Malawry

Sur La Table sharpens knives. I have no idea how good a job they do with it, though. If somebody were to put together a DC eGullet gathering (*cough*), I'd gladly show any who showed up how to sharpen a knife. I learned by having a chef stand behind me and put his hands over mine so I could feel for the proper pressure and angle. L'academie de Cuisine, where I am a fulltime student, offers a recreational course in knife skillz. It's taught by Brian Patterson and takes up a few hours of your Saturday. Highly recommended. www.lacademie.com will point you there. Reserve early, I think it's the first recreational class to book up when they release their schedule. Dave, I've wondered about area restaurant supply stores, but I need so little in my own kitchen and have so little money to use for replacements that I have not investigated. Please let me know what you find if you go exploring on your own, I am really interested in the subject. In addition to Williams-Sonoma and BedBath DC has the other yuppie chain Sur La Table (several locations in the area, imo much better selection and value than Williams Sonoma) and La Cuisine, a small independent shop in Alexandria, VA. I checked out Kitchens Etc new store in Rockville, MD a few weeks ago and wasn't exactly impressed with the prices, quality or selection, but two things there really knocked me out: they have more kettles and more canning supplies than anybody else I've seen. If I was an experienced canner I'd probably get a lot of my supplies there. Welcome to the new DCers.

Scones. Usually with dried fruit. Probably my most-requested dish. I've made dozens of batches for breakfasts. This past Thanksgiving I made two kinds for the bread basket. I also make damn good pasta and would probably make it if I wanted to impress a dinner guest.

I have never visited Blue Smoke, but I am curious as to how you developed the beverage program. What sort of wine and beer selections do you offer? Are there special house cocktails? As a native of North Carolina, I must know whether or not you serve sweet tea. If you do, do you add anything to it (fruit-infused syrups)? What other nonalcoholic beverages do you feature? Lemonade? Special sodas (root beers perhaps)? How do you encourage pairing of your beverage and food selections? What sorts of combinations work well, to your mind? What sells well from a beverage standpoint?

Just to update, I've done fairly well with adding something to the freezer every week. I've made butternut squash soup, a vegetable curry with quorn, vegetarian dirty rice, baked penne and cheese, refritos, and vegetarian chili. My esteemed housemate Abi contributed a big batch of pasta e fagioli. I've also put several kinds of beans in the freezer and some prepared grains for combining into easy meals. All of this was super-cheap and quite tasty. I'm planning to soak and boil some cannellini this weekend and make a white bean stew plus a white bean-rosemary dip with it. I also have plenty of dried chickpeas and am thinking of putting by some hummus and perhaps some channa masala for eating over jasmine rice on cold February nights.

Externships at L'academie are arranged through a cooperative effort between the student and Barbara, the director of admissions (who runs the externship program). Most students handle almost everything themselves after consulting with Barbara. (If you don't, she'll eventually do it for you, but it's far better to take control of the situation...who wants to be assigned to their next job?) All externships are paid, and most DC area restaurants accept externs. Citronelle is the only place I know of that has a policy of not accepting externs. Most of the chefs in town have a history with L'academie, and understand what an externship entails. As far as I know, externs are to be treated for financial purposes as a full-time employee of the kitchen, meaning the kitchen provides pay, insurance, pays payroll taxes, and so on. I think the agreement chefs sign for L'academie when accepting externs delineates these responsibilities. I am pretty sure L'academie does not accept legal or financial responsibility for a student on an externship.

I visited several kitchens and trailed for a night before deciding on an externship site. Only one place asked me to sign a waiver before trailing. I thought it was interesting that nobody else asked me for anything, and I visited both big hotel city restaurants and small neighborhood suburban places. Granted, this was only for a one-night visit and not for a formal stage. It didn't strike me as odd until I visited the place that requested the waiver, which basically stated that I understood I was not covered under workers compensation type laws and that I would not hold the restaurant liable if I was injured.

I made the recipe Nightscotsman posted last night. Not bad, I like the tang from the cream cheese and the vinegar in the recipe. My partner Erin likes them even more than I do. Next time, I'll probably try the burnt sugar ones. Mmmm, burnt sugar.

