Paris - Part One

Looking back at the writeup of the Italy trip, I see that I managed to get that posted a week after returning and am quite impressed. For the latest trip to Paris and London, we took about twice as many pictures -- seven hundred and change -- almost as many as our memory card can hold. That's a lot of pictures to post and talk about, so I am going to break it up into parts and post them over time. As we did with previous trips like this, we planned our first day to be lots of walking so that we could fall into bed at 8:00 pm and reset our body clocks to the local time. In service of this, we planned a walk through the oldest part of the city and through several churches in that area. First we had to get there. The Metro stop closest to our hotel was disrupted because of some protesting, so we walked to the next one. Sadly, this one was packed with everyone else avoiding the closer one, and was so crowded with people that a confusing situation was made even more so. The fact that the ticket machines were only in French didn't help. Thankfully walking the next station resolved the issue, since it was much less busy and we didn't feel rushed to vacate the machine. We managed to figure out that the little metal bumper dealie at the base of the screen was actually a roller for moving the cursor. Very odd. Sort of a silver banana instead of a mouse.

The walk started at and around Notre Dame which was huge and gothic and impressive. As is typical of us, silly details tended to catch our eye more than the larger picture. The exposed buttresses on the side were both impressive to see and fun to say. Buttress! It's like female butter! We also enjoyed picking out odd sections from the statuary on the face of the building. Of particular interest were the statues of St. Dennis with his head on a platter in his hands and another of a dude who, for no reason we could gather, was standing on a sheep.

We tended to find some of the smaller, out of the way sites to be more enjoyable than the more popular ones. A good example of this was St. Chappelle. This is a church that was built somewhat in the courtyard of another building, but that had used buttresses (hee!) to make the walls in the chapel almost entirely stained glass. It was an amazing effect to see so many floor to ceiling windows in such bright colors, and we thankfully got a rare burst of sunlight to make it all the more special.

An unfortunate sight on our first day was finding things we wanted to see closed. This happened at two separate parks as well as a memorial to the Jews deported in world war two. I suppose that on a rainy off season Saturday we should have expected as much, but it still became an irritating pattern. Thankfully, after day one it passed.

Paris, like Rome (and London for that matter) straddles a river. Unlike the Tiber, however, the Seine (which I never really figured out how to pronounce, so I just mumbled something different every time) is actually displayed and used instead of ignored. There are dinner cruises, parks that overlook it, and pricey real estate lining it. It also was a very handy tool for figuring out where things were relative to each other.

A site that we enjoyed much more than we expected was the Rodin museum. Going in, we knew little of Rodin other than The Thinker. Seeing a large grouping of his work and reading about each in our guidebook really made it interesting. We also are suckers for gorgeous old buildings and gardens like the mansion he lived in, where the museum is set.

There were several Rodin sculptures that really caught our fancy, but none as much as the Gates of Hell. This was a huge set of doors carved with scenes from Dante's Inferno. It was an enormous piece of work, yet so full of details and personality. We were quite taken.

A theme that began to develop on day two was how much the French royalty loved the French royalty. By the end of the trip I had decided that they pretty much had it coming with the revolution. The beginning of this revelation was Napoleon's Tomb at Les Invalides (yes, I know that Napoleon came after the revolution.) The man was not modest. From the gilded dome and spire to the fourteen nested coffins surrounded by angels and scenes of Napoleon being awesome while dressed as an ancient Greek, the man knew how to brag -- even from the grave. Mary and I pointed out all the great ideas we were getting for each other's memorials, and determined which family members we would put in each of the many alcoves and chapels that Napoleon had put his relatives in.

One thing we really liked about Paris was that despite being ancient and very crowded, it still had a lot of green space set aside. Here is Place Vosges, which was a square that one of the Louises had created so he could be surrounded by the right kind of people. They so had it coming. It was a lovely park surrounded by cute shops and cafes. I can definitely imagine returning to Paris during the much busier summer season and spending our time picnicking in parks and people watching in cafes.

Another interesting theme from Paris was the juxtaposition of very modern elements with very traditional ones. In this case, it's the famed (and sometimes loathed) glass pyramids of the Louvre. We really liked them, and the inverted one in the underground entry area was particularly cool. Throughout the visit, we would see modern art installations in parks or at sites that had a much more classical feel. We saw the usual suspects in our visit, but it was a few less famous (but I am sure well known by those more cultured than us) works that we preferred. The Raft of the Medusa is a scene of despair and madness as the remaining crew of a sunken ship fight for life adrift on choppy waters. How can some smiling chick compare to that?

Paris was home to the impressionist movement, which neither of us cares for that much. Still, how could we not go to see the water lilies in the space they were painted for? Especially because it was on our way and covered by our museum pass? We ended up enjoying these quite a bit, and seeing them in person does make a huge difference. The scale is amazing (some were six feet by twenty or thirty feet.) In this case it was the lack of detail that was interesting. Being able to move in and see the brush strokes, then step back and see the images that they formed was very cool.

More recurring themes! This time, cramped stairwells. We ended up climbing up the inside of four different structures on the trip, the first being the Arc d' Triumph shown here.

The Arc grants some amazing views if you can stomach the many steps to get to the top. From here you could see the layout of the city and find that it actually had some method to its madness. Here we are looking down the Champs Elysee, which is the Magnificent Mile of Paris. This was a day of massive amounts of walking for us and in the distance, behind the partially constructed Ferris Wheel (take that, Eiffel!) you can see the Louvre where our trek had begun.

A rare picture with both of us! Rare for a reason, as I still haven't mastered the outstretched arm self photo. On top of this one with us blocking the arc, I also have several of us with the Eiffel Tower sticking out of each of our heads.

Another great, out of the way sight is the Sacre Coeur. It sits on a rare hill in the Monmarte district, and is worth the climb. The exterior is a striking white, with byzantine domes. It reminded us a lot of St. Mark's in Venice. It is also in a seedier part of town, so the normal vendors of light-up plastic Eiffel Towers were much more aggressive, and were joined by men selling beer. From a six pack. In a brown bag. Still, we enjoyed the church and found a fun restaurant nearby where we got excellent desserts and wine.

