Celery Root Veloute/black truffle "pain perdu"
Oysters and Pearls/sabayon of pearl tapioca with island creek oysters anad sterling white sturgeon caviar
White Truffle Oil Infused Custard/ragout of black winter truffles (dcm)
Extra Virgin Olive Oil Infused Custard/blood orange + ginko nut (led)
Salad of Hawaiian Hearts of Peach Palm/red bunch radishes, compressed granny smith apples, watercress, violet mustard
Daurade Royale Cuite a L'Huile D'Olive/black trumpet mushrooms, salsify, petit lettuces with red wine syrup
Macaroni and Cheese/butter poached nova scotia lobster, parmesan crisp, creamy lobster broth and mascarpone orzo
Za'atar Scented Panisse/romaine lettuce hearts, raita, smoked eggplant puree
French Onion Soup/alp drackloch
Garden Thyme-infused Ice Cream/chocolate "tuile", fleur de sel, moulin des penitents extra virgin olive oil (led)
Sorbet a L'Huile D'Olive/chocolate pudding, nicoise olive oil (dcm)
Cranberry Sorbet/granny smith apple parisienne, candied apple
Per Se Float/compressed pineapple, vanilla custard, gingerbread "crouton" with pineapple-ginger soda
Coffee and Doughnuts/cinnamon sugared doughnuts with cappuccino semifreddo
Bombe au Pamplemousse/chocolate roulade, manjari chocolate moussee, grapefruit curd, pink grapefruit ice cream (dcm)
Mint Chocolate Chip/chocolate dacquoise, crystallized mint, chocolate tuile, mint chocolate chip ice cream (led)
assortment of migniardises including: nougat, caramels, pulled sugar candy, amadei+ valrhona filled chocolates
for the record:
1. Michael Ruhlman was totally right about the soups. The celery root veloute was the stuff of dreams.
2. We arrived to one of the best tables in the house, a letter from TK himself, and complimentary champagne.
3. Yes, I requested the zaatar panisse.
4. We ate FOR FOUR HOURS.
5. Jonathan came out to say hi.
6. The kitchen was immaculate in a way that I cannot possibly hope to describe.
Showing posts with label perfectly constructed food. Show all posts
Showing posts with label perfectly constructed food. Show all posts
Sunday, March 08, 2009
Thursday, March 05, 2009
the recession, thomas keller , and frank bruni
I had it on word a couple weeks ago that the French Laundry had started calling concierges in the city to let them know that Laundry reservations were available for interested clientele. Today SF Eater posted a link to an opentable Laundry resy.
In the diners journal today as well, Frank Bruni mentioned that Per Se isn't doing two full turns these days.
Ominous times upon us all. Do go the the Laundry or Per Se, if you haven't. Absolutely incredible.
In a related NYT aside, Bruni has posted several articles recently about tipping in the service industry. Personally, I tend to tip 20%, minimum 18%, unless something is wrong. Bruni's point today is that restaurants don't pay their employees enough, so it's the customer's contractual obligation to tip so that the server earns a living wage. Californians aside--where servers and bartenders make minimum wage of not more (quite often, actually, they make the same as your local line cook)--that is true. Servers do not make a living wage. But you know what, Frank Bruni? Cooks don't make a living wage. Hosts don't make a living wage. Neither do bussers, dishwashers, barbacks, baristas, night porters or sous chefs. And while the servers do tip out the bussers and the bar staff and sometimes even the dishwasher, the entire back of the house is scraping by.
Twice that I can recall some generous patron at the fancy restaurant tipped out the kitchen. At the East Coast Grille, diners have the option of buying a 6 pack of PBR for the line. at the Bi-Rite Creamery, all tips are split with the kitchen.
While it's true that a server's hourly wage isn't enough to live on, at the end of the day any front of house employee is making more money (per hour, per week, per year) than most back of house employees. If restaurants were to start passing the cost of paying a livable wage onto the customer with higher entree costs (and if you're getting good meat, it's expensive. for the curious, dessert is a great food cost item because butter and sugar and, yes, even chocolate, are a lot cheaper to turn into a $9 dessert than a good cut of lamb is to turn into a $25 entree), a nation of diners would rise up in protest. I am sure of it.
What would your $25 entree really be worth if every person who contributed, from the farmer all the way to the server, were paid a livable wage, and benefits?
In the diners journal today as well, Frank Bruni mentioned that Per Se isn't doing two full turns these days.
Ominous times upon us all. Do go the the Laundry or Per Se, if you haven't. Absolutely incredible.
In a related NYT aside, Bruni has posted several articles recently about tipping in the service industry. Personally, I tend to tip 20%, minimum 18%, unless something is wrong. Bruni's point today is that restaurants don't pay their employees enough, so it's the customer's contractual obligation to tip so that the server earns a living wage. Californians aside--where servers and bartenders make minimum wage of not more (quite often, actually, they make the same as your local line cook)--that is true. Servers do not make a living wage. But you know what, Frank Bruni? Cooks don't make a living wage. Hosts don't make a living wage. Neither do bussers, dishwashers, barbacks, baristas, night porters or sous chefs. And while the servers do tip out the bussers and the bar staff and sometimes even the dishwasher, the entire back of the house is scraping by.
