eggbeater

::poetry month. poem by guest author::

cookie hint.

Who knows what this means?

Dear Savoury Chefs, or {other} Pastry Chef Consultants.

    Hello.

    You don't me. I've never met you but we wear the same uniform in the kitchen. We have the same attitude. All four of our hands are scarred. You have oil burns and I have caramel scars. Neither one of us has seen real sunshine in 10 years. Both our paychecks suck., although there's a good chance that mine sucks worse than yours.   

    You probably don't like eating dessert, but I do. You think creme brulee and molten chocolate cake are fantastic, and maybe even tiramisu. I think blanching tripe is icky and I cringe at the thought of butchering live lobsters. You might have trouble following a recipe involving grams. I get off on order and cleanliness and you think I'm crazy.

    Sometimes we are similar, but more of the time we are quite different.

    You would like me to come and accent your salty food with a little something sweet.

    The problem is that I don't sleep in your kitchen if I'm consulting. Your house has a guest room and it's where I wash up, but I don't stay overnight. This means that, because you pay the mortgage and I just bring the odd green bean casserole and bundt cake, it is your job to taste everything I make all the time, because I am not there to serve it. This is where it's difficult.

    It is at this juncture that I release my children into your hands. We have to trust each other, we have to respect each other, and it would help if we each knew something about each others methods-- not super specifically like your secrets and palate, but if you don't know how to reach nappe and I don't know how to saute scallops to tender perfection, we are in a relationship headed towards disaster.

  those red flags are not waving you in.

    How do we create and sustain this tenuous relationship? How do I stand in front of the school and watch my children run to school where I am not with them, garnishing and paying close attention to their crumb and texture? How do you communicate with me when it appears as though we speak another language.

    Anthony Bourdain says in Kitchen Confidential pastry chefs are the neurologists of the kitchen.

    How do we navigate this rocky terrain for which there are no maps? Each consulting gig is it's own thing, no two alike. I'm like a traveling circus performer. Bend this way or that, apply make up for smile or frown, juggle eggs or  play with fruit, create fancifulness or down home heart warming goodnesses.

 

    Be who I can't be.   Be who I don't want to be.   Be making things I don't want to eat.

    It's all right, I can be your stuntman.

    I'm no line cook anymore. I like sugar and alchemy. I'm macho too, but in a different way.

     Another pastry chef recently contacted me. She wanted to know what consulting is like, how much does it pay and how do you let people know you exist. A different person wrote to me, a savoury chef-- she said that she didn't think she could consult-- to have someone else in charge of her food-- she could not imagine letting go of it in that way. Two months ago a close friend of mine said it seemed to him that I was really good about talking about my feelings, better than most.

    What do I say to all of this? Nothing is easy. I make it look easy? You're not inside my head, my heart. I am not my recipes. And if I give someone a folder of lists of ingredients, amounts and times & temperatures, they cannot be me. Who takes care of a pot de creme like me? Who watches those custards like they were newborn babies, who listens to their every breath like me? No one.

    I thought I could leave my heart at the doorjam if I was a consultant.

    Ha.

    At the end of this week I make a transition: I am done with one kitchen and I start to support another. In between I go where the bagels are real but the face features and lawns are not.

    It's all a process, yo. You want advice from me in this area? Sorry, I am taking a vacation from making it look easy. Now it's your turn.

    Whatever will be will be.

/The soundtrack & backdrop for this post was Dave Chappelle's Block Party. Gorgeous, if you have a chance. Inspiring in many ways.

How To Make Flaky, Buttery Pastry: Photos From The Class!

**Want to know what classes I'm teaching right now? Click here.**

Extremely lucky for me and you, Anita came to my class yesterday and took an entire series of photos the Pastry Class! Check them out as slideshow if you've the time-- this way you get the whole effect.

And maybe you can help thank her for me, not only are these photos stunning, they're informative & thorough!

Show & Tell: Photos & Snacks {Sunday} 4.13.08 SF

    I bet you have a lot of plans this weekend? Doing too much already? Or maybe you have this month's Show & Tell penciled in from last month's? Whatever the case may be-- know this-- this event is approachable and relaxed, real and honest. Parking is easy and eye candy on the street is unwrapped. You don't even have to talk to anyone-- you can sit in the dark and think any thought you'd like, no one cares.

    It's like your den or living room slide shows from yesteryear. Remember slides?

