mrjeffmccarthy.com

My faithful readers may be wondering about my health, which I can assure them is fine.  I’ve simply had no machine with which to communicate with them.  Once again my love of midget dungeon necrofecalphalia led my poor Lappy into the gaping maw of an Anti-virus Virus!!  Thanks to Jaybill all is well and the normalcy of the blogosphere can resume it’s breakneck pace.  Work is keeping me busy of course and my downtime has been filled mainly with comic books. Summer is in full swing and once again, it seems to be aiming for my head.  Stay tuned for more soon!!

I’ve been nagging my manger for months now about getting a new bike.  This past Sunday she ran the numbers and relented.  My old bike, a Cannondale I converted to a single speed, was tired.  I’ve had the thing since ‘97, and my brother had it for a few years before that.  I’m guessing with all the mountain biking and commuting, the thing has over a thousand miles on it.  Time to upgrade.  We visited Bike Gallery’s Hollywood location and I test drove three bikes.  Our salesman was busy, but gave us just enough attention and zero pressure.  I know a bit about bikes, and once he realized that gave me plenty of space.  I liked that.  First I rode the Kona Dew Plus, a multi-geared commuter bike.  Kate has this bike, and she loves it.  It felt good, the disc brakes were responsive and the gears were…geary.  Second, I tried the Trek Soho S, a single speed.  I felt this bike had been engineered with me in mind.  Sleek and sexy, a razor in a stiletto heel.  The third bike I rode was way out of my price range, but I had to try it.  The Trek District sported a new carbon fiber belt drive instead of a chain.  It was so quiet and precise, a triumph in cycle design.  In the end, the Soho was the one we took home, being the best value, fit, etc.  Also:  all black.  A ninja among bikes, a light weight karate chop of forged aluminum.

It’s been difficult to write lately; I’ve been too picky.  I’ve been to selective.  I have no time to be picky.  I’ve been trying too hard to come up with something emotionally sweeping, something simply fraught with import.  Fuck all that.  Writing for me should spout, flow from the fingers in a furious foray, shout out.  With words.  Fuck all that, too.  I need to throw a turd at the wall and hope it sticks, and doesn’t smell.  Everybody and his brother has a silly blog.  I think one that people read should be compelling and personal and raw and funny.  Sometimes offensive, yes.  Like humans.  Should it give information?  Sure.  Why not?  But what’s to prevent you, faithful reader of the blogosphere, from getting that information somewhere else?  The net is vast and boundless.  Information is truly everywhere, input available at any time and any place.  30 second clips and jpegs and words so many words swirl in a whirlwind none of these words will wind up heard.  Somewhere between Twitter and WordPress lies the perfect blog.  Random yet poingant, thoughtful or not.  Unique and engaging but quickly, please, I’ve got four tabs open.

I shipped it out Thursday, they recieved it Friday vis USPS Express ($25.)  I emailed them to let them know it was on the way and to ask about the turnaround time.  My heart sank as the replier informed me 5-7 days.  A whole week without myPhone!!  I sent back an email proclaiming my blog and its readership ripe with potential customers, could we expedite this process in exchange for a little mrjeffmccarthy.com publicity?  Memorial Day weekend kept me decently distracted, there were people present that had iPhones I could use.  That Monday I checked my email and find out that myPhone had been repaired and was on it’s way back to me as of Saturday!!  My device had been prioritized, shipping had been upgraded to FedEx next day air!  myBrain myPhone was back in the city already!  Also, ipodjuice.com had noticed a small crack on the back plate of myPhone, and replaced it, free of charge.  I opened the FedEx box and pulled out a brand new phone.  Thanks ipodjuice, you earned a link from this blog.  It’s nice to know that some businesses out there are trying to make people happy, exceeding expectations, etc.

The telltale pop of glass breaking was barely audible; my ears reached for gossamer threads of sound, not quite registering.  The sun hit the pavement with a silent uproar, I squinted unbelieving as I reached for the one device.  Turning over myPhone I gasped.  Disaster!!  Faceplant from shoulder hieght, a sickening scrunch of concrete and glass.  Amazingly,  the touch screen still functioned; albeit through razor sharp spikes of glass, and myPhone continued to operate properly.  My first response to any kind of crisis is to call my manager, and she just made fun of me.  “Nice one.” She says.  Before long I had pulled up the website for this iPhone repair company, ipodjuice. The prices shocked me but the testimonials soothed me, it was just the glass that was broken.  At the corner of Everett and 7th I open PDX Bus, my ride is right on time.  Once home I made the deal online, and I used the phone the rest of the night.  The following day I removed my SIM card and shipped the little bugger off.  USPS Expess for twenty-five bucks got me next day by noon with insurance, another hickie to the billfold.  Flashforward to present time; ten or so hours later, I feel slightly retarded.  I haven’t heard any good music all day, I have a dozen emails to read, to tweet I have to sit down!!  I didn’t get to talk to my Dad on his birthday, had to leave a message with Perez’s phone.  myPhone has become an extenal drive for my brain, a third lobe.  Removing it has been disorienting and odd.  I’ll go over a week before it allegedly will return from Texas, where it’s being repaired.  This isn’t the first apple product I’ve smashed, I have a feeling it won’t be the last.

