosting. The chocolate on chocolate was a little bit dry and we didn't actually get to the pumpkin or red velvet, which means breakfast tomorrow is all taken care of. I must mention the Bob which I ate right after breakfast as a kind of pre-tasting test.  It, though not part of the formal eating of the cupcakes, is my favorite.

We were remarkably restrained at the green market today and decided to make a quick stop at Whole Foods on our way out of town.  Among the usual plethora of beautiful produce there was a dazzling display of polished looking ostrich eggs. Alex whipped out his camera and was politely asked not to use it by a nearby produce clerk. So you'll just have to imagine these beautiful, cantaloupe-sized ostrich eggs. They are $39.99 a piece. There were also organic chicken eggs and duck eggs nestled close by. We wondered if perhaps they were stocked there in honor of the rumored Top Chef filming, or perhaps Whole Foods just has that kind of demand. We restrained ourselves from purchasing one, budgetary restrictions and all that.  The beautifully stacked display did make us wonder though, how can you tell when an ostrich egg is fresh? There's no labeling of any kind, you can't float them in water or crack them open to check the height of yolk of tightness of the white. They're not wrapped or labeled in any way although they are in refrigeration. Still, for $40 an egg I'd like to know that I'm getting a youthful product.

Any ideas on freshness or uses for such an egg?

More on Cold Cooking

Harold McGee has an article about cold cooking in today's New York Times.  As always, his article is thoughtful, well informed, and inspiring. So what are you waiting for, go check it out!

When Things Go Awry

There's a new brand of ice cream on the market. It touts single origin chocolate and vanilla flavors. Each one is meant to be an expression of the cacao beans or vanilla beans from a specific place, like Ghana or Costa Rica or Madagascar. I love the idea behind this story, heaven knows there are plenty of chocolate companies doing the same thing. Why not use ice cream as an expression of quality ingredients and terrior? Today I finally tracked down this elusive ice cream at a Trader Joe's here in Queens. It came in a four pack of individually sized chocolate flavors and I eagerly opened the first container. I took a bite and immediately went for the ingredient list. I was not surprised to see that the last four out of five ingredients were locust bean gum, guar gum, carageenan and lecithin.

Now we spend a lot of time teaching people about hydrocolloids and how to use them. The first rule in our book about these ingredients is that if you know they're in a product then you're probably using them the wrong way. Hydrocolloids are ingredients which may help a chef change and enhance the texture of food. If what you're making becomes unpleasant then you've failed at your task of creating a great dish. This was brought home to me tonight when I was chewing on my first bite of chocolate ice cream. Texture aside, there was no intense chocolate flavor. It was there and there were clearly nuances to the chocolate but the entire experience was muted. It was as though someone had put a filter over my taste buds so that I was getting a blurred version of something that could have been amazing in clearer focus. I'm not one to waste calories on things I don't like so after giving Alex a taste (sharing is caring after all), the ice cream went in the garbage.

 Fortunately I had some Haagen Daz Chocolate Peanut Butter in the freezer. It's my current go-to flavor and I happily erased the memory of the other with it's smooth, creamy texture and well balanced, indulgent flavor. It's not perfect but it is as close to it as I'm going to get with a ready made product that is relatively easy to source. Ingredient list: Cream, Skim Milk, Sugar, Peanut Butter (Peanuts, Peanut Oil, Sugar, Salt), Egg Yolks, Chocolate, Cocoa Processed with Alkali. Now I'm not saying that one should never use hydrocolloids in ice cream. I'm saying that if  adding them doesn't in some way improve on the original formula then there's no point to it. Some things are improved with a bit of tinkering, low fat chocolate milk with a bit of carageenan being a good example, other things not so much. In this case it felt like the hydrocolloids were in there to extend shelf life and stability at the expense of taste. There is something wonderful about the way that the flavor of ice cream blooms as it melts against your tongue that is lost when the texture is too thick and gummy. It's moments like these that give all hydrocolloids a bad name.

Inspirations Found Elsewhere

Every so often we come across some interesting stuff on the internet and feel compelled to share. This week has been a good one for procrastinating while surfing the net...

Every summer for practically forever my family has rented a house on the beach in Rhode Island for a week in August. Among the many culinary delights available there is one of my favorite things, Rhode Island clear chowder. It is exactly what it sounds like, a clear soup, briny and redolent of the sea, studded with clams and potatoes. It's not something I've found in any other state and so I make sure to get my fix whenever I'm in the vicinity.  Apparently I'm not the only one who loves it, over at Leite's Culinaria there's a recipe for this regional specialty.

Fresh cheeses are another favorite. Making them at home is easy and very rewarding. Tartelette has a beautiful write up of making Petit Suisse in tandem with Canelle et Vanille, another wonderful, dessert oriented blog.

This week I stumbled across Straight from the Farm and discovered 17 random fact about honeybees. This completed a theme as I had just finished reading about bees in Gourmet magazine. The loss of the honeybees to colony collapse disorder seems to be a clear warning sign that all is not right with the world. The idea that bees are succumbing to an illness that bears a disturbing resemblance to AIDS in humans is a sobering one.

