A look at local food discoveries, whether it’s a particular dish or an ingredient, often with one or more recipes.
A croquembouche is a French dessert, a kind of pièce montée often served at weddings. It is a high cone of profiteroles (choux filled with pastry cream) bound with caramel, and usually decorated with threads of caramel, chocolate, flowers, or ribbons. When I went through our brief pastry program back in cooking school, I recall… Read More Pastry Class 6
“It’s not the end of the world, but you can see it from there.” – Pierre Elliott Trudeau I was contacted by a local representative for Bodega del Fin del Mundo, the Winery at the End of the World, about trying their wines, some of which I’ve had before. Some of them are good, some… Read More Not Quite the End of the World
“…a big man but not more than six feet five inches tall and not wider than a beer truck… He was worth looking at. ‘Even on Central Avenue, not the quietest dressed street in the world, he looked about as inconspicuous as a tarantula on a slice of angel food cake.’” – Raymond Chandler, crime… Read More Calling all Angels
One of the things about being back in cooking school and having some time on my hands around everything else I’m doing is that I have time to practice what we’re learning. Here, a bit of budín love – one with chocolate, one with limequat marmalade, and one with dried apricots and pistachios….
“…belief in resurrection gives meaning to life….” Not being a catholic boy of any sort, and it being the midst of passover, the idea of putting on an easter dinner was not something that normally would have occurred to me, but, so many people asked that we decided to offer one. Nothing directly traditional as… Read More Dish Resurrection
Continuing on to week five of my pastry training, we continued working with puff pastry, both in making different products, but also alternative ways to make the pastry dough itself – who knew there was a difference between “German”, “French” and “Brazilian” puff pastries? Not to mention “Quick”…. Roberto demonstrating how to make Brazilian puff… Read More Pastry Class 5
Pony Express St. JOSEPH, MISSOURI to CALIFORNIA in 10 days or less. WANTED YOUNG, SKINNY, WIRY FELLOWS not over eighteen, must be expert riders, willing to risk death daily. Orphans preferred. Wages $25 per week. APPLY PONY EXPRESS STABLES St. JOSEPH , MISSOURI That was the ad, 150 years ago, for the opening run to… Read More The Pony Express
Playing with desserts is going to get my waistline in trouble if I’m not careful! I had made extra tartlet shells for this weekend’s plum and blackberry tart, had made more mascarpone than I needed, and, had leftover blackberries. How could I not combine them and fill the tartlet shell with the latter two ingredients.… Read More Pastry Class 4