Roux-thickened sauces need a little time to work, in my experience. By adding the liquid all at once to the roux, it's less likely to emulsify. When we learned roux-thickened sauces at school, we were taught to do as Loufood said and have either the roux or the liquid hot, and the other substance room temp. Then work the liquid into the roux slowly (not the other way around, which I think will create a lumpy sauce...though I admit I have worked very little with beurre manie, which is essentially raw roux and which is added to sauces later in their cooking to enrich and thicken). When you add liquid to roux, start with just a little drizzle and stir until smooth over low heat. Keep adding more, stopping and stirring until smooth after each addition of liquid. Don't add more liquid until what you have in there is already emulsified. As the quantity of thickened sauce grows, you can add the liquid more quickly and also increase the heat level. Then whip in your cream and such as usual to finish the sauce. Sounds delicious. I agree with Suzanne that gelatin is an unlikely culprit, and that defatting your sauce will help if you're not already doing so. But I think the biggest problem is adding all your liquid at once to the roux. Even if you're whisking as you do it, it seems like the most likely issue to me.

Vengroff, thanks for starting this thread. I've long meant to bring up Washingtonian in discussions here, but never remembered to when I was in front of a computer. I am not a regular reader of Washingtonian. As you detected, it's a soft lifestyle magazine for the upper middle class populations of the Washington area. As for their restaurant coverage, I've never been able to make up my mind as to whether or not it's worthwhile. I mean, they devote a lot of pages to restaurants in every issue. Once a year they do the 100 very best as a cover story, once a year they do a cheap eats cover story, and once a year they do a "food issue" with information about where to buy the best foods of all sorts, prepared, ingredients, ethnic, bakeries, etc. They clearly consider coverage of area dining and eating to be a serious part of their mission. So why am I turned off? Largely, I've been misled too many times by slapdash reviews, especially in the three compendium issues. These days I know way more than what you see in the food issue. I don't think there are 100 excellent cheap eats in the DC area, and the ones I've tested that Washingtonian sent me to have been disappointing at best. (Especially the Wheaton places!) I was really turned off that they ran a picture of Tom Sietsema, the Post's restaurant reviewer, a few months after he was hired. I can understand if Washingtonian takes a Shaw-style editorial approach to reviewer anonymity, but there's still no excuse for throwing Sietsema's visage before the public in open disdain of his incognito style. How tacky is that? Klc often mentions one of their regular reviewers as worth following. I forget the name of the guy. And I've wondered if I'd feel more positively about Washingtonian restaurant coverage if I got over it and started reading them regularly for a few months. Since Brett Anderson left the Washington City Paper, the Washingtonian seems to be the only area publication besides the Washington Post devoting column space to in-depth restaurant reviews...and perhaps that's worth something.

I made another batch last night. I fixed half of it as usual and the other half I spiked with cayenne and chili powder plus a little cinnamon. I took the two types of popcorn to a new year's party. Both went over quite well, I think the beer-drinkers especially liked the spiced caramel popcorn.

I think said utterance merely transforms the contents of the pinch in question into Essence of...oh, nevermind.

For my birthday, my mother-in-law gave me a set of measuring spoons: pinch, dash, and smidgen. I love the smidgen one especially. Edit disclosure: spelling fun

For the pommes maxime, just dunk the wafer-thin slices of potato in melted clarified butter before putting them on the Silpatted sheet pan as Jinmyo suggested. Mm mm good.

Steve, what a wonderful review! Congratulations.

I like the tableau of a DC city street, but the windows at Jaleo Bethesda are really quite gorgeous. I mean the windows themselves; they are trimmed in a rich blue color and have this gorgeous triptych-arch type styling to them. And they do open as Steve said. It's a wonderful place to waste a late summer evening with a pitcher of sangria and a few friends. Jaleo DC is wonderful too, and I like the vibe there. It is younger and hipper. I mean Bethesda is a suburb after all! But Jaleo Bethesda is more accessible to me (particularly because of the aforementioned theater, where we see 80% of the films we take in).

Yup. I'm more likely to eat in Bethesda...it's close to the good art-house theatre and Gifford's Ice Cream, making it an excellent destination for an evening out. Plus I love the big windows at the Bethesda location.