Last but not least, over on The Chocolate Life you can check out some very cool silicone molds, ostensibly for chocolate but really useful for whatever else your imagination can dream up as well.

*Last minute addition, there's an amazing post over at Jaden's Steamy Kitchen on how to make Xiao Long Biao, steamed soup dumplings. It will make you want to run right into your kitchen, or at least to your nearest dim sum fix.

Valrhona at the Institute of Culinary Education

One of the benefits of being chefs is that occasionally we get invited to educational demonstrations like the one we attended today at the Institute of Culinary Education. The demonstration was hosted by Valrhona chocolate and featured Philippe Givre, Valrhona’s French pastry chef and assistant director of L’Ecole du Grand Chocolat; and Derek Poirier, Valrhona's North American Pastry Chef. It was a four hour presentation featuring four recipes and some of our favorite chocolate and definitely time well spent. 

As chefs, continuing education is incredibly important. The world of food is ever-changing and it's easy to get set in our ways and forget to keep pushing our horizons outward. French pastry is not either of our fortes, we tend toward more American style desserts and so it was a lot of fun to be exposed to this very different approach to desserts. Yes there are classic recipes and techniques that span international style, but the perspectives and the approaches can be very different. I love being able to look into someone else's world and see glimpses of where their inspirations come from.

The recipes that were demonstrated were very solid, with an attention to detail that we both appreciated. I've already been inspired to go back and rework yesterday's sorbet technique for a slightly more labor intensive approach that will yield more consistent results. I'll update the post when I finish this tonight. 

One of the very best ideas that we took from the demonstration was caramelized white chocolate. Let me state that again, it was caramelized white chocolate. The chefs at Valrhona roast their white chocolate at 266 degrees Fahrenheit/130 degrees Celsius for approximately 45 minutes, stirring occasionally until it reaches the desired color and flavor. Obviously you can adjust cooking times to your own taste. The caramelized white chocolate is simply amazing. The flavor is rich and creamy and almost like butterscotch.  Too my taste and nose it was all brown butter, I had to resist dipping my finger in the bowl of melted caramelized white chocolate as it was passed around for us to observe.

Of course we couldn't leave well enough alone. After much discussion on the drive home, Alex fired up the pressure cooker. We chopped the chocolate and sealed it in a bag and cooked it at high pressure for 30 minutes. The results were much darker and deeper than the version we tasted this afternoon. Of course here too, you may adjust the cooking time to suit your own taste. There is definitely something to be said and recipes to be made at both ends of the cooking spectrum. Caramelized white chocolate, oh the places we'll go...

Pectin, Not Just for Jelly

Just an FYI, our latest article on pectin is live over at POPSCI.com.

Frustration

You cannot let it get to you.  Often times frustration gets to me.  As we have been working through dishes in a new kitchen more failures than successes have occurred.  We've talked about the need for practice and rehearsal in cooking so that when dishes must be executed, they are the best they can be.  Yet these past few days, recipes we have written, rehearsed, tested, and tasted are failing.  We are not doing anything differently, we are just doing them in a different environment, and still the recipes fall flat.  Intellectually I know the importance of cutting bait and moving on.  At times like these Aki may indulge me even when she feels that I have waited too long to cut my losses. Frankly, even when things aren't working, it's hard for me to abandon the previously tried and true. Four combined attempts later I finally had to admit defeat.

Where does that leave us?  Testing new ideas in a place where we have learned more than we anticipated. Read: failed way more than we anticipated.  Still we were able to dust ourselves off and carry on. It dawned on me yet again that working with others and being surrounded by passionate individuals is essential in the process of learning and improving. The inspiration of your peers can push you past failure to eventual success.

This weekend we are very lucky to be working in a kitchen filled with passionate individuals who really care about food and cooking. (And it boasts a well stocked pantry to boot.)  Now with tools in hand we must move beyond trivial frustrations and work towards creating and executing tasty food. That's what tomorrow's dinner is all about. With a little help from some friends and fellow cooks, we know that we can make it happen.

Tofu and Shumai

I would not have imagined coming to Japan and having some of the tastiest food at a local pub. 

A friend of my mom’s recommended a pub in Osaka for us to visit. It was Mejiya in Tennoji. He drew us a map and sent us a picture of the entrance so that we would be sure to find it. This turned out to be a very good thing because without them we would never have known that the pub even existed. We arrived around one o’clock in the afternoon. The room was dim and narrow with a dark wooden bar, a row of wooden tables, and s small cloud of cigarette smoke hanging in the air. There were patrons scattered along the bar, mostly older men, and everyone was drinking beer or sake and eating lunch. We sat at the near corner of the bar, just in front of a tray of tofu, cooking gently in a metal pan. The man behind the bar seemed surprised that we spoke no Japanese and had wandered into his place. He did not speak English, the menus posted on the wall were in Japanese and there were no pictures anywhere to be found. Fortunately the man sitting beside Alex was very friendly. Although he didn’t speak much English he helped us figure out what to order. The only thing we remembered that we had been told to order was the shumai, which we did, Alex ordered a beer and we settled in to see what would happen.

