On being a chef today, after you buy your local, seasonal produce

Not too long ago Tony Bourdain did a guest bit on Michael Ruhlman's blog.  I was excited to see the first question he was asked was "What issues do you see facing chefs today?" I wasn't happy with his answer.

Not because it was wrong; the points he made were fine.  I just feel there is a whole massive area that was completely ignored.  The question I wanted to see answered was "What staff related issues do you see facing chefs today?"  I wanted to see how those of us who wrangle the next generation of cooks, bakers, servers, dishwashers, minor criminals and pirates are seeing the shape of the future.

Since I didn't get his answer, I wanted to share some of my own observations.  These are the things I see, the things I try to handle as best I can, the things that I cope with to varying degrees of success.

First off, my staff doesn't expect to make a lot of money right away.  Contrary to the stories people tell about kids these days, these are cooks who even if they did go to culinary school aren't expecting to be the cock of the walk right out the door - there just hasn't been the employment market for that for years now.  They are happy to have a job. And, while they are making or just barely above minimum wage, they hope they have a chef that remembers what it is like to live on that kind of paycheck, when $600 equals two weeks pay, or when that Christmas bonus meant you could pay your bills and buy a few presents.  This matters. A lot. It's why they will scrabble for hours, take extra shifts, hope for a sliver of OT, get that second or third job. Luckily for them, there are plenty of us out there that do remember, because it wasn't so long ago when we were doing the exact same thing.  And as a manager who remembers that feeling, there comes the desire, especially with your best staff members, to wish you could change that, really pay a "living wage" whatever the hell that's supposed to be.  There's a big issue right there, and it doesn't even start to cover things like health care, paid time off or, the crucial one, where the money comes from to do these things.

OK, fine, the staff doesn't expect a lot of money - hopes for it, but doesn't expect it.  So what do they expect from their chefs?  Inspiration in one form or another.  To be taught, and have the chance to learn.  To be given the chance to try new things, to have their ideas taken seriously and with open mindedness.  In a perfect situation, to have the mentor that they will remember long after they have left the place.  Notice, I didn't say they "hope for" all of this, they EXPECT it.  This part is hard.  Every chef I know has days where all they want is a team that works with robotic precision exactly to their specifications day in and day out. Those are the days where baking powder gets used instead of baking soda in the brownies, where the tray of wineglasses gets dropped, and then, at the worst possible time, someone looks up and says, "But WHY do we do it this way?".  There was a time (and some kitchens still work this way, just none that I want to be in) where just looking up could get you fired, berated, a sheet pan thrown at you, all three.  Now, chefs need to anticipate that question.  To answer it before it comes at the worst possible time.  That's the only way to get the real hustle handled with the next generation - to equip your staff with everything they need to know, including the knowledge of when to ask, and when to put your head down and do the job.   And if they learn that, and do that for you, you need to make sure it gets acknowledged. Like I said, this is hard, but more and more, it's expected.

I'm sure some lament the loss of a military like obedience in the kitchen.  But really, I think the biggest issue facing chefs today is one that has always been there - how do we get done what needs doing?  That hasn't changed.  What has changed is the definition of what it means to be a chef from the perspective of your staff.  It doesn't matter what you think it means that someone slapped a four letter word next to your name on a menu. It matters what the people you hire, the people you train, and ultimately, the people you rely on to represent you think it means.

Sorry, chef, but without them, there's only so much you can get done, and we all know there's a lot that needs doing.

One more time, from the beginning

Sometimes, you have to start with a dumb idea.

There's a whole Zen thing - and I am not even remotely well versed on the subject so don't yell at me if I am slightly off in my interpretation - about having a beginner's mind, Shoshin.  You come to an activity with a willingness to try everything, no preconceived notion of what can and cannot be done - no idea that something is a dumb idea.  From there, you allow yourself to explore possibilities that wouldn't occur to the expert, rigid in thought and process.

