redacted recipes

Daring Bakers: Julia Child's French Bread

It's that time again! The Daring Bakers have taken on a big challenge this month with Julia Child's Pain Francais. When introducing the recipe our host bloggers, Breadchick Mary, of The Sour Dough and Sara, of I Like to Cook, wrote that the recipe (taken from Mastering the Art of French Cooking) is long, warning us that it "starts on page 57, ends on page 74 and not only lists the ingredients and the steps for making French Bread but is full of good general information about making bread and working with yeast." Additionally they included tips of their own, so just reading through the recipe was a slightly daunting task!

I really procrastinated on this challenge and I'm not sure why. I love baking bread, I love Julia, and I have great respect for this month's hosts, so I don't know what it was. Maybe it was the estimated seven to nine hours from start to finish, maybe it's that my oven is badly calibrated and baking new recipes is always a gamble for me, maybe it was because I usually make bread in loaf pans and had Hand-Shaped Anxiety Syndrome. Probably it was all of these things. At any rate I periodically read through the recipe and then tried to ignore the looming deadline.

Finally last Sunday I marched into the kitchen and got started. The first rise was done in a (relatively quick) three hours and everything went swimmingly until I got to the part about forming the loaves and the last rise. I'd decided to make one large round loaf, and I obviously don't quite have the technique down for doing this. As the recipe explains, because French bread is not baked in a pan, "the loaves have to be formed in such a way that the tension of the coagulated gluten cloak on the surface will hold the dough in shape." Yeaaaaaah... Well, while I understand the science involved, I clearly didn't get this bit right. I managed to shape a credible-looking ball with the sealed pucker on top... but during the final rise it just sort of "rose" outward, rather than up, leaving me with a large flat disk.

It all went downhill from there, I'm afraid. Unmolding the loaf onto the baking sheet (you want to turn it over so that the puckered side is down and the moist bottom is up) seemed to deflate my disk even further. But I forged on, slashing (okay, ripping) a cross in the top, brushing it with water and popping it into the oven.

The end result was pale, sadly (I hate my oven), and not very tall. I set the frisbee-shaped loaf on a rack to cool and announced to Jack that my bread was a mess and I'd failed, and then I started making dinner. In my head I grumbled the whole time. "Who wants to spend THAT much time for an anemic-looking malformed disk of bread?" I thought. "This isn't worth it and I'll never do it again," I thought. "Well, we may as well have some of that damned bread with dinner," I thought.

And you know what? My reaction to the first bite reminded me a lot of what I said right after my first baby was born. After twelve hours of cursing every mother who never told me how bad labor was and of wondering why anyone on the face of the planet would go through childbirth more than once, I looked at my son and then looked at my husband and said, "I'd do this again."

You heard me. I'd make this bread again. This is seriously good bread. I mean, this bread tasted FABULOUS. It was crusty, chewy and just perfectly salty. It tasted like Paris.

I would so make it again. How else am I going to get the forming of the loaves right?

A big thanks to our hosts for choosing a recipe that really inspired! Want to see how the rest of the Daring Bakers did? Check out our blogroll and enjoy!

Click the link for the recipe.

Gotta Try That! Savory Palmiers

Our adopted blog, Equal Opportunity Kitchen, has a lot of great recipes waiting to be tried. We've had their Grilled Skirt Steak with Moroccan Spice Paste and Saffron Yogurt on our list for weeks and still mean to get to it soon. But last night Jack and I had various bits of cheese to use up, and some bread too nice to let go stale, so I thought I'd try making these Pesto Palmiers to munch on as well. This is a double "Gotta Try That!" because Equal Opportunity Kitchen felt the same way and got the recipe from Confections of a Foodie Bride. Thanks to both blogs for the great idea and recipe!

I changed it up a little, making a quick parsley pesto, as I needed to rescue a bunch that was threatening to go over to the dark side.

Pamiers are ridiculously easy to make and you get a lot of oohing and ahing for minimal effort. Must remember to try other fillings soon!