Most of the men had bowls of tofu in front of them, along with a few small plates with shumai and various fried offerings. We quickly ordered a bowl of tofu to share. The tofu was heated in water, gently drained and topped with a delicate dashi.  A few slices of green onion and a small piece of yuzu zest perfumed the broth and accented the very delicate, silky tofu.  The blend of tastes and textures in what appeared to be such a simple dish were amazing.  The tofu gently breaking into pieces while still retaining some of it’s shape and texture beneath the rough, disposable chopsticks is a clear sense memory and a new benchmark for texture that will be with me from now on.  The broth was extremely aromatic and the flavors were nicely balanced with the bright citrus flavors of the yuzu balancing the subtle sweetness of the dashi.  It was Japanese comfort food of the highest order.

I was equally moved by the shumai we ate.  The skins were made with dried bean curd skin—yuba.  The texture of the yuba steamed pork dumplings was really amazing.  The flavor of the pork seeped into the bean curd and the shumai became a unified whole.  The first bite was scaldingly hot and we quickly learned patience, given a bit of time the dumplings were warm, and juicy, rich with the flavor of pork and minced onion. A dollop of spicy mustard and a dip into the soy sauce completed these incredibly tender porky packets.

We had only one bowl of the tofu and a couple of orders of the shumai. I could have eaten ten more of each.  We had a few other items but those were the standouts. Thankfully we left before I could get out of control ordering more dishes and changing the experience from one of pleasure and lingering desire to one of gluttony and excess.  I believe that this switch is something that has slowly come to fruition during the last few weeks for a variety of reasons. It’s a welcome change in my psyche. The emergence of new experiences and the recollection of memories associated with food are essential to the reception and subsequent success of any dish.  In this instance of dining in a local pub, we had no expectations, just open minds and hungry bellies.  We were extremely fortunate to walk away with incredible memories and new touchstones for our own cooking.

Perfectly Ripe

If you're reading this you probably know that Alex and I love a good cheese. Hard or soft, firm or fresh, cow or goat, we'll happily taste them all. So when Tyler said that he had some new cheeses that he wanted us to taste (and take a few pictures of), we said come on over. Apparently Blackberry Farm is now making sheep's milk cheeses for the public to enjoy.

There's a fine line between a perfectly ripe cheese and an over-ripe one. Whenever I see a beautiful, runny piece of cheese that is encased in plastic wrap I know that I'm running a risk. I'm not afraid to stick my nose in there and try to scent out any ammonia and sometimes the plastic can fool me. I've had many a cheese monger tell me that the scent of ammonia isn't a flaw, it's a natural by product of aging the cheese. This may be true, I'll admit that I'm not entirely convinced, although in the end it doesn't matter whether the taste and odor are considered a flaw or not. I just don't enjoy them and it ruins the cheese for me. So if the ammonia is present the cheese goes in the bin. Unfortunately, I am hooked on ripe cheese. Cheese that is runny and not liquid, with an almost elastic texture, and a flavor that melts across your palate as you slowly chew and swallow each decadent bite. The odds of catching it at that perfect moment before it topples over the edge of the hill are slim and yet the rewards are gratifying enough to be worth the risk.

One of the cheeses Tyler brought by was the Trefoil. It's a soft ripened cheese and it had that soft, giving texture that we look for when he arrived. The cheese was wrapped in paper and tied with rustic twine. It was helped along by the fact that it had been in his refrigerator snuggled up to a quantity of black truffles. The cheese itself was quite beautiful and  perfectly ripe, just teetering on that edge. It is named for the clover that the sheep graze upon and the grassy herbal flavors are clearly present in the cheese. It was certainly a cheese that I would happy to taste again. It will be interesting to see how their program develops. The fact that so many people are jumping into the cheese game is a wonderful thing for the rest of us.

Mastic

Mastic  or Masticha is the resin from the Pistacia Lentiscus tree. The trees are commercially cultivated for the purpose of harvesting mastic tears. The very best mastic is said to come from the south side of the Greek Island of Chios. In July and August the producers go out early in the mornings and make small slits in the bark to release the resin. The resin dries on the bark into a Clear, crystalline “tears” which are collected at the end of August, cleaned, sun dried, sorted, and sold. The tears are divided into two categories: immaculate otherwise known as dahtilidopetres or flintstones and the second rate softer, spotted ones referred to as kantiles or blisters.

The teardrops were the first version of chewing gum in Greece.  As you masticate, they soften into a firm, chewy mouthful with flavors of licorice and pine. Mastic has been utilized for a wide range of purposes such as a flavoring for alcohol, a spice, as toothpaste and breath fresheners, in cosmetics, dental fillings, natural adhesives, and varnish. Mastic has been found to have antibacterial and antifungal properties and is often used in holistic medicine to treat a variety of gastric ailments. Typically mastic is sold as teardrops although it can also be found as a paste or a powder. The teardrops must usually be ground to a fine powder, usually with sugar, in order to be used for culinary purposes.

