kitchenlog

writing

2010-08-07T20:35:00.000-07:00

it seems like the only think i can focus on lately is writing. day after day, i sit and scribble or type and sometimes it's beautiful and sometimes it's crap but it's always fulfilling.

testing

2009-09-05T02:36:00.000-07:00

testing

2008-12-12T02:36:00.000-08:00

testing

Plug

2005-12-05T11:07:00.000-08:00

This is one of the most well-written announcements I've read in a long time.

David Burke at Bloomingdale’s
David Burke, veteran chef and inventor of the Cheesecake Pop and the Smoked Bacon Flavor Spray, is almost as well known for his zany packaged foods as for his whimsical, inventive cooking at davidburke & donatella. This week, the culinary showman gets a new stage at Bloomingdale’s, where he’s opening a two-part operation along the 59th Street corridor. The full-service Burke Bar Café will be open for breakfasts of chocolate-covered Cheerios and “bags o’ donuts,” morphing into a café at lunch and wine bar at night, with a list heavy on half bottles and fifteen selections by the glass. Expect such Burkisms as “cheeseburker” sliders, spicy potato-chip pizza, “millionaire’s meatloaf” with lobster whipped potatoes and lobster bordelaise, and roasted “angry hen in law”—most of which will also be available to go next door at Burke in the Box.
1000 Third Ave., entrance on 59th St.; 212-705-3800

"cheeseburker"! "angry hen in law"! The guy just does not run out of ideas. Although a "smoked bacon spray" sounds fairly disgusting to people like me who want the real thing - I tried it and I'm convinced. Spray that stuff on potato chips, spaghetti, steak, you name it and it tastes just like bacon. Desserts are fun too. If you're in New York, be sure to check it out. I've taste tested my way through a whole host of items and it's all good, I promise. You can even see me at work from Bloomingdale's men's departement where there's a window looking into the kitchen!

this just in

2005-11-22T15:17:00.000-08:00

I am the new Sous Pastry Chef at Fiamma Osteria, New York. I'm proud to be there. But if one job wasn't enough, I have another! I am also helping David Burke open David Burke at Bloomingdale's, a new fast/casual concept with lots of bells and whistles. Stay tuned for more restaurant news, right here, on kitchenlog, where we might not be punctual, but at least we're precise.

job offers

2005-11-16T09:57:00.000-08:00

last week i was about up to my nose in distress about jobs and this week i have several great offers. some buzz words include:

"quarterly bonuses"
"paid vacation time"
"full benefits, including 401K"

not to mention decked out kitchens, pleasant work environments, friendly fellow employees, and good management.

i was telling a friend about my latest trail experience and explained my feeling of being in the kitchen like playing an instrument or typing on a keyboard. you just put your hands on the keys and, without looking, know how to move to make words appear on a screen or music fill the air. when i walk into kitchens now, regardless of size or appearance, i can just find my way around. so comfortable, it feels like home.

ahm

2005-11-14T16:12:00.000-08:00

hello? is this thing on?

how to cook rice:

fast & easy
1 cup rice
2 cups water
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon vegetable oil

combine ingredients in medium-sized pot. bring to boil, lower heat to very low, cover, let cook for about 15 minutes. taste a grain to test for doneness.

persian pollo
1 cup rice
3 cups water
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon butter

wash and rinse rice three to five times in warm water. drain well. boil water in medium-sized pot, add drained and washed rice. cook until a grain is soft to the bite. drain. place rice and 1/2 cup water back into pot with salt and butter, cover, and cook over low heat until done. cook a few minutes longer for the crispy/crunchy (word i only know phonetically) "tad-eek".

once, i lived with a girl who thought this was the only way to cook rice:
-open box
-dump package into pot
-follow directions on box

interestingly enough, i couldn't figure out how to make rice this way; it turned out terrible.

i'll get to the lobster and bread later. right now i have to finish up an article about fesenjan.

first this, now that

2005-10-26T08:16:00.000-07:00

first, women had the notion that the way to a man's heart was through his stomach.

refreshingly, now there is this new tidbit from charles addams' book of food cartoons:

Two women are in a kitchen where a man lies dead on the floor. One woman says to the other, "Hilda, you've got to give me your recipe."

green stew

2005-10-24T13:23:00.000-07:00

i'm staying with my cousin, shadi, in greenpoint, brooklyn. we are surrounded by polish delis, spanish mom & pops, and the manhattan skyline. not too shabby.

and then! shadi's friend stops over with gifts from her grandmother in the form of gorme sabzi - otherwise known as "food of the gods". not be confused with ambrosia salad, this is a hot, bitter green based stew with beans and chunks of tender beef. it is, like all other good winter things, served hot with fragrant basmati rice. we started with two large frozen chunks of this stew, packaged with love from the kitchen of a grandmother in texas, and here, only two days later, we only have 1.25 frozen blocks of stew left. it requires a bit of muscle and sweat to hack off enough stew to satisfy (we are operating sans microwave here in brooklyn), but it's oh so worth it. so if no one hears from me in a few days, it's because shadi and i have died in a fight for the last of this green gold.

i am searching for a middle eastern grocery store in new york. any help would be appreciated.

emulsion sauce

2005-10-20T08:14:00.000-07:00

my life is like an emulsion sauce. one minute it's perfectly blended, the next it's separated and broken, fat bubbles rising to the surface, with a texture of old ketchup.

