Goodbye My Dear Coffeemate

I have sworn off coffee, and actually I'm quite pissed about it. Some people chain smoke, do recreational drugs, do prescription drugs, have loads of casual sex while gambling. These are the people who should have acid reflux not me. Coffee is my drug. I want it, need it. I love the way the warm mug feels cupped in my hands, I like to sip it on the weekend while gazing out the window pretending to journal, I want to share it with friends at brunch over eggs benedict. Its bitter-sweet-hotness is all I want in the morning. But no. One sip of coffee and there's a burning sensation running up and down my esophagus all day and a desire to burp without relief.

Every morning at work people are quietly sipping at their mugs while they chitchat and start cooking. One day, I had to have dry biscotti--no dipping. Someone brings us free Starbucks every afternoon and I have to order lemonade. I love coffee more than most people I know. I have a stovetop espresso maker and a French press plus an autodrip. It's been years, years I tell you since I've gone a day without coffee in the morning. But depriving myself of my only addiction is the only way to abate the heartburn. Or, looking at it from another view: Coffee is giving me acid reflux.

I suspect it has something to do with stress. I have been at it with more self-assessed pressure than I've experienced for a long time. I feel I have been given a great luxury in my adulthood: To work for a short period without making any money, and I really feel that I have to make the most of my opportunity at America's Test Kitchen. I have learned the coffee-free and very hard way that I need to cool it. I've tried that, literally, with coffee.

I'm experimenting with cold-pressed coffee at the moment. I made a concentrated batch on Saturday night and steeped it overnight at room temperature for Sunday morning. The cold-brewed coffee has a fraction of the acid that regular coffee does, however, the caffeine still packs a punch. And in the case of my Sunday morning coffee, quite a mean punch. I was jittery and shaking from the caffeine for hours. I suspect I need to pay better attention to my one-to-three ratio. When I have the recipe down, you'll be the first to know.

New York City

I've had a setback in eating my way along the East Coast. Just when things were getting good on the ultimate food tour of New York City with my friends Thu and Eli as guides, I got the worst acid reflux. It had been bothering me for a couple weeks: that serving of calamari between games of Settlers of Catan and Bang Bang, the dim sum in Chinatown for Saturday brunch, red wine at dinner. But it all came to a head after I topped off a lunch of pastrami and matzah ball soup at the 2nd Avenue Deli with some grapefruit-flavored soda at Mario Batali's Eatily. A knot formed in my stomach, it twisted and refused to abate to make room for a pleasurable sample of baguette at Amy's Bread in the Chelsea Market and the perfectly brewed coffee in the Meatpacking District. I couldn't muster it. I had stuffed myself full of nosh at the deli and had to let me eyes do the rest of the feasting. In the end, it was nothing a few Tums couldn't neutralize in time for some great phad see ew and a couple cocktails.

Thu and Eli, friends from college, were the best tour guides. We slept in late and touched, smelled and photographed every edible item south of 42nd street--at least it felt like it.

Matzoh ball soup at the 2nd Avenue Deli--it was recommended to me by one of my old coworkers, a true deli fanatic.

Thu and Eli took me to Koreatown, which had the most incredible pastries and cakes. They were all completely beautiful and without flaws--I could never work there.

The iconic Flatiron--I adore this building.

Cheese at Eatily.

Fresh produce at Eatily, a market to end all markets.

I finally got to see Central Park. It has been the most incredible spring. The trees have had blossoms for an entire month or more. In Nebraska, the flowers on trees are so fleeting.

Inside the Chelsea Market

Lunch in Central Park before heading back to Boston. It was barely warm enough to warrant eating al fresco, but it being spring, we braved it.

The First Week

I've started my second week at the internship and frankly I'm almost too tired to post a blog update. There's all this new stuff to absorb that can be a bit overwhelming but also exciting. Little things like getting to work now take a lot of focus (and time). I rely heavily on my trusty iPhone to navigate me in and out of Boston's many squares. So far it has been a lot of fun and a lot of food.