The Sacre Coeur was the second climb we did and it afforded some nice, nighttime views of the city. Part of the climb took us up over rooftops of various parts of the church and gave us some up close time with gargoyles and the domes themselves, which we quite enjoyed.

Finally, no trip would be complete without some entertaining miscellany that caught my eye. As great as the Metro system was (once we figured out the ticketing machines) I have to admit that the best part for me was the signage. There were several that I didn't get good shots of (a bunny getting his hand trapped in the door, what looked like the silhouette of Siamese twins,) but this was probably my favorite. It's so detailed! So lifelike! You can easily imagine the poor man flailing as he falls to his death. Also, it is very reminiscent of the credits for Mad Men, which both Mary and I love. Neat!

CSA Week 8

I somehow seem to have gotten my numbering off on these posts. We are in week eight now, but the last post was on week six. I suspect that my catchup should have covered an extra delivery, but let's let sleeping dogs lie, shall we?

More Fennel this week. This time it had more bulb and a little less frond. We made a roasted pork tenderloin with apples and fennel with it, and it was absolutely delicious.

Portobello Mushrooms went into a pasta.

Hey look, it's more potatoes! We used a bunch in a Rosti and are down to just under one bag. Until this week's share comes.

Apparently green beans like the cold weather. We have been getting a ton of them. We made a bean and bacon salad for thanksgiving one year, I think it's time to bust that bad boy out.

At this point in the season, what is left to be said about zucchini?

A small bunch of parsley. For a change, it's small enough that we might reasonably be able to use it.

We plan on stacking these carrots up with last weeks carrots and building a tower to the moon.

Having grown weary of making cucumber and feta salads, I decided to try making a sorbet with these cucumbers. My plan was to aim for a Cucumber Mojito Sorbet, and I based it off a recipe I found online. I swapped out the vanilla in the simple syrup for mint from the rooftop deck, but found that after I mixed it into to cucumber puree, the cucumber flavor was still surprisingly dominant. I ended up picking some more mint and pureeing it into the mixture. This lead to a nice balance of flavors, and flecked the sorbet with tiny bits of dark green. The sorbet has a surprising melon flavor, and is really growing on me. I can definitely see making it again (maybe next week, if we get even more cucumbers.)

These oblong onions appear to be the only kind we are getting this year. Either that, or the normal ones are delayed along with the corn and tomatoes because of the screwy weather.

CSA Week 6

Back on schedule!

The big kitchen excitement from last week was my attempt to make a sourdough starter. I was following the method outlined in The Bread Baker's Apprentice, which involves multiple days of feeding and culling the starter, followed by turning it into a more standard starter (called a 'barm'.) Sadly, this didn't go so well. I made it about halfway through the process (just about to barm) and decided that I really wasn't getting any rise at all. I looked online and got some tips to help with the situation, so I started the process again. This time I rode it out all the way to the barm stage, but when that was supposed to have doubled in four hours but showed no rise in eight, I threw in the towel. Instead I made french bread which was more delicious than I remembered. Take that, sourdough!

We are firmly in summer now (despite the lingering cold) which means we are getting hardier fare. Still no corn or tomatoes, but we'll hoping for a good season (and raiding the farmer's market.)

We got our first potatoes of the year. It feels a bit early for these, and if we end up with more than ten weeks in a row of getting potatoes then we are in real trouble. These are going into a roasted potato salad that we like.

Two huge bulbs of garlic. I mean, really huge.

More onions.

A very small head of lettuce. After the spring's onslaught, we took a bit of a break from salads, so this guy ended up being a nice, fresh reminder of spring.

Chives will get snuck into pretty much every place we can think to. We always find it a challenge to get through them before they go bad.

This year seems to be the year of Green beans and dill. We made a recipe with the last share's beans using dill and goat cheese, and plan to use this one to make an orzo, dill, and fennel salad.

Portobello mushrooms are not an acceptable substitute for meat no matter what the vegetarians say, but they are tasty marinated and grilled.

And so our nemesis carrots slip into the house silently. Again, if we get two pounds a week for ten weeks we are in trouble.

Two small bulbs of fennel with hugely long fronds. These are slated for the bean and orzo salad. Fennel is an odd duck. It has such a strong scent when I cut it, but it seems to disappear into most dishes we put it in. I do like it, but it befuddles me so.

CSA Catchup

With the excitement over the bathroom remodel and pastry camp (combined with my general laziness) I have fallen behind on CSA posts. Let's remedy that, shall we?

Week four to me marked the end of spring produce. We got more lettuces (salads, natch), more berries, and more scapes. The scapes were very long lasting, which is good because we are pretty slow to use them. The last of them are actually going into a stir fry for lunch today. We also started getting hearty greens in week 4, which we actually quite enjoy. These ended up in a pasta dish, though we have many uses for them. The zucchini flow continued unabated as well, and we tried some muffins with a cinnamon topping with some of this batch.

Week five brought more summer produce our way. Zucchini was used as a vegetable, as well as turned into zucchini bread. Cabbage is usually a tough one for us, because most recipes call for at most half a head, and make many many (many) servings. We made a slaw and soup with this head, though half the soup went straight to the freezer. We were super excited to see the first beets of the season. We roasted them and tossed them with feta and onions as we always do, because it's a recipe that never lets us down. It was wonderful again this time. We actually had a similar salad that a friend made for a cookout that put the beets and (in this case) goat cheese over baby spinach, and it was a great combination. We'll try that later in the season when we get arugula, since it would probably translate well. This week also signaled the end of the berries. Alas, poor berries, we hardly knew ye. We love the CSA fruit, since it's usually so perfectly ripe and sweet, but the season can't last forever.

