flavors

It is too cute to go to your favorite local ice cream store with almost all your crew. Especially when you try oh so many flavors, and upon trying one say with absolute certainty that the flavor IS your boss.

honey bay laurel, thanks for asking

And then to hear that she herself goes into the store and orders that flavor later...too funny.

Me, I got some brandied cherry and black pepper-candied pistachio. And I think that I am the black pepper pistachio. You know, hard to take but sweet all the same. However my friend thinks I should be brandied cherry. Slightly alcoholic, plus fruity. Hmph.

circuitry of kitchens

I had the good fortune last Friday of spending the afternoon in Berkeley with Maryusa of Recipes for Trouble. After a much needed cup of coffee from Peet's my brain started working again and so I was able to figure out where we needed to go for the promised afternoon pastries. Masse's was mentioned as was La Farine, which my FH manager just adored. I'd had a bite of her La Farine croissant earlier in the day and was a little unsure, given the chewiness of its crust BUT...it was a few short blocks from Ici, and when I'm in the East Bay I like to do as much as I can because I know I won't be back for some time. So we drove off to the cute lil bakery and split a piece of chocolate pound cake and a lemon shortbread. We didn't discuss the pastries much...they were all right but less than wonderful...but instead spent the afternoon talking about writing, food, cooking, feeding people, the self-aggrandizement of the bay area folks...and she had to go at 4:30 but I'd been talking up Ici all afternoon so, of course, we had to go to Ici first and were lucky enough to find parking spot right outside. Then we had to taste every flavor, ask about flavors that weren't featured I'd been instructed to try (pumpkin ice cream sandwiches, quince sorbet.) And when we were *finally* settled (Maryusa with a cone of apple sherbet, me with a cup of apple sherbet + malted banana), she sighed as if she'd found Xanadu and wondered if there were any possibly way she could see the back.

Well Yeah Maybe. I shrugged. If Mary's Here...I Know Mary. We'd met over the summer and then I'd seen her again just hte week before when I'd stopped in with her employee/my friend for the persimmon ice cream since I'm trying to understand persimmons. But it wasn't as if going in back of Ici to visit Mary were something I'd normally do. Still, what with Maryusa wanting to put up a cot and stay the night, I asked the counter girl if we could go back.

{I feel like people normally have that reaction to Ici. I have that reaction to Ici. You have to give yourself over to the process and try every flavor and wait and wait. It's not like a normal ice cream store. But you will be rewarded if you do so, or else you'll go away grumbling what all the fuss was about but only because you didn't do it properly, and if you do, you might be compelled to go back frequently}

So we go in the back and Maryusa chats up Mary and I look around at all the busy, quiet workers and then get around to asking Mary my sorts of questions (when will you have quince+why is the sherbet this consistency today), discussing the mastic ice cream from my job, discussing FH, and then when we go back to the front tell Maryusa all about how I met Mary and in the process I realize how completely small, circular and self perpetuating this community is.

Boston was never this way. I knew meaning hung out in the kitchen of and staged with, probably the best pastry chef in town. Though her only real competition would be from Rick Billings at Clio. And she knew people, certainly, meaning when she wanted advice from the owner of one of hte Three Good Bakeries they could chat it up, and she used to work for the owner of the Second Bakery, and they got their bread from the Third. Tight, sometimes, but not necessarily in a way where there's an exchange of information, an interdependency, a way in which the cook network can seem all consuming.

But when I saw I know Mary, I have to expand on how my bosses both know Mary, and then they know each other, and how I hang out with Mary's employee who knows one of my bosses, and how Mary's husband is chef at the restaurant where my FH boss used to be pastry chef...and it only goes further out.

SF feels like a town sometimes. Small and homey. But it also feels like an isl;and of narcissists. I have made myself a part of htis tiny community where we all pass on our ideas, where we can and do talk about ice cream base for hours, where we know cooks all over hte kitchen and have worked for and with one another's friends, bosses, former bosses, and so on. I always thought of SF as a place full of people who were too self important. Who had their niche in their worldview and who were disinterested in expanding. My old roommates in Oaktown were that way...everything they did pertained to one interest.

I am starting ot see it in myself. But I am too caught up in the currency of exchanges out here to know whether it's a good thing or not.