Aside from all the tastings at work, there's Bert and Linc, my host family, who are hellbent on fattening me up for summer bathing suit season. They're very worried I could go hungry and serve me fabulous home-cooked meals nearly every night--plus wine. I am spoiled. Then there are the bakeries always just a jaunt away. My second day here I went a little out of my way to pick up some desserts at this local grocer called Butcher Boy. Their display case was impressive, featuring mousse pastries and sponge cakes. I got a flourless chocolate cake that was decorated with gold leaf, tiramisu and the best, a double-layer sponge with mascarpone lemon filling. It was so light (tasting only).

I also had to stop by the Clear Flour Bakery, which is on the other side of Brookline from the ATK office and has a line out the door pretty much every day. My instructor back home told me it was a must see. I even tried to volunteer there, but they don't take any. And yesterday, on an exploration through the North End, Boston's Italian neighborhood, which is still very Italian, I stopped with Craig and David at Modern Pastry for a chocolate cream filled cannoli. It's a good thing I do quite a bit of walking ...

Here's to Winter

Reporting here from a village outside Boston, Mass., and my has it been a whirlwind of a winter. In brief summation, my grandma's health went downhill very quickly after Thanksgiving and she passed away near the New Year, and I was pushed in a class beyond what I thought I could handle. I almost gave up and walked out a couple times, which is not something I've ever considered before (except when completing long runs on my college lacrosse team).

In the end I think I'm glad I learned the lessons and I feel very capable of handling whatever is thrown at me in my career because nothing could be worse than that class. And it's not that the class was bad because on the last day, when I was busy screwing up Italian buttercream, I had an epiphany: I realized that I am confident enough in my intellect to not be phased by a mere mistake. Mistakes happen and people get angry over spilled milk all the time, but that mistake says nothing about me as a person. No, that's not true. That and all the many other errors I made and will make in the kitchen say a lot of about me: That I am a person not afraid of screwing up, which is exactly the kind of person I want to be. I think that's what my instructor wanted me to take out of the class. I doubt she achieves that very often, but I think she would be proud. And even if she isn't, I am.

That doesn't get me to Boston. Knowing that plating desserts is probably not my forte, the world can be thankful that I scored an internship at America's Test Kitchen, which is based in Brookline, Mass. That's right folks, THE America's Test Kitchen, the one that publishes Cook's Illustrated and has a PBS show featuring a man with a bow tie. I start Monday.

I have many many feelings on the subject (I proudly embrace my emotions thank you): nervousness, excitement, nastalgia. I left Omaha in a hurry with a large and bouncing potluck and a week of intimate dinners to force my friends to remember me by. I hope they think of me whenever they eat something tasty! (A lofty goal.) I finally made my way back to my home kitchen where I squeezed fresh blood oranges for a gin cocktail and wrapped prosciutto around dried figs and parmesan cheese for an hors d'oeuvre. No one saw when I ate the imperfect pieces of fig in the middle of production or scolded me when I picked the few seeds out of the juice instead of straining them. I played the music loudly and sampled the cocktail well before anyone arrived--just to make sure it was OK. It more than satisfied.

Here's to many more potlucks and intimate dinners in my future.

Blood Orange Gin Cocktails: adapted from 101 Cookbooks
Yields One Cocktail
2 ounces gin
2 ounces blood orange juice
2 teaspoons simple syrup
2 ounces club soda or tonic water

To make the simple syrup, combine equal parts water and sugar in a heavy saucepan and bring to a boil to dissolve sugar. Let cool. Combine the gin, juice and simple syrup. Pour over ice and top with club soda.

Pear Tart and Panna Cotta

I'm just making a quick post to update with some photos of my most recent dessert platings. My baking production class has become quite time consuming, and with a bar mitzvah at work last weekend and a stage at the Grey Plume this weekend, I have had time only to work and watch an hour of television before I go to bed. I'm hopeful that this week will provide some respite from that schedule. I'll only be spending 9 hours at school today!