Savory Parsley Pesto Palmiers

for the pesto:
1 cup de-stemmed Italian parsley
1/4 cup pine nuts, toasted
1 garlic clove, minced
1 teaspoon olive oil
1/4 teaspoon salt

Combine all ingredients in a food processor and pulse until smooth.

for the Palmiers:
1 sheet puff pastry, thawed
1/4 cup Pecorino Romano, finely grated (optional)
1/2-3/4 cup pesto
1 egg
1 tablespoon water

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Sprinkle grated cheese onto parchment paper. Roll out the puff pastry on the parchment paper (on top of the cheese) Using an offset spatula, spread the pesto within 1/2 inch of each side of the pastry (you might use more or less than 1/2 cup).

Using your spatula, make three indentions on the top edge of the dough at 3 inches, 6 inches, 9 inches to divide the sheet into quarters.

Fold the left and right edges of the puff pastry halfway to the center of the dough (to the closest quarter-mark indention). Fold the sides to the middle again until they’re almost touching. Fold the two halves together like a book (if you're having trouble visualizing this, both Equal Opportunity Kitchen and Confessions of a Foodie Bride have photos you can reference).

Cut into 1/2 inch slices and place onto parchment-lined baking sheets. Whisk egg and water together and brush over the palmiers. Bake for 8 minutes, flip, and bake for an additional 6-8 minutes. Palmiers are best the day of baking.

Frugal Food: Stuffed Pork Chops

Lorena at Food Revolution runs a monthly event called Frugal Food and the February challenge is to create a meal for two, featuring apples, for seven dollars or less. I immediately thought of my Mom's stuffed pork chops-- a dish she was making back in the '70s, long before grocery stores routinely offered cuts of meat pre-prepared for cooking, as they do today. As is true with so many of her recipes, this one is not written down anywhere and so I had to call her. Now before I move on to our fascinating mother/daughter dialog, I have a little confession to make. Sometimes I write out the dialog before I call her just because it amuses me and I know her that well. And nearly every time it goes exactly the way I expected. But every now and then she refuses to cooperate and doesn't deliver the funny line I'm expecting and so I have to ask leading questions. I try not to sound too obvious, but I think she might be starting to get suspicious.

Me: I need to know about your stuffed pork chops.

Her: Well, they were pork chops and I stuffed them.

Me: Ha, ha. But seriously.

Her: No, really.

Me: Mom. I remember that you used put the stuffing inside but also mound it over the top and that it got nice and crispy, right?

Her: Oh yes, that's the best part.

Me: And the stuffing is just bread crumbs, apples, onions, celery and... what else?

Her: You'll want to mix it with some hot water or a little chicken stock, and the stir in a beaten egg, so it holds together. And salt and pepper them, inside the pocket and out.

Me: Okay, that's easy enough. Did you brown the pork chops?

Her: Nope. Just stand them up in the pan and bake them.

Me: They stand up in the pan?

Her: On the bone.

Me: What?

Her: Trust me. Just make sure you buy center-cut chops with the bone in.

Me: Um, okay. How long did you bake them?

Her: About an hour at 350.

Me: Okay. I think I'll add garlic to the stuffing. I like pork with garlic.

Her: Good idea.

And then the rest of the conversation was about a recipe for chops stuffed with spinach and fontina she wants to try, which immediately made me wish I were making THAT, but anyway...

This is as written down as the recipe is going to get. I cut slits into the chops to form pockets and stuffed them, and put extra the stuffing in little ramekins, baked them, and served them on side, as Jack really likes his stuffing. And I served green beans with the chops. Oh, and they really do stand up in the pan with the stuffing on top. Who knew?

The cost breakdown worked out like so (I did not count the garlic, as it's a staple, nor the cup of chicken broth, as I had some left from the pozole I made the night before):

4.39     2 bone-in center cut pork chops (1 1/2 inches thick)
0.49      bagged breadcrumbs
0.50      half an apple
0.20      half an onion
0.10      celery
1.19      green beans
6.87

Not too bad, considering how expensive meat is. And it was nice to re-experience a favorite dish from my childhood, too. Now I want to try this spinach and fontina stuffing, so Mom... call me when you've tried and let me know how it turned out!