Twice that I can recall some generous patron at the fancy restaurant tipped out the kitchen. At the East Coast Grille, diners have the option of buying a 6 pack of PBR for the line. at the Bi-Rite Creamery, all tips are split with the kitchen.
While it's true that a server's hourly wage isn't enough to live on, at the end of the day any front of house employee is making more money (per hour, per week, per year) than most back of house employees. If restaurants were to start passing the cost of paying a livable wage onto the customer with higher entree costs (and if you're getting good meat, it's expensive. for the curious, dessert is a great food cost item because butter and sugar and, yes, even chocolate, are a lot cheaper to turn into a $9 dessert than a good cut of lamb is to turn into a $25 entree), a nation of diners would rise up in protest. I am sure of it.
What would your $25 entree really be worth if every person who contributed, from the farmer all the way to the server, were paid a livable wage, and benefits?
Friday, February 22, 2008
fruit memories/newness
I made some fig jam today at work for one of the two parties we had. Took black mission figs, cooked them down with some sweet muscat wine and a little water. I took some time to appreciate the sugar sheen on the figs as I diced them, stopped several times to stir, add, adjust, left some space for patience. Pureed the whole thing. It was very good. It went with fried graviera cheese.
Today I also learned how to cook the octopus, from someone who I am strangely starting to bond with. When the dish was put together, he handed me a piece of tentacle. I stared it down, remembering the rubbery feeling in my hand. I tasted it. I let go. It was good, better with sauce and with the side salad. Do You Wanna Show Me? I asked him. Do You Wanna Learn? he replied. There was a time when I wouldn't have said yes.
I worked garde manger tonight so I stayed out of the pastry kitchen, mostly, except to try a spoonful of some fresh-spun ice cream that my new boss held out to me. When I tried to taste it, still so soft and precious, it slid down my throat instead in the manner of an ice cream shot. Some slight hint of flavor lingered in my throat, but it went too fast to make a full impression. Come Back When You Learn To Eat, she said. Visitors to our kitchen soon learn that we tease mercilessly though it is, like a schoolboy's crush, always affectionate at heart. So I went back to the savory kitchen but there it was, an impression, a tease, a hint of an answer to a question.
Yesterday I tasted something good lord so delicious. I was in the pk while it was being born and I got to watch it come to life, got to dip fingers in process, asked the whys. It was incredible. I'm so excited for it.
Change is constant. What do you believe, what do you believe in? Do you fight or do you let go? Me, I'm trying to hold to the things I resolved at week's beginning.
I loved that fig jam. I made it with love. I made it meditating on the first perfect fig I ever ate, in a small Palestinian town, which led me to the figs from Knoll, and the fruit-stealing adventure in Berkeley with some perfect figs devoured on spot, and faint memories of Jerusalem, desert sunrises, certain women, Sonsie figs, my bad habits, my good intentions. Food is love. Food is a springboard. Food is a lot of things, but only with human intervention.
Today I also learned how to cook the octopus, from someone who I am strangely starting to bond with. When the dish was put together, he handed me a piece of tentacle. I stared it down, remembering the rubbery feeling in my hand. I tasted it. I let go. It was good, better with sauce and with the side salad. Do You Wanna Show Me? I asked him. Do You Wanna Learn? he replied. There was a time when I wouldn't have said yes.
I worked garde manger tonight so I stayed out of the pastry kitchen, mostly, except to try a spoonful of some fresh-spun ice cream that my new boss held out to me. When I tried to taste it, still so soft and precious, it slid down my throat instead in the manner of an ice cream shot. Some slight hint of flavor lingered in my throat, but it went too fast to make a full impression. Come Back When You Learn To Eat, she said. Visitors to our kitchen soon learn that we tease mercilessly though it is, like a schoolboy's crush, always affectionate at heart. So I went back to the savory kitchen but there it was, an impression, a tease, a hint of an answer to a question.
Yesterday I tasted something good lord so delicious. I was in the pk while it was being born and I got to watch it come to life, got to dip fingers in process, asked the whys. It was incredible. I'm so excited for it.
Change is constant. What do you believe, what do you believe in? Do you fight or do you let go? Me, I'm trying to hold to the things I resolved at week's beginning.
I loved that fig jam. I made it with love. I made it meditating on the first perfect fig I ever ate, in a small Palestinian town, which led me to the figs from Knoll, and the fruit-stealing adventure in Berkeley with some perfect figs devoured on spot, and faint memories of Jerusalem, desert sunrises, certain women, Sonsie figs, my bad habits, my good intentions. Food is love. Food is a springboard. Food is a lot of things, but only with human intervention.