    Sunday April 13 will mark one week passing with 2 classes, 2 jobs, 6 days worked and many ice creams made, churned and eaten. I'll be happy to sit in blackness and let the illuminated images feed my head and plant new things to think about besides desserts.

    See you soon?

Chef Owners Who Work The Line.

Did that get your attention? Can you remember the last time you saw a chef owner on their own line? Oh I'm sure there are hundreds of thousands of restaurants everywhere where this is the case. But in my own 15 year career it's been rare.

I don't think it's where the chef should be all the time-- it neither makes sense for her to be on the line every night nor him to never be on the line, but it's a powerful sight to see the chef step on the line and blow everyone out of the water.

Let me tell you a story.

Many years ago I was the pastry sous chef at The French Laundry. That kitchen is insanely small. It's a little bigger now, and of course now it's part of an empire, but because the building is land marked there's not much else Thomas can do to expand what space exists. There are 3 lines and off to the side of pastry is where the cheese person stands.

The lines are like this: every station has a partner station. Fish & Amuse, Garde Manger/First Course & Meat, Cheese & Pastry. If you can count, this means that there are really only 6 people who can say they've cooked at The French Laundry. Everyone else is support staff-- and there are about 40 of those.

The year I was there (you can cross reference my resume here), an amazing person and cook named Eric Ziebold was the chef de cuisine. He was TFL's first ever sous chef and to this day I have never seen any one person work so many hours. (He, Thomas & Laura all put in 17-19 hour days, 7 days a week.) Everyone knows The French Laundry is an amazing restaurant, but few know why. It's easy to blame or praise one person, but the truth is that it takes a village.

Eric has a very interesting temperament. Read between the lines and you will see what I mean. His famous line was, "I'm an equal opportunity asshole." Or he would sidle up next to you real close and say, quietly, "Oh, is that how you do _______? Here at The French Laundry we do it like this," and then he'd gracefully move you aside and show you. It was with Eric's constant feedback that I learned how to and how not to manage. He reminded me that I had to do what felt right for me-- what was going to let me sleep at night?

        do I sound like I was in love?

One day Eric did something amazing. He was frustrated at how things were going on the hot lines. Eric was not a screamer, but he could be direct in a way that made you stop dead in your under-the-breath mumblings, shape the fuck up, focus and do it right. Thomas's approach was more like Chinese water torture-- he would repeat the same sentence over and over until he had what he wanted in front of him. Something like this:

"I need an agnolotti. I need an agnolotti. I need an agnolotti. I need an agnolotti. I need an agnolotti. I need an agnolotti. I need an agnolotti. I need an agnolotti. I need an agnolotti. I need an agnolotti. Agnolotti. Agnolotti. Agnolotti. Agnolotti. Agnolotti. Agnolotti. Agnolotti. Agnolotti."

You get the point.

So this night Eric was watching the line. At the time the kitchen was trying on a new expediting model that they later employed full time when there were more sous chefs: Thomas stood at the pass and Eric helped anyone on the line who was crashing hard or getting overwhelmed.

But Eric was pacing. Trying to understand why service was going so poorly. You have to understand this: there was no "talking" at TFL. It was a "call & response" kitchen. (Yes, much like the military.) Few sentences were uttered by anyone other than Thomas, and his were quite succinct as I've pointed out. Any response from us underlings that was not, "Oui Chef, or Yes Chef" had to mean something. If anyone could be prepped for that kind of job from another career it might be the people who write newspaper headlines, or surgeons and ER professionals.

Finally Eric says something that makes us all look up from our minute, detail oriented tasks. "You heard me, get off the line, all of you, I'm going to show you how to cook."

In my first 6 weeks at The French Laundry I saw a number of people get fired. Oftentimes right in the middle of service. It would go something like this:

TK: "What? What did you say? Excuse me?

Bye. Yes, leave, you're done. Yes, bye."

And a few times I saw him walk up to the sorry cook and, is his 6 foot + many-inches-of-adamantness-you don't-want-to-fuck-with way really make sure the cook stopped cooking. he wasn't physically violent-- he didn't need to be, his look and words were enough.

So when Eric asked the line to step away from their stations they all thought they were getting fired. it was quite a sight.

"No." Eric said to calm them a bit, "Stand over here, I'm going to show you how to put out this table, I'm going to show you how to cook, how to work like a team, how to put out just one ticket."

And then he did. He cooked every single course, by himself, with not another soul on the line touching sauce pots or spatulas or garnishes. He jumped this way and that, gracefully, using every part of his body, talking, admonishing, telling, teaching, showing, explaining as he went.