The idea that mixing ice cream and flour could make bread, for example.

I find weird ideas like this exciting. Of course I had to try it.  To me, the batter immediately suggested biscuits, rather than bread, so that's what I made - butter pecan biscuits, topped with raw sugar.  The only bad parts were my hands got really cold mixing the dough, and now I have to keep a supply of self rising flour around the house.  Because I don't already have enough flours around the house.

The good parts?  I have been inspired to play more with my baking. Not just with this recipe (although I really want to try using a good pistachio ice cream next. Or maybe beer and chocolate ice cream), but with bread in general.  What makes bread? Most bread doughs are variations on the theme of 5 parts flour, 3 parts liquid, plus leavening and flavoring.  But what does that mean?  If the liquid is water, I can develop a passable baguette, but what if I use the liquid I strain off yogurt? What if I just use yogurt?  How do different fats affect things? Different flours? So many possibilities.

There's a trick here, though.  It wasn't hard to get excited about an idea that involved two ingredients, little time and intuitively seemed like it would work.  Also, there was cheating involved on my part - someone else had already tried the idea and presented it to the world as something that works.  But when there isn't someone else showing you the silly, weird, odd ideas that shouldn't work but maybe they could work, where do they come from?  Being open to all possibilities means being open to bad ideas, as well; how can you recognize those ideas, and do you try them anyway?  Crazy Brain Me says yes, you should try them anyway, because you still get answers from failure.  You just need to not let those failures and successes stop you from trying more ideas.

Good thing I have biscuits to sustain me through the process.

Deliberately avoiding authenticity

It's five days before Fat Tuesday and the Paczki police are after me already.

Really, after more than a few months in the bagel business I should be used to this.  The internet has made this sort of commentary inevitable.  I should be jaded, steadfast, above this sort of thing.  I should just accept that I am wrong.  Acceptance is the first step in the healing process, right?

I am wrong.  There, I admit it.  My bagels, while New York style, are not the exact ones that Mr Expert #4 had on May 15th, 1982 at H&H. Nor are they the ones that Ms Professional Opinion #26 lyrically remembers from her childhood ramblings in which she accidentally while chasing a ball happened upon a 3rd generation bagel making family's one tiny storefront.  They aren't even the ones that you could get from any other bagel place right now.  They are too small, too large, too malty, not malty enough, not topped enough, topped too much, too different and sometimes not different enough. I did not grow up Jewish in New York City. Also, the water is different.  Despite all this, they are good bagels.

Paczki are a Polish pre-Lent celebration, a way to use up all your naughty ingredients, a damn tasty variation of the doughnut.  Thanks to immigration patterns, I discovered them in Chicago.  They are rich, with a supple dough, filled with custard or fruit, and I have missed them.  They just aren't found much in the neighborhoods of Portland, and each year I have seen other transplants seek them out, and end up disappointed. Really, what's the point of having a bakery if you can't fill a pastry void? So I asked. I made samples. And then a few more samples. They were well received. Now, for one single day we will celebrate one more puzzle piece of where we came from.

We post pictures, tell a story, and get the word out.  Then, it begins.  Those are too round, not round enough, not big enough, too big, probably don't have lard, aren't glazed, shouldn't be glazed, should be fruit filled, should never have chocolate.  Not the Real Thing. Also, they have never been eaten by any of these people.  It's even possible that they never will be eaten by some of them.

It's ok.  You are all correct.  I am not making something you may consider authentic. What I am making is a recipe passed on to me through who knows how many hands and minds.  I have adapted it to my own purposes.  And yes, I am daring to call these Paczki in full knowledge of this fact.  But my Paczki is made with a sincerity of purpose. It is true and genuine to what I know Paczki can be.  It also tastes really, really good.

What does authentic mean again?

Demon's Farts and Other Legacies

So, I have a new job. Actually I've had this job for a smidge over a month now, but I'm just starting to get a finger and toe hold of an idea of what my life will be like on this train I am currently riding. It's been a fun, crazy, breathless time, and somehow in there I managed to learn something about pumpernickel.