Sunday, October 07, 2007
edge city: revisionist strategies
Saturday night I took my bike down Folsom to Embarcadero, then down all the way past the Fisherman's Wharf crowd and out to Aquatic Park, then home via Polk to Van Ness with a stop for doughnut sampling at Bob's {I'm serious bout these doughnuts, man}. I meant to stop at Aquatic Park and walk out along the pier but it was blocked off for Flight Week. Some time ago I wrote a story and a pivotal scene ended up happening on that pier (only I didn't know it then, and the logistics of coordinating a story three thousand miles away that I didn't know was messy at best, but it was the only way to try to be here). It's a great place to see the city because you've got the tackiness of Ghirardelli Square at your back, Alcatraz Island lurking in the depths in front of you, and you can look toward the Golden Gate and open ocean beyond. I had some questions I needed to work out, and I needed to put myself in my characters' frame of mind for the stories that get edited once this carousel story is finished. Back to the chef cycle: the line cook, and the sous chef.
All of these pieces and the carousel too are so similar in sentiment. A professor I had once said that there are two plots for stories: A Stranger Comes To Town, and the other one whose name I forget. And all of these pieces are variations on that theme. Sometimes you meet someone so wonderful and you know that the sum of all you have isn't enough for that person but it's all you can give so you stand before them with your hands outstretched, knowing it's futile, knowing you have to. Because you are lovesick, or your mother is ill. Because you love another (you do, right?) but you are compelled. Because you are not enough alone. Because you want to believe in love. Because you are young. Because of her smile. His stutter, his red cheeks. The Stranger Comes To Town, and you are not so ill-prepared.
I needed to feel that painful emptiness and how the city melts around you as you move through it. How the water laps at the shore. How small it makes you feel. How you try to find messages in the street lamps and shards of conversation you overhear. Because at present there is no one that I can act so recklessly for.
I think for one I understand the line cook's story better now (though it is far from being good and will inevitably pose its own problems as I continue), and the carousel story will be easy to complete, but it's the sous chef's story that stumps me because its potential for betrayal is so total.
There is another short piece in the works about the inability to accept love when it's given.
These thoughts all beg another question: how do you know when it's right? How can you take it on faith that you will love something?
When I first found Claudia Fleming's cookbook in the library I loved it. I read it hushed and awed on the T, wanting to understand the ideas behind each choice, looking to decode its clues. I wouldn't return it to the library. I kept renewing it. When it had to go back, I'd wait and then check it out again. It was one of the last items I returned before I moved to Oakland and I'm pretty sure at the time it had late fines. But I only made one recipe from it during all that time. Having recently made a couple others I was confused and saddened when one resulted in an overly sweet confection. And I'm down with sweet things, but this was just wrong.
I don't *love* things frequently, least of all food, my own or anyone's. But I just missed my chance at the Saturday market to tell Mourad Lahlou how exquisitely perfect everything we ate at Aziza was, and how for two full days after every pause in conversation was a return to shared sighs. I made a list of the food I can say I've loved and it came down to six Bay Area chefs and three in Boston (three!) Recently I told someone I loved her food...or, rather I knew I'd love your food before I tasted any of it, and I do. How do you know when it's right when it's just an idea? How can you take it on faith? Why have I only had roast chicken that is PERFECT twice in my life?
And maybe that is what the story is missing. The faith that to heal the structure we first need to break it. Break it down. The guts to go all the way to the problem. Which is probably why I love that first piece so much {the one that takes place on the pier, in part}. It's a devastating scream from someone who has always been in utter control. It's the bid to keep the Stranger even as she's skipping town. It's the recognition that you are not enough, in all your failed grace, that you will not change, that your promises will not be kept.
All of these pieces and the carousel too are so similar in sentiment. A professor I had once said that there are two plots for stories: A Stranger Comes To Town, and the other one whose name I forget. And all of these pieces are variations on that theme. Sometimes you meet someone so wonderful and you know that the sum of all you have isn't enough for that person but it's all you can give so you stand before them with your hands outstretched, knowing it's futile, knowing you have to. Because you are lovesick, or your mother is ill. Because you love another (you do, right?) but you are compelled. Because you are not enough alone. Because you want to believe in love. Because you are young. Because of her smile. His stutter, his red cheeks. The Stranger Comes To Town, and you are not so ill-prepared.
I needed to feel that painful emptiness and how the city melts around you as you move through it. How the water laps at the shore. How small it makes you feel. How you try to find messages in the street lamps and shards of conversation you overhear. Because at present there is no one that I can act so recklessly for.
I think for one I understand the line cook's story better now (though it is far from being good and will inevitably pose its own problems as I continue), and the carousel story will be easy to complete, but it's the sous chef's story that stumps me because its potential for betrayal is so total.
There is another short piece in the works about the inability to accept love when it's given.
These thoughts all beg another question: how do you know when it's right? How can you take it on faith that you will love something?
When I first found Claudia Fleming's cookbook in the library I loved it. I read it hushed and awed on the T, wanting to understand the ideas behind each choice, looking to decode its clues. I wouldn't return it to the library. I kept renewing it. When it had to go back, I'd wait and then check it out again. It was one of the last items I returned before I moved to Oakland and I'm pretty sure at the time it had late fines. But I only made one recipe from it during all that time. Having recently made a couple others I was confused and saddened when one resulted in an overly sweet confection. And I'm down with sweet things, but this was just wrong.