here's a good emulsion minute: a contact through jack (the third party of dean & deluca) leads to a fun and lively phone conversation with a woman who worked at dean and deluca for 11 years and knows people at all the finest restaurants in the city (per se, jean-georges, cafe gray, etc.) and now i'm about to email her my resume which she is not only going to forward to said people, but also personally-recommend me for open positions. oh, and she's friends with johnny iuzzini, the pastry chef at jean-georges.

hi, i'm almost famous.

and i'm going back to wd-50, this time with her for a dessert tasting next week.

pina colada

2005-10-17T22:45:00.000-07:00

1 part pineapple juice
1 part malibu coconut rum
ice

shake, pour, drink. repeat if desired.

here's the scoop: i've been busy working (of course i gave my job notice, an open-ended sort of notice where they can tell me when they don't need me anymore which can be as soon as next week or as late as the end of the month). and preparing for this meeting i have with dean and deluca tomorrow.

they requested that i prepare a pastry item for them to critique.

back from the dead

2005-10-10T23:35:00.000-07:00

has it only been a week? it feels like it may as well have been a year. i quit my job today and it feels so good. economic uncertainty? no place to live? that's all just fine as long as i can erase these visions of dying in that restaurant kitchen because i'm too afraid of any kind of uncertainty.

also: next week i'm meeting dean and deluca. THE dean and deluca. at their studio no less. (and, for people like me who only think of studios as shoebox-sized apartments, this is a working artistic-type studio: a large open space where ideas and creativity flow like energy through invisible and invincible wires.)

you're wondering how i went from looking forward to going back to my old job to dreading the thought of it? yes, and so am i. but that's a story for another time.

hungry for pollo and the smells of home

2005-09-29T16:09:00.000-07:00

Lately, I've felt homesick. My medication: cooking and consuming as much Iranian food as I can. While I was in Chicago, my mother spoiled me with kuku and eggplant stew, and now I'm working on mastering some recipes on my own.

Here's one for Adasi Pollo, which, while not too time consuming, still requires multi-tasking, as do all good meals.

1 lb. Basmati rice, soaked in water for several hours
20 oz. water
1 T salt
8 oz lentils, soaked in water for several hours
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 lb. chicken, cut up
2 medium onions, sliced
healthy pinch of saffron
6-8 oz. raisins
2 tablespoons butter
salt and pepper to taste

Bring rice, water, and salt to a boil in a medium-large pot. Cover, and cook until semi-soft. Meanwhile, boil lentils with enough water to cover by 1 inch.
Heat oil in pan, and cook chicken and onions until they turn golden brown, stirring to cook onions evenly.
Drain and rinse rice. Return rice to pot and cover with water.
When lentils are just cooked, add to the rice. Add cooked chicken and onions, saffron, raisins, and butter. Season with salt and pepper. Cook until rice and lentils are tender.

Serve with warm pita, and top individual portions of rice with a pat of butter.

Very few meals taste good the next day; this is one of them.

Gabrielle Hamilton

2005-09-24T22:50:00.000-07:00

The New York Times published an essay by Gabrielle Hamilton, the chef/owner of Prune in the lower east side. The restaurant makes a great brunch and has a cult-like following for the inventive yet comforting food that she serves. If only she had gotten his story...

surprise, surprise

2005-09-23T00:50:00.000-07:00

As I'm on a wireless connection now, I have been unable to upload anything to the website I pay for. I'll keep the frustration down to a minimum; this blog is about the kitchen, not the web.

Earlier tonight I went to a business meeting at wd-50, the swanky hide-out for wiley and sam (chef and pastry chef) who come up with crazy and delicious things like fried mayonnaise and saffron cotton candy. After a three course meal, the chefs and I had five courses of dessert. As if that wasn't enough, we went to another restaurant after that, at 11pm, to have even more dessert. I think this was my "welcome back, now we're going to work you to death" meal.

Tasting notes:
A zucchini gaspacho lacked depth; the grainy texture made me miss tomatoes.
Corned duck on rye crisps channeled Katz's deli with charm and elegance.
Fois gras with passion fruit scramble reached for the moon but fell among the stars.

The pastry chef enjoyed his pork belly with black soybeans, one of two dishes that has been on their menu since the start.
My skate with eggplant raisin puree and fried rice was so salty and sweet; but unmemorable.

Celery sorbet with toasted rice and poached raisins refreshed the palate.
Tomato sorbet with powdered olive oil and parmesan was brillance in a bowl.
Warm peach with white beer foam and granola could have been better.
Local strawberries with parmesan ice cream surprised and delighted.
Milk chocolate parfait was too easy, too obvious.

Afterwards, a taxi brought us to Bouley, the four-star restaurant turned three, across from the recently reviewed and new Upstairs, Bouley's mini upstairs cafe/bistro (which Frank Bruni recently awarded a surprising 2 stars). If the servers at Bouley continue to treat women like second-class citzens, the restaurant might as well lose all of its precious stars. I may as well have not existed; apparently, if there's a man at the table at Bouley, it is simply assumed that he calls the shots. Hi? What do I look like? arm candy? I mean, these people knew who we were, there was no need for pretension or sexism. I'd hate to find out what they would have done if I had come in under my own name. Turns out the server heard me complaining about him and confronted me about it. What can I say? You ignored me three times and spoke over me four! Also, the desserts were a sugar shock, terrible flavorless things. A chocolate tasting (enough dessert for three people on one plate) couldn't have been less creative. A corn ice cream and blueberry parfait combination was made "exotic" with soymilk gelee--tasteless soymilk gelee. In fact, it was like water, gelatinized. I could go on, but what's the point?

