I figured out what I want to do with those pluot-plums in the freezer, and the wad of rose petals I ganked from the Albany shoreline trail and my old Fruitvale house. Plum-rose jam!
I haven't made jam in a long time, not since culinary school when we made buckets of jam, any and all flavors. Some of them are still sitting around my Somerville house. Some were given away as presents. Not sure when I will get around to this jam, but likely I'll try to get a sourdough starter going so that my the time I'm jammed up there will be good toast. I am such a bread-brat these days; I only eat Acme.
My favorite jam excursion is from my days on the farm, when I went across the river to my favorite farmer EVER's house and we had gallons of strawberries from the PFP and we made jam all day long, some with pectin and some without. I'm sure we talked about love, and why we love the wrong people or love too soon, too long, or without giving away all of ourselves. But now I only remember the jam.
I've got three fresh burns from last week as a reminder not to work distracted, and worked distracted all day.
I just got to say to a friend Autumn leaves and apples!
This is why I'm going to Boston in October (and hopefully NYC, the city I love to hate, as well). I make up little lists that go something like apples, apple cider, apple cider doughnuts, apples, ICA, Oleana, East Coast Grill, Lydia Shire stories, Herrell's, Harvard square, crunch of leaves
or
finding the Doughnut Plant for real, McNulty's, Bklyn, Grand Central, the 6 train, my two favorite places on Broadway ever, will I ever eat at Gramercy Tavern, I could go to Babbo, maybe I'll go be a line cook like Bill Buford, still haven't been to Cafe Lalo, or the Cloisters, Spuyten Duyvil, did I really ever live here.
God I love apples and I'm so nervous they won't have my apples here.
Thinking of doing utterly crazy things, specifically two, but they are secrets.
No more cooking with herbs. Get over this lavender, rose geranium, lemon verbena, slight thyme kick. Find something else and it better not be a spice.
Ai, forgot to make Chez Panisse reservations. I'm gong to have to put Chez Panisse in my cell phone and that is kind of sad. Determined also to go to another fine restaurant while Leah's here...Where I have been in this town: A16, Delfina, Frisson, Jardiniere.
Showing posts with label frisson. Show all posts
Showing posts with label frisson. Show all posts
Friday, August 10, 2007
Friday, June 29, 2007
heft and weight of it
In the past two days I have made, more or less chronologically, the following:
6 vanilla cake batters
1 batch lemon curd
1 batch passionfruit curd
1 batch each of vanilla buttercream, chocolate buttercream, lemon buttercream, raspberry buttercream
1 batch cream cheese frosting
2 batches chocolate frosting
2 9" upside down cakes with mixed stone fruit
15(?) individual-sized upside down cakes with mixed stone fruit
10 servings peach leaf panna cotta with [leftover] peach caramel
vanilla syrup
lavender syrup
peach leaf syrup
20 servings shortcake/biscuits [up this week: cream scone dough modified with cake flour. what's missing: the cornmeal I left in my freezer.]
1 qt. pastry cream
7 roasted apricots
14 servings vanilla cake, soaked in vanilla syrup
2 chocolate cake batters
2 batches caramel
2 batches lemon curd
On the bus tonight I noticed Laiola for the first time, though of course I'd been expecting it. Interested in checking it out, though Spanish food is really not my thing and the menu on their site really doesn't interest me much...the entrees seem random, California cuisine, the dessert sounds downright horrible (which is sad, because the dessert I've had at Frisson--and the other food items also--have all been nothing short of wonderful. Except that grainy coconut sorbet and entirely uninteresting orange sorbet, which was more than made up for by that sublime green apple sorbet and the perfectly textured mango. Sorbet, it's a killer. Laiola seems like a good fit for the neighborhood, but what I'd really like to see is the architecture of the place. If it's anything like the over-designed funkiness of Frisson. And there is actually (can this really be true?) nothing on Chowhound about Laiola, so I cast the first stone, a question. Are they even open yet and if so what's the buzz? I do have to say, really not impressed with their website. It mentions the chef and then goes on to discuss the value of Spanish wine and the price point of carafes, costs of cocktails, how to get your drink on. From the main page you would have no clue they focus on house-made charcuterie. I don't even eat meat, for the most part, and even I know this is something there'd be a reasonable hope of making a selling point.
Tangentially, I would really like to eat a meal at a table. With knife, if necessary, and fork! From an actual plate. As opposed to a meal standing up, a meal consumed while walking, a meal taken squatting outside the FB where all the bums pass out. A meal that I made or that someone I know made me. A meal not composed of pastry goods. Tonight's meal, eaten out of styrofoam container with plastic fork: white rice, green beans, orange or lemon chicken from the Gourmet China Express place. Next week though it's Chez Panisse and the fine dining options of Healdsburg.