Like most people on Planet Earth do nowadays, I Google a lot of shit.  In fact as of late, I annoyingly bark searches into my hand-held device, and somehow Google finds that shit.  Mostly I get lost on random pics and  silly articles.  YouTube and Hulu of course; Twitter, sure.  Oh yeah and porn, can’t forget about porn.  Often however, I search recipes.  Now there are recipes and there are recipes; but like your mom, this one is HUGE.  This simple ratio can be divided or multiplied to any yield, a supple and smooth mousse for piping or filling.  I’ve tried infusing the cream, I’ve substituted brown butter for half the weight in chocolate.  This versatile recipe is the basic formula for my dulce de leche mousse. I’ve filled cakes and tarts or just scooped it onto a plate.  This particular batch was for rather large off site event a few months ago.  When I was searching for a vessel large enough in which to melt twenty one pounds of chocolate, I didn’t deem it necessary to make certain said vessel had no cracks or holes, which it did.  I poured over a gallon of hot scalding cream into the large square container, then watched white chocolate ganache come oozing out the bottom an onto the floor.  Very unpleasant.  Be sure to double check your equipment always, but especially when working with a recipe of this size.

White Chocolate Mousse

1 gallon 1 qt heavy cream

21 lbs white chocolate

100 grams sheet gelatin

1 1/2 gallons heavy cream

1.  Weigh the gelatin into a bowl and bloom it with cold water.  Drain.  Weigh the chocolate into a large vessel.

2. Heat the first amount of cream to a scald, and pour it over the white chocolate.  Add the gelatin.  Whisk until smooth. Cool to room temp.

3.  Whip the second amount of cream to soft peaks.  Fold into the chocolate mixture.  Chill the mousse thoroughly before use.

For those five or six people that actually read this shit allow me to elucidate, you are not alone!  faithful readers are out there, and they’re making dessert.  This photo here is a version of the Dessert of Last Year; a chocolate flourless cake made by Ms. Jessie Badley, a culinary student and faithful reader.  Apparently the dessert is offered at her cooking college’s restaurant, where it is maued upon with much gusto.  It gives me great pleasure to know that someone is out there among the interwebs reading my screwy ideas and bullshit ramblings.  So pleasured am I in fact, that I will now publish her email without her permission!  Thanks Jessie!!

Hello! I recently found your site online and have become somewhat obsessed. I’ve looked through all your plated desserts and they are beautiful! I am currently enrolled in culinary school as a prospective pastry chef and found your recipe for the chocolate whiskey cake! I am actually making this at school right now for our plated desserts in the restaurant on campus (inspired by your post.)  I just wanted to let you know that its genius. I switched out makers mark for Evan Williams (sour mash) and it tastes amazing!  So I guess I’m writing to thank you for having an awesome blog and such in depth directions and whatnot. not only do I get a giggle out of your words, but I’ve learned a lot! Keep it coming!

in possibly my best effort in plated dessert design to date, I give my faithful readers this fucking thing.  Hopefully, the plate exudes a clean elegance, peppered with a touch of how’ did he do that? Well, I’ll tell you.  The sponge cake base is a classic Devil’s Food cake recipe that I found in one of my new favorite cookbooks, Dessert Fourplay by Johnny Iuzzini. The recipe calls for mayonnaise, which tickles me, and keeps the cake super-moist.  The science of that is kind of obvious: cake batters have eggs and oil, mayo is eggs and oil emulsified.  On top of the sponge cake I pipe a chocolate icing that I found the recipe for on the best food site ever, IDEAS IN FOOD. The icing calls for sweetened condensed milk (like the dulche,) and balsamic vinegar to blend with dark chocolate.  The sticky icing has a nice subtle acid note, a quiet personality.  On top of the icing is a thin piece of tempered chocolate, a nice thin snappy-crunch.  I’ve seen garnish this used a lot; especially in Parisian pastry shops.   With the help of my ChocoBot, some marble slabs, and some precise cuts, this process proved to be quite easy.  Just like Salted Caramel Sauce, easy peasy-smack-a-jeezy.  Really, the only semi-difficult element to this dish is the dulce de leche mousse.  The recipe it self is no brain-tease; just a spin on a white chocolate mousse.  In fact, I was originally going to use caramelized white chocolate, but decided the laborious process wasn’t worth the taste.  It tastes like dulce, so why not just use dulce?  Making dulce de leche is not hard, just kinda weird.  Take a few cans of sweetened condensed milk, place them in a large pot (yes in the can.)  Fill the pot with water, be sure to cover the cans by a few inches.  Bring the water to a boil, and keep boiling for 3 to 4 hours.  Keep a bucket of water nearby to refill the water as it evaporates.  After 4 hours, kill the heat and dump out the water.  Cover the cans with ice to cool them off.  When cooled, open the cans and enjoy the dulceness.  I know this sounds strange, but it’s way easier than the traditional method. So here’s the hard part, molding the cylinders.  Not really hard I guess, just time consuming.  I’ve seen Michael Laiskonis of Le Bernardin make cool cylnders on his blog,  and always wanted to try it.  After a month of experimenting, I have a process.  There’s got to be a better way, but here’s how I do it.  Take your cannoli forms and line one side of each mold with tin foil. Stand them upright in a six pan or secured with a rubber band on a sheet tray. Line each mold with acetate, the thin clear plastic stuff.  When the mousse is ready, pipe it into the molds.  Freeze them shits rock hard, at least 3 hours, better to do it overnight.  \Demold the mousse and plate while frozen, and thaw in the fridge on the plates. Serve with desired components.  Or wrap them shits.