I start work again tomorrow.

the power of food and the web

2005-09-14T14:31:00.000-07:00

I stumbled upon the Julie/Julia project years ago, when I stumbled upon a lot of other good food-related blogs. Basically this woman, Julie, said, 'hey, Julia Child wrote this great book on French cooking and I'm going to cook my way through it - and - document it on my website.' Brilliant.

Besides almost sharing the same name as a great woman in American food history, she happens to write well. So, The New York Times hired her. And then she got a book deal. All because of a website and an idea. Go Julie!

.

This is going to be my last post on blogger. I'm working on a new version of my website and hope to have it up by the end of the week.

martha

2005-09-13T15:51:00.000-07:00

I used to call my admiration for Martha Stewart a guilty pleasure, but since her comeback, I've just been telling it like it is: She's awesome! She went to prison and is back and better than ever!

Except, her new show? It needs some work. Today, when guest David Spade began relating his story about making tater-tots, ("you take a pan, preheat the oven, open the bag, pour them into the pan and put it in the oven") Martha responded with, "So, are there potatos in tater-tots?" And even David Spade, who up to this point had been brilliant in deflecting Martha's characteristic unease with sly humor and punch-line ready comic relief, had to pause and check Martha's face for a hint of honesty. And there it was: Martha Stewart really didn't know if tater-tots had potatos in them.

I'm just not sure if she's made for live day-time television. Marketing execs and advertising moguls have certainly done a great job prepping her audience for the fun and funny that can happen when Martha Stewart doesn't get a chance to do another take. But in reality, when there isn't a teleprompter at the ready, Martha can't ad-lib to save her life. I'll give her another week. I'm sure they're already working to get Martha to look more natural on camera; right now, she may as well be a cat in water.

"khosh aamadid"

2005-09-08T13:56:00.000-07:00

You will have to excuse my phonetic spelling in Farsi, but I would just like to welcome readers from Iranian.com. And, give thanks to my wonderful aunt Mandana who, besides being an award-winning architect, makes the best turkey kababs.

the funny thing about work

2005-09-07T14:49:00.000-07:00

Right before I left for France I was just about as sick of working as I could get. There are only so many 12-15 hour days a gal can take, you know? So France was a welcome learning experience/vacation for me, and one I hope to repeat soon. And I'm loving spending some time with my family now, but boy do I miss working. I miss the rush, the excitement, the sense of preparedness, the potential, the money, and mostly the creative process. It's just not possible to create desserts of that caliber at home with home equipment. I have four notebooks full of ideas waiting to be tested out! Plus, dozens of cookbooks and stolen recipes, French magazines and restaurant menus.

I spoke with the new pastry chef at work today, Richard Bies (who was at The Spiced Pear in RI just before taking the job at DBD and was featured in a Pastry Art & Design Magazine article earlier this year). We're looking foward to working together later this month. In the middle of all this, David Burke is opening restaurants all over the country! Tell all your friends!

oatmeal cookies

2005-09-07T13:53:00.000-07:00

I have these distant memories of going to outdoor barbecues and picnics among large groups of friends. There was always a big fold-out table full of the dishes everyone brought, and next to it, a card-table of desserts. At least three different kinds of potato salad made their proud appearance, along with some pasta salad, fruit salad served in a carved out watermelon, and whatever trendy recipe someone had found in last month's Better Homes & Gardens. The most memorable were these tortilla rolls which pretty much consisted of spreading cream cheese and dried herbs on flour tortillas, rolling them up tightly, and then slicing into little bite-size spirals. Cute, but bland. Dips, crudities, and various flavors of chips rounded off the meal.

But I was always there for the dessert and spent plenty of time analyzing each item. I posed three important questions to myself before adding a slice or piece to my dinner-sized paper plate (I don't believe in the smaller dessert-sized plates). 1) Does it look fresh or did they make it last week and just decide to bring it to look generous? 2) Did they make it from a mix (or worse! buy it from the grocery store!?) or was it really homemade? 3) Does it contain fresh banana, oatmeal or dried flaked coconut?

Sigh.

Yes, the truth is out. I used to restrict my dessert intake by avoiding things I didn't like. I still don't like raw banana, but at least I can proudly admit that to being the only thing I have tried (and tried, and tried) to like but failed. And just because I don't like it doesn't mean I haven't created successful desserts from it. Dried flaked coconut is a strange, over-processed and over-sweetened product, and anyone who has ever eaten fresh coconut knows that. I don't completely avoid it anymore, but I think it serves very few purposes and is really best in coconut macaroons where one cannot substitute fresh. I once had a (strange, embarrassing) phobia of all things considered "healthy" once-upon-a-time (tofu, soybeans, wild-rice, oatmeal), and I firmly believed that the Oatmeal Raisin Cookie was simply a dieter's Chocolate Chip Cookie. And for me, no cookie could compete with the Chocolate Chip.

