eG Foodblog: Chromedome - Living the dream...I guess...

[chromedome]

Okay, it's officially been a long friggin' day. Last night at this time, I was just signing off; now I'm just sitting down.

At this particular moment I'm enjoying that late burst of lucidity that comes with being very tired. I don't know how long it will last, now that I'm sitting down, but I'll ride it as long as I can. Basically I'm too wired to sleep right away, but I'll crash fast once that wears off.

Today's breakfast was a glass of water. Didn't feel like eating, so I just left it at that. Got to work at the usual time (7:50) and got into the routine. Product was looking pretty good, except that some of the muffins were a little small. We'd been battling portion-control issues with the previous graveyard-shift baker...I left a note to tell the new guy that he's officially an overachiever! He's been doing this for just two weeks, though, and overall I'm impressed. He's going to be good at this job, once he's gotten his eye a bit better attuned to doneness and portion size.

One of our suppliers sent along some samples of a bagel they thought would be a good fit with our clientele, and which we are not currently buying. So, I had a chunk of that and told myself I'd had breakfast after all. It was a pretty good bagel, I think we'll probably pick it up. A basic white bagel, but with flax, millet, and oats added in.

Having performed my product-evaluation duties, I started on my order (I place my Monday order on Friday, as I believe I'd mentioned upthread). I was interrupted mid-way, though, as we had more catering deliveries to make than we had delivery persons for. So I took two of them out; one in the tower that my store is located in, and one in a tower across the street. It wasn't a big deal, just twenty minutes to do both and come back to the store. I rather enjoy getting out once in a while to do deliveries. It's nice to be able to stretch my legs.

We got absolutely cleaned out of cakes, today. I hadn't really taken Father's Day into account as a factor in cake sales, but I'll certainly know better next year. It started first thing in the morning, and by the time the lunch rush was over we didn't have a scrap of cake in the house: no slices, no cakes, no cheesecakes, no nothing. Cookies were flying out the door again, too; I'm going to have to up the daily "pars" for those. I don't mind baking more mid-day, but there are other things I'd rather be doing with my time. Besides, if I have any left at the end of the day we break them up and package them, and sell them that way; the broken cookies have a devoted following. I make about the same margins, so leftovers are not a concern for me with cookies. Oddly, muffins didn't really go today. Dunno what's up with that.

I didn't have a whole lot of time left for the morning after doing my order and deliveries, so I rushed through making up the day's eclairs and cream puffs. I made some extras so that I could replenish the showcase just before lunch. Then I turned my attention to making some mini-strudels for the coffee bar. By the time I was done those, it was time for me to take over at the till and send my cashiers on their respective breaks. No help with the breaks today; the girl who usually helps out is in late on Fridays. It was okay, though, I'd gotten the biggest priorities looked after. Besides, although it interferes with me doing any actual baking, I rather enjoy schmoozing the customers. Also it's good for business...any consultant will tell you that people like doing business where they're recognized, and called by name, and their preferences are remembered.

My two daytime cashiers are outstanding at that. We have a pretty decent in-house loyalty program, based around a keytag with a barcode. The two daytime cashiers probably have about sixty or seventy customers' numbers memorized, for times when they forget to bring the card. Our recently-upgraded POS system can now search for a keytag number based on customer names or phone numbers, but it's more impressive when a human does it. The really regular customers know that if we run out of their favourite item, there will be one tucked away for them. That's very hard to train for; you need to have people who will go that extra mile just because of their innate integrity.

Anyway...soon enough the cashiers' breaks were over, and I was bunging my strudels into the oven. I was out of cornbread batter today and hadn't had time to make up any more, so it was just strudels this time. And coffee for me, 'cause I sorely needed some. Then we were into the lunch rush again, which was quite brisk. As I mentioned a few moments ago, we were selling cakes left and right. One of our little perks for loyalty program participants is a birthday card, entitling them to a slice of cake or cheesecake, and a coffee; all at no charge. We had an unusually high number of those today, which accounted for us getting wiped out of cake slices.

Once 1:00 rolled around and the worst of the rush was over, I started on some extra cookies. I only baked 3 extra trays today (45 cookies) because it's Friday and I didn't want to have *too* many extra cookies. Saturdays are pretty slow in Downtown Pedway Hell, so we try not to have much extra product around. Having got them into the oven, I made an emergency call over to our south-side sister store, to see if they could spare me some cakes. I scrounged two dozen slices, one large and one small cake, and some pies to fill the empty spots in my showcase. All of these arrived around 3:00-3:30, and by the time we closed we'd sold completely out of cakes again (still had a few slices, but just a few).