High quality mastic has a slight edge of bitterness and a soft resiny flavor. Mastic may have hints of licorice and vanilla, it is a little reminiscent of Pledge, but softer and more subtle. It is used in various culinary applications from drinks to breads to desserts and ice creams. In Cyprus it is often paired with orange flower or rose water and served as a spoon sweet. It is a trendy ingredient at the moment, popping up in kitchens everywhere. We love the soft woodsy flavor and have played with a variety of applications from savory to sweet. Mastic works especially well with seafood and is a wonderful earthy counterpoint to sweet, briny oysters, succulent chewy cod,  and rich, delicate turbot.

Grinding the mastic drops can be a challenge. Cooking with resin can be hard on your stainless steel, months later I still haven't gotten all of sticky residue out of the pot from Alex's first experiment with mastic tears. So when we were shopping at Titan Foods in Astoria we were both excited to come across a mastic paste.  The one we picked up by Sarantis is made with Sugar, glucose syrup, E220 (a preservative; sulphur dioxide) and mastic. The combination of sugar and glucose means that paste is not overly sweet. It has been much easier to work with than the tears, and allowed us to really play with mastic in new ways. It's a very versatile ingredient and with the onset of Spring it seems like the perfect season for experimenting with its pine infused flavor.

The Importance of Heat

Harold McGee has an informative and interesting article on heat and its importance in the kitchen.

Check it out here.  Harold uncovers the virtues of this essential ingredient, which is often overlooked,  and explains it with clarity and in a manner in which ideas are triggered and old habits and cooking methods are instantly revisited.

Tomato Heart

How do you show someone you love them?  You have a heart shaped tomato grown and then hold it up for the world to see.  Well, that's my story and I'm sticking too it.

Clear Passionfruit in Three Thousand Words

Melon Salad

Here is a pave of melon seasoned with Korean chile threads, (thanks Shola) served with blistered ramps, Chinese sausage and minus 8 vinegar syrup.  The dish is light and refreshing, a blend of hot and cold, sweet and salty refreshing and spicy.  What I find exciting is the need for opposition in creating balance.  This dish looks at many opposing characteristics and uses them to pique and harmonize flavors.

Cock's Combs

Sometimes you have to just do something different.  In this case, we opted to serve cock's combs to a discerning crowd of food and wine enthusiasts.  We received many responses to the cock's combs from, "really, it's that?" to the sound of fingers being licked as patrons came back four and five times. 

We met guests who were used to eating cock's combs as street food in Bali to others who needed us to put our hands over our heads and wiggle our fingers to signify what exactly a cock's comb is.  In all cases, the cock's combs sparked conversations about food, its history and many ideas about what is possible with ingredients.

At the end of the day different was actually familiar.  We served a fried chicken with ranch dressing on a paper plate set in field of grass on a stone table with the scents of flowers and bees all around.  We just modified a few things.

Half Toast

I've been half-toasted tonight. It was a mellow day for me. I discovered Quinn. It' a freeware game for Macs that much resembles Tetris. Tetris was one of my favorite games way back when. I always thought it was to my benefit that I never owned it. That is until today when I downloaded Quinn.  Once I managed to get the keyboard programmed properly, the default settings were right-handed, the afternoon passed in a flash. Alex was out and about shopping in the city and I could play blissfully uninterrupted. I knew he wouldn't be particularly pleased with my afternoon's endeavors but he got a parking ticket and so had to bite his tongue.

Anyway, dinner was a quick affair. Seared flank steak in a cast iron skillet, arugula salad with marinated tomatoes, a beautiful cheese that Alex had picked up at Murray's and half-toast. What is half toast? It's what happens when you have beautiful, slightly past it's prime bread that calls for a delicate, crispy char to bring it back to life. Take a shortcut and only toast one side of the bread and you have half toast. All I can say is that I'm pretty sure my husband will never attempt to slip that past me again. Toast should be golden and crispy on both sides and that's all I'm going to say about that.

Happily Alex had a productive day shopping. We have gorgeous little ramps, fresh eggs, beautiful greens, fresh kimchee, and some delectable meats from Ottomanelli's. Something to  look forward to playing with tomorrow.

Coffee Cake Dreams

It seems I have breakfast on the mind.  More often than not, I crave breakfast.  And I am not just talking about at the normal breakfast time.  I could eat breakfast and elements of breakfast all day long.  I am also fortunate enough to not have to make my breakfast all the time.  In fact, when I make breakfast for myself I hardly ever eat it.  I either make too much or make it too heavy.  I don't know, when someone else makes you breakfast or coffee or a scone it just tastes better. 

The other day we were talking about coffee cakes.  I pulled out some butter to come to room temperature.  I figured I was doing Aki a favor, and she would make a great coffee cake for us both to enjoy.  As the butter softened, I went about my business of making the yogurt crisp base.  As I was just finishing up, I was alerted to the fact that Aki was quite hungry and the coffee cake had yet to be started, let alone baked, and well, I was the one who was supposed to make it.  Hmmm?  I missed something.  Apparently if you pull the butter out for a cake preparation, you will be the one making the cake. 