Last week, my desserts were featured once again at the Sage Bistro. I made a pear and almond tart and a coconut-mango panna cotta. In the end, I did come to love both desserts but it took time for them to grow on me. I was initially excited about them, but last Monday I was disappointed with the caramel sauce and the pastry cream filling. I tweaked them the next day, but it wasn't until I was plating them on Thursday evening that I really adored the tarts. I finally finally finally mastered the tart shells with a new trick (top secret). The panna cotta, once it set up, was just beautiful (if you ask me). I love the clean lines and the tuile top. It looks like it belongs at a black tie event. I am satisfied.

More Foibles in Plating

I have been forced lately to think about my personal aesthetic. In the past, I just buy or am gifted my style. I don't think much about it. For a while, I would follow fashion blogs and pull away ideas, but now I need to apply what little I know about design to what I know about food, and more specifically pastries, to present it in a visually pleasing manner. This is a challenge. I normally put on a plate as if there were TV-dinner compartments. One spot is for vegetables, one spot for meat and another for potatoes. Desserts go on small plates and are garnished with a large dollop of whipped cream. In many ways, I ascribe to the school of thought that one shouldn't judge a book by its cover. That saying can get one into trouble. While true, if a book has a beautiful cover but not substance it will be cast aside. However, giving no thought to exterior presentation at all shows a laziness which is fine when serving dinner for your family or friends but is not acceptable when you expect someone to be impressed or better yet to lay down money for a good or service.

So I've been thinking about my personal style lately. After contemplating my wardrobe choices on a very very long road trip I have come to a few conclusions about myself. I like simplicity matched with a bit of flair. I own a large volume of plain T-shirts in various colors, mostly short-sleeved, and with differing neck-lines--boat, crew, v-neck--to name just a few. I wear three pairs of jeans: skinny, higher-waisted flairs and white jeans. I have one jacket, with a herringbone pattern, that I wear all the time along with this one pair of moccasins (brown) and subdued gladiator sandals. All boring, except for this one element: a pin. I got the pin at a clothing exchange with friends. It is completely singular and must be handmade. It is an old pocketwatch with the workings removed. In its place glued, tied and somehow or another way affixed is delicate drapings of chain mail, small rhinestone daisies and a large and somewhat gaudy plastic-pearl clip-on earring. I put a safety pin through the top of the brass pocket watch and it has hung galantly on my jacket for two years now. That is the perfect point of style for me. Minimal and simple and then there's this one piece of intrigue. I like scarves, funky sunglasses, I tuck my T-shirts into my pants to show of a belt. I have this one necklace that I bought in Spain for 6 euros in 2004. It's black with gold etchings of birds and flowers chiseled out of it. So what I want to learn and to refine is how to present a dessert that is delicious while being simple with just a touch of flair.

I am discovering there are as many ways to dress a plate as there are to dress a person. For instance, there's flashy with too much going on:

There's skill with a lack of a focal point:

There's trendy to a point of silliness:

What I want is minimalism with a point of interest:

The shape is nice, flattering. The goods are well made. Everything is great about this outfit. Her skirt is the obvious focal point, but it all shows off the person--her hair, her great body (jealous) and her cute face. There aren't these beautiful pieces distracting people from how lovely she is. Here is a reinterpretation of a lemon tart. We can't actually taste it, but the elements look well executed. The lemon curd is creamy and lump free, as does the meringue. The crumb layer appears to add some crunch. It's a basic tart presented in a different way. If only I could come up with something like this.

Last week, I made chocolate pots de creme. My instructor was insistent upon them being chocolate--not mocha flavored, not chocolate-hazelnut or chocolate peppermint. Plain but rich chocolate. The challenge is how to present it in a way that exhibits fine technique and good ingredients. I ended up using Tartine Bakery's recipe--no surprise there--which was rich and bitter and perfectly creamy.