It was the most amazing thing I ever saw in a kitchen.

Eric took over the entire kitchen and cooked all those cooks under the fucking table. We were in awe and I have tears in my eyes and can't type fast enough to tell you this story now, more than 10 years later.

When the line resumed their positions, every single cook knew just who they were. Cooks.

You know why Eric was the very first sous chef of TFL? Because Thomas told all his line cooks the same thing on the same day. Line cooks who had been with him for years and others who had only just arrived.

"I am going to promote one person to sous. It's going to be the person who is already acting like the sous chef."

When Thomas made the announcement, half of his line walked out.

My industry will tell you life is black and white. It will whisper you dark nothings in the middle of the night. People have these words tattooed on their bodies. Everyone has scars that show and we all have scars that are invisible. 'This? This mark is from when I shaved off my pinkie on the mandolin but had to keep working because someone else had called in sick that day.'

But there's a lot of gray area too. Too much, if you ask me. These days I'm starting to think people should take a test before they open a restaurant.

It will be like a triathlon: you must work the line, well, if not stellar. You must understand and be able to explain one P&L statement. You must understand why raw fish and cooked meat cannot share the same bin in the walk-in. You must understand how to make cookies, one dessert with chocolate that's not a molten chocolate cake and it would be great if you knew the difference between panna cotta and creme brulee. The test would list a series of questions and you would be graded on how much responsibility you took for your own actions or the actions of those you hired. For bonus points you might have to research why all the restaurants in your location before yours failed, or cooking in and creating a menu for a kitchen with no Latinos (or your State/ Country picks for easy-to-exploit-able peoples.)

You get the drift. You? You're smart, right-- you understand that opening a restaurant means hours upon hours, days upon days, and years toppled on years ahead of you where these things will not be possible:

sleeping late, resting without a care in the world, taking on-the-fly vacations, turning off your cell phone, remaining oblivious to state, local and Federal labor laws, continuing to be absent or uncommunicative to your staff and diners, resting on your laurels or continuing to blame everyone else for your failures and weaknesses.

Opening A Restaurant is like stepping into an X-Ray machine. Are you ready? Wearing the right underwear? Did you floss the night before? Go on, buy those Altoids-- they'll fool a few people into thinking you haven't been drinking that morning.

I'm all fired up. Because it's been a long time since I worked with a chef who knew how to cook. On the line, where a chef has to spend some time, even if they don't for 45 years like our heroes.

I'm trying to get to the bottom of something: there are these "chefs" who say they're chefs because that word, that little innocuous word, means something to them that it doesn't mean to me.

Being a chef is hard work. Opening a restaurant is harder. If it's fame you're after there are easier professions to get there. Or just pull a few stunts: America loves people who are brave enough to do stupid shit.

My questions are these:

If you don't LOVE food, like head-over-heels-I-can't-see-that-you're-an-axe-murderer-love, why are you cooking? Wouldn't you rather have a 40 hour week with benefits and work in a bank?

If you don't want to taste and smell and eat and learn about every fruit and chocolate and nut and fat, then why are you pursuing a pastry career path?

If you don't want to cook and clean and solve problems and figure out new, more efficient ways of doing things and feed people you've never met and learn from everyone you've hired and challenge yourself mentally, physically, emotionally, spiritually and financially:

Do Not Open A Restaurant.

    /There are no shotgun restaurant openings. Restaurants don't break condoms and there are no rabbit tests for persons knocked up with a restaurant.

    Restaurants aren't opened in black outs and you can never ever use the excuse, "I didn't know what I was doing, I was drunk when I opened that restaurant."/

I'll leave you with this crazy thought: What if there were less restaurants in San Francisco & the Bay Area? What if these fewer restaurants hired all the cooks and exchanged them when someone wanted to learn something else, something new? What if less of these restaurants were cookie cut-outs of other long time Bay Area restaurants, and we had more kinds of cuisines and techniques employed and that way diners would be happier and so would so many of the local cooks who are leaving for other, more competitive cities because so many of the kitchens here do exactly the same formula, even if it's great? What if all these restaurants could thrive because there was just a little less competition? The cream rises to the top, right?

We already know these things:

There aren't enough people to fill non executive chef positions in the Bay Area. There are less than 1 million people on a peninsula that has, more than once, felt and seen the effects of a devastating economic downturn. Culinary schools are, for the most part, lying to their check-signers and future graduates about what kind of job and at what pay rate they will see after spending their 40+ thousand dollars. New mandates have just been set in place in San Francisco which will, and have already begun to, have a negative effect on restaurant owner's already low (1-3%) year's pay out, net.

