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eG Foodblog: jgarner53 - New kitchen: new food


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I love the voyeuristic thrill of hearing about other's food, but I don't shop everyday at exotic outdoor farmer's markets, or cook gourmet extravaganzas or host fantastic dinner parties with 37 courses. 360 days a year I probably eat cold cereal for breakfast. Typically one of us cooks something that lasts 2 or 3 days and we eat leftovers. I'm cooking every night for this just so you all don't get bored! (What, leftover curry again?) I guess I'm just worried that I won't measure up to  the high bar set by all the previous bloggers.  :unsure:

This is what I love about the foodblogs - some people do, and some people don't, and it's all good. I eat exactly the same thing for breakfast at least 5 days out of every 7!

Your curry looked wonderful, and now has me jonesing for Thai food. (And leftover curry sounds good to me!)

Marcia.

Don't forget what happened to the man who suddenly got everything he wanted...he lived happily ever after. -- Willy Wonka

eGullet foodblog

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I agree what the others have posted - that is one cute cat picture (of course, very cute tabby too!).

In the Philippines and here in Korea (I just found this out recently) the crusty rice at the bottom of the pot is also cherished and divvied up - like what Smithy posted. My mom and grandmother would purposely fire up the rice pot to produce a nice brown crust which my Dad and sister-in-law would hoard among themselves.

Ooh! DG, that crust ... what's the word for it? (My Asian Cuisine chef would smack me upside the toque for forgetting.)

in the Philippines the yummy brown rice layer is called idtip (sp??)

Just to make a note... I haven't heard of the brown rice crust called as "idtip" (and I know 3 Filipino dialects). Maybe it is another Filipino dialect. But in Tagalog/Filipino, the brown rice crust is called "tutong" (pronounced as tuh-TONG)

ilocano :smile:

the Indonesian word for it is intip.

Wow, getting up at 3:45, you must really love your job! But seriously, was it hard to adjust to these hours?

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She's called me in to play the heavy

Remember, he is pure evil! I wouldn't want to be GC at this point! The man has a sword, and he's not afraid to use it! :shock::raz::biggrin:

OMG, you might be my favorite blog-couple! :laugh:

Does aiki-b rhyme with achy-breaky?

Can he use his sword like the Samurai Baker? :wink: Can we see that, too?

I would love the whoop-ass to be documented as well, for entertainment and educational reasons, and as a deterrent for my contractor.

"Oh, tuna. Tuna, tuna, tuna." -Andy Bernard, The Office
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I agree what the others have posted - that is one cute cat picture (of course, very cute tabby too!).

In the Philippines and here in Korea (I just found this out recently) the crusty rice at the bottom of the pot is also cherished and divvied up - like what Smithy posted. My mom and grandmother would purposely fire up the rice pot to produce a nice brown crust which my Dad and sister-in-law would hoard among themselves.

Ooh! DG, that crust ... what's the word for it? (My Asian Cuisine chef would smack me upside the toque for forgetting.)

in the Philippines the yummy brown rice layer is called idtip (sp??)

Just to make a note... I haven't heard of the brown rice crust called as "idtip" (and I know 3 Filipino dialects). Maybe it is another Filipino dialect. But in Tagalog/Filipino, the brown rice crust is called "tutong" (pronounced as tuh-TONG)

ilocano :smile:

the Indonesian word for it is intip.

Wow, getting up at 3:45, you must really love your job! But seriously, was it hard to adjust to these hours?

I didn't know that Klary (intip)...in fact Indonesian/Ilocano have many food words in common, eg. ikan, kambing, talong, arak to name a few

Jennifer, your range is beautiful.

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Does aiki-b rhyme with achy-breaky? 

'Fraid not. "Eye-key." After practice, I am frequently achy, though in nine years (knock on wood) no breakies...

Can he use his sword like the Samurai Baker?  :wink:  Can we see that, too?

Don't tell GC, but it's not a real sword - no edge, just for practice. Not that I couldn't get one on short notice... Besides, the aikido would be more effective - pop limbs from sockets like disassembling a roast chicken, without leaving a mark!

I would love the whoop-ass to be documented as well, for entertainment and educational reasons, and as a deterrent for my contractor.

What do you know, GC got his butt to the job right early this morning, but not before I left, so we had a little chat, and confidence is up again. That may be the worst part, the roller-coaster inconsistency. That, and hiring a surfer to do work for very detail-oriented people...