 Me and pumpernickel, we go way back. I know it appeared for sandwiches (pastrami was probably my gateway to pumpernickel) but mostly I remember the bread dip. It was a recipe from my aunt, and it was creamy and full of dill and always served in a bowl of pumpernickel bread. On such occasions as this dip would appear, I would happily eat what was left of the bowl, with its thin layer of remaining dip, delighting in the flavors and textures. Those loaves even had the occasional raisin in them. I have no idea what made that baker put raisins in the pumpernickel, but it's probably the reason I like raisins, especially in savory items.

When faced with the prospect of making my own pumpernickel, it was that pumpernickel of my memories I wanted to recreate. Like so many other cooks before me, I found the task daunting, frustrating and perplexing. True pumpernickel is not what most Americans eat. The name refers to a sourdough rye bread that was baked low and long to get its dark color and was considered so indigestible that the name describes what the consumer was to experience later as a result of eating it. I'm not quite sure what demon's farts are supposed to be like, but it sounds really awful. So I'm mostly glad that the recipe in America was lightened up and enhanced, even if the name stuck. My sticking point was the enhancements. Pumpernickel color makes a nice dark loaf, but it is really just food coloring. Bleh. Pumpernickel flour, when checking the label, turns out to be dark rye flour with a variation that existed only on the price tag. Phooey. And everyone who loves pumpernickel has their own absolute list of what can and cannot appear: caraway or no, onions or no, coffee, chocolate, etc, etc, etc.

So I made my own list, and did what anyone experimenting with food should do - I played until it tasted right. I know without a shadow of a doubt that there are those who will tell me how wrong I am doing it, but this is mine. Yes, dammit, there is caraway.  And despite the naysayers, there are those out there who have told me, "Hey, this is really good pumpernickel." I'm glad they like my memories.

penuche, panoche

I have this thing about fudge. I don't know if it is a New England thing, a childhood thing, or what, I just know that when I was a kid, and it was summer, at some point there would be fudge. Miraculous stuff, made on marble slabs, creamy, rich and never, ever found at home. I suppose it had something to do with recipe cards that warned against making the stuff in cold weather, warm weather, humid weather, on a day that ended in the letter Y and any time between noon and four am, or something like that. whatever the reason, real fudge (not anything made with Fluff) was only found in shops, and sometimes those shops had Penuche.

Penuche originally referred to a coarse brown sugar, usually from Mexico. Around the turn of the 20th century, right around the same time that chocolate fudge was "invented", a brown sugar confection of similar texture to chocolate fudge started appearing under the name penuche. (Who knew the OED is an excellent food reference?) I found a recipe from 1919 from the book My Candy Secrets by Mary Elisabeth Evans for something called Mexican Penuchi that was made like fudge and contained three ingredients: brown sugar, molasses and water. The result tastes almost like it contains maple syrup, but the thing I wanted was the kind that my grandfather loved: buttery, creamy, a hint of vanilla, nuts. So I went forward two years and found a recipe for Panocha in a cookery textbook (yes, textbook) from 1921 that had exactly what I was looking for.

A note on fudge: seriously, if you are going old school and don't want to make fudge that contains corn syrup or marshmallow, you need a thermometer. It's going to be the closest you can get to an insurance policy. That being said, bad fudge that crumbles from overheating? Still tasty. I won't tell if you put it on top of your morning Cream of Wheat.

Penuche (adapted from Foods and Cookery by Mary Lockwood Matthews, 1921)

200 g brown sugar
200 g sugar
120 g milk
15 g butter
5 g vanilla
4 g salt
50 g toasted chopped nuts (pecans are common, I used hazelnuts)

1. Put sugars and milk in a large pot and stir briefly to combine. Boil to 238 degrees F and remove from heat.

2. Put butter, salt and vanilla on top of sugar mixture and DO NOT MIX. Leave it alone until the temperature drops to 110 F. This will help ensure small microcrystals rather than coarse crystals that taste gritty. In the mean time, warm your nuts a bit.