There are no workers because everyone wants to be the boss. Or they want to feel like the boss. Or be called the boss.

Not me, I don't want to wear a title I polish everyday, like an obsessive antique car refurbisher. I like my fitted jacket, yes, but I work in it. I don't own my own place because I know what goes along with it. I don't want to be a single parent.

Words mean nothing without elbow grease. Show me a chef who knows how to cook, how to lead, how to delegate, how to be humble and proud (not either/ or), how to keep a restaurant afloat financially, how to make delicious food, how to know when it's time to say, "Hey I need help, I need suggestions or I need this now!" and I will show you my loyalty. I will respect you and return the favor by not cutting corners, by keeping my workplace clean and organized, tasting my food and accepting criticism, costing out my plates, treating the equipment like it's not disposable, delegating, admitting when I'm at fault, and by being humble enough to say when I can't or don't understand how to do something.

-----

This post is dedicated to the chefs who inspired it: TH, ML, TK, EZ, SB, MLH, JC, GS, JB, DK, PC, CF, HH, all of whom I have had the honor to work with and for, and some of whom I continue to know. And DC, whom I have never met, but whose words brought me both to tears and many hand gesturing exclamation points recently.

How To Make Homemade Ice Cream. Class & Flavor Notes

*Looking for a current class calendar? Click here."

Today I taught 17 high schoolers how to make ice cream. It was the first time everyone in my class was under the age of 20. Which means very little, in a way, except that unless you teach or coach high school students, you would probably not be in a class with so many of them. And I can't imagine they would all spontaneously sign up and pay for a specific subject baking class.

They are having a week-long intensive on everything ice cream, and I was the hands-on How To part of the week. Yes, some learning facilities are better than others!

We ate 3 different ice creams today: Butterscotch, Malt and Strawberry. As is the case with cooking on TV, one must have everything ready because 3 hours is just not enough time to produce various ice cream bases and their frozen twins. I made and churned butterscotch ice cream last night. For the malt I made creme anglaise last night and brought it to class as is. We froze/ churned the malt right away because I wanted to show everyone how to make the best ever chocolate "chips." (Melt chocolate and drizzle into ice cream you've just pulled from the machine, then freeze a bit more, or eat it right away!)

Lastly, we made strawberry ice cream from start to finish, eating our results within an hour of cracking eggs and prepping strawberries. Very exciting indeed.

I thought I would share with you some of my notes because, as I am wont to do, I made a lot of changes as I went along, and came up with some great results. As you know I think most recipes are guides. Ice cream is especially amenable to making it up as you go along. 

Ice cream likes when more people come to the party than were invited. It's not a rave, like soup, but feel free to take ice cream's hand, pull her on the dance floor and do a spontaneous dance for no reason except that you love how she tastes... If you know what each ingredient is there for and what each ingredient does to the end result-- taste, mouthfeel, freezing capacities, texture-- you can play quite a bit with the ratios. This is the ratio I gave to my students, knowing that they'll be using home ice cream machines, which, by the way, are not big fans of liquids insanely high in fat.

ICE CREAM BASE

WHOLE MILK        2 1/2    CUPS
HEAVY CREAM*        1 1/2    CUPS
SUGAR**                          5 to 7    ounces
EGG YOLKS        8    EACH

*please do not use ultra-pasteurized cream       
**Always split sugar in two additions.       

Here are a few methods for making creme anglaise: one, two, three. As you can see, they are quite similar. This is because it takes a certain amount of egg yolks to marry cream and become liquid custard. Too few yolks and you'll never reach nappe, too many and you may curdle the mixture before the whole body has reached coagulation. Although, truth be told, there are ways to get 10 times the amount of egg yolks into cream to create insanely thick creme anglaise, creme brulee, and many other custards, but that lesson is for a commercial kitchen with big, heavy equipment.

Nappe (pronounced na-PAY) is when creme anglaise gets thick and coats the back of a wooden spoon so when you draw a finger through it it creates a line. You could use a thermometer (and take it to 180F) but if you get used to this I guarantee you will ruin more bases than succeed, or at least you'll never teach your body what nappe feels like. Unfortunately for the somewhat lazy there's no bread machine equivalent for ice cream....