By week six, we'd usually be nearing tomato season. Sadly, this has been a very cold summer, so the summer crops (corn, tomatoes) have been slow growing. We fear that this also means they will be smaller and appear is less quantity, and for that we weep. Tomatoes and corn are two of our favorite produce items, so it's sad that we may see less of them this year. Oh well, at least we didn't get grape leaves. We oddly saw a decline in zucchini this week. It seems a bit early for it to peter out, so I suspect that it's just saving it's energy for a serious onslaught next week. Cucumbers, on the other hand, are coming on strong. One a week is a pretty brisk pace for us, so getting two this week will present a challenge. They'll likely get tossed with feta and cherry tomatoes and served as a side. As always, we keep meaning to bring celery as snacks to work, but fail to do so. The broccoli is going into a stir fry (the great clearninghouse of vegetables) and the basil onto a pizza we are making for dinner tonight. Chard, finally, went into a skillet meal with onions and parsley (which also lasted an impressively long time) with eggs and asiago cheese. It was delicious and woudl actually make us seek out chard again to make it.

The End of the Road

The bathroom is officially completed! As usual, several steps took much longer than we had hoped. The grouting and sealing went well, and there were no surprises there. Each coat of sealant in small areas like this takes less time to apply than to clean up from. A day needs to pass in between coats, and we were aiming for three coats. Luckily, this is a task custom made for weeknights after work. Our first unexpected roadblock was with the light fixture. When we took down the old one, we found that there was no junction box behind it. Putting in a junction box isn't usually too hard, so we didn't think this would be much of an issue. Oh, little did we know. When I started looking seriously at planning the junction box installation, I realized that with the location of studs and pipes it was going to be more off center than expected (and a bit of a challenge to put in.) When we held up our light to the actual location it be in, we found that it was too wide and would be hitting the wall on one side. Back to the drawing board (or lighting store, as the case may be.) It took us a week to find a light we liked, and since that was in a catalog it took another week for delivery. It's these little extra bits that are killer to projects and really drag them out. We had tried to be good about getting everything in advance but alas, twas not to be.

While waiting for the light I put in the junction box. For various boring technical reasons, this was quite difficult, but after creating several jigs and after several attempts, I got it where I wanted it. The light arrived and looked great in the space, so at least there's a happy ending. The light fiasco delayed our painting of the walls, because we needed to patch around the new junction box but I wanted to actually have the light to verify that it was good where it was. I had images of having to redo the box and the patching around it dancing through my head, but luckily those didn't come to fruition. With the patching done, we painted and headed into the home stretch of what we hoped would be simple installations. First up was the vanity and sink. Plumbing projects require saints' patience, and since I know this I always go in planning on having to make several trips to the store. My goal this time was to only have to do three, and I met (but didn't exceed) that goal. Our water shutoffs are very odd sizes, and it took two Home Depot trips and a trip to the real plumbing store (who I really should have just started with) before I got the right bits. With those in hand, I plumbed the various bits together (this was in the afternoons after pastry camp) and got the vanity in place and the sink secured. Other than a drip from a bad shutoff valve (which required a shockingly expensive plumber visit) it went well and everything worked on the first try.

From here on out it was smooth sailing -- The toilet went in without a hitch, the last trim pieces went up cleanly, and all of the towel bars and whatnot fit like a dream. We are very happy with how the bathroom turned out, and generally happy with how the renovation went. We certainly would have preferred fewer plumbing trips and not to have the light issues, but in the end nothing huge and irreversible went wrong, and what else can one really ask for?

Pastry Camp - Day Five

Before we get into the last day of pastry camp, I have to do a follow up on the macarons. After tasting the demo ones straight from the fridge, I had reported them good, not great, and the earl grey flavor to be very mild. Allowed to mellow at room temperature for a day, however, the ones I brought home were pretty spectacular. Now that I have sampled these, I may actually embrace the madness and attempt them at home.

On to day five! Before class I snuck into my office and left a care package for the folks there. We had a lot of pate d fruit for just Mary and I, as well as a ton of macarons. I left some of both of those for the guys, and also some of the nougatine crisp which was a bit too bitter for Mary (though I really like it's sharp taste.)

Out of the first demo, we got going on making guimauve (pronounced gee-mowve, but you can call them marhmallows) so that they would have time to set. When she got to the point of pouring them into trays to set during the demo, she mentioned that if we wanted to we could pipe them into peeps by whipping them a little longer. Exactly one person in class got excited -- luckily you are reading his blog.

Creating the marshmallow was a pretty similar to creating the italian meringue that we prepared as part of the macaron dough, but we whipped it slightly longer to get it to the proper texture. Since my partner wanted to take some actual marshmallows home, we pulled them at the proper texture for pouring and poured half into the prepared tray. After settings these got cut into cubes and dusted with corn starch and powdered sugar.

I let the other half of the mixture cool in a piping bag, periodically testing it to see if it was firm enough to hold its shape once piped. It took a long time for it to get to the point where it could, and left a trail of sad puddles where piped peeps had collapsed. Sadly it held this temperature for shockingly short time, and I was left with just one ok peep. Still, it had been an experiment, and since Mary doesn't care for marshmallows much it wasn't much of a loss to only have one success. If I do these again (and really, why wouldn't I?) then I will whip until the dough holds it's shape and then pipe more quickly. Hopefully keeping them whipping until they get to the right place will let them keep that pipability a little longer next time.

Next up was making our warm chocolate cakes. These are the plated dessert where you have a lovely chocolate cake and then cut in to find that it's totally undercooked. Have I sold you yet? The chef told the story of their creation. A junior chef undercooked the cakes for a large event by accident and the guests loved them. While I know a lot of folks who love these, they are just too richly chocolate for me. The mix was pretty straightforward, though once we baked them we got to make fun chocolate swirls for them. We served them plated with a scoop of the hazelnut ice cream from the previous day's demo and the chocolate swirls. I have to say, the best part was the hazlenut ice cream, which had a wonderful toastiness to it that just stole my heart. I brought home two (frozen) cakes to make later, and I will probably cook them almost all the way set when I make them, to help offset the richness.