3. Add nuts and stir until your arm is about to fall off. The fudge will go from being shiny and glossy to dull and flat. Pour out on to a parchment lined sheet and mark for cutting. When cool, store in an airtight container

4. Fun Fact! Fudge is actually at its best the day after it is made, but those crystals do wonky things after that day, so better eat quickly!

Ideas worth borrowing

I was going to do a big ol' thing about lavender this morning but then I left a burner on and now I have to deal with a house full of smoke. So, here's some things that have inspired me lately from other people:

1. macarons without nuts

2. charred dates

3. horchata

4. chicken skin crusted pot pie (yes, you read that right)

5. cooking favas in the pod

6. alternate ideas in piemaking

7. lime cordial (seriously, I've made many batches of this stuff now. love it.)

8. black & white cookies

9. eggs in a corn silk nest ( I know, it's Ideas in Food again, but how lovely is this?)

Ok, the smoke appears to be clearing. More news as it happens.

18th century brain in a 21st century head

Inspiration is surprising. It involves something like a jolt, an invisible hammer smacking you between the eyes and you had better make sure you don't blink or you may miss it. At least that's how it works for me. And let me tell you, I love being inspired. I love the a-ha, the whoa, the holy crap, even the sound of everyone in the room smacking themselves on the forehead and saying something like, "Duh!" The moment of revelation.

Maybe that's why I'm a sucker for even bad police procedurals and still get all antsy when watching the end of Star Wars.

If I had to shove a label on myself, I'm kind of a stickler. I like making lists, checking statistics. I like having a correct procedure to follow. I tend to lean to the traditional, will absolutely look stuff up in the middle of arguments to see who is correct. Yeppers, one of those. I even still put two spaces in after the period (although I have progressed past the indented new paragraph.) When I decided to go to school for cooking, I went to a pastry school, and not just any pastry school, a French one. The correct way, indeed.

The thing is, having a correct way can be limiting. While it gives a necessary backbone for our skills, it also can provide restriction against the creative, the innovative. I can make a damn good croissant. I've been doing it for years now, regularly critique my own work against my own high standards. I also go out of my way in my free time to compare the work of others. What are they doing differently than me? How can I improve my own technique within the realm of the correct procedure? And always, the beacon is the plain butter croissant. Like those pizza lovers who truly want to appreciate a pizza and therefore always order a plain pie, I look to the basic as the standard bearer. Maybe you make newfangled stuff, but if you can't do the real thing who needs you, right? Right?

What happens when you find someone who can shoot your basic technique the hell out of the water at a significant distance who is also choosing to ignore that in favor of the new, the different, the (dare I say it) incorrect? Can you be so arrogant as to be dismissive simply because it is not the done thing? Or do you see the hammer coming and don't blink?

Today I took croissant dough and stuffed it with kimchi and cheese. It was fun. And tasted amazing. Hell, yeah.

I just came for the appelflappen

If you spend some time looking up the finer details of Dutch cuisine (and I know you want to) you will find some discussion about the celebratory food of New Year's Eve. Alongside the oliebollen (oily balls! yummers!) you find a note about "apple folds"aka appelflappen, a short pastry filled with bits of apple not unlike a turnover.

That is not my appelflappen.

My appelflappen (I love the word so much, even if spell check doesn't.) is entirely a product of my experiences at the Big E, the Eastern States Exposition, the greatest fair anywhere ever. You can have your county fair. Your state fair, with its butter cows and demolition derbies or whatever? Not even close to the Big E. You see, the Big E wasn't just for my piddly little New England state. It was for all of them. Oh yeah! You could get maple sugar candy at the Vermont building, wait in line forever for the tiniest, most wonderful sample of wild blueberry ice cream at the Maine building. And standing proud among the fried doughs and turkey legs was the Appelflappen.