Bad Teeth and Lousy Food: Eating Out

(Photo courtesy of pdphoto.org)

Most students are, of course, permanently short of money. In the late seventies we were lucky enough to be at university at a time when the student grant still existed and thus, if we supplemented that small but much-appreciated cash base by working during the holidays, it was possible to survive without racking up significant debt. I feel very sorry for today's British students, saddled with their huge loan debts for years after graduating, and I think that the abolition of the grant was one of the most abominable actions Blair's government perpetrated. As a working-class youth the grant was what made it possible for me to go to university at all. Without it I'd have been stuck because my parents simply could not have afforded the fees and expenses.

Some tried to survive on the grant alone which, while just about possible, condemned them to a fairly miserable existence of low-rent slum living, poor diet and virtually no socialising. Even before I arrived for my first term I could see this would be the case so, in the summer between A-levels and university (and during the three following summer breaks), I worked shifts at local frozen food factories. This was hard graft but it provided sufficient funds to enable me to actually enjoy my student life. It also gave me a first-hand understanding of the nature of factory work, and thus a direct experience of exactly the sort of drudgery I believed a college degree might help me avoid. Had I known then that drudgery comes dressed in a business suit as well as factory overalls I think I might have been too depressed to bother going to university at all. I don't really mean that. My desire to be a student actually had very little to do with possible future career enhancement; it had to do with probable future life enhancement, and on that score I have no complaints at all. My time working on various stations of the production line was valuable on many levels and it also left me with a fund of tales which may very well feature in a future episode of "Bad Teeth..."

Inevitably, we ate a lot of lousy food. Even those who, like me, could actually cook a little soon fell into a degree of standard student self-neglect. In my case this had a lot to do with placing rather more emphasis on the importance of beer than food, so I really only have myself to blame. I ate far too many meals consisting of toast topped with canned rubbish of several varieties (nowhere near as many as 57), or hastily-hurled-together omelettes of dubious composition. Stale egg and cress sandwiches would be grabbed from the cafeteria as I dashed between lectures. Lunchtime visits to the pub (God, we drank as though alcohol was oxygen in those carefree days) might include a reheated meat pie with overcooked chips and lukewarm baked beans. Cheap frozen food was also a staple, in spite of my exposure to the occasionally shocking realities of the way these products were prepared, processed and packaged. And sometimes we needed more. Something different. Something better. So we would allow ourselves to stop counting the pennies quite so carefully for an evening and splash out on an eat-out.

Before university I had almost never eaten in a restaurant. I'm not counting Grimsby's solitary Wimpy Bar or the Hell's Angel havens of the Cleethorpes seafront cafeterias. I vaguely recall a trip to London when I was about eight years old, and a cafe called The Oval Platter (briefly referenced here). I remember being enchanted by this place; by the pleasant feeling of being looked after and fed by strangers; by the unfamiliar crockery, cutlery and tableware and, most of all, by the exotically different food. Memory is such a strange, malleable phenomenon, isn't it? I'm pretty sure that The Oval Platter was little more than a slightly upscale greasy spoon but it was a wonder to me. I suppose we must have visited similar places on other holidays but the only other experience of dining out I remember with any certainty was when my parents took me to a cosy, chintzy old place for a celebration of my successful university application. I had never seen Indian restaurants, Italian restaurants, Greek restaurants, Mexican restaurants... I had never heard of sushi and would not do so for several years yet. I hadn't even heard of an "American-style Burger Bar" but such was the description of "Rock All", a little place just outside Leeds University's main campus which swiftly became the favourite location for these occasional eat-out treats.

"Rock All" served something like ten or twelve different types of burger, from a fairly standard cheeseburger, through reasonably uncontroversial creations like chilli burgers, to frankly bonkers ideas like the baked bean burger. You read that right. The baked bean burger. And I used to like it. After subsequent decades of experiencing genuinely good burgers it is now impossible for me to be sure that Rock All's patties were truly as divinely tasty as I remember them being, but compared to the aforementioned Wimpy Bar's shrivelled, leathery hockey pucks they were a revelation. They tasted of meat! Juicy meat! They yielded easily between the teeth! They didn't have gristle in them! It must be difficult - particularly for American readers - to fully imagine how utterly new and wonderful this was for me. And it wasn't just the burgers: Rock All served fries rather than chips! There were little pots of relish on the table! They had the kind of desserts I'd only read about in books or seen in American films: tall glasses overflowing with ice cream and chocolate sauce, topped with whipped cream and cherries and who knew what some of those other things were! They had something called Chocolate Fudge Cake which made all my prior experiences of chocolate cake seem embarrassing. Perhaps the most astonishing thing was that if you paid for one-and-a-half coffees, you got something called an "unlimited coffee" which meant THEY'D JUST KEEP FILLING YOUR CUP UNTIL YOUR CAFFEINE-ADDLED BRAIN EXPLODED! Such unheard of, incomprehensible largesse!