We followed the cakes with lollipops. The chef had all sorts of flavorings, but when she used the lime in the demo the kitchen was filled with such a true fresh lime flavor that we just had to go with that. We died our pops green (though I threatened to make them red to through folks off kilter) and then used a neat trigger-action funnel to pipe them onto a pan. This was another recipe that made a ton, so I brought a lot home. Since each group only made one flavor/color, we did some horse trading at the end to make sure everyone got to bring home a variety. It is interesting to compare the caramel from yesterday with the lollipops from today, because even though the lollipops were cooked to a much higher temperature, the sugar didn't brown at all. It's amazing how much difference the amount of liquid you add can make.

Our last two tidbits where cutting and wrapping our chocolate caramels from the day before (again with some trading so that everyone got a mix of the chocolate and the plain) and brulee our creme brulees. The chocolate caramels were actually much tastier than I expected, but I was still happy to have ended up with more of the regular kind. I am a real sucker for caramels, and Mary prefers them as well. The brulee was fun, but fairly straightforward. At this point I was pretty wasted from all the tastings we had done, so I only ate about half of it. It was a little less set than those I have had in the past, but surprisingly light. The passion fruit puree that we added really brought down the richness, though it was still a lot of flavor. Overall this week has been pretty amazing. I have learned a lot of neat recipes, and better understand why they do the things they do. I am excited to experiment with some of the techniques I picked up, and to repeat some of the things that I would never have tried on my own otherwise. It was a great experience, and I am very happy that I did it. I'd suggest the week to anyone with the time and inclination, and will likely look into some of the other classes (bread baking, I'm looking at you.)

Pastry Camp - Day Four

Since day three was about preparing a lot of parts of products, day four was all about finishing those up. The morning demo covered a lot of smallish things, and since very little oven time was needed folks seemed to all attack them in different orders.

We started out by preparing Passion Fruit Creme Brulee, since they had to cook the longest and were likely to have the most oven contention (only one deck oven was set for this, so only three could bake them at once.) This was a pretty easy mixture of eggs, sugar and creme, which got baked in dishes in a water bath. The chef warned us that if we didn't mix the sugar into the eggs (but rather just dumped it in and left it in a lump) then it can actually cause some of the protein to coagulate. A good tip, and I'll be more careful in the future when I am mixing these particular ingredients. This was placed in the fridge overnight and will get bruleed tomorrow.

We then made a chocolate custard to fill our small tart shells. This was pretty similar to the lemon curd in process. We had to give a few of our shells foil collars, since we had been a bit over-aggressive when pressing the dough into the rings and left some holes behind. The other shells mocked them relentlessly. This was baked in the deck oven until almost set and then once cooled decorated with the nougatine crisp from yesterday. The demo tarts were delicious, with a great bitterness balanced by just enough sweetness. We had a ton of nougatine crisp leftover, so we broke that up and brought it home to have just as candy. We also had some leftover chocolate custard mixture, which we froze and brought home. This is actually perfect, because we also have some spare dough in the freezer for making tart shells. Problem, meet solution. Delicious, delicious solution.

The earl grey ganache was next deployed in filling our macarons and as truffles. Some folks had had issues with their ganache, so the intern Laura (not to be confused with the chef Laura) had made some flavored with Darjeeling so we'd have spare. While our ganache was good, we decided to leave a few macarons for the darjeeling so we could sample another flavor. Here I will admit that I am fully converted to the piping bag. We filled many, many macarons in not a lot of time since we could easily and quickly pipe filling onto them. These got smooshed together into little sandwiches and packed away. Since my partner is staying at a hotel, I ended up with way more than half so I sense another delivery to work coming up.

The truffles were pretty easy to make. These were rolled ones, so we didn't need any special molds for them. We piped little marble sized dollops of the ganache and chilled them in the fridge until they stiffened up. We then rolled them between gloved hands and let them chill again (again to stiffen.) From here they got two thin coats of chocolate and a dusting of cocoa powder. Let me tell you, these suckers are something I will make again. The earl grey ganache was good but subtle in the macarons, but in the truffles it was miraculous. The flavor of the tea really came through, but melded so well with the chocolate of the ganache and the thin shell.

The second demo was to show us ice creams and sorbets (which only got demoed since it'd be hard to take home.) They approach this in an even more scientific way than other foods, and thus have recipes that perfectly balance solids versus liquids, water versus fat, etc. They use a stabilizer to help control the ice crystal formation some, and I may actually look it up online to help keep my ice creams smoother at home.

The last thing of the day was to make caramels or chocolate caramels (each table did one or the other.) Both followed similar patterns, and diverged just in what got mixed in in the end. Though I make toffee at christmas, that involves heating sugar with a fair amount of liquid and fat from the get go. For these, we heated just sugar and glucose (think corn syrup) until it was way on the brown side of golden brown (she warned us that she was going to make us take it past where we were comfortable.) Then you whisk in butter and cream (carefully) and heat and whisk even more, until you get the right temperature and consistency. At this point we added melted chocolate and brought it back to temperature, then poured it into a prepared pan. That will set and cool overnight, then we'll cut and wrap it tomorrow.

We also got back the meringues that we made on the first day, and used the 'petals' to decorate our lemon tarts. We were given some bags, boxes, and ribbons to put the remaining meringues, nougatine crisp, and truffles into. We had an incredible amount of food to bring home today, and it's pretty overwhelming. I asked the chef (who had been through the full program) what one does when they get this much candy and sweets every week. She said that you become your doorman's favorite person, your dry cleaner's favorite person, your friends' best friend, etc. Because we spent so much of the day finishing up the products that we had started on previous days, I could really feel the finality of the impending program end. We have one day left, and I am quite sad that it's coming to a close. I've really had a blast.

Pastry Camp - Day Three

I am learning to love the piping bag. When I came to the demo at the school, I was struck with how much they (over)used the piping bag. It seemed like anytime they wanted to put something somewhere, they would pipe it. Now that I have used it a bit more, I am seeing the wisdom of this -- It's a really easy way to portion things cleanly and quickly.