6 vanilla cake batters
1 batch lemon curd
1 batch passionfruit curd
1 batch each of vanilla buttercream, chocolate buttercream, lemon buttercream, raspberry buttercream
1 batch cream cheese frosting
2 batches chocolate frosting
2 9" upside down cakes with mixed stone fruit
15(?) individual-sized upside down cakes with mixed stone fruit
10 servings peach leaf panna cotta with [leftover] peach caramel
vanilla syrup
lavender syrup
peach leaf syrup
20 servings shortcake/biscuits [up this week: cream scone dough modified with cake flour. what's missing: the cornmeal I left in my freezer.]
1 qt. pastry cream
7 roasted apricots
14 servings vanilla cake, soaked in vanilla syrup
2 chocolate cake batters
2 batches caramel
2 batches lemon curd
On the bus tonight I noticed Laiola for the first time, though of course I'd been expecting it. Interested in checking it out, though Spanish food is really not my thing and the menu on their site really doesn't interest me much...the entrees seem random, California cuisine, the dessert sounds downright horrible (which is sad, because the dessert I've had at Frisson--and the other food items also--have all been nothing short of wonderful. Except that grainy coconut sorbet and entirely uninteresting orange sorbet, which was more than made up for by that sublime green apple sorbet and the perfectly textured mango. Sorbet, it's a killer. Laiola seems like a good fit for the neighborhood, but what I'd really like to see is the architecture of the place. If it's anything like the over-designed funkiness of Frisson. And there is actually (can this really be true?) nothing on Chowhound about Laiola, so I cast the first stone, a question. Are they even open yet and if so what's the buzz? I do have to say, really not impressed with their website. It mentions the chef and then goes on to discuss the value of Spanish wine and the price point of carafes, costs of cocktails, how to get your drink on. From the main page you would have no clue they focus on house-made charcuterie. I don't even eat meat, for the most part, and even I know this is something there'd be a reasonable hope of making a selling point.
Tangentially, I would really like to eat a meal at a table. With knife, if necessary, and fork! From an actual plate. As opposed to a meal standing up, a meal consumed while walking, a meal taken squatting outside the FB where all the bums pass out. A meal that I made or that someone I know made me. A meal not composed of pastry goods. Tonight's meal, eaten out of styrofoam container with plastic fork: white rice, green beans, orange or lemon chicken from the Gourmet China Express place. Next week though it's Chez Panisse and the fine dining options of Healdsburg.
Friday, May 11, 2007
the learning curve gets rough
Today, while making rhubarb-blood orange upside down cakes and brown butter financiers--I've finally worked out how much sugar I like in them, and they're just so cute I really want everyone to eat them, oh, financier, I used to think you were boring! for shame--I tried to figure out my semolina cake.
The semolina cake was about the only thing I really liked on the Sonsie menu (grand marnier mousse cake and mocha ice cream aside). The semolina cake was on the summer menu when I came to Sonsie, with blueberries and buttermilk panna cotta and blueberry coulis. It was a nicely plated dessert (plating wasn't my boss's strong suit, and his plates most often resembled strange lunar landscapes with holes, and I'm nor sure what that says about his pastry process in general). It made sense. But cooking the cake in 9" pans led, most of the time that I was present, to a mushy mess on a cake circle. I ruined multiple semolina cakes. Michael ruined a few as well, or at least tore out the middle or the side. No matter how hard we sprayed the pan, semolina guts everywhere. The semolina cake re-appaeared on the winter menu with tangerine panna cotta, blood orange sorbet and orange slices on top. The citrusy mess that didn't plate well, with an always-grainy sorbet, soft cake, and hard, unpleasant supremes of orange on top. I enjoyed the cake, but not that way.
I thought of it again yesterday while puzzling over what to make now at Frog Hollow while I wait for the produce to kick in. What to do with my strawberries, blood oranges and rhubarb besides the things I've been doing, and how to use off the rest of the tub of blackberries? (Forgot to make muffins again, damn!). I thought semolina cake with blackberries. But then this morning, I was washing off the rhubarb and cutting it, and I thought I'd rather make a rhubarb sauce, but I didn't really know how to do that, and in the back of my mind I'd been thinking over the crunchy, sweet rhubarb I'd had with my mango sorbet at Frisson, and how that had been the chance illustration of Maura's comments on how rhubarb and mango suit each other well. So I thought I'd candy my own rhubarb, and looking out the window at the spot where Capay usually sets up their stand I thought of Mariana and the baby fennel, and I wanted fennel whose texture was so similar to rhubarb, but I had to settle for anise seeds. Anise-infused cream, to be whipped and set on top of semolina cakes, garnished with candied rhubarb.