It's sad, isn't it? It gets sadder, so brace yourselves: at the age of eighteen I had never had a proper pizza. I'm not even sure I'd had one of those awful frozen ones which (I think) were beginning to become available at the time but even if I had, they would in no way have prepared me for how a real Italian-style pizza should be. That experience was given to me by Salvo's, a lovely little place in Headingley which, I am delighted to learn, is still there to this day. I didn't go there anything like as often as I would have liked to - mainly because it was a little out of the way during my first year and later because it was just a touch too expensive - but it gave me my first realisation that pizza should be a delicious, crisp-edged circle of joy decked with freshness and light, not a chewy disk of white doughy nothing topped with nameless red gloop and tinned sweetcorn.

During these slow early stretchings of my painfully limited culinary horizons I was usually accompanied by my girlfriend, Cathy, with whom I was madly in love. Because of that fact it became inevitable that I  should take her somewhere special for dinner. Somewhere smart. Classy. You know, with tablecloths, and waiters that didn't wear ketchup-stained Harley Davidson T-shirts. So I did. Hang the expense! I took her to a Berni. Brits of a certain age will probably be smiling now, and that short Wikipedia link will give others an idea of why. You see, Berni Inns were basically steak-n-chips grills with pretensions. I would guess that steak house chains like Angus are the nearest current equivalent. As the link says: Berni Inns were all about prawn cocktail, steak (well done, of course) chips and peas, and Black Forest Gateaux. I dimly recall that other items featured on the menu but I don't think anyone ever ordered them. Why would they? Everyone knew that prawn cocktail followed by steak and chips was the height of sophisticated dining!

I don't remember what the meal cost but I do remember wearing my hideous (and already deeply unfashionable) sixth form "smart" clothes, which consisted of a pair of those absurd, high-waisted baggy trousers and one of those eyeball-meltingly ugly check jackets with the single big button and lapels so wide you could take off and glide in a moderate wind. I have tried to find a free domain picture of one of these sartorial nightmares to share with you but strangely, I can't locate one. Perhaps this is a blessing. Perhaps some gentle-hearted, fashion-sensitive geek has devised a bot which tirelessly trawls the net, deleting such horrific images wherever they lurk. And perhaps even then my own grievously stunted fashion sense made a subconscious rebellion because, as I began sawing eagerly away at my overcooked lump of meat, I tipped the whole plateful off the edge of the table and into my lap. The full extent of the spillage was not immediately apparent - maybe because it blended so well with the garish migraine madness of my jacket - but I handled the situation with aplomb. I scraped the stuff back onto my plate, took a casual swig of my Mateus Rosé (suave, Jack, real suave) and carried on eating. Of course I did - how could I possibly waste even one precious morsel of such a quality meal?

So, in spite of - or rather, thanks to - my visit to the Berni I remained pretty clueless about steak, but by the time I left university with that precious degree under my belt I knew what a decent burger was and how a real Italian pizza should be. I'd also had some initial exposure to Indian and Mexican food (Tex-Mex, really) although I'd need significantly more education before I'd get anything approaching the real thing (and with regard to Mexican food Ann would say that I knew nothing until she set me straight!)  It wasn't much, but it was something. I was still deeply ignorant about food, but I was moving in the right direction. That direction was about to veer sharply to the south. The business suit and the lights (and restaurants) of London were waiting.

(Previously) Bad Teeth and Lousy Food: Vivat Membrum Quodlibet

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Heart of the Matter: Green Chicken Pozole

Pozole, a spicy soup with hominy as the main ingredient, has been around for a long time-- well before any Europeans set foot in the Americas. In addition to hominy, the soup is made with chilis and meat-- the most well-known version with pork. There are lots of variations on the theme: white or clear pozole, spiced with garlic but no chilis; green pozole, featuring tomatillos, green chilis and ground pepitas (pumpkin seeds); red pozole, made with ancho or guajillo chilies; and elopozole, which substitutes fresh sweet corn for the hominy and adds squash.