Today's first demo featured the bulk of the products for the day, with macarons being the day's big challenge (more on that later.) Only making lemon curd and filling the lemon tarts was set for later, and even that was optional (it could be pushed to the next day.) Because the macaron recipe made a large number and needed the smaller convection oven, we did them in shifts (this time working backwards from table nine so they weren't always at the end.)

We started out with making Earl Grey Ganache, which was to fill the macarons and be rolled into truffles. We steeped the loose tea in cream and it smelled so amazing. I love earl grey, and am really looking forward to tasting this once it's worked into the final products. This was a fairly straightforward process, and involved getting things to proper temperature and mixing.

Ganache is an emulsion (fat suspended in water,) which means that it is prone to breaking. We hoped that someone's would break so that we could see the fix for it, and alas that someone was us. We cooled it too unevenly, so that when we mixed in the butter it ended up looking grainy. Not to worry, however, because fixing it just involved heating a tablespoon of cream and slowly whisking in the broken ganache (which I refered to as 'making chocolate vinagrette'.) It ended up glossy and smooth and ready to go for tomorrow's products. I learned later that two thirds of the class had theirs break, so I didn't feel so bad about it.

Next up was Nougatine Crisp, which would decorate the top of the chocolate tarts. This is a hard candy, similar to brittle but thinner and with some chocolate flavor. We heated it in a pan, mixed in some cocoa powder and almonds, and then baked it in the oven until it was at the right consitency. It's not too sweet and very brittle, without sticking in the teeth.

We baked and cooled our tart shells, since they would be accepting fillings that did not need extensive baking times. Again the chef had us push the limits of done-ness with these, taking them all the way to the brown side of golden brown. At the end of the baking we brushed the bottoms with a little egg yolk and baked for an extra minute or two, which will help seal the bottom and prevent it from getting soggy when the custard hits it. I am hoping that this works, because the tart shells looked gorgeous and had a wonderful, toasty aroma.

The last thing we had to do before we took our turn for macarons was cut the Pate d Fruit from yesterday. There is a fancy device for this named a guitar, which is a frame holding a series of guitar strings in place, hinged over a slotted board. One places the candy on the board and draws the strings through to cut it. When we got to the guitar, however, I noticed that one string was pretty loose. Since I wanted nice, square candies (ever the perfectionist) I asked the chef if it was easy to tighten. Sadly, while doing so she snapped the bolt holding the string. Back to the drawing board for us. We ended up putting off the cutting until after the macarons, since the guitar needed extra tools to fix.

At this point, we took a break. The snack today was banana bread with banana butter, which was much better than it sounds written. We chatted about the beignets (how we all just had to finish them last night since they wouldn't keep) and other delights from the previous day. Everyone had nothing but raves for all the products we had created so far.

Back in the kitchen, we attacked our macarons. These are fussy, fussy fellows. For starters, the almond flour and sugar need to be left out for a day or more to dry out or the final product will not form a good shell. You then make a very rough dough with that and some egg white. At the same time, you make an italian meringue, which involves cooking sugar with a little water to the correct temperature and then whipping it into half beaten egg whites. I had tried making nougat once in the past, and when adding a similar mixture to my kitchen aid had managed to get some on the whisk, turning it into a very fast moving paddle which sent partially mixed candy everywhere. Thankfully, I avoided that this time thanks to the awesome demo of how to do it properly (when it says to drizzle down the side of the bowl, drizzle down the side of the bowl.)

With these two mixtures done, we gently combined them and then mixed until just the right texture. Mixing either too much or too little will result in macarons with cracked shells. This mixture is then put into a piping bag (of course) and piped into small circles. I have to say, it was here that I really grew to love the piping bag. We filled two and a half full sheet trays with quarter sized dollops of dough in several minutes, with almost no mess or spilling. After a few iffy dollops, I caught my stride and ended up very happy with my piping; I may get used to this after all. Once piped, the dough needs to sit out for ten minutes to help dry out the surface (again, it's all about the shell here) before going into the convection oven (a regular oven won't, that's right, develop the shell enough.)

If you have not commited any serious misteps to this point, what you will see come out of the oven is pretty amazing. Beautifully smooth domed tops, with a rough bit of dough peeking out from underneath. While not all of ours were perfectly smooth or round, the bulk of them were gorgeous. We had a few mutants near the edge that got smooshed into the side of the pan, so we tested these for taste -- they were richly chocolatey, but not overwhelming. Overall I am very excited to try them with the ganache filling.

We had just enough time before the second demo to cut and roll our pate d fruit. The guitar was back up, so we converted our sheet into little squares, which we rolled in sugar. These were flavored with passion fruit and apricot, and were delicious. It's a little bit like eating jelly (though more set-up in texture) but if you can get past that, excellent. These freeze well, and seem like a good way to preserve some of the spring berries for a fall treat. I can also see making some with pomegranate or orange and cranberry to send with our holiday cookies.

With the day almost over, we got a quick demo of making the lemon curd and filling the shells. This process went smoothly for us, though pressing the final curd through a sieve (to remove any lumps from egg or gelatin) did take a while. The tarts baked for just a few minutes to set up the centers, then went into the fridge overnight. They look great, and tomorrow we'll be decorating them with some of the meringue shapes from Monday.

Overall, it was another very busy day. This one had much more precision timing and temperature control, and I really enjoyed the challenge of it. I am particularly proud of the macarons, since there are so very many ways to go wrong and ours came out so well. I'm excited to finish those tomorrow, though I'm very sad that the week is over halfway done.

Pastry Camp - Day Two

French (the language) is more than a little bit my nemesis. I am very bad at looking at a word in french and coming anywhere close to pronouncing it correctly. Because of this, I have been very careful to write down everything phonetically near it's actual spelling. Ben-yay. Fin-an-SEE-ay. Pot duh Fwee. It's not very graceful, but at least I don't sound quite as dumb when I speak. Now if I ever had to write these words without a reference handy, I would be in a world of hurt.