"I would kill everyone in this forum for a drop of sweet beer." - Homer Simpson (adapted)

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Full, but wanting a bit of sweet, I grabbed a couple of leftover Robin's eggs (malted milk balls in a crunchy coating) from the candy jar on the (dusty!) coffee table. The candy jar was my grandma's.

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Jennifer,

I believe I could exist on Coke Zero and those malted milk ball eggs. I love both. Your blog rocks and your kitchen is great.

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What do you know, GC got his butt to the job right early this morning, but not before I left, so we had a little chat, and confidence is up again. That may be the worst part, the roller-coaster inconsistency. That, and hiring a surfer to do work for very detail-oriented people...

Dude! Your GC is, like, on surfer time? Say no more! :laugh:

(sez New Yorker transplant to SoCal, who has mellowed out considerably but is still getting used to it ... and to keep this semi-on-topic, I've similarly adjusted my expectations of the service when dining at places immersed in that surfer mentality... :laugh: )

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I also sautéed some zukes in olive oil and then sauced them with soy and sesame oil at the end. If I had sesame seeds, I might have thrown them in, too, but oh well. Another time.

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The zukes splattered up a bit when I first threw them in. It's really surprising how low you need to set the flame on this range to get the same heat or more that I struggled to eke out of the old range.

We recently changed to a stainless topped gas range with continuous grates. With the old electric it was easy to wipe off splatter as we cooked. After cooking the range top needed minimal cleaning. Now however, we have a new ritual of removing the heavy grates to wipe the range top clean after every meal.

Continuous grates = continuous cleaning. :hmmm:

Do you fined yourself doing the same thing?

We’re enjoying your blog BTW.

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While the rice got going, I sliced some zucchini and made the salad. I also poured myself some wine, leftover from last week, but vacuum sealed. Not the greatest wine, but passable. I admit to not being much of a wine snob. I rarely buy a bottle for more than $10. I far prefer reds, sticking mostly to zins or syrahs. This one I'd bought to go with the last of the frozen baked ziti last week.

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I frequently use the same vacu-vin system, although I'm more likely these days to just use the cork without pulling a vacuum. One of the eGulleteers on the Wine forum asserted that pulling a vacuum on the wine pulled some aromatics out of solution. I never found out whether that was true, but when I realized that I could see bubbles on the surface of the wine when I was pumping that bottle, and that I could smell the results, I decided not to be so aggressive about the vacuum.

I'm a zinfandel, syrah or Rioja sort myself, although a nicely balanced GSM (grenache/syrah/mourvedre) can also be a fine experience. I wish we could find good ones for under $10 here, but it's difficult. I keep forgetting how much less wine costs in California. The high prices in Minnesota seem to be more taxation than transportation.

Aiki_brewer wanted to show off his beer with the plated dinner shot. He brewed a batch of California Common (like Anchor Steam) for GC at the beginning of our project, kind of an extra thank you. Now, we're not sure we want to give him any of it, given what we've been through. But he held out a couple of sample bottles, and this was what he was drinking tonight. We'll see if GC can meet the deadlines we set before we decide on the beer.

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That is one beautiful-looking brew, and I'd say that even if the Big Guy didn't know how to wield a sword! The rest of the meal is very pretty, too. Did that beer's taste live up to the promise of its looks?

That counter top is gorgeous.

Does aiki-b rhyme with achy-breaky? 

'Fraid not. "Eye-key." After practice, I am frequently achy, though in nine years (knock on wood) no breakies...

...

What do you know, GC got his butt to the job right early this morning, but not before I left, so we had a little chat, and confidence is up again. That may be the worst part, the roller-coaster inconsistency. That, and hiring a surfer to do work for very detail-oriented people...

Ducky already beat me to the comment, but I am laughing at the mental picture of detail-types trying to work with a surfer. It sounds like the basis for an excellent comic sketch, as long as someone else is in the sketch.

If it isn't too far off-topic: does the sword work go with aikido? Or is kendo another of your belts?

Nancy Smith, aka "Smithy"
HosteG Forumsnsmith@egstaff.org

Follow us on social media! Facebook; instagram.com/egulletx; twitter.com/egullet

"Every day should be filled with something delicious, because life is too short not to spoil yourself. " -- Ling (with permission)
"There comes a time in every project when you have to shoot the engineer and start production." -- author unknown

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That is one beautiful-looking brew, and I'd say that even if the Big Guy didn't know how to wield a sword!  The rest of the meal is very pretty, too.  Did that beer's taste live up to the promise of its looks?