I don't *love* things frequently, least of all food, my own or anyone's. But I just missed my chance at the Saturday market to tell Mourad Lahlou how exquisitely perfect everything we ate at Aziza was, and how for two full days after every pause in conversation was a return to shared sighs. I made a list of the food I can say I've loved and it came down to six Bay Area chefs and three in Boston (three!) Recently I told someone I loved her food...or, rather I knew I'd love your food before I tasted any of it, and I do. How do you know when it's right when it's just an idea? How can you take it on faith? Why have I only had roast chicken that is PERFECT twice in my life?
And maybe that is what the story is missing. The faith that to heal the structure we first need to break it. Break it down. The guts to go all the way to the problem. Which is probably why I love that first piece so much {the one that takes place on the pier, in part}. It's a devastating scream from someone who has always been in utter control. It's the bid to keep the Stranger even as she's skipping town. It's the recognition that you are not enough, in all your failed grace, that you will not change, that your promises will not be kept.
Sunday, September 09, 2007
it's midnight and my. stomach. hurts
Tonight I found out a piece of my food writing is going to be published online in a few weeks. The journal had been really interested back in April or thereabouts and dropped the ball. While there are a lot of things I like within the piece it's sort of a negative piece in a lot of ways--definitely not a favorite with the writing group--if an important piece for me. It's strange to publish something I don't feel like I LOVE...although I do feel it's important, at least personally (though that is not a great reason)...it speaks to a lot of things I feel about this industry, and it's very of a certain time in my life, and it's perhaps challenging to think of it out of that time.
Nervousness and listmaking. My vacation is almost half over and there is so much left to do. It's so wonderful to see each person I get to see, but it's also an obligation:
do not leave anyone out.
So people want to see me again or have coffee or go driving but there's no time.
To go to New York or not. I will want to have gone by the time I'm back in California. It's just a lot to plan. Right now I'm researching bakeries and whatnot I want to hit up and I still don't really have dinner plans {which I should just make, right} and it's like...this is my vacation...like, relax already. The list so far:
il laboratorio del gelato
buttercup cakery
city bakery
doughnut plant
kee's chocolates
amy's bread/chelsea market
balthazar
kyotofu
Boys night out on the town Saturday to check out the new club, but it was all posturing and bored girls, me included. Been spending lots of time lately with people who remind me of myself too much and it's strange to see my reaction mirrored in someone else's face.
You can accuse me of being too intense, and you'd probably be right
I went to Oleana tonight. There are a lot of things I want to say about Oleana...and Aziza as well while we're discussing Turkish-North African cuisine...
{and I've tried to write already about Aziza a couple of times but it doesn't come out in a way that satisfies me as being accurate, and then there's sort of a lil rant I'm not sure if I should get into even though it really bothered me and it still bothers me a week later}
so for now there is only the things we ate at Oleana:
padron peppers with fleur de sel, yogurt
warm buttered humus with basturma, olives
zaatar focaccia
fideos with chickpeas and chard
spinach falafel with greens, beets, tahini
crispy zaatar-lemon chicken with turkish cheese pancake, greens
swordfish with eggplant-macaroni timbale
goat's milk ice cream (made with sahleb!!) with blueberry jellies, blueberry sauce, rose petal jam
umm ali with peaches and peach jam, honey pot de creme
and Aziza:
grilled flatbreads with mediterannean spreads
giant lima beans with roasted tomatoes, feta, fresh zaatar
chicken basteeya
There were so many familiar taste memories in those desserts. Not surprising-many of the components I'd tasted before, or at least variations on a theme.
I'm nervous about everything that happens when I get back to San Francisco, but that is another list to be made. It's easy to be here and it's easy to slip into things.Being back here is so emotional. Every street corner in Somerville is the scene of secrets, fights, attraction, breakups, longing. It's so marked in so many ways that diminish the abstractions I seek in SF. I moved away for food? I start to think...and it all seems so trite.
Nervousness and listmaking. My vacation is almost half over and there is so much left to do. It's so wonderful to see each person I get to see, but it's also an obligation:
do not leave anyone out.
So people want to see me again or have coffee or go driving but there's no time.
To go to New York or not. I will want to have gone by the time I'm back in California. It's just a lot to plan. Right now I'm researching bakeries and whatnot I want to hit up and I still don't really have dinner plans {which I should just make, right} and it's like...this is my vacation...like, relax already. The list so far:
il laboratorio del gelato
buttercup cakery
city bakery
doughnut plant
kee's chocolates
amy's bread/chelsea market
balthazar
kyotofu
Boys night out on the town Saturday to check out the new club, but it was all posturing and bored girls, me included. Been spending lots of time lately with people who remind me of myself too much and it's strange to see my reaction mirrored in someone else's face.
You can accuse me of being too intense, and you'd probably be right
I went to Oleana tonight. There are a lot of things I want to say about Oleana...and Aziza as well while we're discussing Turkish-North African cuisine...