Incidentally, in France, they sell Chocolate Chip Cookies. Terrible, dry things baked in molds so that they are perfectly round, they look sad next to the palmiers and petit fours. The bakeries who sell them label them "cookie" which made me chuckle since the French word for cookie is "petit gateaux".

So, avoiding the 7-layer bars, and anything healthy looking, I would load my plate up with one version of chocolate cake after another, brownies, pie, and cookies of all kinds. A tall cup of milk was all I needed and I sat down somewhere quiet to taste everything. And now that I think about it, I wonder how many really good Oatmeal Raisin Cookies I must have missed out on all those years.

In college, I lived at a vegetarian co-op for awhile which inevitably cured me of the health-food fears. One day some nice girl made Oatmeal Raisin Cookies and I grabbed one before I headed out the door. I ended up being late for class because I decided to go back for a couple more.

Oatmeal and Raisins are great. Oatmeal and Chocolate is great. Oatmeal and coconut, ginger, dried apples, dried cherries, currants- actually just about any dried fruit or nut is great with oatmeal. Spices, honey, tea, peanut butter... the list goes on. But Oatmeal Cookies with either Raisins or Chocolate Chips are the best. After experimenting with dozens of recipes, I finally came up with my favorite in my junior year of college. Soft, buttery, with a hint of salt, cinnamon, and fresh ginger. But then, everything was turned upside down again by a professor of mine.

Senior year I took all of these independent study courses to really focus in on my major and the type of research and writing I wanted to be doing. One of the courses was loosely titled Food Journalism. The professor, Elliot Shapiro, had been my instructor before and knew my style well enough to adapt to new reading material and helped me complete a writing portfolio I can still be proud of. Our meetings were casual and one week, he brought me these absolutely out of this world homemade Oatmeal Cookies. Buttery does not begin to describe their taste and texture, but buttery they were. Buttery and thus lacy, yet crisp around the edges. He had used both chocolate and raisins for a successful and refreshing raisinet effect, and after I had one, and then another... and then another without noticing it, I had reached the bottom of the plate and gotten crumbs all over my papers! I think he was happy I liked the cookies.

What really triggered all of these Oatmeal Cookie memories, though, was the batch of cookies I got to eat all day today. Homemade, soft and chewy with raisins only and plenty of rolled oats, they were the definition of comfort food. The world needs to eat more cookies.

dreaming of lentils and porriage

2005-09-05T08:49:00.000-07:00

my mom has been telling me these mouth-watering stories of iranian breakfasts. after i had a traditional week-day breakfast of warm pita bread, salty feta cheese and sweet dark tea, she told me the bread story:

our driver or someone from the household would wake up early in the morning to buy the bread. bread is not made at home, we leave that to the bakers. and they take it out of the ovens and place it into the driver's waiting hands, hot from the stones and coals on which it was baked.

i imagine the surface to be pebbled and crisp, toasted flour barely clinging to the dark edges, sandy to the touch, smelling of secret recipes. and when broken, a perfumed steam rising to meet the nose. the way she describes how she used to spread plenty of butter and sprinkle plenty of sugar on top before eating each snow-shoe sized loaf makes me hunger for her memories. using her hands to gesticulate the spreading, and her eyes to imitate the way the butter melts into the bread, we end up losing ourselves in the collective memory of this simplest of foods. and sadly having only grocery store pita with which to satisfy our imagination.

i like being reminded that france is not the only country who has historically placed high regard upon their bread; besides other european nations, we have to remember that the middle east is the birth place of agriculture, and primarily that of grain for bread.

today too, she expanded on iranian breakfasts, telling me about lentils with cinnamon (pronouced "adasi") and a hot porriage with turkey meat melted inside ("haleem"). a dent in the middle leaves enough room for a butter and brown sugar nest where i can just imagine telling myself to eat from the outside in to save the best part for last.

the cinnamon lentils are more common than the porriage, and a man on a bicycle is heard often in the mornings calling its name to neighbors and strangers who come rushing to their doorsteps to pay him for bowls of the hot treat. his mother or wife perhaps supplies his transportation with the food leaving him to deliver and he refuels as often as necessary. what a welcome wake up call in comparison to our garbage trucks! or the horn blowing of nyc.

from what i understand, the porriage is more of a specialty that needs to be started the night before to reach the proper consistency. she talked about how her grandmother prepared it. grains are simmered for hours and turkey meat is added, melting into the thickness, adding body and nutrients to otherwise boring hot breakfast cereal.

i will be doing more research on these iranian breakfasts, testing, and updating with recipes soon.

sweet home, chicago

2005-09-03T13:53:00.000-07:00

i'm home in chicago now, catching up on the r&r with plenty of home cooked food. the folks have all my favorites covered: from home-made chicken broth to lasagna (a much needed break from all the french food i've grown tired of/too accustomed to) to my mother's persian stews. i could write pages on this food - but maybe later. i'm too busy eating now.

amsterdam

2005-08-30T13:28:00.000-07:00

coincidentally, i am in amsterdam for 12 hours. i don't know a word of dutch; fortunatly, everyone speaks english. and i don't mean this as in, "oh, everyone in france knows english" - because that is a lie; and even if they know it, they are reluctant to speak it - i mean this as in all the signs are in english and everyone greets everyone else in english. thank goodness for that. if the stores were open i could read up on dutch, but it is the middle of the night here after all.