The beer was outstanding. It's actually been conditioning for about a month and a half (it was supposed to be ready for GC when the, ahem, project was finished), and the extra time has allowed it to develop. It now has some complex, subtle fruit undertones that it didn't have after the basic fermentation was done. GC's hardly worthy of it...

Ducky already beat me to the comment, but I am laughing at the mental picture of detail-types trying to work with a surfer.  It sounds like the basis for an excellent comic sketch, as long as someone else is in the sketch.

You know what they say - comedy is tragedy that happens to somebody else...

If it isn't too far off-topic: does the sword work go with aikido?  Or is kendo another of your belts?

With apologies to those who aren't interested (but hey, we had an extended discussion of names for burnt rice, like the twenty-five Inuit words for snow...) - the sword is for iaido, the art of killing from the draw. Very traditional, practiced mainly as solo forms. (Kendo is more like modern fencing, practiced with pads and bamboo "swords.") Aikido is primarily "open-hand," but we occasionally practice weapon take-aways, including sword disarming techniques. Having trained with a sword, all I can say is, "yeah, right..." :raz:

"I would kill everyone in this forum for a drop of sweet beer." - Homer Simpson (adapted)

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Did you miss me? Longer day at work than I anticipated, then spent half an hour talking to GC after I got home, while he went over the stuff he did, and we debated the finer points of paint finishes. Painter Bruce, who is also a surfer, I believe, or at least has inhaled too many paint fumes, insists that eggshell and satin are the same. :blink::unsure: Dude, don't piss on my leg and tell me it's raining.

OK, questions first, but I see that aiki_brewer has answered a few in my absence.

Wow, getting up at 3:45, you must really love your job! But seriously, was it hard to adjust to these hours?

It helps a lot that I'm not a night owl. Even on a normal schedule, I'd be hard pressed to make it past 11. But it did take me about six months to really acclimate to it. I'd come home every day just wiped and need a nap, which our old cat Spanky, was happy to help out with. :smile: And at the beginning of every week, I'd just think, "Why am I doing this?" But now I'm used to it. I like getting out early, though if I had my way, I'd work 7-3 Tuesday-Saturday, so aiki_brewer and I could enjoy some weekend time together. As it is now, with my promotion, I don't see him from Tuesday evening until Thursday evening when he gets home (usually about 6-ish). I used to be able to leave work on Wednesday and take sandwiches down to his office for lunch, but I'm never out of there early enough anymore.

Continuous grates = continuous cleaning. 

Do you fined yourself doing the same thing?

Well, having never had a smoothtop range, I couldn't say. The old range had individual burner rings, so you were still removing them to clean out the gook (and rice boilover). Since this is only the second meal on the range, and it was just a little oil splatter, I'll have to get back to you. Seems like a quick swipe with a soapy sponge was all it took.

Ducky already beat me to the comment, but I am laughing at the mental picture of detail-types trying to work with a surfer. It sounds like the basis for an excellent comic sketch, as long as someone else is in the sketch.

GC: Dude, you've, like, totally got to see the whole picture, man!

Me: What I see is that this isn't right, and this isn't, and this isn't...

GC: But, like it's all beautiful, you know?

Me: Just fix it.

:raz::laugh:

That counter top is gorgeous.

Thanks. I can't wait to oil it again. Most of it is unoiled because I hardly see the point yet. Soon, though, soon! I love how smooth it feels.

I'm a zinfandel, syrah or Rioja sort myself, although a nicely balanced GSM (grenache/syrah/mourvedre) can also be a fine experience. I wish we could find good ones for under $10 here, but it's difficult. I keep forgetting how much less wine costs in California. The high prices in Minnesota seem to be more taxation than transportation.

Yeah, I should branch out more, but I have a handful that I drink regularly -- Peachy Canyon Incredible Red, Castoro Cellars Zin, and others I can't remember, but if I were in the wine aisle at TJ's, I would. We also have a case of Roshambo Winery's Syrah which we really like. We also love their attitude - wine is for enjoying, not snobbery, and it shouldn't matter if you're drinking it out of a paper cup or Riedel stemware. Their tasting room is very modern, and their pourers usually pierced and tatted up. Freaked the hell out of my mom on a tasting trip last summer! :hmmm::biggrin:

OK, onto the food, and then I am going to start putting things away in my kitchen! My drawers are clean! (sounds like a medical issue or a laundry one, but I'm speaking of cabinets!)

Got up this morning and snarfed a bowl of cereal, TJ's honey graham squares. Eh, OK, not my favorite, a little sweet.