Appelflappen! A deep fried, beer battered apple ring served hot with powdered sugar. And if you were bold enough to suggest aloud that it was not simply a reason to go to the Big E but *the* reason to go to the Big E, a bell would ring, angels would chorus and you would get an extra piece.

You know I always got an extra piece.

Sadly, I hear there is no longer appelflappen at the Big E, and what I make at home, with its microbrewed beer and heirloom apples, could be construed as an elitist Portlandia version. Instead, I recognize it for what it is, a tribute to a very sweet taste memory.

Appelflappen, Big E style

The key here is getting a good baking apple, not one that cooks into sauce, but can stand up to the rigors of battering and frying. A tart apple is a nice contrast to the batter and powdered sugar.

2 c all purpose flour

1 egg

12 oz beer (I used a Pyramid Apricot Ale which was lovely, but any beer you'll drink will do)

a pinch of sugar

a pinch of salt

4 apples, peeled, cored and cut into rings

oil for frying

powdered sugar for dusting

1. Mix together flour, sugar, salt and the egg. Slowly add the beer while whisking to form a smooth batter

2. Heat the oil over medium heat until hot

3. Dip the apple rings in the batter and gently place in the hot oil

4. Fry the apple rings, turning over as necessary, until the rings are a lovely golden brown (how dark your batter will get will depend on the beer you use, use your best judgement).

5. Drain on paper towels, dust with powdered sugar, eat while still warm. Don't forget to give yourself the extra one.

The Long Dark Apple Time of the Soul

Late January.

It's an odd thing. Sure, it's citrus season but citrus does so much better in the summer. I blame lemonade ads. There are nuts and chocolates, as always, but really, what we come to in the wonderful winter world of working seasonally is apples.

Not that it is apple season.

Oh yeah, that's right, all those apples were in season back in the late summer and fall and have been sitting in storage ever since. They aren't fresh. Our cabbages are fresher. But there they are, a dutiful standard until the rhubarb comes in. And the rhubarb is still a long way off.

I love apples, actively seek out interesting varieties and yet in late winter I too look at glorious apple pies and think, "Eh, ok. I don't need dessert today." And that is so wrong. Because apples are endlessly wonderful, useful, nutritious and far more interesting and challenging than any old berry. Best way to serve a berry? Straight up. How boring is that? But what is the best way to serve an apple?

In a pie? a cake? dipped in caramel? as a sauce? baked? fried? spread on toast? a tart? As chips? Dumplings? Juice? Cider? Layered with almond cake and served with toasted almond ice cream?

Straight up?

20 Things from 2010

1. Ayers Creek Polenta

2. A lovely glass of scotch at Laurelhurst Market

3. Getting the poached egg just right

4. Toasted 3 seed bread

5. Good Stuff NW

6. My walk to work

7. Fresh horseradish

8. Gaffer's Fish n Chips

9. Black Basque beans

10. My namesake

11. Braising greens that I harvested

12. Creme brulee can suck it.

13. Lobster mushrooms foraged by my neighbor

14. Hannah Bridge cheese from Ancient Heritage Dairy

15. Cranicocktails and brussels sprouts fritters for Thanksgiving

16. Passing around Soul of Chef

17. How I Fell In love with a Fish

18. A single sour orange

19. Fried green tomatoes

20. Half Smoke

Frittered

I can tell you when I stopped worrying and learned to love brussels sprouts. It was the day they came to the table as fritters.

I come from hearty New England stock. We do not, as a general rule, fritter. Frittering is Bad News. In fact, these fritters may have been the first fritters I ever had. It opened new worlds of frittering to me. With the help of friends, I experimented with frittering on my own. Eventually, there was even Appleflappen, but that's a story best told at a bar with a few drinks in me.

Still, these remain one of my favorite fritters.