the airport is amazing. there is wireless internet connection throughout and all these different kinds of chairs and desks and laptop bars (where one sits at a high table on a stool and plugs one's laptop into the outlet, of course). you can even rent a personal office complete with desk, leather chair, computer, and all the trimmings of a standard office. after the relative technological retardation of france, i am fascinated by these conveniences. if only i had not packed my laptop plug in my checked baggage i could use it for longer than the life of my battery.

apparently my mother was in this airport some 20 odd years ago when she was around my age. this makes me happily sentimental.

although airplane meals have a negative stereotype, i think it's possible that american airplane meals are worse than those on international flights. i just had a great sandwich on a klm airlines flight from paris to amsterdam:

seven grain bread with raisins
unsalted butter
shredded carrots
dilled cucumbers
sliced guyere (or one of its cousins, perhaps emmenthal)

served with orange juice and tea. simple, but quite perfect for airplane food. i hope to make it myself again sometime. the raisins in the bread really topped it off. raisins and carrots are so good together, and then you've got your built in side dish of cucumbers; the cheese goes with the grains in the bread and the butter adds the needed lubrication. i wish i had another.

on the way to paris from nyc, i had a decent breakfast type meal on iceland air. it was an omlette, with potatoes and ham. not terrible, but nothing worth expanding upon. the plasticware it was served on was very stylish though. reminded me of modern scandiavian design; complete with a silver tinted plastic spork.

i have so many photos to edit and publish it is overwhelming.

last day in france

2005-08-29T08:28:00.000-07:00

today is my last day in france. a recap in numbers:

number of cases of citrus fruits i supremed: 9
number of pineapples i peeled: 7
number of lemons or limes zested: 26
number of recipes for biscuit culliere i made: 3
number of petit fours i ate when no one was looking: dozens
number of petit fours i ate when someone was looking: several
number of times the chef told me the recipe was a secret: 4
number of people who had heard of chef david burke: 10
number of people i worked with who spoke english: 4
number of meals i ate out of a vending machine: 1
number of frais de bois eaten: handfuls
number of spots on my chefs coats: 3
number of lemon tarts eaten: 14
number of millefeuilles consumed: 15
number of baguettes purchased and only half eaten: 5
number of baguettes purchased and eaten: 1
average price per baguette: .90
number of pain au chocolate eaten: 45
number of pain au raisin eaten: 40
number of absolutly disgusting staff meals eaten: 10
number of decent staff meals: 22
number of times i chickened out before going into a fancy restaurant: 3
number of times i was hungry in paris: 4
number of times i was hungry in barcelona: 0
number of glasses of wine drunk: 10
number of boxes of chocolate eaten: 3
number of plates of steak frites eaten: 7
number of different types of cheeses consumed: i can't remember
number of cheeses i disliked: 0
number of snobby waiters: 0
number of snobby salespeople: 1
number of times i had to ask for butter with my bread: 5
number of hours i wasted at robuchon: 20
number of chefs at georges blanc: 10
number of walk-in coolers at maison troisgros: 6
number of meals left to eat in france: 2

i am looking forward to coming home.

maison troisgros

2005-08-25T07:45:00.000-07:00

so today is my first day at maison troisgros.

the kitchen is so spacious and beautiful sometimes i catch myself (or, more likely someone else catches me) staring out at it from the pastry department in awe. i plan on drawing it out on paper and saving it for when i open my own place. also, i will be taking lots of photos.

renee would be excited to know they have summer pudding on their menu right now. oh how seasonal the menu is. practically everything has lemon verbena on it, though. candied verbena, verbena syrup, verbena ice cream. interestingly, the first thing i did was make a recipe for ice cream. normally places start me out with cutting fruit or supreming oranges. i also wear a really tall hat; other places gave me silly deli-style hats. chef david has fans here.

the chef, michel troisgros, is nice. i work with the sous-pastry chef who speaks english and has worked all over the world: the u.s., england, netherlands, monaco, etc. and wants to move to st. john after some time at troisgros.

even the locker room is pleasant.

also, this is just another kitchen where they know this french song by a group called elmer food beat called "daniela"; i am not entirely sure what the lyrics mean but it has a catchy toon that everyone starts singing when i walk through their space. "ooooh, daniela-la-la-la"

today, i exploded a bag of citron creme in the cryo-vac, a vacuum packer sealer machine that i do not know how to use. apparently though, it happens from time to time. the big problem was that i didn't know how to turn it off, so the stuff went everywhere. blegh. i wanted to crawl into a hole. no one got mad, they just kind of made fun of me in french. oh well.

but, the question i am still trying to figure out is how, but how do they get away with charging so much for each dessert? these are the same strawberries, raspberries, and mint i've seen elsewhere. the flour and sugar haven't changed; they may gild things a bit here and there with ample use of gold and silver leaf, and the chocolate work and skill is all very advanced. but i just don't know if they are better than, say georges blanc. the style is far more modern, but technique and product are the same as far as i can tell. they all use only silver spoons to put sauce on plates and make perfect, perfect quenelles. it is a bit disappointing to learn that one has possibly reached a limit. look, there is a pile of fraise de bois and that is the best the strawberry is going to get. maybe if i picked them myself or they had been sprayed with rose water while they grew... maybe i am looking for the wrong thing. going from one three star place to another is jading and confusing me a bit about what is the best.