{and I've tried to write already about Aziza a couple of times but it doesn't come out in a way that satisfies me as being accurate, and then there's sort of a lil rant I'm not sure if I should get into even though it really bothered me and it still bothers me a week later}
so for now there is only the things we ate at Oleana:
padron peppers with fleur de sel, yogurt
warm buttered humus with basturma, olives
zaatar focaccia
fideos with chickpeas and chard
spinach falafel with greens, beets, tahini
crispy zaatar-lemon chicken with turkish cheese pancake, greens
swordfish with eggplant-macaroni timbale
goat's milk ice cream (made with sahleb!!) with blueberry jellies, blueberry sauce, rose petal jam
umm ali with peaches and peach jam, honey pot de creme
and Aziza:
grilled flatbreads with mediterannean spreads
giant lima beans with roasted tomatoes, feta, fresh zaatar
chicken basteeya
There were so many familiar taste memories in those desserts. Not surprising-many of the components I'd tasted before, or at least variations on a theme.
I'm nervous about everything that happens when I get back to San Francisco, but that is another list to be made. It's easy to be here and it's easy to slip into things.Being back here is so emotional. Every street corner in Somerville is the scene of secrets, fights, attraction, breakups, longing. It's so marked in so many ways that diminish the abstractions I seek in SF. I moved away for food? I start to think...and it all seems so trite.
Monday, July 09, 2007
my mother used to call it "piggy meat"
Yeah that was me this morning at Cafe Flore. EATING BACON. just a bite, but oh, I'm slipping, I'm not me anymore, I'm down the rabbit hole.
There was SO MUCH foodie gossip at the cookout last night in an East Bay suburb. FB gossip too. My boss gave me some more background information on market stuff, the Slow Food fight was discussed, chef ventures rated, farmers markets in many towns discussed. We had many offers, for instant reservations at Quince, job hookups for me at ice cream joints, vacations, dinners, whatnot. Wild times were had.
It was really great to see the family of a dear family friend, which so happens to include my boss (whom I never see) and her husband. And it made me want to be the next Jonathan Franzen so I could write about how an interest seeps its way through one generation of a family, how its roots grow. How the children marry cattle farmers and fruit farmers and become the sort of people who covet reservations at The French Laundry, how the generation after that becomes chefs and bakers and coffee-makers. My own family is fairly small, and no one is quite sure where I got my passion for sweet things or voracious appetite for bookishness.
I'm not doing a very good job of keeping out of the East Bay. Chez Panisse two nights ago (upstairs, this time). Rocket salad with pickled onions and warm figs on toast. Morel ravioli in pea sauce. Warm fig and raspberry tart with honey ice cream (the most well matched flavors I've had in a long time in dessert, though it could just be I'm in a figgy mood). Tomorrow we're walking cutie pie at the Albany shoreline, going to the Tuesday market, hitting up the Berkeley Bowl and stopping by Ici so we can compare it to Bi Rite. In other words, doing all the day off things I normally do.
Bi Rite tonight was better than the Bi Rite we had at work (honey lavender, salted caramel, cookies n cream, all with those Michael Recchiuti fleur de sel chocolate things). The honey lavender was too much lavender for my taste. And I don't like honey ice cream unless it's that amazing honey lavender candied pistachio ice cream I made for my Chez Panisse dinner party. And their salted caramel ice cream is not Claudia Fleming's. Ici, however, does not inspire me to make comparisons to recipes I prefer. It only inspires me to eat ice cream and lots of it. Tonight, though, was a banana split with vanilla ice cream, caramelized bananas, hot fudge sauce, lightly whipped cream and walnuts, made slowly and carefully just for me!
It's my birthday soon and I really want some homemade pie and ice cream. Perhaps the rosewater mastic ice cream, or sweet corn, or oatmeal to go with something yummy and fruit. However I don't actually think I'll have time to make myself something for candle-wishing and growing older. I may very well be in Santa Cruz looking for the most perfect beach ever or in Monterrey communing with the fish
(my last birthday actually was also spent at an aquarium and, ahem, if you were with my on the last birthday, this one is sure going to be better). Should we make ice cream next week? If so what kind? Pie? Or would you rather just hit up my favorite spots, go zaatar tasting and remember those perfect desserts?
There was SO MUCH foodie gossip at the cookout last night in an East Bay suburb. FB gossip too. My boss gave me some more background information on market stuff, the Slow Food fight was discussed, chef ventures rated, farmers markets in many towns discussed. We had many offers, for instant reservations at Quince, job hookups for me at ice cream joints, vacations, dinners, whatnot. Wild times were had.
It was really great to see the family of a dear family friend, which so happens to include my boss (whom I never see) and her husband. And it made me want to be the next Jonathan Franzen so I could write about how an interest seeps its way through one generation of a family, how its roots grow. How the children marry cattle farmers and fruit farmers and become the sort of people who covet reservations at The French Laundry, how the generation after that becomes chefs and bakers and coffee-makers. My own family is fairly small, and no one is quite sure where I got my passion for sweet things or voracious appetite for bookishness.