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Made my tea in my travel mug, and I was out the door, just after it started to rain! I didn't see that coming. I wanted to take a picture of the front of the bakery in the pre-dawn stillness, but with the rain, I just wanted to get inside.

We have a bigger, more commercial looking space on the ground floor, but this is where I spend the bulk of my day, and what it looked like about 4:30:

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What you can't see is the two-door reach in and six-foot bench on the other side of the room. There's a double convection oven in the back, past the metro rack, where we do the bulk of the baking. (There's also a huge rack oven downstairs and a majestic deck oven)

Between 4:30 and 5:20 I:

baked off 6 Gateau Basque (lemony tart dough filled with cherry jam and pastry cream & baked)

baked off 27 cupcakes (3 flavors - vanilla, chocolate, and red velvet)

glazed and garnished 9 lemon tarts

depanned and garnished 7 chocolate tarts

depanned 8 cheesecakes

put 4 goat cheese tarts on cardboards

and carried everything but the cupcakes and Basques downstairs to the walk-in and retail areas (depending on whether it was for the store or our other stores), along with:

25 chocolate brownies and

2 cornmeal tarts.

AND brought up two cases of milk, a stack of sheet pans, towels, and aprons.

Each trip goes up or down a flight of 25 stairs.

Remember the old army ad where they said, "We do more before 9 am each day than most people do all day?" That's kind of how I feel, especially when I open on Wednesdays. Wednesdays I'm by myself until 6, then two others come in to help with the morning production.

After I finished all that, it was on to the cannelé, delightful little treats from Bordeaux that are our specialty. I think we are the only ones in the city who make them. Why? Because they are a royal PITA, that's why. Labor intensive. First, set up the molds (today 360 of them), 40 to a pan:

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Then whisk and pour just the right amount of batter (about the consistency of crèpe batter) into each one, so they're all about 3/4 full. Too little, and you'll have a shorty. Too much, and it will catch on the edge of the mold and not bake properly.

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Repeat 320 more times. Halfway through the baking, the pans (now heavy with batter and the trays laden with melted (hot!) wax) must be rotated 180° and top to bottom. Then, when they're done, arm yourself with a good towel, folded in quarters, a knife to pick up the molds with, and, two (or three if your hands are big enough), knock them onto a sheet tray to release the cannelé. Here's my first 100:

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After you're done with all that, let the waxy pans cool, scrape that gunk off and discard, and melt yourself some beeswax and butter and paint the inside of each and every stinking mold with the liquid.

Gee, I can't imagine why more bakeries don't make these. :raz::laugh:

I didn't get around to asking the owner today if I could take pictures downstairs or of the retail store. I guess he has a policy of no photos in the store because people were just coming in to take pictures (to remember us? spy on us? who knows?), so it might not happen.

Once I'd finished morning production, close to 8, I wrote up the production lists for the day for upstairs and headed downstairs to do theirs. I also had to do ordering today, so I checked all that stuff out before I could come back and actually get to work. By then (almost 9), Chris had gotten busy in the kitchen, and the stove looked about like this:

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I had leftover pears after assembling the day's goat cheese tarts, so had myself a snack about 10 (the pears go on the goat cheese tarts, along with huckleberries)

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That held me until maybe 11, when I really started getting hungry (4 am was a long time ago!). Some days I don't even make it until 9 before I eat lunch. Today I had a goat cheese/chorizo quiche, my favorite, and it goes well with a Diet Coke (the house favorite, so I go along, rather than drink my Coke Zero).

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Mind you, like most people who work in the industry, this is all done without a break, without sitting down, without stopping. Which is not to say that I couldn't, but it would just mean I'd leave 15 or whatever minutes later at the end of the day. Sometimes it can take me over an hour to eat a sandwich. :sad:

Later I had a reject cannelé. For some reason, the top came out really light, but it still tasted fine!

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I'm not counting the bits of chocolate chip cookie dough, or chocolate chip cookies and double chocolate cookies that I'm testing. We were done with production about 1-ish, and I started to work on my product testing, which kept me there until just before 3. I wrote up the next morning's list (much like today's only a little larger), and finally came home.

It's 5pm now, and I'm feeling a bit peckish but am not ready for dinner. I think there's some cheese in the fridge. Maybe I'll have that and an apple. I'll let you know later.

Tonight, aiki_brewer has both martial arts practices and isn't home until well after I've gone to bed. Usually I don't even wake up when he comes in, or else it's so quick that I mutter a very sleepy "hello" and go right back to sleep. What with all this cooking I've been doing, we are flush with leftovers. I'm thinking curry. But don't worry, fresh cooking will happen tomorrow!