There's nothing like the flavor and texture of homemade ice cream either! Nothing beats this body memory-- sweating profusely while hand cranking a metal canister embraced by salty ice in the middle of a NYC heatwave, on the floor of a tiny cramped lower east side apartment, getting to the last two-handed push and stopping, forcing off the lid and reaching a spoon into voluptuous chilled vanilla ice cream, white and billowy, chilling teeth and tongue and throat as it went down. Mmmmm, my first homemade ice cream experience. /Thanks Dad!

So, any questions so far?

Follow instructions for making creme anglaise with these recipes, except with batch #2 strawberry-- you'll see there are some slightly different instructions there.

BUTTERSCOTCH ICE CREAM

WHOLE MILK   3.75 CUPS

1/2 & 1/2   2.25 CUPS

VANILLA BEAN   .25

RAW SUGAR   3-4 ounces

YOLKS   12

------

BUTTERSCOTCH SAUCE   5-8 OUNCES

For the vanilla infusion I took dry, brittle leftover beans and pulsed them in my little coffee/ spice grinder with 1/2 of the weighed sugar. You may also use this helpful method to get all that you can out of those expensive little black pods.

After making and chilling this anglaise for a spell I added about 5 ounces of butterscotch sauce. {Whisk a little custard into bowl of butterscotch to loosen it first. Otherwise it might be difficult to dissolve it (if butterscotch is cold.)} When base was completely cool I seasoned it a bit more, to taste, with Lima salt and vanilla extract. Goodness me oh my but this stuff should be available by prescription only...

So you don't think I have the corner on butterscotch ice cream making, here's another way of doing it.

MALT-CHOCOLATE "CHIP" ICE CREAM

WHOLE MILK   3 CUPS

HEAVY CREAM   3 CUPS

VANILLA BEAN   .25

RAW SUGAR   1 ounce

KOSHER SALT   a pinch or two

---

EGG YOLKS   13

BROWN SUGAR   2.5 ounces (light or dark is fine)

MALT POWDER*   3 ounces *You may use malt syrup instead-- it's easier to find.

---------------------

70% CHOCOLATE  @6 ounces

This: ---- indicates that brown sugar and malt powder are to be added to the yolks and should not be put in steeping dairy.

--------> Melt chocolate carefully, set aside to cool a little. When ice cream is done churning, scoop it into a cold bowl and with a slotted spoon, serving fork or whisk, sprinkle thin, quick streams of chocolate over ice cream, fold and repeat until either you have enough chocolate twigs or ice cream needs to be rushed into the freezer.

If your chief complaint with mint chocolate chip or chocolate chip ice cream is chocolate chips are too waxy, hard, big or just plain dreadful, you could say I've just solved your problem. And if you're feeling happy & generous because of it, feel free to buy me my favorite home ice cream maker... kidding. /Not.

As with the butterscotch ice cream, I prepared my vanilla sugar mixture the same way & also seasoned at the very end with a dash of salt and vanilla extract. If the malt flavor is not strong enough, you can always stir in more-- don't be shy-- have fun!

STRAWBERRY ICE CREAM

We made 2 very different bases to see what changes when you switch around the ingredients and change the method.

BASE #1:

MILK   3 CUPS

CREAM   3 CUPS

SUGAR*   12 ounces *If I were going to make this again, I would lower the amount of sugar to 9 or 10 ounces.

YOLKS   12

VANILLA BEAN   .5

BASE #2:

1/2 & 1/2   3 CUPS

EGG YOLKS   12

SUGAR*   12 ounces *If I were going to make this again, I would lower the amount of sugar to 9 or 10 ounces.

--------

HEAVY CREAM   3 CUPS

------

When base was cool we made a strawberry coulis in the blender of about 3 baskets of strawberries, a splash of water and some sugar, and added this to the custard, after it had been chilled. We made "strawberry custard," not by cooking the strawberries, but by adding our coulis to the creme anglaise to taste.

In another bowl we rough-chopped 3 more baskets of strawberries, tossed them with a splash of sugar, and after our strawberry ice cream was done churning, we married the two together.

-----> Hint: place metal bowl in freezer. When ice cream is ready to come out of machine, use a spatula to lift it into metal bowl and fold macerated strawberry chunky stuff into fresh ice cream. {at this point I will admit it's hard to get it into containers in the freezer. freshly churned ice cream is the best mouth feel!}

This is what I ate for lunch and I would do it again.