I'm not doing a very good job of keeping out of the East Bay. Chez Panisse two nights ago (upstairs, this time). Rocket salad with pickled onions and warm figs on toast. Morel ravioli in pea sauce. Warm fig and raspberry tart with honey ice cream (the most well matched flavors I've had in a long time in dessert, though it could just be I'm in a figgy mood). Tomorrow we're walking cutie pie at the Albany shoreline, going to the Tuesday market, hitting up the Berkeley Bowl and stopping by Ici so we can compare it to Bi Rite. In other words, doing all the day off things I normally do.
Bi Rite tonight was better than the Bi Rite we had at work (honey lavender, salted caramel, cookies n cream, all with those Michael Recchiuti fleur de sel chocolate things). The honey lavender was too much lavender for my taste. And I don't like honey ice cream unless it's that amazing honey lavender candied pistachio ice cream I made for my Chez Panisse dinner party. And their salted caramel ice cream is not Claudia Fleming's. Ici, however, does not inspire me to make comparisons to recipes I prefer. It only inspires me to eat ice cream and lots of it. Tonight, though, was a banana split with vanilla ice cream, caramelized bananas, hot fudge sauce, lightly whipped cream and walnuts, made slowly and carefully just for me!
It's my birthday soon and I really want some homemade pie and ice cream. Perhaps the rosewater mastic ice cream, or sweet corn, or oatmeal to go with something yummy and fruit. However I don't actually think I'll have time to make myself something for candle-wishing and growing older. I may very well be in Santa Cruz looking for the most perfect beach ever or in Monterrey communing with the fish
(my last birthday actually was also spent at an aquarium and, ahem, if you were with my on the last birthday, this one is sure going to be better). Should we make ice cream next week? If so what kind? Pie? Or would you rather just hit up my favorite spots, go zaatar tasting and remember those perfect desserts?
Thursday, June 28, 2007
beginnings, endings
I have reconciled with the chocolate cherry cake. It has been much maligned in these pages of late, and so I'm glad that we have come to terms, because people really do like chocolate and cherries and flourless chocolate cake substances, even if they're not especially captivating to me.
When I originally made the cake I used David Lebovitz's recipe from Ripe for Dessert, substituting cherry conserve for the candied cherries, and I think this was actually my favorite version, but it didn't sell well at all. Next step, once cherries arrived of course, was cherries cooked in syrup with David's cake...too moist, and too dominated by chocolate.
The next step was to find a basic flourless chocolate cake recipe and add in the cherries. The chocolate was less dominant (actually only used cocoa powder), but it was too challenging to handle.
For the birthday cake it was requested I use up some of the ancient, pre-divorce Guittard semisweet from the Berkeley Bowl (there's a Bay area mouthful). I took (if you love me, buy me a digital scale) approx. 2/3 cup of the Guittard chips and approx. 3/4 of the bar of Scharffen Berger 70%. The blend of chocolates worked really well, ad the Guittard tamed down the winey intensity of the Scharffen Berger and allowed the cherries to really come through. A much better balance of flavors. It was really appreciated by the party guests. Which was nice, yknow, cause it didn't really look like much. Flourless cake or any souffle like cake tends to look like crap. I left it unadorned. We ate it with chocolate mousse and ice cream. It's been a very, very long times since I had a non-Sonsie chocolate mousse.
However, it is still too moist. There really isn't any liquid, aside from what little the cherries ooze out...maybe if I make it again I shall drain them well...Not really sure how to correct that otherwise. Cake being too moist, what an odd problem.
I've got lots of odd problems right now. Lots of things on the brain. I took a long bike ride tonight through Fruitvale and again was reminded of Poughkeepsie. There's even a building on International that looks just like the old mental health hospital on Route 9 right across from the CIA. Poughkeepsie, maybe I will see you in the fall? When there's not much growing on the farm except for bitter greens and my farmer friend is tired. But nevermind that. I'll never get to Poughkeepsie without a car. So it will be my last meal was here, and my last adventure was the chocolatier. Poughkeepsie. I've got to get back. Maybe the farmer will fetch me? Bus to New York and the the familiar train ride from platform 36? The places we love aren't always pretty and who can possibly understand my deepest love for Poughkeepsie, New York?
The east is coming to me, in packages and in persons, all month next month. I want to smell the salt on the water; I want to feel the heat heavy in the air.
Lately I've been thinking about intentionality and cooking. What we are cooking out of. What is on our minds during the actual act. I'm trying to cook only from positive places. It's a struggle to always hold on to that love and compassion for strangers. Cooking is giving away the best parts of yourself. So is writing, but you can't see words or their effect on people, and so it's almost still your guarded secret. In cooking the things you make are real, tangible, and to the outside eye not defined by or created by anything per se. But it really should come from the best place, because otherwise there's just so much heartache in the business, why bother?
Cooking. Making me a nicer person? I dunno, you tell me.