I can't belive you'd skip Jaleo for Capitol Q or whatever that place is in Chinatown. Now that you are remedying your ways, I think I can safely say that you won't have an easy time going wrong. The only thing I've ever eaten there that I didn't like was a squash blossom tortilla...I think the squidgy texture and mild flavor of the flowers didn't work so well with the rich eggs. But everything else...olives with manchego, asparagus with romesco sauce, endive leaves with goat cheese and oranges, crusty bread slathered with tomato and topped with a thick, salty anchovy, potatoes with cabrales, etc etc...will not disappoint. I promise. If I went alone, I'd try to eat at the bar and suck down a few glasses of wine with the treats. Have a great time.

I have a large roasting pan plus a big Pyrex casserole that's about the size of a half-sheet pan, only it has 2" sides. I split the batch between the two and baked them together. Attempt #2 tonight. This time I used light brown sugar and only 1 tbsp molasses. Much lighter in color and flavor than the last batch, and closer to what I was seeking...but still not right. Next I will be attempting Chefette's technique, and perhaps the popcorn balls after that. The popcorn balls seem TOO sticky...I don't want actively sticky, I just want the popcorn to stick in smallish clumps.

I believe that recipe writing lies somewhere between technical writing and creative writing. I worked as a tech writer for some time and inaccuracy really bugs me in recipes. But at the same time I am attracted to the Elizabeth David style of recipe writing; the assumption that you know how to do the basics and using that assumption to write a beautifully shorthanded version of a recipe. Recipe-writing for school style was a real struggle for me initially. I was inclined to provide all sorts of detail that my instructors deemed superfluous. Later I found it easier to write short, "chef-style" recipes with a list of ingredients and minimal instructions. Just the same, the recipes that I wrote for my recipe notebook which I turned in for grades were not enough even for a relatively sophisticated cooking community like eGullet. When I added a recipe to a diary post, I'd add in extra details to make the recipes easier to follow. And if I was sending a recipe to a cooking novice, I'd include even more detail. Some of the details you asked for in a recipe are things I'd never consider including. I've never written freezing directions into a recipe, especially since I am relatively new to freezing prepared foods and don't know much about what does or doesn't work. I don't cook much using special equipment, but maybe my definitions of what's special are different from others' ideas...for example, I assume that anybody trying to follow one of my recipes has parchment paper and knows how to make a cartouche (parchment paper circle) from it. As for preparation ahead, I don't think I've included info on that either, but perhaps I should.

Mushroom risotto with balsamic-glazed Swiss chard, vegetarian fake sausages.

No, it's the photograph-packed book by the same author. You said he refers those desiring illustrations of basic techniques to this book of his. It's not at all comprehensive, it's just a getting-your-feet-wet look at several techniques. Not all that dissimilar from Jacques Pepin's Complete Techniques.

I think it's a decent white-fleshed fish. There's a certain taste to the flesh that I like...a fresh/creamy sensation that I find appealing. Plus it's dirt ass cheap at the Asian market in Rockville, MD. I think it was 99 cents a pound since I was willing to clean and filet it myself. Can't beat that. (And yes, it was quite fresh, and I was able to inspect it quite closely before purchasing.) Tonight: Butternut squash soup garnished with spiced shrimp and a ribbon of cream "Chicken" Quorn-vegetable curry, basmati rice. This was my first time using the quorn I purchased a long time ago...wanted to get it out of the freezer. Not half bad, but not worth a detour either. Next time I'll stick to veg and beans for my curries. It's not as chewy as I'd hoped. To its credit, I'd tossed it into a curry and couldn't really taste it on its own. And I was put off by the admonition on the package saying it shouldn't be served unless heated.

Suzanne, thanks for your excellent and detailed review. One nice thing about internet media is that the length of a review is not necessarily determined by page size etc. How refreshing to have a longer article on the book...Suzanne really gives me enough information to make my own decision on whether or not to read it. A question: Suzanne, have you read Essentials of Cooking? What did you think of it? It was the first cookbook I read that really helped me grasp some of the basic techniques of French-American cookery as practiced by most in this country. I haven't picked it back up since I did my turn in school and now am curious if my perspective on the book has changed. And as you are a more seasoned professional with much more experience, I'm interested in your take on the book.