Another intriguing offer has found its way to my email inbox and I am considering it. Details to follow.

frolicking

Running around the town. Chez Panisse last night, Aziza tonight followed by an Ocean Beach bonfire and home to peach crisp that's currently baking. Frog Hollow Summerset peaches with some Woodleaf Blue Diamond plums tossed in for good measure. Running through the streets of Berkeley with a battered takeout box carrying the rest of my perfect eggplant pizza from CP, getting hit on by drunken boys (boys!) on BART, falling asleep standing up with my head resting on burned-up arms, trying to make it to Ici twice in one day, not being able to get there, eating gelato instead which just isn't the same as ice cream, even if it's violet flavored, cuddling the cutie pie, making BBQ plans for next week, having brunch and hanging out with normal people because it's the weekend and I'm not working for once, getting an open invitation to play with an ice cream machine(!!), spying on someone else's new ice cream machine(?!?), staying up until mid morning and being very un-bakerly, and of course, gossiping, for the last time perhaps, with the cupcake makers, about why the boss was surprised to hear I was leaving...I mean, really, surprised...and what I'm going to do next.

you're not here to make my sad songs more sincere

Hot damn, I MISS ME some Berkeley Bowl!! The things I miss about the east bay are the things I expected to miss. So today when I was given the afternoon off from my second job, and I boarded a Richmond-bound BART to Ashby, it felt like cheating on my new city. But the slight shame gave way to home-coming thoughts when the transbay tube shifted to perfect blue skies of the West Oakland industrial land. I knew which way to walk when I got out of the BART, but it felt odd to be on foot in that area. It was a sunny day, gorgeous and hot, and I wanted to walk to Sweet Adeline and to Bakesale Betty and to my old haunt, the Oakland Public Library, and maybe around Lake Merritt for good measure, but there is only so much walking one can reasonably do.


At the Berkeley Bowl, I scored a giant bag of plums and a giant bag of something else--pluots, I thought, for their skin was reddish-pink like the Dapple Dandys from Frog Hollow, but the interior turned out to be bright fuchsia, so plums, perhaps, but more likely not--and a giant bag of mushrooms, all for 79 cents each! That plus some Arborio rice and a little snack mix for me, and then I made myself go before I started buying up loaves of Acme bread or anything more from the bulk aisle.

I went to Ici and hung out for a while. It's really great when people are passionate about what they do. Especially when it's something I'm passionate about too. On the ice cream front, those pluot/plums have been pureed for future sorbet making, the plums have been diced and frozen for something, and I made caramel for the THINGy ice cream and plan to make the base tomorrow, a chocolate base, as was requested.

I wish the meal I made tonight was a local meal, but it wasn't. It was amazing though. I used up those beautiful leeks I bought from Ella Bella last week and some of my 79 cent mushrooms, and and old shallot. Cooked them down in butter and olive oil, added some of the arborio rice and the chicken stock (not homemade, sorry) I'd defrosted and made myself some risotto. I tried to find a recipe for the rice-broth ratio but was having trouble, so just decided to wing it. I threw in 2/3 cup of rice and figured I'd either have enough stock for it or I wouldn't and if I didn't I'd use water because I wasn't going to open some of my really nice white wine for the risotto. No joke, it was the best risotto I have ever made. Plenty of black pepper and some salt, and when it was *almost* done, so close that you could taste it just needed a couple more minutes, I tossed in some parmesan cheese. My landlady was quite shocked to find I "just decided to make risotto." Apparently she's been inspired by myself and the other female roommates before me who cooked and has decided she should start cooking for herself more. I preceded the meal with some heaping spoonfuls of the blackberry ice cream...risotto does take some time to cook.

There aren't many things that could tempt me back to New York but Molly O'Neill is one of them {well, I need no temptation back to the Hudson Valley, just a chunk of money to afford the real estate there}. Which upstate town is she kicking around? Is it one I know? Does she live in Red Hook or Rhinebeck, Germantown or Rosendale {somehow, I can't see her on the other side of the bridge}? I just read an essay by her today in an old Best Food Writing anthology (2004, I think) and it reminded me of reading her memoir and feeling like that was my life on the page. I would really love to talk with her one day about food and writing and what the Boston cooking scene was like when she was there. Maybe I'll have my farmer-friend find her, and if she can do this, and if she will go here and eat with me, then yes, I'll go east.