Hominy is dried corn kernels which have been treated with an alkali (usually lye) to remove the germ and the hard outer hull. Each kernel is quite large with a chewy texture and mild distinctive taste perfect to carry other flavors. The earliest known usage of hominy was about 1500 BC, in what is now Guatamala. Interestingly, hominy has a few nutritional advantages over untreated corn products. Niacin and amino acids are more available and easier to absorb. Hominy is surprising low in calories and fat and high in fiber.

This particular pozole recipe is one I developed a few years ago whilst dieting. A single large serving is under 400 calories and provides over a third of your daily protein needs. But let's forget for a moment how healthy it is and think about taste. It's bright and fresh, marrying classic Mexican ingredients-- tomatillo, cilantro and chilis, with the mild hominy and chicken. And, in spite of the low amount of fat and oil in the recipe, the finished soup is not "thin" but rather thickens a little and leaves a lovely, unctuous mouth feel. Squeezing a little lime juice over your bowl of soup takes it right over the top.

You can poach the chicken a day ahead, and make the tomatilla salsa ahead, too, for a very quick assembly right before you want to serve the pozole.

Green Chicken Pozole
4 - 6 servings

9 cups water
2 bay leaves
1 large white onion, halved lengthwise and thinly sliced
3 garlic cloves, chopped
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 skinless boneless chicken thighs
2 skinless boneless chicken breasts
1 teaspoon pepitas (ground pumpkin seed)
2 - 3 cups of tomatillo salsa
1/2 cup chopped fresh cilantro
1 teaspoon dried epazote or oregano (preferably Mexican), crumbled
1 tablespoons olive oil
2 (15-oz) cans white hominy, rinsed and drained

Accompaniments: diced radish, lime wedges, shredded romaine lettuce, and chopped white onion to be added "al gusto" or as preferred.

Simmer 8 cups of the water, the bay leaf, the onion, garlic, and salt for about 10 minutes. Add the chicken and poach at a bare simmer, skimming off any foam, until just cooked through, about 20 minutes. Transfer the chicken to a cutting board to cool and pour the broth through a fine-mesh sieve into a large bowl, Reserve. When chicken is cool enough to handle, coarsely shred with your fingers.

Heat oil in a 4- to 5-quart heavy pot over moderately high heat until hot but not smoking, then add the tomatillo salsa, pepitas, and epazote. Cook, uncovered, stirring frequently, until thickened, about 10 minutes. Stir in 1 cup of the reserved chicken broth and simmer 5 minutes. Add the shredded chicken, hominy, and the rest of the reserved broth and simmer, partially covered, 20 minutes.

Stir in the cilantro and serve pozole in deep bowls with accompaniments.

This healthy stew goes out to Michelle of The Accidental Scientist, who is hosting this month's Heart of the Matter event for healthy soups and stews.

Farro "Risotto" with Dried Portobello Mushrooms

I'd bought some farro a few months ago as part of my Groaty Pudding debacle, and it's been hanging around in the cupboard ever since looking at me reproachfully each time I pass it by in favor of pasta or quinoa or rice.  Jack and I were tossing dinner ideas around and I decided to go and have a look at the larder (my fancy word for two cupboards, a refrigerator, two spice racks, and a bowl of onions, potatoes, garlic and whatever other vegetables I happen to have around at any given time). Wouldn't you know that sitting right next to the farro was a package of dried mushrooms? And in the freezer was a little container of truffle butter... It was meant to be.

While I think that dried porcini mushrooms, or a mix of both portobello and porcini would be ideal (as well as some fresh mushrooms), and will be trying it that way next time, this dish was a hit. We loved the toothsome and yet tender texture of the farro, and how beautifully it carried the flavor of the other ingredients.

Farro "Risotto" with Dried Portobello Mushrooms

2 cups farro
1 ounce dried portobello mushrooms
1 tbsp unsalted butter (or truffle butter, if you want to be seriously decadent!)
1 tbsp olive oil
1 cup finely chopped onion
1 carrot, diced
1 cup dry white wine
salt and pepper, to taste
chopped fresh parsley, for garnish
grated Parmigiano-Reggiano

Place the farro in a large pot and cover with water. Let soak for about 30 minutes. Drain off the soaking water and boil the farro in one quart of water, salted, partially covered, for 30 - 45 minutes or until soft, but al dente. Drain.