elizabeth david

2005-08-25T07:44:00.000-07:00

i have been reading elizabeth david, and it's so refreshing to read about loving food and how to prepare food with the skill that comes from love. so many quotes to share. later.

thinking about ny

2005-08-24T08:12:00.000-07:00

the night before i left new york, my friend joyce took me out for a wonderful meal at spigolo, on the upper east side, just minutes from my old apartment. we dined on pea soup with lardon, gnocci pillows, sea bass, and three desserts from the pastry chef's enticing list. the most memorable was the affogato with bombolini, a pile of delicious sugar doughnuts. finally, frank bruni wrote about spigolo. if it was up to me, they'd get another star. i especially like this passage:

"Oh, yes, hello!" said Heather Fratangelo, who plays the role of hostess as well as pastry chef, on a warm Sunday evening in early July, when the loss of neighborhood residents to distant beaches was still evident on the becalmed sidewalks and streets.

Her exuberant manner of greeting me had nothing to do with desperation - despite the weekend exodus, Spigolo was full - and the tone of familiarity in her voice suggested we had met many times before. We had in fact met only once, and that was 10 minutes earlier, when I had glanced briefly into the restaurant to see if my guests were there.
But in Spigolo's intensely hospitable world, that glance was enough to make me a veritable regular, and a summery lavender outfit worn by one of my guests, who trailed after me, was enough to prompt additional endearments.
"That's such a pretty dress," Ms. Fratangelo said. If she didn't really mean it, Cherry Jones better watch out. There's an even better actress in town.

because, you don't have to be Frank Bruni to be treated well at Spigolo. there is no doubt that every restaurant hostess and server has his face imprinted in their mind, and too often service gets much better when he's walked into the room. i wonder if it is possible to be entirely fair to every customer and treat everyone as if they are a vip; ms. fratangelo makes it look easy.

roanne

2005-08-23T10:07:00.000-07:00

roanne is actually prounounced more like "juan" than "ro-anne" in fact, if you can manage to prounouce all the letters more or less at the same time, you've mastered the local accent of the lyon area where im staying. it is a larger town than vonnas, thankfully, with an actual internet cafe. the specialty is the praliné, a sugared almond colored fushia pink and quite addicting. they add them to all sorts of things like bread and croissants which they then spiral and call pain au praliné. its every american kid's dream: candy for breakfast! and every american parent's nightmare! hyper even at 9am. i had one this morning and it really is quite a jolt of sugar which you must follow with a severe tooth brushing or resign to walk around all day with a pink mouth.

they use them throughout the region in lots of creative ways. at georges blanc, they reduced the candies down to a syrup, thickened it with cream and spread it on thin unbaked brioche dough. after baking, it was dubbed tarte aux praliné. they also blended the resulting caramel cream and filled tiny tartlettes with it, and topped them with a minature poof of meringue for an elegant yet nostalgic petit four.

there is sun here and mountains too. my stage at maison troisgros begins on thursday at 8am. i wish i could eat there, but they are closed today and tomorrow. they charge an astounding 28 euro for each dessert. yes.

georges blanc

2005-08-19T06:49:00.000-07:00

georges blanc's restaurant gastronomique is the single best experience of my life, surpassing disneyworld at age 9.

vonnas, fr

2005-08-16T07:50:00.000-07:00

vonnas, fr, is not even on the map, that's how small it is. i thought beziers exemplified small town france, but i was wrong. here, there are three streets, and all three take you out of town. on them, you will find the georges blanc resort, a laundromat (with what is perhaps the only internet connection in town - an old mac set up to accept phone cards), three boulangeries/patisseries, one boucherie, one brasserie, a dry cleaners (le pressing), a bank, a pharmacy, a grocery store, and a post office. c'est tout. they cover all the basics - oh! i can't believe i almost forgot the tallest building in town: the church.

if it weren't for georges blanc and in fact, his mother and grandmother, this town probably wouldn't exist at all. he owns (with his family) an inn, a hotel, a cafe, a wine shop, a boulangerie, a small gift shop, a kitchen/linen store, and, where i work, the restaurant gastronomique.

more later.

one more thing

2005-08-14T01:21:00.000-07:00

as i'm about to leave, i'm getting a bit sentimental. i just had my last breakfast at le boulanger de monge. their escargot (no, not actual snails, but pastry spirals) aux amandes, escargot aux raisins, and chocolatines are so perfect that i end up eating them en route to a park bench, because i can't wait the two minutes to sit down! so then i sit to digest, and pigeons crowd around me to eat the crumbs that fall from around my mouth and t-shirt. even the pigeons here have good taste.

at l'atelier de robuchon, they order all of their bread, flour, and breakfast pastries from le boulanger de monge. this reminded me of my advisor at cornell, steven l. kaplan, who has written many books, included in some of them are stories about le boulanger de monge and the baker behind it, dominique sabrion. the bakery uses only organic flour and traditional methods. all of the bread is kneaded, shaped and baked right in front of the customers, behind the cashier. this forces honesty from everyone and ensures a quality product. when i emailed professor kaplan to say hello, he replied by confirming that the b. de monge is the best bakery (in town; but perhaps also in france, and therefore, perhaps in the world). he said robuchon was a bread lover, too. and, he also said that he was emailing me from Biarritz, which, tellingly, he described simply as having "miserable" bread. there was no note on the beauty of the sea, warmth of the sun, cool breezes, relaxing atmosphere. no, for some people, bread comes long before everything else.