Much of day two was spent progressing or finishing the products we started on day one. Despite my fears, the two yeast doughs managed to survive the air conditioner blast and rose appropriately in the fridge overnight. We shaped the Beignets into little balls and proofed them in a makeshift proofing oven (the school's real one being taken up by a bread baking class.)

We also used the starter from yesterday to make the dough for our beer bread. This is a rustic loaf with part bread flour and part rye, as well as potato flakes to help hold in moisture. The beer comes in later in the afternoon. Because there is only one mixer in the kitchen large enough to mix this much and this stiff of a dough, we had to pair up tables (four students total) and mix in batches. The dough proofed for another hour before shaping.

Finally, we baked the Financiers. We piped cupcake-like molds one third full, topped that with a few pieces of candied orange peel and hazelnut chocolate chips, then repeated the process. These baked in the deck oven for a while and came out wonderfully. They were lighter and less sweet than a normal brownie, and had a fantastically rich flavor. I will definitely try these again, both as is and without the cocoa powder but with chocolate chips in place of the orange peel. During the break, we had housemade raspberry and mango jam with some lovely tender, but not rich, rolls. They seemed like they would be sweet, but ended up being very savory and delicious. I sat with a few other folks in the class and we chatted about bread and other topics. One of the women with us was given the class as a mother's day gift from her daughter, who had graduated recently from the full program. It was interesting to hear her talk about her daughter's and her own experiences.

Back in class, we got busy frying our beignets. Three frying stations were set up, using vegetable oil in a heavy pot rather than a deep fryer, which they don't have. It seems like beignets are they only thing they fry, so a fryer would be wasted. The dough was lovely and soft, having been enriched with butter and egg. As they fried, they puffed up and took on a golden color. Just a quick roll in sugar, and they were done. Still warm from the oil, they were the best donuts I had had in a long while. Even now having cooled for a bit they are still pretty amazing. Since my partner is staying in a hotel, she only took a handful home, leaving the rest for me. I myself am going to a cubs game tonight, so I snuck half of the batch to the folks at work to enjoy while they are still fresh.

The beer bread, once done with the first proof, got portioned and shaped into rustic triangular shapes. Some more rustic than others. It was a pretty soft dough, so it was challenging to work with. The really fascinating part of this recipe, for me, was that a wet paste was made with beer, water, rye flour, and yeast and brushed on top of the shaped dough before the final proof. This was then dusted with a liberal coating of rye flour. Once baked, this resulted in a dried riverbed look on the top of the loaves (they called it 'leoparding',) which was gorgeous. We sampled the bread that the chef had baked in demo and it was amazing -- I can't wait to eat the three loaves we brought home. With the tart dough from yesterday, we lined two large tart rings (for lemon tarts) and six small ones (for chocolate tarts.) This was a fascinating process, since we used tart rings rather than more normal fluted tart plates. To line the ring, you roll the dough out to an eighth of an inch thick (they had guides for us, which were very useful.) You then drape the rolled dough over the pastry ring (which has no bottom) and push it down and against the side. A little smooshing and a cut later, and you had lovely round tart shells all ready to go. The real trick is that when the dough is cold it isn't too sticky but cracks easily, but when it is warm it is sticky but doesn't crack. This makes it an odd race to get the dough to the right thickness and pushed into the ring while it's not too hard to work with. Overall, our shells look good and I was happy with how this went. I am not usually great with pie crust-like items, so I was pleased to have made these work so well (even if I did have to toss one shell when it went very awry.) The last quick thing we did was prepare Pate de Fruit. This is basically a fruit flavored gelled candy that will get rolled in sugar once cut. It was pretty easy to make, and just involved getting things to the right temperatures at the right times. The really interesting bit was talking about the science behind it. If you wan to use different fruits (we used apricot and passion fruit) then you need to be sure to balance the amount of sugar and pectin you add so that you end up with the proper amount. Every fruit has different content of these items, and having them at the right concentration is what makes things set up. Overall day two was a bit more involved than day one with more going on, but still incredibly fun. Even when the one tart shell went south I was having a good time, which is certainly a good sign.

Pastry Camp - Day One

Every day on the way to work, I walk past The French Pastry School of Chicago. Since I love baking bread and making candy, it calls to me a little bit each time I pass. Eventually I found myself on their website, browsing their glorious pictures of pastries and other delights.

In later winter I went to their two hour open house and demo, where all manner of sweets were created by two of their chef instructors. This was pretty amazing to see, since they even did some pulled sugar work. After that class, I poked around the website some more and finally decided to try out the week long pastry boot camp. My hope was to get some exposure some areas of pastry that I have not been so great with in the past (pie crust, I am looking at you) as well as some more advanced learning on the stuff I already know pretty well.

When I arrived at the school, there was a little confusion since not only was the pastry camp starting today, but the main program had four new classes starting as well. When I found my right group, I discovered that I was the only dude in the class. This will make it hard to follow through on my promise to partner with another guy. We got a quick tour of the kitchen we'll be using and then paired up at the stations. I ended up with a girl who is going into her senior year of college with plans to take the full program after. She is absurdly young. Turns out she's a ringer: She spends her summers interning in a pastry shop. About half the class are there to try it out to see if the full program is right for them, a few already seem to be involved in the industry, and a few are there just for fun.

The class takes the form of a demo of about half the plan for the day, where the chef executes each recipe. We then go off in our pairs and do the same. There is a short break after this, then a second cycle of demo and us executing. In the break, we had a snack of puff pastry with caramelized hazelnuts, which was delicious. They must make their own puff pastry, which is such a marvel. Sadly, for things that advanced, one needs to take the full program. Throughout the entire session, the chef is available to answer questions and help out, as is her intern (though the intern seems to focus mainly on keeping up with our dirty dish output.

While the first day is a full day, the only product that we complete is a lemon pound cake. It's much lighter in texture than most pound cakes, and very delicious (we tasted the demo cake once it was out of the oven.) I suspect this is a recipe I will make again, and at night while eating mine and drinking gingered ice tea the idea of adding some ginger with the lemon zest strikes me. Everything else we make is prep for a dish we will do later in the week.