I popped my head around the corner into the dining room and looked at Aki.  She was serious, about both the hunger (not a good thing for me) and the fact that I was way late in getting the cake started because I was busy trying to make yogurt light and crispy, something that is not at all filling and would not calm the hunger in her belly.  I stammered a bit and said that I didn't have a recipe.  (Bad idea)  In a flash, she was up from her seat and to the book shelf.  Next thing I know, I was looking at an open Martha Stewart cookbook and her fingers were doing the walking, pointing out several recipes for coffee cakes with crumb and streusel toppings.  She paused, looked at me and said, "I am still hungry."

I grabbed the book and looked through it quickly.  I chose the classic crumb cake recipe from page 95 and the crumb topping from page 96. I basically followed the recipe substituting bananas for the berries and adding some cinnamon to the cake batter.  The crumb topping I made by hand, a truly great experience, especially if you are crumb topping freak like myself.  The butter, spices, sugar and flour appear as though they never to want to come together and then all of a sudden as you knead the mixture with your fingertips you have a perfect crumb.

Well, the cake was finally in the oven and I was able to distract Aki with a dog walk while it baked.  We returned home and the smell of spices, butter and sugar greeted us at the door.  I pulled the cake from the oven and smiled.  Now we had to wait as the cake cooled.  The wait was not unbearable although we probably cut into it a bit early (patience is not my strong suit).   

The result? Well I wish pictures were edible.  Oh yeah, and Aki is no longer hungry.

Smoked Pasta and some thoughts on ideas

Now my brain is a babbling brook of ideas.  The smoked pasta was delicious as we served it here, with shrimp, garlic, Parmesan, marjoram, chile flakes and lime juice.  Yet, as with many ideas once it starts moving, it becomes a fun ride to see where we end up.  I am not talking ground breaking.  That just is not how our ideas develop.  I am thinking tasty.  Imagine a clam sauce with tons of parsley and garlic with these noodles.  What about shaved jalapeno and lump crab meat?  I could eat a bowl of smoked pasta with chopped tomatoes and shiso pesto.  If I altered Aki's recipe a bit the dough would be great for ravioli.  Then think of the possibilities.  In fact, the dough as it currently stands would yield wonderful sheets of pasta for making lasagna: wild mushroom, snail, traditional.  I really enjoy this part of an idea, when you get it and then get to work through the possibilities.

Cacio e Pepe

I truly have a thing for noodles.  The slippery texture, the bite, the hearty nature and the silken texture.  My noodle love goes beyond just noodles.  It is really a pasta fetish.  Ravioli, lasagna, agnolotti, fideos, cavatelli,  the list goes on; heck even risotto falls into the mix.  That is not to say that I am a traditionalist.  Sure the noodles can be flour or starch based.  Thankfully pasta in its original form  is just the tip, the beginning, the spark. 

What can we do with the traditional?  How can what exists be the foundation for a variety of applications? What does it taste like and how can we exploit that taste?  What is the texture, does it change, can it evolve?  And, what is it not?  I think the last question has been truly useful.  In knowing what something is not allows for a greater understanding of what is and can be.  It also allows for a shift in thinking and many times a break or alteration from existing mind sets. 

Today we made a dish which has been gathering dust in my notebooks.  It is cacio e pepe made with noodles of papaya, dried papaya seeds (mimicking the peppercorns) and shaved pecorino Crotonese.  The dish is simple, like the original.  We have made a substitution or two which transforms a pasta dish which I have indulged in many of times to a lighter almost salad like dish of warmed papaya with cheese and its own peppercorn.  While today we served the noodles on their own I could also see the cacio e pepe component as a side dish or a component of another preparation.  For now, I am enjoying a plateful of slippery noodles slicked with olive oil and butter, seasoned with the pecorino and spirited by the dried papaya seeds.

BBQ and Eel

Well, this is a dish which is a work in progress.  The base is our five hour ribs.  We top it with Japanese eel and broil it.  We then integrate a BBQ sauce made with Goji berries and smoked maple syrup.  We then used the Q sauce to enrich pressure cooked pumpkin seeds.  We were emulating the texture and flavor of baked beans.  The last component is a warm jasmine yogurt.  It adds tang and a floral nature to the dish.  In fact, the dish dish works on the level of taste, it is quite tasty with the various flavors of BBQ.  I am just having some difficulty with the aesthetic of the entire composition.  I will let it rest for several days and perhaps come back to it once the mental dust settles.

Food Talk with Frank Bruni

I've always been a fan of talk radio.  Admittedly as a child I always lobbied for music in car. I didn't win that battle very often and the loss was to my benefit. Over the years talk radio grew on me and today there are certain programs we keep on in the background while we're working, because there's always something new to learn. One of these shows is Food Talk with Michael Colameco on WOR Radio 710 in New York. Today he mentioned that at the beginning of the show tomorrow (Thursday, March 8@11am) he will be featuring an interview with Frank Bruni of the New York Times. If you're interested and won't be able to tune in, I believe they release podcasts of each show after they've aired.  For everyone who reads the reviews and Bruni's Blog, this will be an opportunity to actually hear him in his own words.

