Archives for June 2008
Cooking and Eating and Such.
26 June 2008 | ramblin', Ten 01, delicious | 2 Responses
I made a bunch of pastries for an off-site event a few weeks back. Eight hundred some-odd tarts, cakes and candies. I felt like I was back in the hotel for a minute. Boo-YA!! Summer is in full swing and I think it’s aiming for my head. Busy nights, multiple parties, off-site events, wedding cakes…all that jazz. The restaurant launched a new website this week. We had a professional photographer come in and shoot some pics of the food. He had this crazy light/pup-tent set up in the private dining room. His Mac instantly showed the photos so he could adjust and tweak the food and equipment. The detail his images captured was amazing. I wanted to lick his monitor….Jeezusss. Anyhoo…still eating pretty good. Check out this dinner Arturo made me the other night. I’ve got it pretty good.
Rival Flavors to Waltz, No Intermission
19 June 2008 | eating, Ten 01, creative presentation of the week, food | No Responses
Another Spirit dinner hosted by Kelley Swenson and Timothy Davey. The two passionate mixologists poured Italian bitters, and Jack and Anthony were cooking in the street. The sun sunk low in the sky and filled The Cleaners with an ethereal light. At the door we were handed a tall orange cocktail which refreshed us thoroughly. We sat at he head of one side of the large L shaped table. Godfather footage was being projected onto the wall. The Chefs laid down some sweet courses and the bartenders offered educational interludes with the drinks. A bright and fresh tuna tartare with rhubarb and pine nuts, a tea smoked duck breast that I can still taste if I think about it. A Compari cocktail that I knew Tony 2 Fingers was drinking in the back. Jaybill and I enjoyed the food and cocktail pairings, the conversation at the table was nerdy, and laughing, we sipped our drinks. Third course was a trio of scallops, Foie, and pork belly paired with three shots. This was a really fun dish. The richness of each of the items washed down with a syrupy spirit. The infused herbs and vegetables in the bitters trumped us. My head was buzzing with delight. I felt an elation that would last the rest of the night. As our lamb T-bone floated over, I floated in my seat. Elbows hit the table, and the tiny bones were chewed clean without looking up. I almost forgot my drink as I took a breath. Delicious!! A weird sensation coursed through me as I thought about my day so far. Getting to work and spinning ice cream and baking cookies, I picked mint as Jack and Tony prepped. I helped Jack set up the Foie mousse, and when my brother met me at the restaurant I carried it down the street. A few months ago I was thinking about getting out of this business, and now I’m carrying little votives of pureed Foie Gras across Burnside. Attending a nerdy white tablecloth foodie dinner where I actually know a few people. Chef introducing me to the crowd as I sit there half-drunk, waving. “That’s right…I make the cookies!” Jack waved me over to verify mint plouche placement. We fell into a methodical rhythm of plating. I smiled as Chef scooped, and Tony and I sandwiched the cookies onto the plates. I returned to my seat and gulped at my mini Fernet cocktail. I took a bite of the ice cream sandwich. I slowly nodded my head. Then we peaced.
More Eating.
11 June 2008 | eating, pastries, Europe, delicious, food | No Responses
In Beaune, France, I visited real pastry shop. Near our hotel there was a spot with delicious smelling individual pastries, all smart and clean and made similar modular molds and built in frames. I bought a triple chocolate mousse cake. The delicate chocolate garnish on top caught my eye, and the barely gelatine-ized mousses melted easily in my mouth. I felt myself getting closer to Paris as I ate my little cake in the park. My mecca of food and cooking was on the next horizon. I felt it all deep-like. We visited the local cheese shop, the smell of moldy funk filling the air, the streets. Viva fucking France, Man!! For lunch, we wandered an open air market We bought cheese, bread, tapanade, and fruit. We ate by the merry-go-round and people watched. Our dinners were good in Beaune, everything from snail shaped foie to burger and fries and carpaccio. We played cards at night and talked while drinking local wine. We woke early one morning and boarded a train to Paris. I knew soon I would be eating at Pierre Herme’s shop, the epicenter of my pastry dreams. A few days later, in a jewelery shop style setting, precise desserts were handed to me by white gloved employees who openly mocked my poor French. OK, maybe they didn’t have white gloves, but I couldn’t get my mind around this perfect pastry shop. I could barely take it in. I was all jittery, starstruck. Perfect soldier-like rows of macrons and chocolate masks. 