Sometimes, the big companies can do something right

If I came up with peppermint tootsie pops, I would be livin' large now. This is hands down my favorite commercially available seasonal candy. Even more good than Cadbury mini eggs. Seriously.

On Welcoming the Power of The Cookie in Your Life

It's become reflexive for so many people.

"No, no, don't do anything special for me..."

Well, why the hell not? I'm certainly guilty of it too, particularly where food is concerned. We have translated cooking into, instead of an act of community, survival, sharing and comfort, an act of effort, of time lost, of conditions and obligations. As a professional, I worry that someone will hold themselves up to impossibly high standards when really, I'm so damn flattered that you would make anything for me that you could probably poison me and I'd still say thank you. Maybe. Depends on the gentleness of the stomach pump.

And when I'm doing the cooking? Well, man, this is what I DO, how I'm wired, this is my "to be". I don't care if it is nut gluten sugar fruit chocolate dairy egg free (although that would be depressing. And tricky. Steamed rice cake, maybe?) I want to cook for you. Hell, it's a chance for me to show off, and if humans didn't want to show off they wouldn't have invented language.

The Power of the Cookie works because we are flattered by generosity when we receive it, and because we get a similar rush of good feeling when we DO it. So rather than deny myself those happy endorphins from giving to others I just bake. And it doesn't matter what time of year it is.

It's just nice that right around now, people are so much more willing to take generosity of spirit as it is offered, and enjoy it, without feeling obligation.

Now if I could just get more people to act that way in July.

sugar free sweet potato madelines

42 Days

It doesn't seem like very much time, does it?

Going Native

There's a strange thing going on in my kitchen. My eggs are from Kookoolan farms. My honey is native fireweed honey. The Deep Roots folks supplied me with black kale last week, collards this week, and then there is the bacon ends, ham hocks and sausage from Sweet Briar farms. I have my turkey on order for thanksgiving and awesome examples of fractals in nature from the cauliflower I picked up yesterday.

I know where all of this stuff came from.

And strangely enough, some of the market vendors are starting to recognize me. I chat about work while I buy coffee. And when I need good local grapes for a galette I end up with stunning interlochen from here. The woman who I buy them from was the same person who trusted me to know what to make with those fabulous fresh italian plums. It's like I'm living in an actual community, or something.

In the past, produce came from giant trucks. Or sometimes smaller vans, but still, the vans were not driven by someone who would say, "Sorry I couldn't get these too you yesterday but we were picking to catch up from the rain earlier this week." Instead they were driven by guys who would ask me if there was a way to tell if a cantelope was ripe from the outside. Or, in the best of times past, the produce would come from a market, yes, but one which brought things in from all over the world, nary a farmer in sight.

Here, it is all so close, so accessible, that it is carrying over to what we eat at home. Now if only I could figure out how to grow a cacao tree indoors.

They totally taste like Apple Jacks

Cinnamon macarons with pippin-cox apple butter.

Branding myself

So, what do I want to be when I grow up? Going to pastry school, I had to reevaluate what that meant for me. I came to a conclusive, absolute decision.

I am never going to know what I want to be when I grow up.

(My friends are laughing at me right now, because of how true to me this statement is.) I can make a list of things that I would like NOT to do, and some of them even relate to the food industry. The thing is lately, I'm starting to formulate an idea of what I would like to do. Or at least, aspects that I would like to incorporate into something that could become the thing that eventually is what I do.

Um, does that make sense?

It starts, of course, with the food. That is the easy part. A list is forming, recipes being played with, tested. In many ways, this is the fun part; I'm covered in terms of my living expenses, this is just time to fail, retry, succeed and just come up with wacky schemes without risk. Time to define and refine what I'm looking for.

It is a deeply personal thing, these products. They are, more than any words, a direct reflection of my heart. My spirit in sugared form. It's funny, I'm sure there are cooks out there, chefs even, who could come to this point and not see this as so deeply their own. Me, I don't know any other way to do it and have a chance for it working.

And maybe that is why this work can be so heartbreaking.

For now though, I'm still having my first crush.
(pandan ginger and lemon saffron lollipops)

My, how things do change

My grandmother has been slowly dumping old cookbooks on me for a few years now. It's kind of a funny situation because I am very picky about having lots of cookbooks. My parents had a huge number of cookbooks, filled with lovely, fascinating recipes and they never cooked ANYTHING from most of them. I don't want that to happen to me, so I have one shelf of cookbooks. That's it. But so far, most of the ones from my grandmother have managed to claim a coveted spot on that shelf.