My pizza girl warned me before lunch that there'd been additional orders for the mini-pizza appetizers. That's always how it works...none for a couple of weeks, and then a bunch of orders all at once. I'd put five dozen into the freezer yesterday, but I still needed to make another batch. I mixed the dough, covered the bowl, and then gratefully went for my own lunch break.

All through the week I pick my lunch according to the whim of the moment, and whatever looks good that day. On Fridays, though, we have a longstanding tradition: sausage and perogies in the Big Pan (more about Big Pan on another occasion). I *always* get sausage and perogies on Fridays. After I eat my lunch, I usually drop in to schmooze with the manager of our wine store, right next door. He's of Ukrainian descent, so of course he's all over the Friday special as well. He does tastings every Friday afternoon in his store, and I usually drop in at 5:00 when I get off work to further my education. I don't today, because I'll be driving the company van this afternoon and when I'm driving my blood alcohol stays at ZERO (not even a tasting-sized pour). Also, I suspect I'll be rather tired by the time I'm driving back. On the whole, I'd rather not be falling asleep thanks to the wine.

So, after my break I head back to the bakery. Both of the daytime cashiers get a short coffee break at about this time, so I cover the tills as necessary. I can generally get away with doing some work at this stage of the afternoon, only opening the second till as necessary. Today, that means making up more of the mini-pizza doughs.

By mid-afternoon, I'm getting a bit concerned about the catering gig I'm doing tonight; the in-home cooking lesson. These may be done two different ways, you see; either interactively, or as a straight demonstration. If I'm doing a demonstration, I'd like to have the ingredients for the recipes right about NOW so that I can advance-prep everything. If it's interactive I'm not so worried, since I'll have the clients helping out.

It turned out that our poor catering guy was having hell's own time trying to locate some of the ingredients. Ancho and poblano chiles are not readily available here, it seems. Neither are chayotes. So here was my unfortunate colleague (who'd never seen a chayote in his life, and didn't know how to describe one) making the rounds of supermarket produce departments; trying to find somebody who wouldn't give him a look of blank stupefaction. Eventually, we settled for a handful of jalapenos, a few habaneros, and some acorn squashes. It wasn't ideal, but it would do.

The problem was that it was already 4:00. On Fridays (because Saturdays are pretty dead) we don't have both bakers come in. Instead, we bring in just the one for a short shift; baking off muffins/scones/cookies in reduced quantities. That means that someone else (me) has to pull out the frozen stuff and sheet it up for baking later on. This is roughly a half-hour job. That leaves me with 90 minutes to par-cook the ribs, assemble my ingredients, cross-check them against the recipes, organize all of the other supplies I need, clean the stand mixer and food processor (I'll use them during the class), and break down the bakery for closing time. Despite a desperate last-minute search for an errant box of pine nuts, I'm only fifteen minutes behind when I finally get my stuff loaded into the van.

The cooking class is in the eastern suburb of Sherwood Park. The written directions I've been given prove to have a major error in them, but it's easy enough to sort out, and I get there on time. The couples mostly have a connection to the local power company, so I know one or two of them from the store (their building is just across the street). A guest turns out to be the head of my school's Alumni Relations department, so we have something to talk about right away.

I'm not especially keen on tonight's menu, as it is rather prep-intensive. If I'd had a day to prep ahead (heck, even a couple more hours) it would have been a breeze. We're making up tamales with a fresh salsa and a sort of Mexican pesto; ribs in a peanut-chipotle sauce, and the squash dish. That's not bad, but there's a lot of cutting and mincing and roasting and peeling and so on. What with one thing and another, it's 10:30 before we've got the meal on the table. Margaritas, of course, tend to make one's assistants a titch less efficient than they might otherwise have been. Also my back was to the clock, and I lost track of the time...

The big time-sink was wrapping up the tamales. The men more or less cleared out at this stage and left the women clustered around the workspace, joking that they looked for all the world like a group of "babas" making perogies.

At any rate, by a little past 11:00 I've got everything cleaned up and back in the van; received the plaudits of the assembled multitudes, and said my goodbyes. Now it's back into the downtown to return the van, unpack and put away the dirty dishes and leftovers, and close the store back up. By now I'm in something of a hurry, because I don't want to miss the bus at 12:25. I do anyway, so I cool my heels at my usual stop for a half-hour until the Very Last Bus. It's a judgement call...I know I could walk home in about the same 40 minutes or so that it takes to wait for that next bus and then ride it; but on the whole I'm thinking my feet will thank me to just sit the hell down for a while. So I do.