Pressured Cooked Citrus

I became inspired by the idea (which I learned at the FCI demonstration the other night) that pressure cooking garlic and horseradish takes away the volatile characters of these ingredients while making them both tender and delectable.  I began wondering what else would benefit from pressure cooking.  I jumped immediately to citrus fruits.  What if we could utilize an entire citrus fruit without any bitter pithy qualities?  I also wondered if we could then serve whole cooked tender citrus fruits?  Well, you can.  I started with a batch of clementines cooked in elderflower water.  I cooked them for fifteen minutes and the fruit and rind was tender and firm, like eating a yogurt.  Pretty wild.  Actually, fifteen minutes was a bit long for the clementines, the peels split a bit, though as a puree this pure essence of clementine is remarkable.  I actually turned the puree into a jelly, it seems I am on a jelly kick right now.  I have yet to figure out what the jelly is for, I am currently working on optimum gelling ratios and their applications, the clementine jelly is one of the results.

Pop Rocks, the Mood Lifter

I adored pop-rocks as a child. Something about their crackly, tingly texture and the rumbling sound they made as they vibrated against my tongue was incredibly addicting, and still is. I'm typing this with a ramekin full of pop rocks and a small spoon at my elbow.  I keep dropping small deposits of the pop rocks on my tongue and then taking small sips of my peppermint tea to accentuate the flavor and effect. If you swish the candy and the tea around it's like a party in your mouth. You can actually feel the rocks zooming around in the liquid, bouncing off your tongue and teeth and exploding. I'm having a great time, the sensation makes me giggly and giddy like a happy child. Alex will not be pleased when he sees the amount of candy I've ingested.  Something about the effects of a sugar high, I get a little nutty and bouncy and then crash like a ton of bricks. Fortunately he's talking on the phone and he could be on there for hours (only a slight exaggeration), so he may not notice.

Tonight will be quite probably the last tasting menu we do in Colorado. The violet pop rocks will be seen paired with foie gras torchon, yuzu powder and a huckleberry ribbon. You'll have to wait until tomorrow to see the rest of the menu, but I can guarantee that I'll be happy cooking in the kitchen tonight!

Sunday Debate

We had brunch this morning at home. Alex made a version of his old favorite, the Montana Breakfast, and this combined with some strong coffee and good cheer was a recipe for a relaxing morning of food and friends. The dogs were on their best behavior and even Lucky was receptive to playing with the children. It was a nice break from the everyday routine and we enjoyed every minute.

We're slowly putting a list of properties together to explore when we get back East. As much as we'd like to move to a permanent location, we're looking forward to some quality time in New York. The cruise is the first two weeks in February and we're contemplating doing some catering in the New York area while we're looking for our next place. Feel free to email us if you're interested in doing a dinner during the late winter season.

The new MacBook   has arrived and I love it. We were able to save the hard drive off my Powerbook (thanks Mark!) and it's housed in its own little case now. So I have two back-up drives to work from and theoretically there was no loss of data. I have yet to boot it up and check for myself. Somehow having a new computer is very freeing and I am loath to revisit my old information. As long as I have access to it I don't feel the need to tap into it yet. A fresh start can be a beautiful thing.

The MacBook is bigger and slightly heavier than I was expecting. I actually love the size of the my new computer, it's so much more portable than my old one. The enclosed keyboard is pretty cool an it fits perfectly in my lap. I'm still at the stage where I almost hate to use it because I don't want to get it dirty, but I'm getting over it quickly. It's such a pleasure to use, who could stay away from it? The increased speed is wonderful, it's especially noticeable at home where we have dial-up. I didn't think that I would like the glossy screen but it's actually pretty cool. I haven't had any real issues with reflection at all.

We had a lively debate about eating at Ramsay's again today. Alex is convinced that he's still serving the same dishes that he served ten years ago. I find that hard to believe. They may be variations on dishes that he created many years ago, but there's no way to be a great chef without growing over the passage of time. Our palates change with age and so do our dishes. Besides, even though the food may not be cutting edge, most reviews agree that it is executed almost perfectly and tastes delicious. That's no easy task. I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of experiences I've had where restaurant food was close to technical perfection. To me that's worth going to see and taste. Every meal does not have to be comprised of something new and different. There's something to be said for execution, flavor, and technique, for without these base skills to stand on, why bother cooking in a restaurant at all? Strong technique, a great palate--which results in the ability to create amazing flavors, and the ability to teach your staff to execute them both to your standards, are the building blocks that make restaurant chefs great, regardless of the kind of cuisine that they choose to create.  That's what makes a meal inspiring to me, the passion and the drive that go into creating someone's vision of pefection in the kitchen. Hydrocolloids and enzymes are fun, but true passion, if it exists, is where I look for inspiration. Now the only question is whether or not Ramsay can provide that. We'll find out in January.