In base #2 we followed the method of making ice cream Chez Panisse employs. Instead of cooking all the dairy to have an end result of one cohesive creme anglaise, they want their diners to taste the pure taste of cream with a hint of flavor. For certain flavors I will use this method because the uncooked cream can be a delightful side flavor to a main flavor, especially when the main flavor is inherently bright, like with fruit or some herbs and spices.

If you are of the mind to think of some flavors as warm and some as cool, you know what I mean. It's true that when some of the dairy stays away from heat, you create a very different ice cream flavor profile.

Good To Know Ice cream Hints & Allegations:

High acid sugars:            
    Maple, brown sugars, raw sugar, Organic sugar, honey, malt, molasses, and/or fructose based sugars like stevia and agave…       

When using high acid sugars, never:            
    steep first hot mixture with them.

Instead:
    make your "liaison" with them. (add them into yolks, not steeping dairy.)   

Always steep until taste. Every aromatic is different.                

Remember that when ice cream is frozen it will taste 10% less strong.
Inversely, ice cream base will taste sweeter & saltier when hot. Season base "to taste" when fully chilled.               

If you make a milk anglaise and pass this into cream, you will also diminish the strength of the initial anglaise flavor, but also "brighten" the cream taste.
         
If you ever find that the ice cream base "curdles" somewhere along the way you can "save" it in the blender or with a stick-blender.         

Never cook high acid dairies like buttermilk, crème fraiche, yogurt, cultured cheeses.                

Always add high acid liquids to ice cream base after chilling it through and through.
    High acid liquids: citrus juice, the above dairies, molasses, fruit purees, vinegars, etc.               

An invert sugar is one that exists in nature as a liquid.               
    Examples: corn syrups, glucose, honey, simple syrup, agave syrup, malt syrup, maple syrup, molasses, Lyle's Golden syrup, Treacle, etc.            

Both Invert Sugars and alcohol will lower the freezing temperature of ice creams and sorbet. Meaning that ice cream and sorbet will not freeze as hard if these are present. For example, it's almost impossible to make smooth chocolate ice cream without at least one invert sugar.
   
Never seal closed an ice cream base in the fridge if it is still warm or hot. Always chill in ice bath, stirring frequently, until cold through and through to the touch before storing and covering.      
   
Creme Anglaise will keep 5 to 7 days if it has not been churned.               

To preserve aroma and flavor, sorbet should be churned the day it is made, but it will keep 3 to 5 days.    

Always whisk bases thoroughly before churning. Some flavors will settle, or sometimes bases will separate a bit in storage.

If you are going to season with vanilla extract, do so after the base has been chilled.    

And don't forget-- never throw out that used & spent looking vanilla bean sheath when you're done infusing! The whole pod is edible and you can dry it and zap it in a spice grinder when it's thoroughly dried out.       

So, nu? You think you might be making your own ice cream soon?

Enjoy!

    ~   come one, come all, come hungry to learn!  ~    

Local Vegetarian Dinner, at a farm!

You never know who you're going to run into when you're standing in the middle of the street taking pictures in West Oakland.

Today, after working a few shifts, disheveled and uniformed, standing in the middle of a completely desolate area, I heard my name being called. There came Leif, on his smooth riding bicycle. He said,

"I asked myself who could be standing there in chef's pants taking photos?!"

Leif found me on the Internet and I met him through Blossom Bluff Orchards-- my favorite farm for all stone fruit, except, of course, peaches.

I have never been to one of his dinners, but check out the details of this one, they're pretty nifty.

And hey, you never know, maybe one day this summer we'll make a dinner together... When one's life is not married to one particular job, anything is possible, right?

SOIL TO STUDIO
FARM TO TABLE

join us for a very special evening at
Grandma Mary's Farm in El Cerrito.
~ Grandma Mary's Organic Farm is a half-acre urban agricultural site located within walking distance from BART. The site hosts Kleiwerks West, natural building and permaculture workshops.

Sasha Duerr, founder of the Permacouture Institute, is going to conduct a plant-based dyes studio workshop. Following that, I am going to serve a five course vegetarian dinner using many of the same plants used to make the dyes.