We prepared two yeast breads/starters (one for beer bread and one for beginets) both of which are retarding overnight in the fridge. I am a little worried about these guys, since where we set them to proof was in direct line of the air conditioner. We ended up letting the beginet dough rise for the rest of our session on our table to make up for it, and I was relived to smell the odor of yeast when I punched it down after this longer rise. The sponge is just a starter, so my fingers are crossed that it will be fine once it is incorporated into the main dough.

We also prepared finacier batter and tart dough, which need to rest in the fridge overnight to develop. Financier are defined by having brown butter and almond flour in them. That sounds pretty good on its own to me, though I almost always see these with chocolate in them. If they turn out well, I may try making them at home without the chocolate. Note to those using almond flour: Don't wisk until all lumps are gone, those lumps are bits of almond.

Finally, we made meringues which are baking in the oven overnight. These are almost entirely whipped egg whites and sugar, and will just dry in the ovens rather than actually baking as I would think of it. If all goes well, they should pick up no color from the baking and remain snow white. They were mostly little piped piles with the star tip to serve as petit fours, though some will decorate our lemon tarts that we are making later in the week.

So far, most of what we have learned isn't necessarily news to me. We talked about gluten formation and different flours, which are already things I am pretty familiar with. We did get to use a piping bag to shape the meringues which was Something I have not done. This is where the hustler nature of my partner came out. After having claimed that she had not really done much as an intern, she knocked out consistently good looking meringues with the star tip. Some of mine came out malformed, but after watching what she did I made them a bit smaller and was happy with the result.

Two useful tidbits that I learned today that I will definitely apply in the future:

1. If you are making a quickbread (or pound cake) you can draw a line of melted butter across the top (dabbing with a pastry brush, since the surface isn't really paintable) and it will cause it to split there. This is nice because the bread is going to split anyway, so this lets you make it nice and even when it does.
   
2. When covering bread dough with plastic wrap, I should be laying the wrap directly on top of the dough's surface. I always worry that this will restrict the dough's rise, but apparently I am worrying for nothing. This prevents a skin from forming and lets the dough expand enough.

CSA Week 3

Last week's share ended up getting consumed pretty much as planned. We still have a little lettuce left over, but we should be able to clear that out (as well as this week's lettuce) pretty easily. I did end up making the strawberry frozen yogurt from The Perfect Scoop, and it is pretty amazing. So far that book has yet to lead me astray. We also have a little rhubarb left in the freezer, which we are going to try making into muffins this week.

Overall, this week's share seems like it's going to be pretty easy to use. We are getting into more produce that can be used in multiple ways, and away from the single use stuff like lettuce. That makes it a lot easier to work the CSA into a menu since you have more flexibility.

Kale was slated for little individual kale and spinach calzones, but we were unable to find the prepackaged dinner rolls that we use for the crust. It seems like everyone has abandoned the tube of dinner rolls in favor of partially baked ones in the freezer section. We're currently figuring out what to do instead. Cabbage is going into a slaw. Sugar snap peas are delicious and sweet raw. I think we have a chicken stir fry awaiting these, though we may also snack on some as is. Baby turnips are a bit limiting, since we only have four of them. While we are tempted to try something fun and unique with them, the limited quantity is likely to restrict that. Instead, I think we are going to shred them and put them into the slaw with the cabbage. Baby onions are somewhere between a scallion and a full grown onion. We'll sub these for onions here and there.

This week, we only got two small zucchini, so there's no need to revert to baking it into various muffins and breads just yet. Also in retreat is lettuce. We got three heads, but two are the Little Gem variety, which are sized at about one side salad each head. The other head is pretty small too, so even with a little left over from last share we should be able to get through it quickly. We are going to grill some shrimp for an entree salad and the rest will be sides. Garlic scapes are odd little dudes. Unless we get overwhelmed with them, I'll likely keep on with the normal plan of subbing them for garlic. It's fun to use them in place of garlic in my naan recipe, because it leaves the bread flecked with green for a nice bit of character. We usually have a tough time getting through a full bunch of parsley in a week. Every year I claim that I am going to make a chimmichurri (parsley pesto) and every year I don't. Maybe this year we'll get to it.

CSA Week 2

One week of CSA successfully completed! Other than a few stalks of green garlic, we managed to use up the full share in various ways. We had many, many salads, a mushroom stir fry, and a great spinach pasta dish. The lentil and rhubarb soup was as good as we remember it, and we have some in the freezer for lunches this weekend. Overall a delicious week of food, and we didn't have to struggle to keep up. Yet.

More green garlic this week. We managed to get by well last week by subbing this for regular garlic, and I think we'll do the same this week. I did find that if you use a full bulb of green garlic for garlic bread, the result is still deliciously mild. Sugar snap peas are sweet and fresh tasting. These will be used primarily in salads. A rather small bunch of spinach presents a classic CSA issue: Having to buy more of a CSA item to have enough to make any of the recipes we want to make. We could just sink this into a pasta or something, but we really want to make one of our spinach and feta pie/calzone dishes, all of which call for way more than this tiny amount. We will probably just bite the bullet and buy more at the store or farmer's market. These strawberries are going to be turned into frozen yogurt this weekend. The first ice cream of the summer! White button mushrooms are destined for omelets on weekend mornings. Omelets are fritatta are great produce sinks, since that can take almost anything and still taste good.

This week's rhubarb is going to be used for the pork dish we didn't make last week. We were hoping to get enough for both the pork and a rhubarb crisp, but twas not to be. If you had told me before we joined the CSA that I would have been hoping for more rhubarb I would never have believed it. Oh good, I was worried we wouldn't get more lettuce. At least these two heads are slightly less monstrous than the last two. We are going to try a mustard vinaigrette this week, as well as breaking down and making lettuce wraps with crab salad over the weekend. More mint, more mojitos. We have some mint planted in a window box as well, and I am hoping to make fresh mint ice cream this year once I have enough. It's time for summer squash already. This is an item that one tends to get a lot of from the CSA, but we are usually pretty good about using it up. Just two zucchini came this week, and it's pretty easy to prepare as a side, microwaved for a few minutes and then tossed with butter and sprinkled with Parmesan. Once we get later into the season, we'll get more creative with it.

