Archives for February 2009
February?
21 February 2009 | fiction, writing | 1 Response
February but warm and sunny as hell, the mingling sounds of screeching children and tires. A hot rod roaring up a side street, tee shirts in the park hanging out in sun. The evergreens tower, sentinels at the edge of the ball field basking. I toss a stick repeatedly for Jelly; she scrambles for it with dog ethic. Jam lopes silly about her, clueless to the simple game. I pause and palm my phone and put on some music, ear-buds with a swinging cord. Selecting tunes I find a fave and flick it on, smiling. Sensing a waiting dog-with-stick I bend knees and exhale reaching. She snaps and snarls as I pull back, then turns and burns as I fling it end-over-end outward. A roiling ball of fur exuding gratification. The dogs grin and run; but sit still, smelling the air when I grab a bench. A chill breeze lifts my head and I spot a knit-capped mom pushing a tricycle style carriage. We all sit and watch a dog poop in the distance. Jelly, turning quizzically, her eyes asking: February? I wander into the trees and am followed by a close pack panting. I pull out my phone and start typing, words flowing with a rambling lyricism, a randomized algolrithm, thumbs pounding with deliberate grace. Popping pics and emailing them, I shake my head, blogging in the park on a warm winter day.
Molten Chocolate Doughnut.
18 February 2009 | Ten 01, delicious, eating, recipe | 11 Responses
Everyone who has ever eaten in a restaurant, from Jean Georges to Chili’s, has heard of the Molten Chocolate Cake. It has been called many names: lava cake, volcano cake, molten lava cake, melting chocolate cake, and warm melting chocolate cake, but are all basically the same. An almost flour-less cake with usually equal parts butter and chocolate, with eggs and sugar. Baked in a mold until almost set, served warm and oozing, it is the bane of pastry chefs everywhere. Leastways, it’s baned the shit out of me, ranking second only behind Creme Brulee as most annoyingly de rigueur dessert for non-adventurous diners. Chances are, if you worked in pastry, you’ve served some version of this cake. Anyway, in recent days I’ve had my head buried in Johnny Iuzzini’s book Dessert Four Play. One of the most eye catching recipes for me was his Crispy Creamy Chocolate Doughnuts. His method, seemingly daunting, involves many advanced techniques and obscure ingredients. I wanted to make this dessert pretty badly, even going so far as contacting Terra Spice Company and pricing some of these odd chemicals. My brain then farted loudly and reminded me of a similar dessert I saw in another of my favorite cookbooks; Desserts by the Yard by Sherry Yard. She uses her truffle cake batter to make what she calls Deep, Dark, Decadent Doughnuts. Reviewing the Truffle Cake recipe, I did a double take. Fucking Lava Cake. Deep fried Molten Chocolate Cake. I had to give it a try. Was is going to be like Johnny’s? Doubtful. Would it be deliciously decadent? More than likely. I made the recipe and proceeded with the normal method. The doughnuts oozed way to thinly, essentially chocolate sauce encased in panko. After doubling, then tripling, and again and again; I ended up at eight times the flour in the original recipe to get the right consistency. These things are a bit of a pain in the ass, I won’t lie. Most excruciatingly scrumptious things are. I made eighty of them for a recent event at Ten-01. Thanks to Johnny for the inspiration, and to Sherry for a more down to Earth approach.
Molten Chocolate Doughnuts
8 oz dark chocolate (64%)
8 oz butter
6 eggs
3/4 cup sugar
2 cups all purpose flour
panko, egg wash, and more flour as needed to bread
1. Bring the butter to a boil and pour it over the chocolate. Whisk smooth and keep warm.
2. Whip the sugar and the eggs about three minutes; until lemon-colored and almost double in volume.
3. Whisk the chocolate into the eggs all at once, whisking smooth.
4. Add the flour, again whisking smooth.
5. Transfer the batter to a flexible silicon mold and freeze rock hard, at least 4 hours.
6. Turn the cake out onto a lightly floured surface. Using a 2 1/2 inch doughnut cutter, cut out 9 doughnuts.
7. Bread the doughnuts twice, according to the standard breading procedure, and refreeze until ready to fry.
8. Deep fry at 350 until golden brown, and hold at room temp for service. Heat through in a 300 degree oven until warmed through, about 10-12 minutes. Sprinkle with salt. Serve with Pistachio Creme Anglaise if you like.
If Anyone Deserves a Beer, it’s Miguel.
17 February 2009 | Ten 01, cook, people | 5 Responses
Miguel is the definitive hard worker. The only thing that out shines his work ethic is his pleasant demeanor, his unfailing smile. This guy arrives before everyone else; sweeps and mops the whole restaurant, puts away all the food orders, and dives right into prep-work; the whole time keeping the dish pit moving and the kitchen supplied with everything from sheet pans to deli-cups. After putting in 8 hours at Ten-01, he wheels across town and works the pantry station at Tabla. An inspiration to kitchen folk everywhere, Miguelito fucking rules. He always cheers me up when I see him, and does whatever anyone asks of him with a big-ass smile and methodical speed. Thanks Miguel, drink up!
Back in the Day.