While farro is cooking, soak the mushrooms with 1 cup of hot water for about 30 minutes. Remove them from the bowl, squeezing the water back into the bowl and reserve the liquid. Chop the mushrooms coarsely.

Melt the butter with the olive oil in a skillet over low heat. Add the carrots and saute for about 5 minutes. Add the onion and cook until soft. Stir in the mushrooms, then add the wine. Simmer for about 10 minutes. Strain the reserved soaking liquid into the skillet. Simmer for another 10 minutes. (If the farro is not yet cooked, remove skillet from heat and set aside.)

When the farro is cooked and drained, add it to the contents of the skillet, mixing gently. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Garnish with the chopped parsley and serve with grated Parmigiano-Reggiano.

On The Piste with Pasticerra

Long time no post! It was a wonderful (if exhausting) trip but I'm very happy to be back. It was almost two weeks ago that I met Pasticerra (Marla) and her husband Fabrizio on the sunny slopes of Sauze D'Oulx, and she was much more prompt with her post about it, but I have the excuse that I've had no decent net access until today. There was a solitary, ancient Toshiba laptop in the hotel where I was staying, and it was almost as unreliable and slow as the positively antique, dust-encrusted 1998  "desktop" (it needs a desk the size of a snooker table) I have in my London flat. When I tried to let the main "Redacted Recipes" page fully load on it I crashed the thing completely. It's not only good to be back home, it's good to have the use of a real computer again!

We were lucky with the weather during the week I was in the Alps. The snow had been pretty sketchy in the weeks prior to my visit, and when my companions and I took a few quick runs on the Sunday we arrived it was clear we'd be dealing with plenty of patchy, icy conditions unless we got some more, and soon. Fortunately the 8-10 inches predicted for the following day came to pass, and we spent that day enjoying fresh, fluffy snow both on and off piste, much to the delight of my companions - snowboarders all. For the rest of the week we had nothing but clear blue skies and cool but pleasant temperatures, as you can see from the pictures. That single snowfall just about saw us out nicely.

Fabrizio and Marla

On Thursday Marla, Fabrizio and I met for lunch in one of the central parts of the Sauze D'Oulx ski area. I recognised her immediately and we settled down for a chat over panini and the sloppiest burger I have ever eaten (it was very tasty, though).  Marla surprised me with a gift: a lovely box of Italian chocolate liqueurs and a sweet little bottle of truffle oil (you can see them in the picture on yesterday's post). We swapped stories about our histories, chatted about blog-related matters and then decided we should do a couple of runs together. Now, I can ski okay - in that clumsy, graceless way we once-a-year Brits tend to have - but as soon as I saw Marla and Fabrizio zoom effortlessly away it was clear that skiing had been part of their lives for a long time. Indeed, Marla had skied as a child growing up in Colorado, and had also spent several years as a ski rep. Fabrizio just skied like someone fortunate enough to have been around the mountains all his life (I don't know if this is actually the case, but it certainly looked like it!) He had a casually energetic style that reminded me of my first Italian ski instructor, and it was obvious he was greatly enjoying this rare opportunity to get away from work and enjoy the slopes and the beautiful weather. I felt pretty pleased just to be able to keep up with them (although had they decided to put the hammer down I'm sure they'd have left me eating powder in no time).

I began to feel guilty for not meeting up with my friends after lunch (as we had half-agreed to) so I said farewell to Marla and Fabrizio as they set off for a few more runs, then attempted to contact my group via walkie-talkie. Over the course of the trip these gadgets proved invaluable - so long as all you wanted from them was the opportunity to hear a bunch of snowboarders saying, "Dude... where are you? Where? Dude... you're breaking up... *KZZZKKKKH*... Dude?" However, if you wished to arrange an actual meeting, they were as much use as the proverbial chocolate teapot. So, after a couple of trips to the top of the lift ("We said the bottom, dude!") and a couple of runs down to the bottom ("Dude! We're on the way up to meet you at the top!") I decided to give up on them. As I prepared to ski down from my final wait at the bottom of the lift ("Dude! We're at the top!") I saw Marla and Fabrizio again as they were about to make their way home. We said a second farewell and I headed back to Sauze D'Oulx where, a couple of hours later, I finally located my friends. No walkie-talkies were involved; I just searched the town bars. The application of common sense can sometimes make technology superfluous.