CSA Week 1

Summer has arrived, which means it's time for the CSA. We've had a lot of cooler, wetter weather this year, which is good for some crops (lettuce, spinach) and not so good for others (strawberries.) We were both very excited for the season to start, as we really enjoy the fun of getting a mystery box of ingredients and then planning meals around them. It forces some variety and makes us try recipes that we pulled out just in case we ever got [insert strange produce here].

Rhubarb will be used for a lovely lentil soup. Any extra will either be frozen or turned into a relish with onions for port tenderloin, depending on how much remains.

I suspect that this season, our nemesis might be lettuce. The weather has apparently been very good to it, as we got two huge heads. We will continue to get it for several weeks, and there are very few lettuce sinks -- It's salad or nothing. We are going to try some homemade dressings this year to help take the edge off.

Despite the claim that strawberries don't like this weather, we got tons of them. Some were actually a little under ripe, but mostly they were delicious. Hopefully we keep getting these larger containers as they get on towards the height of the season.

Green garlic will get subbed for regular garlic, as is tradition in these parts.

Spinach is heading for a pasta bake, (along with some of the green garlic.)

Mint means mojitos.

Mushrooms are another item that is a bit hard to use up. We like them a lot, but we will be getting a full carton every week for several weeks. This particular batch is heading for salads and a stir fry.

Asparagus is, per usual, getting roasted.

Some Forward Progress

My folks came out this past weekend to help with the bathroom, and we made great progress. The first step after demo is to put up cement backer board in the shower. It's a lot like sheetrock, but more irritating in every way imaginable. It's significantly heavier and harder to cut, and since it's denser it's harder to get the screws that hold it up set in enough that they won't catch on the trowel when laying the adhesive for the tile. After getting it up, I asked my mother (the queen of sheetrock) to take a sharpee and circle any screws that she thought needed to be set in deeper. You may notice that about half of the screw heads in the image linked have black circles around them...

We gave her a bit of a hard time about that, but when it came time to lay the wall tile it went very smoothly. In the other bathroom there had been a few places where we had to fiddle with the tile a little to accommodate screws that were not all the way in. On this project, we had no such cases. For the wall we used one inch square tiles, which come in foot square sheets. This was pretty easy to actually lay, but we spent a lot of time making sure that all of the rows and columns lined up, and a lot of little shifting to get things to line up was done. While I didn't love how much of that we had to do, I was very pleased with the final result.

Once the tile was allowed to set for twenty-four hours, it was grouting time. This is a task we have done several times before, and I actually find it to be fairly fun. It is time consuming, however, as there are a lot of little rest periods in the middle of it. The process is: mix the grout, let it rest ten minutes, then smear it on the walls into the spaces between the tiles, then let it sit thirty minutes, then sponge off the excess, then let it sit sixty minutes, then buff off the haze. Since once it sets it's hard to work with, most walls need to be done in sections in order to keep it workable. It leads to it being a long process, with lots of coffee breaks. Once the grout is in and set, the lines between the tiles are much less stark, so the huge field of inch square tiles blend. This makes what started out a bit busy look like a nice, soothing texture.

The last thing we did before the folks left was to tile the floor. These big square guys were super easy compared to all the little wall ones, and despite some places that needing cutting went down quickly. Such is the upside of putting foot square tiles in a twenty-five square foot space. There had been some discussion of laying these on an angle, making them diamond shape instead of square. In the end we decided to take the square route, and we are quite happy with the appearance. We have reached the stage in the project where there is a lull in the huge, obvious changes. We need to finish up the grouting on the walls and floor, then do several coats of sealer (which of course each have extended drying times.) We are hoping that we can get those steps, plus some painting done during the next weekend and work week, and then do the big installation the following weekend. Hopefully in two to three weeks, we will be done with the bathroom!

English Muffins

I've always been a fan of english muffins. With all the wonderful nooks and crannies, they are the best vessels for butter out there. Now that I have gotten more into baking bread and understanding what is going on, I have wondered more and more how these delightful little fellows get all those butter holders, so I decided to try making some.

The dough is a heavily enriched one, made entirely with milk and a little shortening instead of water. I used 2% because it's what we had on hand. The dough came together easily, and was lovely to knead. The higher fat content really kept it tender and easy to work with -- barely requiring any extra flour to keep it from sticking to my hands. This bread is done without a starter, so it's just a mix, knead, and two risings and you're ready to go.

For the second rise, the dough is divided and formed into small boules. Once they have risen (which mine did nicely) they are then cooked for 5 minutes per side on a hot skillet. At this point, they are supposed to swell up and out, widening and flattening a little. You'll note the use of the phrase "supposed to" up there. Mine cooked to a lovely golden brown on the first side, but never quite managed to swell. This is odd, because I usually do get a nice oven pop when I make bread. I suspect that I had too dry a dough, and will probably try using more liquid (and maybe higher fat content) the next time I attempt this. Once cooked on both sides, the muffins go into the oven to finish cooking the centers.

The final results were ok, but not stellar. As I suspected would happen when they failed to swell, the muffins did not have any nooks and crannies to speak of. The texture was more like that of a rustic white bread. Without the crannies to justify an artery clogging amount of butter, the flavor was just ok as well. Without a pre-ferment, this lacked the sharpness that I prefer in breads.

I do think that I'll try this again, with a few notable changes:

1. Hydrate the dough for longer and with more liquid.
   
2. Aim for a (slightly) higher fat content in the final dough.
   
3. See if I can work in a pre-ferment, perhaps using water in that and then cream once I form the final dough.
   
4. Clean my stove and tea kettle before posting pictures of them on the internet.