When I originally made the cake I used David Lebovitz's recipe from Ripe for Dessert, substituting cherry conserve for the candied cherries, and I think this was actually my favorite version, but it didn't sell well at all. Next step, once cherries arrived of course, was cherries cooked in syrup with David's cake...too moist, and too dominated by chocolate.
The next step was to find a basic flourless chocolate cake recipe and add in the cherries. The chocolate was less dominant (actually only used cocoa powder), but it was too challenging to handle.
For the birthday cake it was requested I use up some of the ancient, pre-divorce Guittard semisweet from the Berkeley Bowl (there's a Bay area mouthful). I took (if you love me, buy me a digital scale) approx. 2/3 cup of the Guittard chips and approx. 3/4 of the bar of Scharffen Berger 70%. The blend of chocolates worked really well, ad the Guittard tamed down the winey intensity of the Scharffen Berger and allowed the cherries to really come through. A much better balance of flavors. It was really appreciated by the party guests. Which was nice, yknow, cause it didn't really look like much. Flourless cake or any souffle like cake tends to look like crap. I left it unadorned. We ate it with chocolate mousse and ice cream. It's been a very, very long times since I had a non-Sonsie chocolate mousse.
However, it is still too moist. There really isn't any liquid, aside from what little the cherries ooze out...maybe if I make it again I shall drain them well...Not really sure how to correct that otherwise. Cake being too moist, what an odd problem.
I've got lots of odd problems right now. Lots of things on the brain. I took a long bike ride tonight through Fruitvale and again was reminded of Poughkeepsie. There's even a building on International that looks just like the old mental health hospital on Route 9 right across from the CIA. Poughkeepsie, maybe I will see you in the fall? When there's not much growing on the farm except for bitter greens and my farmer friend is tired. But nevermind that. I'll never get to Poughkeepsie without a car. So it will be my last meal was here, and my last adventure was the chocolatier. Poughkeepsie. I've got to get back. Maybe the farmer will fetch me? Bus to New York and the the familiar train ride from platform 36? The places we love aren't always pretty and who can possibly understand my deepest love for Poughkeepsie, New York?
The east is coming to me, in packages and in persons, all month next month. I want to smell the salt on the water; I want to feel the heat heavy in the air.
Lately I've been thinking about intentionality and cooking. What we are cooking out of. What is on our minds during the actual act. I'm trying to cook only from positive places. It's a struggle to always hold on to that love and compassion for strangers. Cooking is giving away the best parts of yourself. So is writing, but you can't see words or their effect on people, and so it's almost still your guarded secret. In cooking the things you make are real, tangible, and to the outside eye not defined by or created by anything per se. But it really should come from the best place, because otherwise there's just so much heartache in the business, why bother?
Cooking. Making me a nicer person? I dunno, you tell me.
Tuesday, May 29, 2007
chez panisse, the update
Monday night dinner at Chez Panisse downstairs.
We started off with almonds and olives. As usual, my mother suggested I try olives. On my last SF vacation, I tried olives at least twice, and grimaced each time. Since then, I've tried other olives--and had tried them again twice this weekend--but these were olives I found myself unable to stop eating. They were slightly warm, slicked with oil and salt, and tasted like good olive oil had solidified and grown strangely shaped pits. We ate our way through the helping of olives and then we ate more. They brought bread (Acme, of course). First course was a warm onion tart with a little salad of microgreens and egg, pancetta for my mother's but not on mine, mild flavors but very fresh. I think you'd like the pancetta, she said.
I don't eat bacon. But I've been thinking about it, I replied. I remember enjoying bacon, especially dipped in maple syrup. It's been on my mind, lately, bacon, and it's one of the only meat products I actually have a taste memory of. Probably because I keep accidentally eating it.
The second course was chicken with morels and hand-cut pappardelle with peas and spinach. I'd like to hope they make their own pasta, rather than cut the pappardelle from strips as Sonsie used to do. Being Chez Panisse, I'm sure this is the case (although I was surprised to lean my lovely olives were sourced from Provence via NYC, rather than locally). They look like little brains,I said, and my mother warned me. I proceeded to eat every scrap on my plate, from the perfectly moist chicken (perfect chicken #3, and again something that inspired me to make perfect chicken, though of course I wouldn't know where to start). What I liked about the morels was that they lacked that slippery mushroom texture that gets gummy in my mouth. And then I began thinking of getting some ramps, peas or fiddleheads and morels from the mushroom store at the FB, and learning to cook.
Finally, (and thank heavens it wasn't plain fruit with dessert) bing cherries in syrup with toasted almond ice cream. An unsightly, not-great S shaped cookie garnished the dessert. But everything else was perfect. Down to the half bottle of A. Rafanelli Zin we shared in homage to last August's trip to Healdsburg (and SF, before it became my new home).