"I just hate health food"--Julia Child

Jennifer Garner

buttercream pastries

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Oh, and I forgot to mention, as you might have noticed from the busy stove photo, that because we are in this rinky dink home style kitchen, and the dishwasher is downstairs, I do all my own dishes. Every bowl, pan, whisk, and lexan container, all day long.

How the hell do I do it and why am I not dead tired at the end of every day? Hell if I know. :raz:

"I just hate health food"--Julia Child

Jennifer Garner

buttercream pastries

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I'm exhausted just reading about your day!

Tell me more about the cannele, something I'm not familiar with. What does the wax do? They sound like a real PITA.

Up topic, you mentioned a Thai market in Berkeley. We get there every couple of years to visit my sister and I'm enamoured with Acme Bakery and Monterrey Market (both very close to my sister's house) as well as Berkeley Bowl. Comments on Acme bread?

Susan Fahning aka "snowangel"
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What? You mean to tell me you haven't been reading the foodblogs yourself?

I used to read them religiously, but kind of stopped a while ago and haven't been reading them lately. I love the voyeuristic thrill of hearing about other's food, but I don't shop everyday at exotic outdoor farmer's markets, or cook gourmet extravaganzas or host fantastic dinner parties with 37 courses. 360 days a year I probably eat cold cereal for breakfast. Typically one of us cooks something that lasts 2 or 3 days and we eat leftovers. I'm cooking every night for this just so you all don't get bored! (What, leftover curry again?) I guess I'm just worried that I won't measure up to the high bar set by all the previous bloggers. :unsure:

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I'm exhausted just reading about your day!

I think I'm more exhausted writing it than actually doing it! :raz:

Tell me more about the cannele, something I'm not familiar with. What does the wax do? They sound like a real PITA.

The wax and butter do two things: help release the cannelé from the mold and adds some flavor and (ok, 3 things) imparts a bit of a shine to the finished product. You can really see it in the picture. The ingredients are milk, butter, pastry flour, sugar, eggs, egg yolks, rum, and vanilla beans. We mix about 16 quarts a day. They really are quite tasty. The exterior is crisp and chewy; the interior is custardy, not so much like a popover, but really more custardy. If you ever get a chance (they're all over Tokyo, for some reason), I highly recommend trying them.

you mentioned a Thai market in Berkeley. We get there every couple of years to visit my sister and I'm enamoured with Acme Bakery and Monterrey Market (both very close to my sister's house) as well as Berkeley Bowl. Comments on Acme bread?

I think the name of the Thai market in Berkeley is Erawan. It's on University Avenue just about across from the Andronico's market. It's definitely one of those "blink and you miss it" kinds of storefronts and took me a couple of passes the first time I went there.

I love Berkeley Bowl! I can't shop there often, obviously, as it's a good 40 minute drive away, but if I happen to be in the East Bay for any reason, I almost always find an excuse to visit. It's such a serious produce mecca. I've never seen three different varieties of mango, all labeled, in one place before. Or so many varieties of apples, both organic and non. And their bulk foods!

I've never been to Monterey Market, but it's one of the names bandied about by food lovers all over the Bay Area.

I highly recommend the Cheese Board, also in Berkeley, on Shattuck, north of University (so north of campus). Fantastic pizzas and bread and of course, a huge selection of cheese.

I adore Acme bread. Their sour is the best. Even though I can take home loaves of bread from work for free, I will go out of my way to pick up Acme if I want sour (something we don't do nearly as well as they do). And sometimes you just gotta have sourdough bread. Like when we do our annual Dungeness crab feed, in December or January.

Wow, bedtime already! :unsure: Did I say I was going to start unpacking my kitchen? I lied. I finished my snack of an apple (fuji) and some cheese (a great aged Irish cheddar with those fantastic little crystals in it that I just love)

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and then I decided to have a bit of aiki_brewer's oatmeal stout (on tap on the kegorator - remind me to show you that) and watch a bit of TV before dinner because really, it was after 6 at that point. Hadn't I done enough work for one day?

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Oooh, a bit more about the cheddar. I really like TJ's for their cheese selection. It's not high falutin' or anything. For that I can go to a number of cheeserias or upscale groceries, including one around the corner from work, to pick up that special favorite, like Redwood Hill Farms' Boucheron or Camelia (both goat's milk cheeses). But for your everyday snacking cheeses, TJ's can't be beat. Many times on Sundays, when I have the whole afternoon/evening to myself because aiki_brewer is out doing his thang, I will pick up two or three hunks of cheese, some crackers (preferred over baguette slices), and make that a dinner, maybe with a few TJ's gyoza or some soup to round out the meal.