Here's the trick about working with brussels sprouts: cook them as little as you can manage. I'm not saying raw, although you could eat them that way, I'm saying don't put them in a pot of boiling water and then walk away until the air smells of sulphur. If this is how you cook your brassicas Captain Cabbage will hunt you down for the villain you are. Also your sprouts won't taste good, and this kind of overcooking is often responsible for people making the yuck face.

Instead, try these fritters.

4 c brussels sprouts*

1.5 c all purpose flour

1 c grated cheese (I used half parmesan, half gruyere following the "It's what is in the house right now" rule of thumb)

2 eggs

.5 c heavy cream plus a little just in case

3 t baking powder

1 t salt

1 t black pepper

.25 t nutmeg

oil for frying

1. Get a big pot of salted water boiling. Drop those happy sprouts in for 4-5 minutes. Drain and shock them with ice water to stop the cooking. Drain again.

2. Chop the sprouts into small bits. If the sprouts are big, something like an eighth is dandy, very small sprouts can be just quartered.

3. In a large bowl beat the eggs lightly. Add the flour, baking powder, salt, pepper, nutmeg and cheese to mix. It will be super thick. Add the cream to thin it. Stir in the chopped sprouts. You want to end up with a batter that is thicker than pancake batter, but not stiff, so feel free to add a bit more cream if you need it.

4. If you have a deep fry rig you could deep fry these, but I don't, so instead I heated a quarter inch of oil in my cast iron skillet to slightly above medium heat. A generous spoonful of batter makes a good sized fritter. Fry a few fritters at a time (I could only do 4 at a time in my pan), leaving plenty of room between each, and flip with tongs when golden brown. Fry until golden brown on both sides, and then place on paper towels to drain. (See, really, it's kind of like cooking bacon, not scary.)

5. Serve these hot, with lemon wedges to squeeze over them. If you have to fry them in advance, you can reheat them in the oven. If you are me, you won't care if they are hot, cold, or from yesterday.

*The recipe that I adapted this from called for 4 cups of brussels sprouts, but I have no idea how much that is actually supposed to be. I don't have time to put brussels sprouts in cups! Instead, I took one of those stalks of brussels sprouts and cut the sprouts off, and used however much that was. I didn't measure it. It turned out fine.

Things I have learned here: market edition

I thanked my sweetheart recently for his continuing patience and indulgence where our food is concerned. When we lived in Chicago, food came from the grocery store or the produce market, because that is where I knew food to come from. Sometimes, a lot of it came in boxes. I had heard of farmer's markets, made tentative explorations in their direction, found good cheese.

Then we moved.

We moved to Atlanta, and there is a super big year round farmer's market there. I went there weekly, on my own and with my boss, to pick up fruits and vegetables (and cheese). I brought visitors there. We didn't take pictures because you aren't allowed to. After a couple years of this, and reading a book or two, it occurred to me that it isn't the same when the farmers in question live on the other side of the world. Did I really need berries in January?

Then we moved.

Now, I shop at my local farmer's market almost every week. Here's where my gratitude for my sweetheart's continued understanding comes in. We eat stuff now like weird turnips, and mysterious greens and the best polenta on the planet. The stuff we get is seriously tasty. It may not be the prettiest, and I have learned the hard way to wash stuff, and soak your cauliflower in salt water. (Seriously, folks. Soak it.) We eat a lot of plants, and less meat. I have a hard time buying meat, especially chicken, since I know where to get the good stuff. I also know, from actually talking to the person who raises those animals, how bad that other stuff can be. That holds true for a lot of our food. We aren't completely seasonal or local; I confess I bought bananas at the grocery store today. We make a pretty good effort, though. The only berries in my house right now are the ones I preserved. I know where it came from. It's never been subjected to a crazy giant recall.

Flat out, we also spend more on food.

Can we afford it? Probably, no. But I don't think we can afford not to do it, either.

Also, there is excellent cheese.