April 12
4pm-10pm

Address in El Cerrito will be included with your  RSVP confirmation
BYOB
live music by Clark Meremeyer

$70 - $120 sliding scale. This is a benefit for the permacouture institute.

rsvp to sashaduerr AT gmail.com

Menu:

mache, orach, upland cress, watermelon radish, kumquat, walnut, and andante chevre

soup of princess laratte potato, golden turnip, knoll green garlic, star route baby favas, saffron, and berkswell

knoll rapinis, dandelion, various kales, black trumpets

dirty girl chioggas with puree of stinging nettles

riverdog asparagus with gold nugget mandarin and strauss brown butter

rancho gordo tepary beans with red cabbage, avocado, fennel, coriander, sesame, ginger, and hemp

strawberry, young coconut, lemongrass, blossom bluff dried stonefruit confit, cowgirl creamery creme fraiche,  maple, tonka bean

Hope to see you there,

Leif Hedendal

    It's hard to get more local than a farm you can take public transportation to, n'est pas? If you manage to get a seat, please do report back and tell us all what you think...

Bay Area Baking Class: Caramel as a Subject 4.19.08

{Please click here to see what I'm teaching right now.}    

I will not lie, this class is not full and in order to teach it I need a few more students... 

When was the last time you made caramel confidently? How many pots have you ruined? What is the difference between amber and burnt caramel? How much butter can you add, how much cream, and can you add both? What is caramel sauce and did you know gastrique can be applied to sweet and savoury foods?

CARAMEL

is the subject of one of my next classes. Get more confident around this dangerous substance. Understand mounting and avoid crystallization. Taste the difference between various caramels, develop a taste memory for salts and dairy seasonings, and walk away with a caramel swagger.

CARAMEL
Saturday April 19, 2008
12 Noon - 3 pm

$125*

*There's one spot left for assisting on this class.

Paulding & Company Kitchen
Emeryville, California

Payment Information:

A direct Paypal link is in eggbeater's upper left hand column, right under the "What's Next? San Francisco/Bay Area Baking & Culinary Classes on the Horizon: A Calendar" link. If you prefer to send me a check, send an email and request and address. **Please be specific about which class you are signing up for.**

*There are 2 spots in each class reserved for "assistant" positions at $65 each. These positions are offered to those people who might not be able to afford the class otherwise. Please email me directly if you feel you qualify-- do not register at this price unless you've emailed me first. You will come early to set up and stay late to clean up. You do not need previous or professional experience.

This class will max out at about 15 people. Please check back in here to make sure you're not paying for a class that is closed. If, for any unforeseeable reason the class needs to be canceled, you will be paid back in full minus whatever fees Paypal takes. There are no refunds.

*

Yes, my classes are thorough. Yes, I answer all your questions and some you don't even know you have.
Yes, I will be teaching more classes in the upcoming months
Yes: if you can't make it to these classes I will teach these subjects again, BUT I can't guarantee when.
Yes, I take suggestions for subjects!

YES, I CAN TEACH IN YOUR CITY. Contact me directly if you want me to teach near you.

Yes, you'll miss out if you keep saying, "I'll take the next class..."

If these classes filled up before you even knew about them--
Yes, please: sign up on my personal private mailing list by emailing me and asking.
It's that easy to know first!

Isn't it time you understood the Whys as well as the Hows?

come one, come all, come hungry to learn!

/new crazy work schedule.

suddenly I am quite busy.
a little too busy.
working here and there, to and fro. yesterday I worked in 2 kitchens, totally different.
and 2 classes next week-- I am teaching ice cream basics to a large group of high schoolers on 4/8, and then of course the pastry class on 4/12.
i'll be lucky if I can take this sunday off.
you know what's going to be really fun? getting to work at 5:30 am this saturday. eek.
"consulting" is a such an interesting beast. mostly it means I have a bit of free time to jump into the fire of other kitchens i like. not married to one can be freeing and expanding, if not a little schizophrenic. consulting means making sure to schedule in some time off, if possible.

the best thing about my second job is i'm not just a sweet chef there. there's a smoker and a lot of chicken to coat in flour and coleslaw to make on the fly and an amazing, kick ass chef to take orders from. we both come from the old school and i can't tell you how refreshing it is! sometimes just the mere sight of watching someone on the line whose body moves economically, whose line-cooking abilities are as fluid as Venezuelan Spanish, is a beautiful thing. something profound has been lost when chefs can no longer line-cook. it's been almost 15 years since i worked the line and i can't think of a better person to re-learn from.

and the smoker? 3 of me could fit in there comfortably. zow.

p.s. on another, completely different note, word from Nate, chef of A16 is in--- whole roasted fava beans can be found there starting now. please. go. there. really, you won't be disappointed.

Pavlova & New Spring Strawberries!

Remember Pavlova?