Dulce De Leche Mousse

4 1/2 sheets of gelatin.

1 1/4 cups heavy cream

1 lb 5 oz Dulce de Leche

1 1/2 cups heavy cream

1.  Bloom the gelatin in cold water.

2.  Weigh the dulce de leche into a bowl.  Bring the first measurement of cream to a boil, and then pour it over the ducle.  Drain and add the gelatin.  Whisk to combine.  Or use an immersion blender.

3.  Allow the mixture to cool to room temperature.  Meanwhile, whip the second measurement of cream to soft peaks.

4.  Fold in the cream gently.  Pipe into desired molds, or just into a martini glass.  Chill until set and enjoy.

I was thrilled when contacted by Ben Waterhouse of Willamette Week to be a judge for this event.  I love street food, I often drive downtown to hit the 10th street carts for Aybla’s gyros.  After seeing the list of competing carts however, I was already biased towards Flavour, my favorite cart in all the land.  They serve a hand-held dutch waffle taco filled with various combinations of delicious.  Anyway; as my brother and I approach the venue, we scoot to the front of the 2 block long line.  We meet Ben at the gate;  I get my judges packet, bypassing throngs of sharp looks and hungry faces.  Once inside, I get my wristband and grab an Aquavit cocktail from Matt at House Spirits. After that, Jaybill and I ate it all. A clean sweep of the open outdoor area, revisiting a table to eat and discuss.  At our first booth we were pushed aside by a Oscar Bluth look-alike in a Trailblazers jersey.  After that we waded to the front of long lines with our judges badge, accepting sidelong glances and the hottest plates of food.  We filled out our score cards without getting too much sauce on them.  Once inside, the waffle smell engulfed us, and hey…more cocktais!  If you held a gun to my head and asked what I remembered, I’d say: smoked salmon and cream cheese ice cream, banana nutella grilled cheese, bees knees cocktails, hot chicks and hot sauce with a warm setting sun on vegan tacos.  A search party of volunteers searched for me while the other judges dilberated, I was roaming drinking and eating.  The grassroots of this event and the frequent familiar faces led me to a satiated inebriation, a stuttering acceptance of existence during something awesome, a fat slice of time with toasted meringue, perfect clarity.  Tits and champagne as they say.  The judges ruled as I would have, had I been there, to rule.  Junior Ambassador took the cake with his salmon ice cream, his Sgt Pepper’s style coat.  Grilled Cheese Grill man took the stage fighting tears and clutching the people’s choice award.  Thier booth was by far the most fun, with laughing and carrying on and cooking of great grilled sandwiches. Nutella and mascarpone, on cinnamon swirl bread?  Holy shit.  Check out the menu for this cart, mainly the Cheesus Burger.  Flavour got some kind of honorable mention,  I guess they were out of their element. They waffles just weren’t the same for some reason.  How could they compete with Junior’s maple bacon ice cream anyway?

Two guys that ate wat too much.  But picked up Oreos on the way home…

I’ve run into a diverse cross-section of chefs, and Mike Perez is one of the best I’ve known.  He’s more gringo than Mexican, but he’s still a great cook.  He’s got the humble pan pusher work-ethic, and the passionate drive to make the best food.  We’ve got an easy raport that sometimes speaks volumes in a look, the kind of in-the-trenches kind of friendship that only true kitchen lifers know.  Sometimes during service, deep in humping out food, he’ll just crack a sly smile.  “Ain’t nothin’ to a boss!” Sometimes, he’ll look at me like Murderface, and I’ll know what he means; you nasty, girl! As a faithful reader, our jokes got jokes, laughter comes easy.  I’m proud to rank him among the top people I’ve met in this business, and as a lifelong friend.  As all cooks know, you run into those people in your careers; the kind of peeps you say you’ll work with again, maybe even open up your own place, and with Chepe it’s no different.  With him I can almost see it actually happening.  We both were privileged to be mentored by Chef Jack Yoss, and as anyone who has worked with Jack knows, that’s something. I’ve learned a lot working with Perez, watching him cook, lead the cooks. I’ve jumped down, I’ve turned around, I’ve picked a bag of cotton.  I’ve been violated. I’ve enjoyed some long services, some outlandish circumstances. We’ve even spent some time together off the clock, riding the mountain, eating and drinking.  Drinking, eating, cooking, drinking.  The guy loves food. I recall once I was drinking creme anglaise out of the blender.  Perez walks up and laughs, then asks for a hit.   You really have to respect a guy that will drink creme anglaise out of a blender.  Well…I do anyway.