something interesting about boulanger de monge is their naming of pastries like pain au chocolat - instead of calling it pain, which it really is not, they've adopted the name chocolatine (which other bakeries use to describe minature pain au chocolat). chocolatines/pain au chocolats are the same thing: crossiant dough wrapped around one, two, or four batons of chocolate. since croissant dough contains yeast, but also lots and lots of butter, it's a bit of a stretch to call it bread, especially for the bread lover, who defines bread as simply yeast, water, flour, and possibly salt. other ingredients like milk, milk powder, sugar, butter, or eggs create a different product: pain au lait, brioche, croissants, etc. i appreciate this distinction. it goes back to that infamous quote from marie antoinette: "let them eat cake"- which is translated a bit incorrectly. it's really "let them eat brioche" which is a cross between cake and pastry in my opinion. but it infuriated the peasants because brioche is not, above all things, bread. and bread is what they desired; a dense, simple, and satisfying loaf could not be replaced with the buttery fluff that is brioche.

i wonder how many more words the french language has for food and types of food products than english.

if i were ever to live in paris, it would have to be near the boulanger de monge because i don't like to commute and i love my pastry and bread in the morning.

goodbye paris

2005-08-13T15:26:00.000-07:00

i leave paris for lyon tomorrow. paris has been a big cliche for me, unfortunatly. i've seen pictures of the eiffel tower, and yes, it looks just like those pictures. i have also verified the status of many other monuments, historical sites, and museums. really, only the art and food has been inspiring. the people aren't necessarily snobby, but still make me feel stupid for being an american. to be fair, i don't know how much of it is my own self-conciousness and how much of it is their attitude.

today i went to versailles. yet another tourist trap. yet another verification of a monument for which a million photographs have been taken. save yourself the trip - it really is that gaudy.

.

yesterday was fantastic; spent it with a new friend from robuchon who is going to visit nyc this fall. she took me to the sacre-coeur, with its beautiful views of the city. later, we had "high-tea" (imagine, the french have adopted an english dining concept) at the four seasons georges V. we wanted to go the le cinq, the three star fine dining restaurant for a full course dessert tasting, but they weren't open. i had a frasier, a classic french gateaux traditionally made from syrup-soaked vanilla cake, cream moussiline (pastry cream with lots of butter), and strawberries. this one was in the style of modern french pastry: composed in a glass. the bottom layer was cake, soaked in strawberry syrup. a layer of pastry cream and strawberries followed, topped with a crispy layer of puff pastry (not a traditional element). then, more pastry cream, strawberries (and perhaps to compensate for the inflated price of the dessert) a big fluff of gold leaf. she took me to lenotre and maison de chocolate, where i bought us more dessert. she invited me to her apartment for dinner. she made some delicious sushi and a couscous salad. for dessert, we had a savarin with fruites rouges and a chocolate mousse cake with crispy hazelnut cake. she walked me out to the metro station and there, in the near distance, was the eiffel tower sparkling with a million lights. a perfect end to a great day.

i completed my stage at robuchon. it's too bad i have to sit and think about whether i learned anything or not. i learned that you can make tuiles from red bell peppers. i'm looking forward to trying this at dbd. it's too bad i didn't get a recipe.

it's possible that i sound a bit bitter. i have had a great time here, despite the tourist traps and sketchy men on the sidewalks. the best part, by far, is the pastry. which is why i came in the first place, and perhaps i should have focused on this, rather than feeling the need to see the mona lisa, etc. paris has the best pastry, from what i've tasted. it's too bad so many of the shops are closed right now. the next time i come, i will speak french, make sure i'm here in early spring or fall (anytime but july and august), and make reservations.

a walk

2005-08-09T09:12:00.000-07:00

i went on a lovely walk under a beautiful sun today. here's the itinerary:

have breakfast at boulanger de monge, may i suggest a chocolatine? or brioche au sucre? then take the subway to the place de madeleine, where you can have a second breakfast at fauchon, or just grab a box of chocolates at masion du chocolat. then head down the rue royal, past all the landmarks, across the seine, and towards the musee d'orsay (it opens at 10am and the earlier you get there, the shorter the line is), famous for its grand collection of impressionist masters. i claim degas as my favorite for most successfully capturing the beauty of a woman before she had any make-up or costume on. sure, all the ballerinas are great and probably sold well, but its really the paintings of women at their dressing tables, or just as they are getting out of the bath, that make impressionism so inspiring. raw beauty is the only way. degas' sculptures, being in the organic style of rodin, make me swoon.

when you can't stand seeing the world through blurry glasses any longer, walk south on rue de bellechasse. if your feet feel like they might fall off, stop at a bench and eat some of the chocolate you bought. carry along towards the rue de varenne and head west towards my new favorite place in paris: the musee rodin. the thing about rodin's sculptures is that he left them somewhat raw and rough around the edges so you can at once see the artistic process as well as the final gist of the figure or form. yes, the thinker in a focal point in the grand rose garden that fills the grounds of the old chateau in which the museum resides, is a must-see. but eve is my favorite. i think eve in the statue has more shame than eve in the biblical verses, so much shame that people walking amongst the statues are often forced to stop and stare at her shudder, her long brows, her half-crouch, she isn't worth a standing pose, but is too afraid to fall.