A coworker's husband is going to Tarrytown for a business trip and she was contemplating going with him. I told her the foliage would not be at its peak, and it would be an hour or so from NYC and there wouldn't be much to do. But I didn't tell her I was jealous. There's been a lot lately, making me miss the East coast. The spread on Brooklyn dining in my GQ {Alan Richman, can you really be advising we move to Bushwick?!?}, the profile of North Fork + Table in Food Arts, the Molly O'Neill...

Safe enough to say now that my honeymoon phase with SF is wearing off. Which is good-I've been here five months already, which feels like a long time. Four in the East Bay, one in SF, a few friends to speak of, a job I still like...

Speaking of jobs I think we're going to start making full sized cakes at the cupcakery. ?!?

local eating part 1

Wow. To my newest reader and oldest friend {like, ever, seriously}, welcome! Zaatar, wicked addictive, so tell me where do you get yours and what do you do with it? I live in California now...my accent blends right in.

My oldest friend and I used to make cookies at my house, and answer the phone as if we were the only bakery we knew in the next town over {Quincy} making cookie orders for people. And we used to write books together too. And here I am, still baking and still writing, though not as much {of the latter} as I should be doing. Holding off for one more week until the visitors leave.

Today my mother and I went to the Tuesday Berkeley market and got fresh whole wheat pasta made with Vital Vittles flour, crimini mushrooms from the mushroom people, and a whole of of vegetables (summer squash, zucchini, salad greens, tomatoes, shallots, parsley and garlic) from the farmers (including Dirty Girl and Full Belly, though I'm not sure who else because we were in a foodie haze).

We were actually looking for that new heartthrob of mine, lemon verbena. In the July Gourmet there's a special section on ice cream and it features lemon verbena, and my mother became enamored with the idea of making lemon verbena ice cream...which of course I supported because lemon verbena is my new reason for getting up in the morning, and because this meant I'd have some birthday ice cream, which is half of the ice cream + pie equation. So after we stalked the market unsuccessfully for lemon verbena, I discovered she actually thought we were looking only for verbena leaves to blend with lemon flavored ice cream! Which made sense, after all, because she was seriously after this taste experience she'd never encountered and I wasn't sure how to react to that. How do you decide to want something you've never had? How does the initial obsession take root, and is it really worth the bother? Like foie, for me, or now, like the idea of making violet ice cream (which in reality would probably not taste like much of anything at all unless mixed with other ingredients, or would probably just taste flowery in that lavender sort of way, but which right now has got me craving).

After the veggie explosion, we went to the Berkeley Bowl for some Acme bread, morel mushrooms and more unsuccesful attempts to get some lemon verbena (the produce guy we asked had actually never HEARD of it and wanted to know if it was the same as lemon thyme).

We made a salad with the salad greens, shallots, parsley and carrots from an earlier Berkeley market trip and used some of that Stonehouse aged Balsamic and olive oil to dress it...their Balsamic doesn't have that syrupy pine tree taste that,come to think of it, mastic has. So I like it. Then we sauteed up the veggies, added some red wine from an earlier Napa trip and read about the farm bill while we waited for the whole thing to come together. It was tasty. Not very adventurous or unusual, but local and quite seasonal and easy.

Ici this afternoon was crowded. I got one scoop of the Santa Rosa plum sorbet and a scoop of the rose pistachio. The pistachios were candied, which was a nice touch, and the ice cream was very much rosewater...but were there actual roses, and if not, what made it pink? That one evoked a comparison, of course, to the Oleana days and the mastic ice cream, and the nougat glace. The Santa Rosa plum sorbet was a little tart, perfectly plummish, and the ideal consistency. The kind of sorbet I am never able to make myself. I made my happy ice cream eating face for a very long time, on the way there, and on the way home. I think I'm beginning to accept that ice cream is my thing. Perhaps at times I wish chocolate were my thing, or cakes (and I always thought cakes were more my thing than they seem to be),but I'm okay with it. Cookies are not my thing. Muffins, no. Pie, sort of,although fruit is not my thing. Ice cream, though? It always inspires.

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?