60 euro boxes of truffles and what looked like loaves of quick-bread. I ended up buying a chocolate dome called Plentitude and two macarons. The two cookies we ate while walking through the Tuileries Gardens outside the Louvre. One cookie was olive oil, the other salted caramel. Kate found a huge wrought iron spider. Later, inside the Musee Dorsay, I ate the chocolate mousse dome. We saw several great paintings and cool sculptures. I saw paintings by Van Gogh and Degas. Pierre Herme’s mousse cake left a more lasting impression than either. Fractal shapes of uber-thin chocolate fit into a seemingly random pattern, covering the dome. Underneath, a glossy ganache coated a luscious dark chocolate mousse and a crisp cookie base. I went back a second time, and bought more delicious stuff. More macarons of course, and in Luxembourg Gardens, I ate another dome. This one had a creamy salty caramel center and milk chocolate mousse. A chocolate macaron made a base for the tempered chocolate hemisphere. I have got to get me one of them molds. I also visited Laduree in Paris, and had a fine meal. Seared Foie with crisp brioche and foie fat. Veal Sweetbreads with parsnip puree. Kate had Scallops with Black Rice. My first taste ever of sweebreads left me drooling and the foie was cooked perfectly. Kate cleaned her plate and we ordered dessert. An opera cake sort of, and a chocolate passion fruit tart. Both were cleanly executed and delicious…but I still had Pierre Herme’s in tongue-memory. The macarons we bought on the way out weren’t nearly as good. I could feel myself getting fatter and I didn’t care.
NY Cheesecake…Kind Of.
4 June 2008 | creative presentation of the week, delicious, plated dessert, dessert | 1 Response
People go nuts for this dessert. Eyes pop out of people’s heads. It changes worlds. Even Chef cleaned his plate and he rarely does with sweets. So it’s this month’s Creative Presentation of the Week. Just a little New York Style Cheesecake with Balsamic Strawberries and Hazelnut Scone. As I look at the plate now, I marvel at how I put TWO leaves of mint. C’mon dude! It’s a basic cheesecake recipe I learned from Mark Metzger at the Vail Cascade. I used it also at Carlyle for the cheesecake three ways. Thanks Mark!! The balsamic strawberries were Chef’s idea, and after some tinkering we reproduced them. Look at those babies! All glistening and shit. The “crust” on this cheesecake comes form of scone. I always liked scones for strawberry shortcakes and this dish had strawberries so I thought, what the F. Toasted hazelnuts and sugar crust it up. It’s a little weird, sure, but damn yummy. My faithful readers need these recipes. So…here:
Metzger NY Cheesecake
1 1/2 # cream cheese at room temp
6 oz sugar
Pulp of 1 vanilla bean
3 eggs
1. Preheat the oven to 250 (200 for convection.) Place the cream cheese, sugar and vanilla pulp in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle. Beat on low speed for 5 minutes
2. Scrape the bowl thoroughly with a spatula.
3. Add the eggs, one at a time scraping thoroughly between each addition. The more careful you are here, the better your end product. Add and scrape!! Visualize that nipple in the bottom of the mixing bowl, and scrape it well!!
4. Transfer the batter to a square flexible mold.
5. Bake in a water bath for 25 minutes, then rotate the pan, and bake for another 15 minutes.
6. At this point, the cheesecake should be set on the outsides, and slightly jiggly in the middle. Open the oven door for a sec, then close it and turn the oven off. Set a timer for 45 minutes. I finish all of my custards this way, it works really well. Thanks Alton.
7. Chill the cake for at least 3 hrs before attempting to de-mold and slice. I usually flash mine in the freezer for about 25 minutes to get a clean square.
Balsamic Strawberries
3 cups balsamic vinegar
1 cup honey
granulated sugar to taste
2 vanilla beans scraped
2 pods toasted star anise
2 1/2 - 3 cups hulled local strawberries
1. Measure the balsamic and honey into a pot and whisk to combine. Whisk in the the sugar 1/2 cup at a time until you reach the desired sweetness. Remember the strawberries have a good sweetness as well.
2. Scape the vanilla pods into the pot and bring the mix to a boil.
3. Add the berries and kill the heat. Cover and steep for 25-30 minutes until berries are tender but still slightly firm. They will carry over, so…
4. Create an ice bath with water, ice and two vessels. Stop the cooking process.
5. Carefully pour the steeped berries and liquid into the ice bath. Try not to agitate the berries as they cool, they become very fragile.
Scones
I left the scone recipe at work. Eat your fucking cheesecake. Here’s a good scone recipe for you. And here’s a picture of some ice creams.