It was a great day. Thanks again for the gifts, Marla!

Jack and Marla

What Did Jack Bring Back (and the Postman Deliver)?

He's back! And laden with gifts (even if some of them were assigned to him)! The Gordon Ramsay book is gorgeous and I've only had a chance to skim through it, but I already see several recipes I'll be trying soon. The beautiful bottle of Grappa will be brought out on special occasions, while the giant box of Red Label tea bags (Sainsbury's best!) will keep us going for a few months. The Fleur de Sel will join the other row of salts near the stove, and the mustard is a great addition to a rather ridiculously large collection of various sorts. The McVities will be scarfed up very quickly once my kids find them, but the Harvey Nichols Champagne Truffles are mine, mine, MINE, and will be carefully hidden.

The little bottle of truffle oil and the lovely round of Cioccolantini Ripieni (filled chocolates) are a gift from Marla, of Bella Baita View (expect a post from Jack about his afternoon with Marla and her husband soon). Thank you, Marla! I look forward to making something special with the truffle oil and to trying the chocolates!

It's like Christmas here today, because I also received a package from Munich. The talented Kerstin of snowflakes & blackvampires and I agreed way back in November to send each other a handmade gift. She's a lot more on the ball than I am, and got hers out already! The two postcards are of her own design, and the lovely handmade box contains yummy candied almonds. Thanks Kerstin!

Food For Thought

I took my sister out to WD~50 last Friday night. For her it was a first ime and for me a second visit, and I must say that I enjoyed the tasting menu more on this occasion then I did a year ago. I did not take photos, as my camera can't handle the low light and I really hate it when I'm distracted by flashes coming from near-by tables, not to mention that flash and food don't mix well. The collage at the top of the page is taken from the WD~50 website, and isn't completely representative of what we actually ate.

For those of you already familiar with molecular gastronomy (a very broad term, actually, for many, many current trends-- and one rejected by most of the chefs associated with it) you already know it's all about techniques and technologies for preparing and presenting familiar foods in new ways with unexpected textures and taste combinations. The big names are Heston Blumenthal of The Fat Duck; Grant Achatz of Alinea; Ferran Adrià of El Bulli; and, of course, Wylie Dufresne of WD-50. Unfortunately I have only been to Mr. Dufresne's restaurant thus far, though Jack and I have sworn we'll be going to The Fat Duck at the earliest opportunity. 

There's a lot of science back in the WD~50 kitchen: lab equipment, flash freezing, chemical powders and lord knows what else, but for me it's the fun is in the presentation and how each dish creates a little cognitive dissonance as you reconsider the ingrained habits of your palate. Looking at what appears to be a sunny-side-up egg but tasting coconut and carrot married together with olive oil, smoked maple syrup and cardamom forces you to pay attention to what is on your tongue. This sort of food makes you sit up and use your words. Instead of just saying "This is delicious," you find yourself making statements about "deconstructionism" and "witty" and "elemental." You find yourself trying to isolate flavors.

You also find yourself experiencing memory flashes, or at least my sister and I did. As we ate the lamb belly (top right in the collage), both of us agreed it "tasted like Grandma's cooking," and then spent quite some time trying to figure out why, given that Grandma certainly never served us anything like lamb belly with black chickpeas and cherried cucumber. Finally we agreed it was the unctuous taste of fat. Grandma was never afraid to cook with plenty of fat.

Giggling with surprise and pleasure is another common reaction. When the pizza pebbles (alternating rows of dried pizza spices and pepperoni emulsion with dried shiitake mushroom chips) arrived we listened solemnly to our waiter as he described the dish. He had a bit of an accent so I misheard "emulsion" as "lotion" (which, frankly seemed perfectly plausible). But the real giggles came when we first tried the balls of pizza spices and decided they would more appropriately be named "pizza poprocks."