Candy Cane Beets

As ideas bounced around my brain today, I happened across the notion of making candy cane flavored candy cane beets.  The idea is to thinly slice candy cane beets and infuse them in a warm peppermint syrup.  The thin slices of beet will then be dried in a low oven or a dehydrator.  The result should be a crisp candy cane striped and flavored beet.  I guess we could do this with red beets as well to make a burgundy mint.  In fact, we could use the burgundy beets and grind them to make mint crumbs.  And then we could ask ourselves what other flavors would work well being infused in beets?

Choose Your Own Adventure

It's not easy writing today. We have lots of things going on at various of stages of completion. There seems to be very little going on that seems appropriate to write about here. I prefer to write about complete ideas rather than amorphous meanderings, although sometimes meandering is inescapable. We have a clear vision of what we want to do this year. Unfortunately, as with most situations, there are several different routes that will take us to our destination, each with a different set of challenges and rewards. It's all a matter of choosing the right path. Easier said than done, always.

Today I was thinking about the old school Choose Your Own Adventure books from my childhood. I loved the idea of them but I found it frustrating that the story lines were so short. It was a necessity because there was no other way to fit so many different ending between the relatively narrow covers of the books. I also wanted to read each and every story but somehow there was always one ending that escaped me. I finally took to reading them cover to cover after simply to find out how each possibility played out. After the first book I read cover to cover from the beginning, I abandoned the series.  There simply was not enough satisfaction in these stories to keep my attention.  It was as though someone was coming up with these great ideas, and then instead of seeing them through to completion, they were getting bored and throwing out these quick endings simply to be done with the process. Lots and lots of quick endings to be sure, but each ending lacked the development to make it a great story. The books were all about options without substance.

I suppose in a way that's where we are now. We're considering all of these options but distance handicaps our ability to evaluate the possibilities clearly. We're putting together a list of properties that we think may be viable for our future. Each one is unique and will need a slightly different structure to reach it's full potential. Of course, it's impossible to really know how viable any of the properties are without seeing them and examining their locations. It's like having the table of contents, but not the actual book. It's tantalizing and frustrating all at the same time.

Sometimes we need to take a break and work on something more tangible. One of these projects is compiling a list of our greatest restaurant experiences and our favorite places. We're making of list of all their positive attributes so that we can take the things we love about other restaurants and apply them to our current project. In addition to the foodie destinations, there are restaurants that are loved for their service and while the food may be good it is not the main reason that people dine there. There are restaurants that are loved for their locations, their ambiance, their social scene, their pomp and circumstance, or simply for sentimental reasons. As a teenager I spent countless birthdays at the Palm in New York City. It was a restaurant famous for it's gruff career waiters, the caricatures on the walls, the sawdust on the floors, thick steaks and huge lobsters, and the onion rings and cottage fries. Those who belonged to the club knew what and how to order, and those who asked for menus were immediately branded as tourists, barely tolerated by the staff and lucky to be admitted at all. It was noisy and unapologetic, the drinks were strong and the food was mostly delicious, especially to my teenaged palate. Years have passed and now the Palm is a chain and the everything has changed. The original restaurant is a shadow of it's former self and I never go back because the experience is one of total disillusionment. But I remember it fondly for all of the things it was.  It still comes to mind when I think of my favorite restaurants for sentimental reason and for the things that I learned there about steak and lobster, cottage fries, chopped salads, cheesecake, sentimentality and a sense of belonging.  That's an emotion that I want to capture in our own place, that feeling of ownership that your guests have when a restaurant is special to them and it makes them happy just to be there.  There are a few different restaurants that have made me feel that way over the years, but the Palm was the first one I experienced as a quasi-adult. What was your first special place? What was it that made it so special?

Squash Sheets

We made a puree with Hubbard squash juice and ultra tex 3, a tapioca starch.  The puree is silky and smooth, similar in nature to pudding rather than a vegetable puree.  The ultra tex does a great job at holding water, so much so that we thought we could make a thin sheet with the puree and then drape it over other ingredients.  This morning we draped the squash over a warm macadamia nut puree.  We then heated the sheet in the oven to allow it to melt over the puree and enclose it.  We paired these ingredients with warmed king salmon seasoned with ginger salt.

The key today is resulting sheet puree's.  Now our the doors of functionality have opened even wider.  Think about using green herbs draped over a piece of fish or perhaps black truffle or smoked cashew.  And all the work is done on front side of the dish allowing us to just grab a sheet and go.

Tender Cocoa

Yesterday we began work on making tender cocoa nibs.  While in years past we have utilized the crunch and bitterness of cocoa nibs we, alright I, wanted to know if and what could be done with tenderized nibs.  We put some cocoa nibs in the pressure cooker with agave and water.  Two hours later we had tender cocoa nibs with a softened flavor profile.  These are a neat addition to our pantry.  Now we just need to figure out what to do with them.  I have thought of folding them into spaetzle and cavatelli.  They may also be fun in vegetable ragouts or even risotto.  Time will tell.

What is in a Word?