But then...I dig out the tub labeled polenta and spices. I've maybe made polenta once, from a log bought in the grocery store. I've seen the Sonsie crew make polenta a bunch with my semolina flour. I dug out a bag of what looked like cracked corn, and neither semolina flour nor the polenta I'd seen in stores. It very well may have been cornmeal or some sort. It came in a bag, tied with a grocery store twist tie. I was stuck; I'd mised everything else and I didn't want my very carefully brunoised, then candied rhubarb to go to waste. So I dug in, boiled the milk and vanilla, added the sugar and polenta, and stirred, and stirred, and thought of the polenta musing in Bill Bryson's Heat. It thickened, but not enough. Not as much as the semolina cake batter I'd whisk like I was teaching it a goddammed lesson, until the thing trembled away from the sides of the pan in a neat, uniform flutter. Not like I knew it needed to if I wanted to avoid the explosion in the pan. But I also had to get to job #2. So I boiled it away for a while, shocked it in the fridge (bad chef, no ice bath), got my whites sort-of-stiff-peak, and went with it. In the oven, when it's black it's done.
Mini muffins puffed up with the pride of having risen, with a nice resilient golden crackle in top greeted me in fifteen minutes. Not like the wilted, shameful semolina texture. I tested them, called them done, watched them fall a little. And then the test. I prayed for them to be good, and they indeed were. Whatever was in the bag. The Frog Hollow manager, who'd been eyeing me all suspiciously while I puttered while beseeching me to make candied lemon peel dipped in chocolate, came to appraise them. ("Chocolate and lemon's in right now," I told her. "I KNOW!" she sniffled. "It's not new, it's always been in in my culture." "Well YOUR CULTURE's in right now," I replied. We both rolled our eyes)
What's thaaat? she asked.
I told her they were okay, I'd been nervous, try a piece. She popped it in her mouth.
She liked it.
I told her what I was going to serve it with, and how they weren't quite how I wanted them, but it was nice to pass the test and go on with my day to work at the cupcake place. I would like to eat polenta/semolina cake with anise cream and candied rhubarb. Maybe next week if I do it again. But more than that, I'd like to understand how to get what I want from the polenta, or the semolina, or the cornmeal. How to react to the unexpected. And what do I do, do I ask my baker friends? The girls at the cupcakery had no experience cooking with semolina. Do I ask the pastry girls? It's possible Chelsea or Kimberly would know. Ask Cheffy, who'd probably ask me what I wanted mussing with semolina anyway? Call Maura, one early Cambridge morning? Puzzling my way out of the box, I think, starts with understanding my original recipe, and how the semolina adds texture and structure. But possibly it doesn't start there at all.
The semolina cake was about the only thing I really liked on the Sonsie menu (grand marnier mousse cake and mocha ice cream aside). The semolina cake was on the summer menu when I came to Sonsie, with blueberries and buttermilk panna cotta and blueberry coulis. It was a nicely plated dessert (plating wasn't my boss's strong suit, and his plates most often resembled strange lunar landscapes with holes, and I'm nor sure what that says about his pastry process in general). It made sense. But cooking the cake in 9" pans led, most of the time that I was present, to a mushy mess on a cake circle. I ruined multiple semolina cakes. Michael ruined a few as well, or at least tore out the middle or the side. No matter how hard we sprayed the pan, semolina guts everywhere. The semolina cake re-appaeared on the winter menu with tangerine panna cotta, blood orange sorbet and orange slices on top. The citrusy mess that didn't plate well, with an always-grainy sorbet, soft cake, and hard, unpleasant supremes of orange on top. I enjoyed the cake, but not that way.
I thought of it again yesterday while puzzling over what to make now at Frog Hollow while I wait for the produce to kick in. What to do with my strawberries, blood oranges and rhubarb besides the things I've been doing, and how to use off the rest of the tub of blackberries? (Forgot to make muffins again, damn!). I thought semolina cake with blackberries. But then this morning, I was washing off the rhubarb and cutting it, and I thought I'd rather make a rhubarb sauce, but I didn't really know how to do that, and in the back of my mind I'd been thinking over the crunchy, sweet rhubarb I'd had with my mango sorbet at Frisson, and how that had been the chance illustration of Maura's comments on how rhubarb and mango suit each other well. So I thought I'd candy my own rhubarb, and looking out the window at the spot where Capay usually sets up their stand I thought of Mariana and the baby fennel, and I wanted fennel whose texture was so similar to rhubarb, but I had to settle for anise seeds. Anise-infused cream, to be whipped and set on top of semolina cakes, garnished with candied rhubarb.