There were some real stand-outs, starting with the Knot Foie (absolutely gorgeous and I wish the WD~50 website had a photo). A terrine of foie gras tied into a knot and garnished with dots of kimchi puree alrernating with sultana raisin puree and then sprinkled with tiny rice crisps. The texture of the foie was very light and airy while the taste was extremely dense. Lovely dish.

We were intrigued by the French Onion Soup (bottom right in the collage)-- a deconstructed classic consisting of beef broth with madeira and two floating balls of encapsulated gruyere. Balanced on the bowl were two thin pieces of crispy toasted brioche, one of them topped with caramelized onion puree and another encapsulated ball of warm ozzing gruyere. This dish required that you make a mess of it to get the full effect, and we promptly crumbled our toasts into the broth and broke open the gruyere balls. The only criticism I had here was that the beef broth was a bit thin.

My hands-down favorite was the Eggs Benedict, consisting of fried cubes of hollandaise sauce, cylindrical shaped egg yolk, and thin crispy pieces of bacon. I'm going back soon just to have it again. Awesome.

Of the desserts, the hit of the evening was the toasted coconut cake, with carob, smoked hazelnut, and brown butter sorbet. The cake was dense, buttery and fabulous and the brown butter ice cream in combination with powdered smoked hazelnut just... well, it made my eyes roll back.

The restaurant itself is comfortable. Hip without being pretentious, and the atmosphere and service is attentive without being obsequious. We were challenged, surprised, delighted and sometimes confused but never disappointed. Try it. You might love it.

The menu with wine pairings:

King oyster noodles, pine nut, pickled ramp, basil
Gruner Veltliner 'Punkt Genau' Brut Ewald Gruber NV (Weinviertel, Austria)

Pizza pebbles, pepperoni, shiitake
Gruner Veltliner 'Punkt Genau' Brut Ewald Gruber NV (Weinviertel, Austria)

Hamachi tartare, wakame, sake lees tahini, grapefruit-shallot
'Thalassitis' Gaia Estate 2006 (Santorini, Greece)

Knot foie
Miyasaka 'Yamahai 50 Nama' Ginjo Sake (Nagano-Prefecture, Japan)

Eggs benedict
'Thalassitis' Gaia Estate 2006 (Santorini, Greece)

French onion soup
'Old Telegram' Bonny Doon Vineyard 2001 (Santa Cruz, CA)

Cuttlefish, squash, chamomile, orange, toast oil
'Old Telegram' Bonny Doon Vineyard 2001 (Santa Cruz, CA)

Lamb belly, black chickpea, cherried cucumber
Shiraz 'Reserve' Old Gnarly's 2004 (Barossa Valley, South Australia)

Wintergreen parfait, walnut, avocado, chartreuse

Toasted coconut cake, carob, smoked hazelnut, brown butter sorbet
Cerdon du Bugey 'Methode Ancestrale' Renardat-Fache NV (Bugey, France)

Soft white chocolate, potato, malt, white beer ice cream
Commandaria St. John NV (Lemesos, Cyprus)

Chicory ice cream-coffee

More Secret Snack Dinners

This is how lazy I've gotten on my own here without Jack, people. Tuna melts! But I'm not ashamed.

It isn't that I don't want to cook a "real" meal for myself or that I don't think I deserve it. It's that I honestly like this stuff. I really, really like making a meal of a baked potato with left-overs on top. I really like tuna melts. I love grabbing some tortillas and a can of refried beans for fast tostadas.

This little habit of making simple snacks for dinner is a tradition, in a funny way. When I was a kid my Dad traveled a lot-- he's a geologist who, and in those days, was sent all over the country (and sometimes out of it) to work on various projects. My Mom mostly kept right on serving "proper" dinners while he was away but would also, every now and then, just make something easy. Sometimes it was a meal of French Onion Soup, and sometimes it was Tuna Melts, and sometimes we'd just have artichokes (I loved that). By the time we were teens, we'd told her that we quite liked these snack-like dinners and it became the norm when it was just the three of us. I think we all felt we were getting away with something, which made it more fun.

Jack is back tomorrow and I've made sure I have our traditional meal of cheese, bread and wine on hand and at the ready. And then, because Jack really does prefer "proper meals" I'll get back in the habit of preparing them again. In the meantime I'm thinking about tonight's secret snack dinner.