We started off with almonds and olives. As usual, my mother suggested I try olives. On my last SF vacation, I tried olives at least twice, and grimaced each time. Since then, I've tried other olives--and had tried them again twice this weekend--but these were olives I found myself unable to stop eating. They were slightly warm, slicked with oil and salt, and tasted like good olive oil had solidified and grown strangely shaped pits. We ate our way through the helping of olives and then we ate more. They brought bread (Acme, of course). First course was a warm onion tart with a little salad of microgreens and egg, pancetta for my mother's but not on mine, mild flavors but very fresh. I think you'd like the pancetta, she said.
I don't eat bacon. But I've been thinking about it, I replied. I remember enjoying bacon, especially dipped in maple syrup. It's been on my mind, lately, bacon, and it's one of the only meat products I actually have a taste memory of. Probably because I keep accidentally eating it.
The second course was chicken with morels and hand-cut pappardelle with peas and spinach. I'd like to hope they make their own pasta, rather than cut the pappardelle from strips as Sonsie used to do. Being Chez Panisse, I'm sure this is the case (although I was surprised to lean my lovely olives were sourced from Provence via NYC, rather than locally). They look like little brains,I said, and my mother warned me. I proceeded to eat every scrap on my plate, from the perfectly moist chicken (perfect chicken #3, and again something that inspired me to make perfect chicken, though of course I wouldn't know where to start). What I liked about the morels was that they lacked that slippery mushroom texture that gets gummy in my mouth. And then I began thinking of getting some ramps, peas or fiddleheads and morels from the mushroom store at the FB, and learning to cook.
Finally, (and thank heavens it wasn't plain fruit with dessert) bing cherries in syrup with toasted almond ice cream. An unsightly, not-great S shaped cookie garnished the dessert. But everything else was perfect. Down to the half bottle of A. Rafanelli Zin we shared in homage to last August's trip to Healdsburg (and SF, before it became my new home).
Monday, May 28, 2007
gastronomic weekend, part 2
Going up to Calistoga today to see Schramsberg and taste some bubbly. Bringing the dog along in the car, so that should be interesting.
A16 was so wonderful. I fell in love with the dimly lit interior and the tiny garden room in back, the ancient foosball table and the open kitchen where a dozen hands toiled away. We ordered big, full bodied Italian wines that tasted like dirt and earth and first sip and mellowed as they sat. Crusty bread and good dipping oil. Soon the fava beans came, and they were divine. They were perfectly seasoned. Every now and then I'd get a bite of crispy mint leaf or a lightly charred pod and shudder in delight. It made me want to go to market and buy a bunch of favas. My only prior experience with favas was disappointing, shucking large pods from the farm where I worked because in upstate New York June they were the only thing ready before I moved back to Boston.
I followed the excellent favas with a quattro formaggio pizza topped with arugula, my favorite bitter green. A little soggy in the middle from the weight of the cheese, and a little light on the arugula for my taste, but still amazing. I could only manage half a pizza, and now I've got leftovers sitting in the mini fridge in the hotel.
The dessert menu was entirely Italian inspired, and that sort of thing usually doesn't moved me. So we settled on the zabaglione with lemon granita and torrone, since I've been thinking of doing a sabayon w/ berries for Frog Hollow anyway. It was excellent as well. A perfectly composed dessert, which is hard, nice flavor balance of tart and sweet, and to discover the fluffy, icy granita lurking underneath creamy, aerated vanilla custard was an amazing sensory experience. For me it's all about taking something familiar and making it new, making it more. Every element of this dessert did that for me...the chopped, toasted buts on top, the really good cookie (and I'm not a cookie person).
Compared to the A16 experience, Jardiniere was disappointing. But that's another post.
A16 was so wonderful. I fell in love with the dimly lit interior and the tiny garden room in back, the ancient foosball table and the open kitchen where a dozen hands toiled away. We ordered big, full bodied Italian wines that tasted like dirt and earth and first sip and mellowed as they sat. Crusty bread and good dipping oil. Soon the fava beans came, and they were divine. They were perfectly seasoned. Every now and then I'd get a bite of crispy mint leaf or a lightly charred pod and shudder in delight. It made me want to go to market and buy a bunch of favas. My only prior experience with favas was disappointing, shucking large pods from the farm where I worked because in upstate New York June they were the only thing ready before I moved back to Boston.
I followed the excellent favas with a quattro formaggio pizza topped with arugula, my favorite bitter green. A little soggy in the middle from the weight of the cheese, and a little light on the arugula for my taste, but still amazing. I could only manage half a pizza, and now I've got leftovers sitting in the mini fridge in the hotel.
The dessert menu was entirely Italian inspired, and that sort of thing usually doesn't moved me. So we settled on the zabaglione with lemon granita and torrone, since I've been thinking of doing a sabayon w/ berries for Frog Hollow anyway. It was excellent as well. A perfectly composed dessert, which is hard, nice flavor balance of tart and sweet, and to discover the fluffy, icy granita lurking underneath creamy, aerated vanilla custard was an amazing sensory experience. For me it's all about taking something familiar and making it new, making it more. Every element of this dessert did that for me...the chopped, toasted buts on top, the really good cookie (and I'm not a cookie person).
Compared to the A16 experience, Jardiniere was disappointing. But that's another post.
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