That was my day. Supper was a plate of the food from the cooking class, at about 10:30 tonight. My family had garlic sausage from the local butcher, fried up with some potatoes that I'd peeled and left in the pot for them to cook off. There was also a cake that I made last night for the kids to snack on after school. It's just a basic butterscotch "quick cake" sort of a thingie, nothing too elaborate. I added some ginger to it, and some ground anise seed, and some ground fenugreek seed. Those of you who frequent the India forum may recall me asking about any use of fenugreek there in sweet dishes (apparently there isn't much). I find fenugreek's odd earthy butterscotchy character endlessly intriguing, and I like the way it works with anise. I've used it in apple pies, coffee cakes, and shortbreads to good effect.

Tomorrow I plan to sleep in, which I'm sure won't surprise any of you. The Saturday morning tradition is a big pancake or waffle breakfast; I believe I'll go with pancakes for tomorrow. I don't know what (if anything) my wife has planned for the day, but I hope there's not much. I'll be working again on Sunday, and I'd like to keep Saturday to just veg out.

I didn't get my pictures developed today, because the cooking class went so late. I'll post tomorrow for sure, though. Honest.

[CanadianBakin']

Thanks for taking the time to share your week with us, I'm really enjoying it. I'm amazed at your energy and drive!

[Verjuice]

I'm chiming in with a "bravo!", cheering you on in your compelling and utterly inspiring foodblog. Thanks for doing this.

[CaliPoutine]

  Oddly, muffins didn't really go today.  Dunno what's up with that.

←

Maybe cause they were a little smaller than usual

[chromedome]

It's a grey, cool, drizzly morning today. Perfect weather, in other words...

The southern half of Alberta is taking a beating right now. In recent weeks they've already faced heavy rain and flooding; now they're getting pounded with tornadoes, heavy rain, and hail. Many towns are evacuating residents, and property damage is already huge. Last year it was Edmonton that took a hit, with not one but two huge storms packing unreasonable quantities of hail. The Whitemud Trail, a major east-west arterial here, was under 2m of water (roughly six feet). The first of those hailstorms hit on the afternoon that my peony bloomed (dammit). We got a whole couple of hours to enjoy the blossoms.

As I said upthread, the drought is definitely over.

I had a minor detour on the way to pancake-dom this morning, thanks to my son's recently discovered passion for omelette making. So I woke myself up by taking a nice walk down to the local store for a dozen eggs. I rather like a nice warm rain in the morning. I'd coached my daughter to have the kettle boiling and the teapot warmed for when I got home, so before I set to cracking eggs I loaded up the Brown Betty (whoa-oh Brown Betty, bam be lam whoa-oh Brown Betty, bam be lam). I drink more coffee than I do tea, but I do love a cup of tea in the morning. Especially a rainy morning. Especially with pancakes.

I like to let my pancake batter rest for at least 20-30 minutes before I start cooking them off; I find that the pancakes are lighter and fluffier as a result. Ideally I like to rest the batter overnight, but often I'm not that organized...or I'm out of eggs. I'm using that rest time to type, right now. I like to have two frying pans going at a time, so that it doesn't take all morning to get breakfast on the table. Unfortunately I only have one cast-iron pan, so half the pancakes are not quite as nice. Oh well. I'll be getting a second one soon, and it won't be an issue. I put them into a pre-warmed oven, on my pizza stone, as they come out of the pan.

This is a little tradition that began within a couple weeks of my wife and I becoming a couple. She'd grown up thinking she didn't like pancakes, but it turned out she just didn't like Aunt Jemima (or Smitty's restaurants). When I made pancakes for her, she found that they weren't so bad after all. So, almost at the beginning of our relationship (eighteen years ago next month) the pancake breakfast became an institution. Some mornings I'll fry up a mess of bacon or sausages to go along with them, or prep a large bowl of fruit and whip some cream. Some mornings I'll make plain pancakes for the kids, then load ours with onions and ham and cheese and serve them with sour cream. My daughter is a big fan of cinnamon sugar on hers. This morning, it'll be basic pancakes with maple syrup, Rogers Golden Syrup (a Western favourite), and molasses (an Eastern favourite).

Saturday mornings are my time to relax, most weeks. There's a very funny program on CBC Radio 2 called "Vinyl Cafe," from 10 to 11, and then the eclectic and always interesting "I Hear Music" (currently profiling forgotten Tin Pan Alley great Dorothy Fields, sometimes called the female Cole Porter). I try to sleep in until 10, if I get the opportunity, but it doesn't usually work that way. So I nap in the afternoon instead. It's all good!