10 February 2009 | chef, pastries, pictures | 2 Responses
Pictured above are two younger men, at a time that seems like a forever ago. Myself and my old friend and mentor Chris Boos, whom I’ve recently gotten reaquainted with He posted some pics on Facebook that I had to get up here. These were taken at the 131st Salon of Culinary Arts in New York in 1999. Chris was the captain the culinary team at Mohonk Mountain House, where we worked. Everyone on the team won first prize for thier work, myself included. Pictured below is my gold-medal winning sugar showpiece, which I called The Winemaker. I remember as we were sliding the glass dome over it, the arm broke off and sugar shattered everywhere. Chris, fortunately, had brought his entire sugar shop with him. We had the piece fixed and back on the table in no time. I learned a powerful lesson that day about preparedness, and also about never giving up. Just one of the numerous lessons I learned working with this talented Chef. He was my first mentor in the pastry biz, and I owe a large part of my success to him. 
Recipe Revolutions.
8 February 2009 | photoshop, recipe | 3 Responses
Anthony Bourdain talks and writes about mise en place as a religion, and any cook would agree with this concept. In the pasty kitchen, an essential piece of this is the recipe. Understanding the ratio of ingredients to one another and function of those ingredients in a particular execution, one finds themself with limitless possibilites in simple language. Apply proper technique, and one has delicious on thier hands. I first learned the importance of recipes at my fisrt professional pastry job at Mohonk Mountain House in New Paltz New York. In the visceral thrall of prodigious pastry chef Christopher Boos, I learned many things I still use today. Cutting my teeth in his shop, I made hundreds of recipes, thousands of times, all obtained from his Book of Knowledge. 2 copies of this “book” were always open on one of the various stations in the kitchen, a fine greasy feel to the pages, a gossamer layer of food particulate. The Book of Knowledge was physically two binder-sized pieces of masonite, bound with 3 zip-ties, containg over 200 plastic sleeved, hand written recipes. The book came to be so much more to me than that crude matter, a luminous being of swirling numbers and words. Since then, I’ve come a good ways. I still have so much more to humbly learn, but have since compiled my own recipe collection. Countless chef’s have tutored me, countess cookbooks have been read, recipes have come to life in my hands, and the good ones were committed to paper, then disk, now the web. I still appreciate the romance of scribbling down a formula, internalization through chicken scratch. When halving or doubling a recipe, I always write it down. It’s just good practice, especially when dealing with expensive ingredients. As a victim of the calculator age, I also can’t cost a recipe without pen and paper. Technology however has allowed me once again to enrich my life, first with Google Cookbook, and then a through hand-held, web based personal cookbook on The One Device. I kind of skipped getting them up here on my own site, but technology moves fast. The web based Chef’s Little Helper has a perfect name, once again solidifying myPhone as best hardware ever, and once again reminding me that the future is now. So where’s the cybernetic human augmentation? Let’s get those kung fu uploads going, Apple. Don’t waste your time trying to get this thing to make a phone call, because I didn’t really want to do that anyway.
Transit Ride.
7 February 2009 | fiction, writing | No Responses
In between songs I hear music from a nearby iPod, undulating saxaphones and trumpets bumping hips with tumbling bass lines. Afloat in a sea of thousand mile stares, a brief recognition in a second glance; a false summit to a subtle stretching tension. My music breaks, again the disconnected samba sax, incoming text on the one device with uncanny timing: ping! The next verse crashes. Email in my pants again but no wifi, it can wait. The train soldiers on, somehow perferable to the somehow different jerky charge of the bus. Dude drops his burrito in the corner of my eye and I smell it. He’s thinking 5 seconds but I don’t wait to see him go for it, thumbing the wheel of my board. The gritty bearings sing for concrete. The wheels catch snugly against the window as I prop my ride up on its tiny molded plastic ledge. I fumble my book out of my pack but don’t open it. Images fleeting flow by through the glass as they do around me inside the trains womb-like warmth. Sharply in my eye for just a second, then my vision slides to the next slipping scene. Down into a passing car; steaming coffee, texting fingers. Around to a shuffling in front of me, dude ruffles his paper. Out to the girl on the corner, bending to retrieve her headphones dangling. Inside now, a sound turns my head. Lips smack, a burrito consumed with a darting glance. Maybe I will read.
Ten-01 named Food Dude’s Restaurant of the Year.
4 February 2009 | Ten 01, jack yoss, news | 13 Responses
You all know that we recieved the honors. You read about it here. You may have even read the numerous comments, here. In fact, my faithful readers probably read the dessert section of the article when he published it for the fist time; a year ago, because I quoted it. I’ve done so much with my menu since then, and without looking a gift horse in the mouth, I do wish he had said as much. Frankly, I am awesomely proud of my restaurant. It is my home and my life. My friends are all there, and they’ve worked hard to put this restaurant on the top of the heap, in a town with a lot of eateries. I know I’m a cog in a machine that has many fluidly moving parts; creating an experience, not just a dish, or a drink, or a clean table. We look beyond the this and the that to the how and the why. That’s why we took Food Dude’s first review and used it as a tool to get better. 3 1/2 stars? That’s a half a star room for improvement. So okay okay you get it. I think we’re the best. This isn’t hubris…well maybe it is hubris but I really believe it to be true. Sure, it’s not the New York Times or the Michelin Guide; but this isn’t New York or Europe, it’s Portland. This award is a big deal in a town where bloggers rule. So thanks Food Dude, if you’re reading. Come in again and have some of the new desserts. I’ve been hearing they’re pretty good. Also; thanks Chef Jack, for believing we all could do it, and for pushing us to do so. You rule.