But then...I dig out the tub labeled polenta and spices. I've maybe made polenta once, from a log bought in the grocery store. I've seen the Sonsie crew make polenta a bunch with my semolina flour. I dug out a bag of what looked like cracked corn, and neither semolina flour nor the polenta I'd seen in stores. It very well may have been cornmeal or some sort. It came in a bag, tied with a grocery store twist tie. I was stuck; I'd mised everything else and I didn't want my very carefully brunoised, then candied rhubarb to go to waste. So I dug in, boiled the milk and vanilla, added the sugar and polenta, and stirred, and stirred, and thought of the polenta musing in Bill Bryson's Heat. It thickened, but not enough. Not as much as the semolina cake batter I'd whisk like I was teaching it a goddammed lesson, until the thing trembled away from the sides of the pan in a neat, uniform flutter. Not like I knew it needed to if I wanted to avoid the explosion in the pan. But I also had to get to job #2. So I boiled it away for a while, shocked it in the fridge (bad chef, no ice bath), got my whites sort-of-stiff-peak, and went with it. In the oven, when it's black it's done.
Mini muffins puffed up with the pride of having risen, with a nice resilient golden crackle in top greeted me in fifteen minutes. Not like the wilted, shameful semolina texture. I tested them, called them done, watched them fall a little. And then the test. I prayed for them to be good, and they indeed were. Whatever was in the bag. The Frog Hollow manager, who'd been eyeing me all suspiciously while I puttered while beseeching me to make candied lemon peel dipped in chocolate, came to appraise them. ("Chocolate and lemon's in right now," I told her. "I KNOW!" she sniffled. "It's not new, it's always been in in my culture." "Well YOUR CULTURE's in right now," I replied. We both rolled our eyes)
What's thaaat? she asked.
I told her they were okay, I'd been nervous, try a piece. She popped it in her mouth.
She liked it.
I told her what I was going to serve it with, and how they weren't quite how I wanted them, but it was nice to pass the test and go on with my day to work at the cupcake place. I would like to eat polenta/semolina cake with anise cream and candied rhubarb. Maybe next week if I do it again. But more than that, I'd like to understand how to get what I want from the polenta, or the semolina, or the cornmeal. How to react to the unexpected. And what do I do, do I ask my baker friends? The girls at the cupcakery had no experience cooking with semolina. Do I ask the pastry girls? It's possible Chelsea or Kimberly would know. Ask Cheffy, who'd probably ask me what I wanted mussing with semolina anyway? Call Maura, one early Cambridge morning? Puzzling my way out of the box, I think, starts with understanding my original recipe, and how the semolina adds texture and structure. But possibly it doesn't start there at all.
Sunday, April 01, 2007
nostalgic for boston
I miss my stage at Oleana. Since my trip to Frisson the other week, I've been REALLY wanting to try their bacon ice cream dessert...pancakes with blueberry jam and bacon ice cream. I'm not a fan of breakfast-as-dessert and I don't eat bacon. But I sit here and wonder, is it salty? Is it crunchy? Would I like it? Bit of a dilemma. I think the reality is that I miss being around someone who makes me crave things I never thought I would want or like...hence, missing Oleana.
Or maybe it's bigger than that. Maybe there's something in me that wants to be the person that eats everything. Maybe I'll go back to Frisson and get the foie gras thing followed by the bacon ice cream. ugh, I'd be so sick.
I'm still waiting for the beehive in Boston to open up. The Cyclorama is such a cool space, very dining as theater. I checked the Oleana website to see if there's anything about Sofra (there isn't) and the Sonsie site to see if they'd put up the new menu so I could see what Michael did for spring menu change (they haven't). There's not much new happening in Boston at the moment.
But I did enjoy this, from the James Beard site: sf update--a whole shop dedicated to the molecular gastronomy fuss. Could be fun to browse. I might be making some new friends who are foodies. Very exciting. I'll finally have someone to go out to dinner with, and there are so many restaurants to start with.
Or maybe it's bigger than that. Maybe there's something in me that wants to be the person that eats everything. Maybe I'll go back to Frisson and get the foie gras thing followed by the bacon ice cream. ugh, I'd be so sick.
I'm still waiting for the beehive in Boston to open up. The Cyclorama is such a cool space, very dining as theater. I checked the Oleana website to see if there's anything about Sofra (there isn't) and the Sonsie site to see if they'd put up the new menu so I could see what Michael did for spring menu change (they haven't). There's not much new happening in Boston at the moment.
But I did enjoy this, from the James Beard site: sf update--a whole shop dedicated to the molecular gastronomy fuss. Could be fun to browse. I might be making some new friends who are foodies. Very exciting. I'll finally have someone to go out to dinner with, and there are so many restaurants to start with.
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