I find many brands of canned beans to be overcooked. Although some of the canned beans out there, like Westbrae Naturals, are not overcooked, and work just fine. For dishes that I plan to cook for a long time, like baked beans, I prefer to use dried beans so that I can ensure they won't be library paste by the time I'm through with them. And that's the best reason to buy dried beans: you can control the texture better. The second best reason to buy dried beans: they are even cheaper than the canned ones. I used to stock both, but since I started school I've stuck to the dried ones. They take planning but not really hands-on time. Dstone, I wonder how old your dried beans were. I buy mine from the natural foods co-op, where turnover is decent. The stuff in the supermarket is less fresh, in my experience.

Tuesday, December 18 Yesterday and today were our final exams. We took the written final yesterday; 135 questions, including roughly 10 questions from each of the previous five tests plus plenty of new questions. I still struggle with primal cuts, and am sure I missed some of the questions about them, but at least I remembered the ingredients in a marseillaise base. We all took the written test together as a class, and it felt strange to take a test with all of us in one room at the same time. Today was the practical final, and we were divided into two groups as usual. Chef Francois hung around the kitchens and graded us along with Chef Peter since Chef Somchet has left for her holiday. I was a part of the late group, and I reported quite early so I could get a sense of the menu and plan my approach without rushing about. Here is what appeared on the test: Shrimp-filled ravioli, alfredo sauce Flounder meuniere, nut-brown butter sauce Ribeye steak with chasseur sauce, glazed carrots Pear jalousie The steaks were already cut for us and the frangipane for the jalousie was already made, but other than that it was up to us to get it done in three hours. I spent plenty of time writing down mise en place lists in advance since I’d arrived so early, and I wrote shorthand recipes for those items I didn’t instinctively remember how to put together. (I’d never made a sauce chasseur, despite having eaten it the many times it was on the menu.) I started off in the pastry kitchen, getting my puff pastry together and starting off the pasta dough. I felt confident in my ability to turn out a good puff pastry, especially since I got so much good advice from Chefette when I catered that special event a few months ago. Just the same, Chef Francois watched me closely while I worked on my puff, and as a result I got a bit anxious. My dough ended up being a bit dry, and in the end it didn’t rise properly as a result. It puffed some, but not enough. I also spread the frangipane too close to the edge of the dough, so it oozed out and scorched around the sides. The pasta dough was a real triumph. I think pasta-making is the single biggest improvement in my cooking skills when I compare pre- and post-school cooking abilities. I just have a feel for pasta dough; I’ve tried explaining to others how to make it well and it doesn’t translate for some reason. The first sheet I cranked through the machine was too thin and a little ripped, but the second sheet was absolutely perfect. I quickly piped on the shrimp filling, egg washed the dough, and got the raviolis cut and sealed. When Chef Peter and Chef Francois graded my raviolis, Chef Francois said he thought my pasta was the best in the class, and Chef Peter said something along the lines of “you’ve gotten really good at this.” I had a fairly easy time getting the rest of the meal together. The sauce chasseur was simple to make; I think it was the first demi-glace based sauce we made at school. I’m very comfortable with meuniere-style fish dishes, and pan-frying the steak was simple. My carrots looked fairly even (they were julienned) and tasted all right. There was only one major mishap, and oddly enough it wasn’t something that affected my food. Marta was coming up on her service time and came up right behind me just as I started to shake the pan with the chasseur sauce; my left elbow jabbed into her and she dropped her pot of glazed carrots on the floor. I felt terrible about it and tried to peel my extra carrot for her but she refused it, ran to the walk-in, grabbed a new carrot, and started furiously julienning enough for another serving. I cleaned up the mess on the floor and apologized profusely. Later she said it wasn’t a big deal since she’d forgotten to tell me she was behind me, but I’m sure it added to the usual test-day stress, and I felt terrible about it. At the end of the day, Chef Francois told us that he’d never been able to watch us really cook for an extended period of time like we had today. He said he was impressed with our collective speed and efficiency, and he said he thinks we are already good cooks. We cleaned down the tables and the stoves, each of us thinking about our externships starting tomorrow. (Many of my classmates have already started their new jobs, but I don’t think anybody has been working full-time while going to school.) I do not feel nervous or worried about my new job. I just need to show up and work as quickly and efficiently as possible and show that I care about learning and keeping busy. Just like any other new job. A note about this diary: it is going on hiatus until early 2003, when it will probably return in a retooled format (weekly rather than biweekly dispatches, for example).