Now that I'm creating simple, easy to plate, seasonal & straightforward desserts for a new place, I am calling upon those recipes who don't steer me wrong. Just a little finesse on the back-end means elegant, but not too complicated, delivery for the diner.

As soon as I heard strawberries were worth a try I knew Pavlova would be their first vehicle. New Spring strawberries are a little tart because the sun is not as strong. Rhubarb is coming out of greenhouses but is still a little watery because when the plants start and finish in soil they have to work a little harder for moisture.

My idea is this-- roast strawberries in a light sprinkling of vanilla bean sugar, and turn them into a vibrant, intense sauce. Poach rhubarb, making sure not to overcook it so as to keep it's super feminine hot pink liquid, and turn that into a transparent gelee. Sugar sear pieces of rhubarb, using the forces of osmotic reciprocity. Bake a thin layer of light vanilla cake (like Angel Food Cake but cheating by adding melted butter), and hide this under the Pavlova. Whip ever-so-slightly-sweetened, vanilla kissed chantilly.

Voila!

Hidden white fluffy cake, Pavlova, whipped cream, fuschia rhubarb gelee, hot pink pieces of tender rhubarb: intact but not too sweet, and a swirl of intensely flavored strawberry sauce to make the sweet-sour, red-pink, strawberry-rhubarb, pastel palette, crunch-soft (for the Pavlova must be crunchy meringue on the outside and pillowy cloud of soft marshmallowy deliciousness to be a true Pavlova), plate complete.

Simple. Delicious. Pretty in Pink.

See you soon?

Naming Names: Chefs Who Blog

I have found another chef who wrote about the pros and cons of disclosing who she is and where she works yesterday. The name of the blog is Playing With Fire And Water and you can find the post here. My response, in her comments section, included some of these sentences, which I am sharing with you because it was only at this point in time that I found myself able to express some of the whys about what I do here at Eggbeater:

    "...I did not lose my job because I was writing about it. I wrote about the pros and cons of disclosure to try and make sense of the whys for and the whys against. [Just to be clear, the last job I held lost it's entire management team 3 weeks after my lay off. They all left on the same night, with no notice to the staff or press.]

I consider myself part of an industry, part of a community (well, many), and as a chef-blogger, part of a communal voice speaking to outsiders and insiders about a profession I feel is grossly misrepresented in mainstream media and by culinary school check takers.

I never had the option to be anonymous so it's hard for me to speak to that choice, I will admit.

But having an open door email box and a public persona means that I mentor and support both in person and quietly, many many people looking for validation because, as you know, what we do is basically work alone among others working alone. We have our kitchen that serves as family and community but of course that's not enough...

It's nothing short of amazing to me to meet chefs all over the country through blogging. To ask and answer questions, to laugh about similar situations and to brainstorm our way out of dreadful kitchens and crazy bosses-- this is why I'm grateful to be doing what I'm doing.

I've added you to a list of chef-bloggers I, and Michael Ruhlman, are compiling. (I tried to hyperlink this but your blog said no.)

Thank you for, as you say, "coming out of your comfort zone" to write this. It means a lot to me, but more importantly, it gives further shape to voices unheard in mainstream media about who are chefs and how we can all be chefs without The Prescribed Story."

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Michael Ruhlman has recently inspired me to do something I'd been wanting to for some time: separate and compile a list of professional cook & chef blogs. Find them by following the link to my page "more like this one elsewhere ~"

There was an article in the LA Times about chefs who blog, as well. The author, Regina Schrambling, touches on the good point about whether chefs who are merely selling themselves as a product are true bloggers or not.

    "The question of authorship and authenticity is always a big one in the blogosphere, but in the chef realm maybe not so much."

There are always arguments about the finer points of an underground revolution by those who feel they own it. Think any artistic movement, like punk rock, jazz, slam poets or experimental filmamkers. What's more interesting to me is finding and reading, supporting and being supported by, validating and inquiring of, hearing and arguing with, meeting and getting met by those new people, {chefs, cooks and others} who would have never crossed my path otherwise.

My favorite quote from Ms. Schrambling's article is at the very end,

    "Even if blogs do not totally eliminate the middleman, whether agent or collaborator, they do seem to liberate chefs.

And with that liberation comes exposure, both the fantastic kind where one's bathed in a sea of lights on a stage in front of one's fans, or the sordid sort where you're naked in the desert without sunscreen.

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Other chef bloggers who wrote on the subject of disclosure: Ideas in Food, Chadzilla and Line Cook.