SethG

I'll be in Vegas over MLK weekend and I was thinking about trying Bouchon-- but I see here nothing but one negative review of the place. Anybody got any other opinions, or should I skip it? I also want to check out the Bellgio's new pastry shop... is it open now?

Mama! Gorgeous pave! Your cake looks very moist. I tried to heed Patrick's advice and go all out with the soaking syrup, but I think I could've gone even further than I did.

Thanks for the compliments! I just made one cake, and I made it using volume measurements because my kitchen scale died. I also meant to top it with cocoa powder as suggested in the recipe, but I brought the cake to my aunt's house and forgot the powder. I can't say it tasted as if anything was missing.

The pave came out really well. It was a huge hit, even with my wife, who has found Herme's desserts a bit to intensely bittersweet in the past. The inclusion of milk chocolate in the ganache can't have hurt. This may be my favorite of the Herme recipes I've tried; I will definitely make it again. It's a great do-ahead cake. You can make all the pieces the day before and assemble the cake many hours before you need it.

Something that will always remain mysterious to me is that my local groceries often fail to stock the most common sorts of crap. Today I was looking for potato starch, which I'm sure I've bought before. I know it existed in the past. And yet the folks at my Key Food looked at me as if I were crazy. Potato starch? Maybe aisle 6 (baking)? No. Maybe aisle 8 (Goya)? No. Try aisle 7 (pastas/gravies)-- here they had a product from Ener G called "Pure Potato Starch Flour." I bought it. Is this the same thing as potato starch?

Those macarons are going to come soon for me, I can feel it. As to the pave, I'm still planning on making it, mostly tomorrow, and I'll finish it up on Saturday. I have a question. The picture in the book appears to be of the variation in the box on the facing page, in which the pave is not sprinkled with cocoa powder, but is instead coated with chocolate glaze. I'm not sure which way to go, but I'm wondering: Patrick, did you coat yours with the ganache AND the chocolate glaze? Are you supposed to do both? That's what it looks like the book says, but that just sounds ridiculous to me, and it appears from your photo that you went with just the ganache, and no cocoa powder. I like the look of just the ganache. Anyone else have an opinion? I may go with the powder just to see how it looks and tastes, but I'm afraid that won't look as impressive as the shiny pave in the book.

Pan, you and I went to Kee's on different days, but I presume the chocolates we had were virtually the same. I'm obviously neither as experienced or sophisticated as your brother in my approach to chocolate. But I disagree with a few of his opinions. I didn't detect any sort of graininess or other technichal deficiency in the chocolates. And apart from the passion fruit, I would say that what I tried was really quite balanced-- I think the Yuzu was the chocolate I couldn't remember that I had. As to the passion fruit, I think your brother's criticism is entirely beside the point. The passion fruit flavor is admittedly huge-- remarkably so, and by design. To criticize this achievement as out of balance with the chocolate is, to my mind, a little too formal. It may not be "correct," but I'm confident Kee knows exactly what she's doing and has made an artistic judgment about it. Any customer can agree or disagree with her decision-- that's what taste is all about. I think she made the right choice. But to criticize that chocolate as out of balance seems to me akin to saying that rules can never be broken.

I agree. This was my first time seeing the show and I couldn't believe how bleak the situation was going in. The owners seemed clueless, but well-intentioned.

Kee's is really a great New York experience. I went there today, and got several different truffles: thai chili, lemon-basil, cappucino, passion fruit, and something else. I've managed to eat them all over the course of the day, and all were really wonderful. The passion fruit is really intense, but I think the thai chili was my favorite. The spiciness is subtle-- it really sneaks up on you and complements the chocolate in an unexpectedly harmonious way. I don't think any of these flavors are revolutionary; I know Torres does a passion fruit thing and Pierre Herme uses slivers of habernero and regularly combines lemon and chocolate. But these were really well executed. Her work space occupies the same floor area as the retail-- the whole shop can't be much more than 8 x 15 feet. They do all of their tempering etc. on a single burner that sits just a couple feet from the display case, and I only noticed one mini-fridge. Kee and her helper must work with extreme diligence at cleaning as they go-- the burner and its stand were spotless and I didn't see so much as a drop of chocolate on the floor or on Kee or her helper. And this was while Kee was continuing to pour chocolate into molds at about 1:00 in the afternoon. Each piece is $1.75.

For the papery husks: could you blanch the chestnuts in boiling water with baking soda added? I know this works very well for hazelnuts. The last time I tried to peel chestnuts I vowed never to try again, otherwise I'd test this out myself.

I visited the new shop today at lunchtime. It was not at all crowded, and I found the staff friendly and helpful. There were no lines, and the folks behind the counter asked me what I wanted, so there weren't any issues about where to stand and so forth. I loved the space. I bought a bar of milk chocolate and a bar of 60% bittersweet that I'm going to taste later and maybe use in baking. I also got a small bar called "Coffee Break: Milk Chocolate Turbo," made from milk chocolate and coffee. It's really tasty.

You should check out tetsujustin's detailed review posted last week here (toward the bottom of the page, posted Dec. 20).

It's a regular pan if you have the size: 7.5 by 3.5 inches-- I've had a hard time finding this size in the stores. But as I mentioned a few pages back, I did find them at kitchencollection.com, pretty cheap. I bet 8x4 pans would work fine.

Today's New York Times has a nice article (free registration required) on Shirley O. Corriher's forthcoming book Bakewise. Fans of Cookwise will be disheartened to learn that she won't have the book out until at least next Christmas. But three very tasty-sounding cakes are published along with the article-- look at the "Related" sidebar.