the museum is housed in this great old mansion and has all of these antique mirrors throughout along with grand windows. filled with the masters life-size statues, and despite the pedestrian presence of tourists from all over the world, it still gives one the feeling of being amongst ghosts and good friends at the same time. rodin put friends, clients, and figures from literature in the hardest of stones and metal such that they retain the presence of a living being. frozen, still flexing muscles or raising eyebrows, about to take flight, or in the middle of a passionate kiss, they seem ready to continue movement if only we could look away.

have lunch at the museum's cafeteria rodin, which is not a cafetaria at all but a garden cafe. it's quite reasonable for a cheese, herb and tomato tartine (open face sandwich, where a substantial slice of whole grain bread maintains its dignity even while absorbing all the juices and oils from the passengers it carries into your mouth) with a side salad and dessert. don't forget to have another chocolate from your box.

you've pretty good for the day and deserve a nap. so head back to the hotel, have a few more chocolates and dream of what you'd like for dinner.

paris in august

2005-08-08T13:19:00.000-07:00

if you are thinking of visiting paris, don't plan your trip for august. many shops and restaurants are closed, and the weather is less than perfect. on the other hand, the city is probably less congested with snobby parisiens.

i have lots of photos to share, but no way to upload them at the moment. there are so many monuments in paris that i just keep stumbling upon them on accident, while en route from one (sadly, closed for august) pastry shop to another.

i am missing three things very much:

1. pizza, NYC style
2. indian food
3. working

i suppose i am working right now, at robuchon, but even if we ignore the fact that i am not getting paid, there is still a big difference. i work at davidburke & donatella because they hired me to do a job for which i am skilled and able. it is fulfilling. whereas here, i am made to feel unskilled and completely inept - i don't really believe that i'm all that bad, but when everyone treats you that way, it's hard to know how to react. i don't know how much more of this my ego can take.

.

normally in a kitchen there are occasional outburst from the chef, usually reasonable, but still a bit scary. if the yelling is at you, then clearly you have to pay attention. but if it isn't about you, you must busy yourself in any way! what? there's no work to do right now? clean! did you just wipe down the counter? too bad! wipe it again! does the floor look dirty? start mopping! when was the last time someone defrosted the freezer? it's probably your turn. you must look busy lest you become a victim yourself. i've gotten very good at occupying myself while someone else is taking the heat.

at robuchon, there are many outbursts from the chef, p. braun. he's manically perfect and expects everyone else to be the same way - which really isn't unreasonable when you consider the restaurant's status.

when a slightly unripe peach dessert was served to a journalist, i am sure his yelling was heard clear across the street. it was directed to the pastry chef, of course, and since it was in french, i caught myself trying to understand the insults (because they were hilarious), instead of busying myself and avoiding attracting attention. from what i understood, the insults were not just about the one dessert; they ranged from, "your hair is a disgrace!" to "i've eaten better desserts from supermarkets" to "i could plate this better with my feet!" when this guy gets upset, he looks a bit like darth vadar, which makes it that much more tragically funny.

i hate to admit that i take evil delight whenever the pastry chef gets a verbal lashing. the other day i asked why his recipes were such secrets and he said because they were his and he worked hard for them. when i pointed out that he had gotten them from other chefs himself, he said yes, there was a time for sharing recipes. when i suggested that that time be the present (because we weren't doing anything else) he really didn't know what to say. i don't think i'm supposed to be this forward, but what can he do, really? at least i got to look at his silly 'top secret' recipes.

paris, again

2005-08-07T09:56:00.000-07:00

oh internet, how i've missed you!

the restaurant, robuchon, is like nothing i've seen before, beautiful, elegant, chic, modern. the chef, robuchon, is an institution, owner, television personality that doesn't spend time in his kitchen anymore. his pastry chef, guillaume mautalent, is a kid with a chip on his shoulder. i wish i knew how to tell him off in french sometimes. he was trying to explain to me that kitchen work is like the military, discipline, etc. and i wanted to ask, 'then who is the enemy? where are the guns?' this is food, man, not ammunition. there is a degree of seriousness that i think is very important to the work we do, but get off the high horse. hospitality has no space for that attitude. i know the comparison, it is a very old french way of thinking and i had hoped that it didn't exist too much any more, but i hoped wrong. i am trying to learn what i can, but in his system, an american girl doesn't deserve to be taught because she wouldn't make anything right anyway. the only way to do anything is to steal his work... and end up making it better anyway; he hates having to admit that anything i do is even acceptable.

paris is cloudy and my hotel doesn't have internet, and i miss the southern sun! i bought a book yesterday from librarie gourmande. it is beautiful.

i think the best thing about robuchon the restaurant is that it is entirely non-smoking. this may come as a surprise, given that paris is a smoker's paradise. people smoke before, during, and after meals. i appreciate the idea that a clients' tastebuds should come before a cigarette.

welcome to kLog on blogger

2005-08-01T16:51:00.000-07:00

ive kept up with blogger from the early days to when ev left, and finally decided to get a blogger account of my own. i'll be in paris for the next 12 days and after, around lyon, where i might not be able to hook up my laptop to a data port. the blogger account will make it easier to update from the odd internet cafe.