I'd already decided to reheat the curry, so tonight's plate doesn't look all that different from Monday's except that tonight I had the other sampler bottle of the California Common that aiki_brewer had last night. Really, I promise, new food tomorrow. In fact, I already dug out the cookbook I needed, buried, of course, at the bottom of the box. :rolleyes: Tomorrow, we change continents!

So here's tonight's dinner, with very heady beer and the same ol' salad.

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As I said, aiki_brewer doesn't get home until about 11 and doesn't really have time for a real dinner between practices (in two places, each with its own outfit). He usually packs a sandwich or something he can eat cold, then makes himself a snack when he gets home: some cheese, maybe some peanut butter. And I won't see him, except for a bleary-eyed sleepytime half-eye open moment. Maybe.

One of the things I love about Wednesday nights, though, is getting to watch the stuff on tv he doesn't like. Right now I'm watching Top Design (well, not as I type this - that would be a challenge!), but I watched the penultimate episode, and Tivo will catch the finale tonight. I :wub: Tivo. For someone with a schedule as wonky as mine, it's indispensible.

After digging out my cookbook, I decided to open the mochi I bought on Monday. Not bad - just enough texture in the bean filling to identify it as red bean. I'm a sucker for red bean paste ever since a Korean-American roommate in college took me to Koreatown one day and bought me a red bean donut. (Her kimchee did stink up our dorm fridge though. A bagel with kimchee-flavored cream cheese was not a good thing). When we were in Tokyo last spring, red bean donuts were a staple breakfast, often from the dinky bakery across the street from our hotel. But I love red bean ice cream, mochi, yum yum yum! :rolleyes: C'mon, wouldn't you?

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For all I know, these are bottom of the barrel, cheap crap mochi, the Lil Debbie Snack Cakes of mochi. But what do I know? They're fine by me. :rolleyes:

I hate to leave you all again until tomorrow afternoon. I feel like I miss so much! I'll try to shoot more of the bakery tomorrow, or at least more of what I do, get you a 'hands on' shot (easier with tomorrow night's meal and aiki_brewer at home), and show you the keg-o-rator.

"I just hate health food"--Julia Child

Jennifer Garner

buttercream pastries

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Looking at your cannelé - the molds and the finished products - reminds me of a surprise I got last week. I took a class that demonstrated, among other things, those little molten lava cakes that were all the rage a while back (and still are, out here). The teacher used baba au rhum molds due to their taper and height. What surprised me was that he didn't just tip them over once, as you obviously did with the cannelé. He had to tip each little cake out of its mold, then set it back upright so that the fat end was on top. It had never occurred to me that the cake might be oriented that way. In our case, the top was puffy enough that it probably wouldn't have balanced top-down, as I'd originally figured, even though the top was wider than the base. The one time I tried this at home, I figured the little cones would be oriented with the fat end down. I did not use baba au rhum cups.

I suppose my question is whether you've ever encountered that sort of situation, where you have to do a double-flip of a baked good: once to get it out of the mold, and again to orient it properly? Cupcakes and muffins are an obvious example, but they're so stable you can flip them out and let them cool a bit before reorienting them. What else? And do you do those molten lava cakes? Or baba au rhum?

Edited: spelling, and I probably still didn't get it right. Grr.

Edited by Smithy (log)

Nancy Smith, aka "Smithy"
HosteG Forumsnsmith@egstaff.org

Follow us on social media! Facebook; instagram.com/egulletx; twitter.com/egullet

"Every day should be filled with something delicious, because life is too short not to spoil yourself. " -- Ling (with permission)
"There comes a time in every project when you have to shoot the engineer and start production." -- author unknown

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Thanks so much for the cannele production pics. I had my first cannele at Bay Bread (along with tarte tatin -- yum) and it remains one of my favorites. I recently tried out my new copper cannele molds, but didn't add enough butter/wax and ended up scratching off some of the tin lining trying to pry out the pastries. :hmmm:

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Re: caneles. You are using a wax-butter coating on your molds and I'm curious if you have also used the wax-oil emulsion. I've played with countless recipes, on and off for thirty years, with results that are pleasing, but not of the same quality as the ones I've sampled in Bordeaux. I figure I'll never achieve the same results without a professional oven (but don't home bakers in Bordeaux use regular ovens?) but can the butter make a difference?