I finally got the right pans for the Pave, so I'm thinking about making it this weekend. Anybody else wanna do it?

If anyone here is serious about this subject then I hope they have read, or will read, the Hesses' iconoclastic book The Taste of America. The insidious infusion of sweetness is one theme in this strongly spiced, unsweet book, a minor classic among food lovers in the US since first published (to some fuss, and critical respect) in the late 1970s. In 2000 it was reprinted in paperback with addenda. One or two popular food icons get skewered, or flamed, in the book, albeit with documented data; some people cannot get past that, as is usual when people's icons are skewered, and others dislike the tone, regardless of the data; but even without those elements the book would be vital, I feel, for its data and frequent source quotations and references. The bibliography is sort of a mini-Bitting. (Bitting is the classic US gastronomic bibliography and was based on the Bitting Collection of San Francisco which became in 1946, if I remember, the nucleus of the US Library of Congress cookbook section.) I put some comments on amazon, a few years ago after the reprint appeared, on the product information page for this book, which you can call up with the amazon link here. (Edited for one typo and one really lame sentence structure.) ← I wandered into this thread in order to recommend The Taste of America and saw that you beat me to it, MaxH! Great book. Funny too.

Ditto! Richard, lemon, Kevin-- great stuff. That pineapple looks insane. Happy holidays to all of you (and Pierre & Dorie, wherever you are). I can't bake from the book this weekend (i.e., today or tomorrow), but next weekend I might be up for something.

You also have to figure that the Times article sent them more people than they could handle. I almost went yesterday, but couldn't find the time. I guess I'll give them a few weeks before I go.

The current issue of Martha Stewart Living actually has several orange and tangerine desserts, including marmalades and cakes.

Nice article about Jacques Torres' new chocolate factory in today's NY Times (free registration required). Somewhat maddeningly, the article doesn't specify what the shop, which is located at 350 Hudson (cross street: King), sells or for how much. I called them up (212-414-2462) and was told that they don't sell unsweetened bars. But they do have varieties of bittersweet (and I assume milk) chocolate. The woman I spoke to said the bars are labeled by their percentage and that while the bars don't carry names, they are described by the ratios of the beans' countries of origin. The bars are 4 ounces, and cost $4-5. This is certainly close enough to the price of Valrhona or Scharffen Berger for me to give them a try. I'm sure the bars are works in progress and are likely to improve with time.

Both of these examples are truly appalling, although I think the first one would have been corrected on the spot if you'd said something about it. Again, all of your complaints seem legit to me. Ambiance, service etc. all factor in to the rating of a high-end restaurant, you'll get no disagreement here. I just disagree abot the weight you've given them, but if thse problems really took that much away from the food for you, then there you go.

Justin, I don't want to nit-pick, and I think your reviews are wonderful overall, but don't you think your 3 rating for Bouley is a bit harsh? Given the food you described, even with all the weaknesses you also clearly identified, I was expecting more like a 6. You justify your disappointment quite well, but still it seems to me the kind of cuisine you experienced merits a bit more recognition than a 3. I find the place a bit stuffy too, but would you really never go back?

Rose Levy Beranbaum also uses gingersnaps pressed into the top of the crust for her pumkin pie-- I tried it this year and it worked out very well.

My guess is that your flour has less protein than the flour you used to use, and so it doesn't develop as strong a gluten network. This in turn leads the dough to slacken. There are "improvers" that bakers in Europe add to flours to deal with this issue, but you might try solving it with technique first. When you form loaves, you might try being a little more aggresive in shaping the dough into a tight package. Surface tension helps a loaf spread up instead of out. Also, you might try "turning" the dough during its first rise, if you don't already. This technique, also known as the "stretch and fold," involves removing the dough from its container and gently folding it up like a business letter, left to center, right to center, and then top to center and bottom to center. You can do this three or four times at half-hour or one-hour increments as the dough rises, and it really helps to strengthen a slack dough.

I thought the Grenobloise was really sensational. It is an over-the-top dessert. The (really great) cocoa crust, plus the creamy ganache, plus the caramel-coated pecans add up to a dessert that is almost unbearably good. My wife found it too rich and couldn't eat more than a few bites. This is a problem I'll continue to face, I fear, as I continue to work my way through the book. I love desserts that showcase rich, dark chocolate-- but my wife is not as big a fan. She prefers things more toward the milk chocolate end of the spectrum. Another problem I continue to struggle with is that I tend to snap some photos quickly, just as I'm about to serve dessert, and then I later discover that the pictures just don't do justice to the dish. Here's my best shot of the Grenobloise: You'll have to take my word on this, but the caramel and nuts are covering a perfect, shiny ganache. I'm very happy with how that came out. I'm inexperienced at making caramel, and I had a little trouble with it here, although it worked out fine. Dorie doesn't say anything in the recipe about the dangers of crystalization and how to avoid it. I had a couple lumpy caramel crystals at the end of the process but they were easy to remove, so it was no big deal. I also found that my sugar took a long time to melt, for some reason, and by the time it melted my cream had cooled enough that I had massive clumpage when I poured the cream into the hotter caramel. Dorie warns about this, and says all will smooth out as you heat and stir, but I found that this required quite a bit of effort and acutually took several minutes, not the seconds she predicts. Again, I think my ingredients were cooler than they should have been, although I don't know how it happened. My caramel at the end was lighter in color than the caramel in the book. I'm guessing I should have browned it longer before I added the cream. But it tasted great, so whatever. The caramel-covered toasted pecans are really a revelation. I think they could make a dessert all by themselves.