I started with a quenelle of creme fraiche on the suggestion of the bakery student manager. I liked the plating below--looks like the last pedal left on a flower. However, no one agreed with me. I do really like the whipped and sweetened creme fraiche. It's something I hadn't tried before but worked nicely--it had that bit of sourness to give it one more piece of flavor.

At the suggestion and with the help of classmates and the TA, I flooded the top of the pots de creme with caramel creme anglaise. I then added a garnish of chocolate sauce. I learned that garnishes should be present only if they add something to the dessert--an idea I love but which can make plating trickier.

I came back from break with an idea for a triple chocolate pots de creme with a white chocolate creme anglaise and milk chocolate sauce. My instructor thought flooding the top with plain cold creme would be better along with some chocolate shavings. I'm not too crazy about the chocolate shavings because thinking of garnishes and desserts as a whole it's not much, however, the plate was just so white without the chocolate. I don't have a photo of the final dessert, but I'm pleased and hope that my efforts will come more easily in the future.

Lessons in Plating

One great thing has happened that directly impacts this blog: I have an iPhone! Which means that I have a decent camera with me at all times, ready to document all my culinary adventures. And believe me, there have been a few this past week.

Right now, I'm enrolled in baking production class. It meets twice a week for like 10 hours--until the school's restaurant Sage Bistro closes on Monday and Tuesday--and we make the baguettes for the restaurant along with any desserts for catered events. The class meets at the same time as the Plated Desserts class, which essentially has students be the pastry chef for the bistro for the quarter. There happens to be only one student in that class this quarter, and she is responsible for producing four completely unique desserts each week. So alleviate her insanity, our instructor is having different students from my class fill in to help her each week. I got to go first, along with my friend Katie. Let me say, thank goodness I had Katie to bond with, freak out with and laugh with because it was a complete cluster.

We we responsible for two desserts: creme brulee (pretty easy really) and this thing called a tian (refer to the strawberry-orange dessert displayed above). I would be very happy to never make that dessert again.

The thing was Chef Mar's idea. She brought us a print out of the concept: cookie, marmalade, mousse, and packed with fruit. She said we could reinterpret it how we wanted. So we made a sable cookie, used some in-house marmalade, I made an orange-vanilla bavarian cream stabilized with gelatin, and then we chopped up a bunch of fruit. Monday morning before the restaurant opened, Chef Mar hated it. It was all wrong, she said. The fruit looked disgusting--it kind of did. Katie and I were clueless. I had no idea how to fix it. Finishing things is not my forte--Katie is much better at it than I, but we were both at a loss. Finally Chef Mar came over and showed us what to do, but not after an agonizing period during which time we flubbed around with the dessert. We got out of the kitchen after more than 12 hours of work without more than a 15-minute break then we turned around and came back the next day for more.

I had made a batch of the mousse on Monday to use Tuesday and Wednesday, except that by the time we left the kitchen at 10 p.m. or so the mousse was still a runny mess. I was paranoid that it wouldn't set and that there wouldn't be enough time to make another batch and set it so that it stood up on the plate long enough to travel from the kitchen to the dining room. The only way I got any sleep was to give it up. I thought, "There's nothing to be done now. I'll just arrive and remake it." But Tuesday, miracle of miracles, the mousse was solid enough to work--barely. Tuesday went much better. Katie and I both had a handle on what we were doing and what to expect, and we left planning to leave everything to the student managers on Wednesday and Thursday. That is until some of the Table Service students tried to eat our dummy dessert.

We had to make a false dessert to display to the restaurant's customers. The creme brulee was really, but the tian--not being shelf stable for hours--needed a stunt double. Katie made this perfect model out of Crisco and a little food coloring. It looked so realistic that the students got hungry and ate the creme brulee and started in on the mousse. The student manager caught them before they finished it, but they had effectually ruined the dessert. I got called in to remake the dessert for Thursday's service. What a week.