Your kitchen is beautiful! It looks like the perfect setup for many wonderful meals.

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Finally, I'm back! I had some prep to do for dinner when I got home, and I wanted to get it started for reasons I'm sure you'll guess in a bit. (oooh, mystery!)

I suppose my question is whether you've ever encountered that sort of situation, where you have to do a double-flip of a baked good: once to get it out of the mold, and again to orient it properly? Cupcakes and muffins are an obvious example, but they're so stable you can flip them out and let them cool a bit before reorienting them. What else? And do you do those molten lava cakes? Or baba au rhum?

We used to make babas, but stopped about a year ago. They just weren't a big seller anymore. We'd bake the bases and freeze them, and then soak them in syrup each day.

We don't do molten lava cakes -- too American (but cupcakes aren't? this one baffles me :unsure::wacko: ). But we do make a melting chocolate cake, more like a really greasy brownie (if you ask me) than a true molten lava cake. We've done them for one of the restaurants in the owner's empire, but they just invert out of the mold to be right side up (they're baked upside down).

One thing we do have to flip back over is the French toast we make for our bakery cafés. It's 3 slices of brioche cut into rounds to fit into flexipan molds, then soaked with a custard mix, sprinkled with sugar and baked. They're sturdy enough when cooled a bit to be able to flip the whole tray over, remove the pan, and then flip the toasts back over again. Very efficient.

If you noticed, the cannelé molds are wider at the opening than at the bottom, so that when they're depanned, the bottom (which is kind of ugly) is hidden, but wider to support the cannelé.

I recently tried out my new copper cannele molds, but didn't add enough butter/wax and ended up scratching off some of the tin lining trying to pry out the pastries.

Did you season them first? We season ours filled with oil, then baked at a high temp for about an hour. Then we wax. But the seasoning is only occasional (thank goodness). The molds are never washed, so built up a fine patina over time. If it gets mucked up for any reason, we have to scrub them out with salt, wash them, and reseason before waxing.

I'm curious if you have also used the wax-oil emulsion.

Nope. Haven't tried it. My former boss was trying to get them to work with pan spray for about a month, but they just weren't the same. The crust was dull and unlovely to look at, and the texture was all wrong. (Hence we had to reseason them and start over).

OK, on to today! Same schedule as yesterday, but I'd left a bagel out overnight to thaw so I could have something different today. This is really rare for me, and only done because I happen to have bagels in the freezer & cream cheese in the fridge. Filled up my go cup of tea, ate about half of my bagel before it was time to go, and finished the rest in the car (don't worry, I brushed my teeth!)

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It wasn't raining this morning, so I was able to risk life & limb by taking this photo of the front of the bakery while I was crossing the street.

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I managed a shot of our back room, next to the kitchen. We have much more storage than this, and in a few weeks, actually, this room is going to become and office, and we have to move everything downstairs somehow. The bakery operates 24/7, so there is always a crew there. Soon the night bakers will be gone, and the viennoiserie (puff pastry, croissants) will migrate to our much larger baking facility in South San Francisco, leaving us more room. Also in this room are two reach in fridges, and more stuff.

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It was a busy day, and I didn't see much of the owner except when he came in to show me the mock up of the box for the puff pastry squares he's trying to sell to Trader Joe's. (We already make some things for them, including bread). A few weeks ago, he handed me these baked puff squares and asked me to make a couple of simple tarts with just whipped cream, strawberries & raspberries. They would be shot for the cover of the box, so couldn't look too complicated for the home cook (but had to look pretty). I spent about an hour very carefully arranging berries! How exciting! Something I made is going to wind up on a package! So when he showed me the mockup today, it was really, really cool to see my strawberry tart right there on the front of the box. Then it got better. :biggrin: He said that this packaging he's going to sell "everywhere." Uh, everywhere? "Yeah, Safeway, everywhere." Safeway? My tart is going to be in Safeway? I don't think I came down to earth for about an hour. :biggrin: And he'd asked ME to make it. :smile:

I did manage some lunch, a slice of our new chicken tart: roasted chicken in a cream sauce with tarragon, and topped with large mushrooms before baking. It was quite tasty. This was the first time I'd tried it (see what I do for you?)

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The rest of the day was quite a rush, and I didn't take any more pictures at work (sorry).