In trying to execute our first rendition of ginger salt I have come across a technical and verbal road block.  It looks like salt and has the texture of coarse salt yet it is not ginger salt.  I brined the candy ginger for a short period of time and then dried it and chopped it coarsely.  I then placed it in the dehydrator to to, well, dry.  As the ginger concentrated and the hardened, emulating the texture of salt I, actually Aki noted it's great, it's just not salt.  In my haste to go from idea to execution I did not allow enough salt to penetrate the candied ginger to allow the salt to come through as a distinct characteristic.  Instead, we have intense ginger granules with a seasoned background.  So,  I do not have what I set out to create, I can try that again, perhaps even find a suitable salt solution ratio.  For now we have the concentrated ginger, which looks like salt but at days end is ginger.  Now I just need to find another name for this seasoning, because while it is not ginger salt it needs to be integrated into our cooking.

Chocolate Marshmallow Pie

Sometimes a pie is more than just a pie. Cooking for people with simple tastes can be a blessing. Especially when it allows us to indulge our own inner children and cravings. A chocolate dessert was called for and with these crisp autumn evenings I had pudding on my mind. Chocolate pudding to be exact. It's a childhood favorite, devoured in diners with a tower of whipped cream and a crisp wafer cookie. Instead of the cookies I decided to put the pudding in a pie crust.  The smell of woodsmoke riding on currents of cold air evoked images of campfires and roasting marshmallows.  It was a quick leap to blanket them over the top of the pie and broil them to a delicious gooey topping.

And yes, these two pictures look different because in my impatience I put the pie too close to the flames the first time and set the whole thing on fire. Sound familiar? Blackened marshamllows were never my idea of a party. Not to worry though, a quick stint in the refrigerator and the burnt marshmallows peeled away. Thank goodness for the do-over! The guests loved it and cleaned their plates. It tasted as decadent as it looks. It was rich and creamy, loaded with bittersweet chocolate, contrasting with the delicate buttery crust and finished with sticky marshmallow-y goodness. But what a sugar rush, I was bouncing off the walls for hours after eating this one.

Apple Crisp Ice Cream

Today is our first day off in seven weeks.  What that means is we have no guests, I could sleep in and by noon today I was back in the kitchen working out ideas which have been lying dormant or at least buried for sometime now. 

The first dish or base ingredient I began working with was an apple crisp ice cream.  Not too far of a stretch there, apple crisp is often served with ice cream, why not make it one.  The stretch is this ice cream is going to be the base or medium for the wild char roe which is now in season.  We have made an apple crisp with aromatic spices and an oatmeal streusel topping.  We baked off the crisp, I ate a bowlful and the rest is cooked in heavy cream and milk.  I pureed the mixture, chilled it down and am going to churn it tomorrow.  We will serve the ice cream with a large dollop of either the smoked or natural roe, that is the one variable, a young watercress salad and a spiced walnut brittle.

A few other works in progress consist of biscuit ice cream, stuffing consomme and roast chicken cotton candy.  We shall see how they all work out.

The difference between grilled and smoked

Here is a question that has come to mind which I am looking to solve.  There is a distinct difference between the flavors of grilled and smoked.  The char, the aroma, the everything.  Every time I think about our grilled potato ice cream I get excited because the flavor is spot on, the aroma and tastes also point directly to the flavor of grilled potatoes in a cold silky medium, ice cream.  Smoked is a bit more aggressive.  Yes, there are many things that are over smoked, like my shirt when I am going through a smoking (of foods) phase.  My question is how to distill or capture the essence of the grill?  I have seen liquid smoke, but what about liquid grill.  Imagine making a BLT sandwich with grilled mayonnaise.  What if we could make grilled butter?  Think about leeks cooked in a foil package buried in ashes with that sweet, charred, grilled flavor.  How can we capture that and use it in other venues?

In the Moment

This morning is relatively quiet.  It could be that the phone lines are down and our guests are out hunting.  Yesterday I began work on sheets of cuttlefish.  My first thoughts were to mimic the Vietnamese spring roll.  This morning I changed direction and began work with an anchovy-espelette pepper-onion sauce Aki made.  We used the sauce as a base for a ragout of artichokes and matsutake mushrooms topped with the warmed cuttlefish sheet.  A passionfruit sauce piques the palate and young cilantro ties the dish together.

Good Home Cooking

Is there anything wrong with good home cooking?  I am talking about  thought out, tasty, well seasoned, home cooking.  People relate to great home cooking especially since not many people do it anymore.  Recently we have been pulled in a number of directions.  The one which is currently winning is really tasty home cooking.  That is what people want, especially if they are staying with us for an extended period of time.  Sure, we can perform the ancient art of weaving and integrate our concepts and ideas into the really good home cooking.  The question is how can we fix it?  Or, better yet how can we make the idea of really good home cooking into something greater?  That is our newest challenge.

On a side note, the concentrated parsnips became a thin translucent crisp.

Dan Lepard on Silverbrow

Over at Silverbrow, Anthony has a podcast of an interview with baker, cookbook writer, and photographer Dan Lepard. I've only had time to listen to the beginning but I know that I'll go back to hear the rest.  They're talking about some of my favorite subjects (food and photography) and I always enjoy hearing stories from other chefs and cooks. So if you have the time and the inclination, go check it out.