Deer Tenderloin

I had four or five paragraphs written out about this deer tenderloin, but things just kept rambling on and on very amateurishly so I deleted it. There were all sorts of ponderings about life and blogging and eating and dating--trust me it was boring. Just look at the photos.

I cooked the deer, brought to me straight from the woods from my friend Dan, with a fennel and crushed bay leaf rub. I've used it before on pork tenderloin--quite tasty and not at all as weird as it sounds. Try it with this season's trappings.

Me Oh My, I Love Pie

I'm usually a nut for pumpkin pie at Christmas and Thanksgiving, but I have lately been converted to the pecan variety. I've been making this pecan pie for work quite a bit lately to pretty rave reviews, but I hadn't tried it myself yet until last week. It is great. No surprise here, the recipe hails from Tartine Bakery's cookbook. Every recipe is a knockout. This one is great with the addition of whiskey and my substitution, orange zest. Tasting the batter before the bake, the whiskey is overpowering but ends up perfectly balanced.

The recipe also calls for several kinds of sugar, as opposed to just corn syrup. It adds a lot of depth the pie, making it not just sweet sweet sweet--my usual complaint with pecan pies. I was careful to add extra salt here too if you're not using salt pecans. I just love salted nuts, it seems such a shame to miss the opportunity for salted and toasted pecans covered in caramel.

Pecan Pie: www.tartinebakery.com
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup maple syrup, I've also used honey
1/2 cup corn syrup
2 tablespoons whiskey
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup butter, unsalted
1 teaspoon vanilla
3 eggs, lightly beaten
2 cups pecans
zest from one orange

One partially baked pie shell.

In a small saucepan, melt the sugar, maple syrup and corn syrup together with the salt. Boil for one minute. Remove from heat and pour in a mixing bowl. Let cool a minute then add the vanilla, whiskey and butter. Stir. Then add the beaten eggs. Stir to mix. Pour the pecan in the partially baked pie shell then pour the batter over the top. Bake for 45 to 60 minutes at 350 degrees until the filling is just set.

Three Posts in One Week and an Awesome Tart

I hosted dinner last night for friends in honor of a couple friends who are embarking on big journeys this week. One friend, Liz, is traveling to the brand new country of South Sudan tomorrow morning. She has "humanitarian" stamped into her passport. Incredible. And my friend Justin and his girlfriend Audrey are moving to Colorado on Thursday. Justin has never lived outside Omaha before, so this is sure to be a great adventure, one that should be marked off by a homey dinner with friends.

It's finally starting to get cold here, and with leftover turkey on my mind, I made two pot pies. One all mushrooms and one chicken. It actually took quite a bit of searching to come up with a meal plan. Justin is a vegetarian, so there couldn't be meat, but it's not exactly prime produce season and I didn't want to serve a bunch of sides. I leafed through what seemed like all my cookbooks (sometimes I can get obsessive), and finally found something on Nigel Slater's column about a mushroom shepherd's pie. It was an easy jump to pot pie (in theory). I have come to realize through my cakes final and my first year testing that I need a lot of work on finishing products. I start out strong, cover my bases with good technique, some expertise and quality ingredients. And then I've got to put the top on the pie, which it shall be noted was not in a pie shell, and I just throw it on. Of course it totally shrank in the oven. I may as well not have even topped it (the topless chicken pie turned out just fine).

I do this with everything I've come to realize. All projects. Writing a story; I get through the first draft and read through it and turn it in. I'll come back and give it some work, maybe. But by the end, I'm just doing the bare minimum. How do I motivate myself to put forth as much energy at the end as I do at the beginning when I'm absolutely slaving over coming up with the perfect lede for a story. Does anyone out there have any tips? One thing I can think of is practice. For example, if I'm well practiced at making petit fours, I can do them just as well after oh say 15 hours of work as I do after one hour. So there's something. But what about writing? If any of you have tips on that front, let me know!