I had to stop by TJ's on my way home, even though I was still in my stained checks (oops for forgetting a pair of jeans to change into). I needed a couple of things for tonight's dinner and for tomorrow's. This particular TJ's has a microscopic parking lot, and there is frequently a line to get into the parking lot. :shock: There was one today, but not too bad. It gave me time to take this photo while I waited. The best part is that it's right on my way home.

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Aiki_brewer also has a TJ's about two blocks from his work, so he can easily stop by for any last minute ingredients if I need him too.

I won't show you yet what I bought, though. First you have to figure out what I came home and made (this will give me a chance to shower and relax a bit! :raz: )

When I got home, I dug out the food processor and got started on something for tomorrow night. At this point, all the ingredients are either in the fp or on the counter. Can you guess what it is?

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Having a little trouble? Does this help any? This is what came out of the fp:

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Next up, something for tonight's dinner. I gathered all my ingredients, once again, just before beginning to process.

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I had to work this a bit by hand, but eventually got it together (I didn't want to burn out he processor). Here's what it looked like when I was done:

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I tossed the fp into the dishwasher and started 'er up. This isn't the first load, but boy, do I love having a dishwasher again!

It was really fun to do this work on the counter. In the old kitchen, I had tile counters and had to put down a cutting board if I needed a smooth surface. It worked OK, but was a pain.

Any idea yet what I'm making for dinner? What if I show you the next thing I made? Since the fp was now in the dishwasher, I pulled out my new immersion blender to get this one going before putting it on the stove. I'd had an old one, a one-piece Braun that had been a wedding present, but I really wanted one with a metal wand and detachable motor. I got this one, though in white. Wow, it has speeds! :raz::laugh: Anyway, it did the job in no time flat, and I love the simmer feature on my burners - no splattering!

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So, what are the mystery components, and what am I making for dinner tonight? What am I going to do with the first thing I made?

Guess away!

"I just hate health food"--Julia Child

Jennifer Garner

buttercream pastries

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The french toast sounds wonderful! I want to make something like that. I love my KA immersion blender too.

I think the first is pastry dough, and the second is bread dough, but what the heck do I know. :blink:

Edited to add, wait! I think the second one is pizza dough!

Edited by Marlene (log)

Marlene

Practice. Do it over. Get it right.

Mostly, I want people to be as happy eating my food as I am cooking it.

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...

...

I did manage some lunch, a slice of our new chicken tart: roasted chicken in a cream sauce with tarragon, and topped with large mushrooms before baking. It was quite tasty. This was the first time I'd tried it (see what I do for you?)

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...

I love the sweet items at your bakery but I'm also a big fan of the savory tarts! On one memorable occasion we bought some savory tart slices and some macarons and brought them along for a hike in the Marin Headlands. They were polished off for lunch on a rock at a beautiful little beach under the cliffs.

Congrats on your tart art... <smile>

"Under the dusty almond trees, ... stalls were set up which sold banana liquor, rolls, blood puddings, chopped fried meat, meat pies, sausage, yucca breads, crullers, buns, corn breads, puff pastes, longanizas, tripes, coconut nougats, rum toddies, along with all sorts of trifles, gewgaws, trinkets, and knickknacks, and cockfights and lottery tickets."

-- Gabriel Garcia Marquez, 1962 "Big Mama's Funeral"

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How cool about the tarts! I'd love to have frozen all-butter puff pastry readily available to me.

Did you season them first? We season ours filled with oil, then baked at a high temp for about an hour. Then we wax. But the seasoning is only occasional (thank goodness). The molds are never washed, so built up a fine patina over time. If it gets mucked up for any reason, we have to scrub them out with salt, wash them, and reseason before waxing.

Well, I seasoned with a thin film of oil, but it clearly didn't do the job. I'll retry with the molds filled with oil; thanks for the tip.

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Ooh! DG, that crust ... what's the word for it? (My Asian Cuisine chef would smack me upside the toque for forgetting.)

In korean it's called "nu run gee" or something like that. Its good boiled with some water or roasted barley tea and eaten after dinner (good after eating greasy foods).

so jagarner53 (don't know your real name), how long have you lived in san fran? I used to live there when I was in elementary school in persidio and I loved it. I remember all the good food and that awful earthquake. Oh and your mochi might've been bad cause it was old. Mochi is only good when it's eaten the day it was made...after that it is pretty crappy. Since you are a baker, have you ever thought of making your own and pounding your own rice? Also it's nice to see that you like the green tea mousse pocky. I love the stuff and usually eat off the mousse part before I bite into the stick.

BEARS, BEETS, BATTLESTAR GALACTICA
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