Yeah, like I'd throw away all of MFK Fisher, or that old James Beard.

So the one I received yesterday was 'Home at the Range with George Rector", copyright 1939. Rector did a few things with his life - restaurants, a hotel, some film roles as himself - and he writes as though the reader of the book would consider him a household name. He doesn't even have a wikipedia page, now. IMDB has him listed, though.

What fascinated me about the volume is the commentary about his restaurant and food in general. Japanese food was simply derivative of Chinese. Chinese food (as well as some Spanish dishes) was quite complicated, given the number of ingredients. Canned food was indistinguishable from fresh (He suggested a blindfold taste test, like the kind they use for cigarettes). Stock is something everyone would have around the house.

He even touched on seasonality. He lamented the availability of out-of-season items to everyone, because what could restaurants then use to surprise and delight their guests?

Huh.

Stuff that is in season, maybe?

It's the most wonderful time of the year...

You have no idea how happy this makes me. Even if it is less than three months until Christmas.

Stories

There are regular periods of downtime that you can expect, plan for. Between meal rushes. January. Those are times for rejuvenation, restoration. They help restore the psyche for what can be a grueling job even as they offer a little too much time for practical jokes.

I'm not so good with practical jokes.

What I like, though, are the unexpected downtimes - minor, surmountable disasters. Like the tree that knocked out power for the last three hours of the shop's day. After the flurry of getting everything as taken care of as we could, we started to wait it out. You have to wait it out, at least within reason, because those freezers need to come back on when the power is restored. Those timers need resetting, and if you can, you still need to get those doughs made. But until then, what else can you do but sit around, (possibly with the sudden manifestation of beer) and tell war stories. And don't think it is not a competition for the best fish.

We got some doozies. Boston blizzard deliveries with customers screaming about why they shouldn't pay because they weren't able to open even though you got the bread there on time. Side of the road wedding cake repair after a fender bender. The hands-down winner was the almost no power for three days after a windstorm the week after Thanksgiving. As in, driving proofed bread to another bakery to bake off just so you wouldn't lose it, and getting the power back only after you'd wiped out all the holiday backstock inventory you'd been prepping for weeks. Ouch.

Power was still out when I left, back on as usual the next morning.

How to make hot chocolate

Go downstairs to the kitchen. Watch the cats laugh at you when you step on the cold linoleum floor. They, being smarter than you, are sitting on the edge of the carpet, which they will not leave until you open the cat food, and then will return to the carpet as quickly as possible. The food will keep. You consider once again that the kitchen would not be so cold if you didn't leave the window open at night, but realize that you like it, because it reminds you of cooperstown and gives you more of a reason to have hot chocolate. You'll start closing the window soon. Maybe October.

Throw some vegetarian specialty kinda poptarts in the toaster oven because you find them strangelly compelling. Look at the box for the first time and snicker at these "healthy" roof tiles being 420 calories for two. It being a special occasion, you throw the box away, never to contemplate such numbers again.

Grab the New Favorite Pot, a large chunk of dark Callebaut (because you are the sort to have this lying around) and some water. Slosh water into the pot and turn on the stove. Chop a larger quantity of chocolate than you think necessary, and throw it in the pot. Add some sugar, vanilla paste and salt, because you have learned only as an adult that salt is good. Scoff at the milk. The milk is for pussies. You are having Hot Chocolate. You are not having a latte. You are not having anything Au Lait.

The not pop tarts are starting to smell good.

Deem it Time to Begin Whisking. Contemplate Brillat-Savarin and MFK Fisher and their great Hot Chocolate Wisdom. Whisk madly, stop, and taste. Be surprised that the flavors are right on the first try, because you always are. Become deeply critical, adjust flavor accordingly. Consider the Chinese 5 spice powder, restrain. It would not harmonize with the not pop tarts. Turn off the heat as the mixture begins to boil.

Grab a ladle and pour ladlesful of the hot chocolate back into the pot from high above, not to aerate, but to make yourself feel like willy wonka. Such is goodness. Pour some Hot Chocolate into the cup.

The toaster oven dings.

Wrap a hand around the warming mug and begin nibbling off the dry flavorless parts of the not pop tart. Quickly follow with a sustaining flavorful sip of the hot chocolate to rehydrate your tongue. Retreat to upstairs where the floor is carpeted to savor beverage and open birthday cards.

Good morning.