I found three different kinds of mushrooms for the pot pie at Wohnler's: dried shiitake that I rehydrated, baby portobellos and oysters. Slater recommended pairing the mushrooms with a sliced leek, sauteing, deglazing with red wine and and lemon juice and adding vegetable stock before popping it in the oven. A couple heaping tablespoons of flour was plenty to thicken the stock to a stew inside the flaky pie crusts, and the pot pie turned out exactly how I had hoped: a sweet and woodsy hash with chunks of mushrooms. I treated the chicken pot pie in the same way, except added some extra celery and carrots that had been chilling in the freezer for a loooong time (yikes), almost as long as the chicken.

But the highlight of the meal was definitely dessert. I saw a recipe a for hazelnut-plum tart on Smitten Kitchen and made a mental note to make it as soon as there was time. (And I'll be making it again for work this week.) In absence of fresh plums, I used cranberries. It. was. incredible. The hazelnut butter crust was was crunchy with a bit of sweetness and just a hint of salt. The salt was the kicker. I love a salty dessert. And then there was the center. Creamy baked custard filled in the cracks around the tart little cranberries that just bled out juice under the heat of the oven. And to top it all was the rest of the hazelnut crumb crust and a little whipped cream (homemade, might I add). My good friend Dan has never ever eaten more than a polite bite of any desserts I have made (he doesn't like sweets) asked for a second slice--there wasn't any.

Mushroom Pot Pie:
Filling: by Nigel Slater
16 ounces assorted mushrooms, cleaned and sliced
1 leek, sliced
a couple tabs of butter and glugs of oil, enough to get all the mushrooms
2 heaping tablespoons flour
3 tablespoons red wine or marsala
1 1/4 cup vegetable or chicken stock
salt and pepper
fresh thyme
juice from half a lemon

Crust: from Tartine Bakery Cookbook yields two 9-inch pies
1 1/2 cups cold butter
16 ounces flour
1 cup ice cold water
1 teaspoon salt

I mix smaller batches of flaky crust by hand nowadays. I slice up the butter and add the flour and salt to it. Then I crumble up the butter with my fingers until they're about the size of peas, some smaller pieces some bigger. Then I add about half the water and stir with a wooden spoon. Then add only enough water until the dough comes together. I knead it a couple times, then wrap it in plastic wrap and chill it for at least an hour before rolling. This recipe makes enough for two whole pies with the tops, if you conserve your leftover pieces.

For the filling, slice up all the vegetables. Heat the oil on medium in a stock pot. Saute the leeks and the heartier mushrooms like portobellos, then add the shiitakes and oysters and the like. Saute until the moisture is starting to leech out of the mushrooms. Add the flour and stir to coat. Deglaze with the wine and the lemon juice. Then add the stock. Season throughout cooking with salt and pepper. It should taste good before it goes into the shell. Pour into the shell, pinch the top closed, brush with an egg wash and bake at 350 degrees for an hour or until the crust is a nice golden brown.

Hazelnut Cranberry Tart: from Smitten Kitchen
Crust:
3/4 cup butter
1 1/2 cups flour
1/3 cup hazelnuts, toasted (this is a crucial step!)
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt

Filling
10 ounces fresh or frozen cranberries
1 egg
1 egg yolk
1 tablespoon flour
1/4 cup plus two tablespoons sugar
1/3 cup cream
1/4 cup milk
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon

Toast the hazelnuts until they are light brown and nicely fragrant. Pulse in a food processor until coarsely ground. Combine with the butter, flour, salt and cinnamon, blending using your hands until the butter is the size of a pea. Use about two-thirds of the crumb mixture and press into the bottom of a tart pan or spring form. Bake at 350 degrees until "set," about 15 minutes. Let the crust cool a bit.

Add the cranberries and arrange on top of the crust. In a separate bowl, whisk together the rest of the ingredients. Carefully pour over the cranberries. Bake at 350 for 45 to 50 minutes or until the custard has set and the top has browned a little. If you gently shake the tart and the center is visibly quite jiggly keep baking. But if it seems more solid than liquid pull it out, it will continue to set while it cools.