Saturdays there are farmer's markets all over the city, and I'll be going to the little local one after we're done eating. I'm not getting much today, but there is a local producer of free-range chickens who will have a big ol' stewing hen for me. Kuhlmann's, one of the major local market gardeners, also have a table set up every week at my local market; that's who I get my staple vegetables from (potatoes, carrots, onions, etc). Unfortunately we don't have any new local produce yet except for radishes, which I can get from my own back yard. I'll also be dropping my film for the one-hour processing, while I'm there. Pictures!!

Had I been a little more flush or a little less tired, I'd have tried to get to the market downtown or at Old Strathcona (a rival town a century ago, now the university area of Edmonton) and get you some pictures. These are large and lavish, with a wide variety of vendors; everything from "neo-post-hippy" handcrafts to locally raised bison. The meat, not the whole animals. There are some Hutterites who come in to the market with their remarkably tasty chickens and fresh-made sweet butter, and their stall is always worth a visit. The markets are not especially cheap, but the food is always good. And there are some bargains, I guess. Honey sells for about $9/kg in the supermarkets here, but I buy mine in a 3kg pail at the Saturday market for $19.

One of my favourite vendors at the local market is a very sweet grandmotherly Jamaican woman, who sells meat pies and a variety of sweets and pickles from her table. She also makes little fried cakes with salt cod (called "stamp & go" IIRC), which I always buy when I find her there. We've joked in the past that perhaps she grew up eating salt cod that had been caught and cured by my forebears in Newfoundland. Unfortunately she hasn't been there for a few months. I hope she's all right.

I'm going to leave off here, for the time being, and get food onto the table. I'll be back with more later on, including the long-overdue photos. I'll also be more than happy to answer any questions anyone may have, of course!

[chromedome]

Okay...

I just scanned all my pictures in and uploaded them to imagegullet, and put together a post to contain them all. Unfortunately, they've come out very poorly and at much too low a resolution (they looked like thumbnails). I'm going to re-scan them and come back in a couple of hours (my wife is clamouring for some computer time).

One of these days, dammit, I'm going to have a decent digital!

[chefzadi]

Hi Chrome,

I've been so busy with work this week that I haven't been able to keep up with your blog.

I look forward to having the time to read it.

[chromedome]

Okay...well, I've gone back and re-scanned my pictures at a higher dpi, but the "post preview" function still shows them at thumbnail size. I guess if I was a *really* smart guy, I'd have hammered all this stuff out last week with a few test runs. Live and learn, eh?

I'm going to continue on in the hope that when I actually post this, the photos will turn up at actual size. If not, then I'll PM somebody and try to figure things out from there.

The first picture is taken from the edge of the river valley, right behind my son's high school (a few blocks from here). The tallest building on the skyline, almost in the centre of the pic, is Manulife Place. Commerce Place, where my store is located, is the shorter building to the immediate left. This cluster of office towers is where we draw our clientele from.

This is the view south down the river valley from the same viewpoint. A few blocks in from the ridge at the far end of the valley, somewhere about the midpoint of the picture, is roughly where my night job is. If I had a bicycle, it would be about a 15 minute ride.

This is the salad fixin's that I pulled from my garden on Wednesday evening, to open the blog.

This is the finished meal. I realize now that if I'd turned the plate so that the salad faced me, I'd have gotten a much better picture. Pretty obvious these were taken with a low-end point & shoot, isn't it? The towel in the background is covering the bowl with my bread dough in it.

Okay, the series from work: first, pate a choux step by step. In the first pic, I've just mixed the dough and given it a few minutes over the heat to dry up.

Here, the finished dough in the mixer bowl in all its slithery, squidgy glory. I use the recipe from Friberg, but I leave out the chemical leavener which I find unnecessary. The water and the eggs are at 200%.

A sheet pan of eclairs, piped and ready for the oven. You'll notice that I pipe 'em in a rickrack sort of pattern with a star tip. No particular reason, I just like the way they look.

Yours truly, piping a tray of profiteroles for cream puffs. I'll go back later with a moistened fingertip and push down those little peaks where I pulled the piping bag away.

The freshly-baked product, cooling. It will go back onto a speed rack as soon as the picture's taken, of course. The apparent difference in colouration is a trick of the flash, the middle sheet is the closest to the correct colour.

Here I've dipped half of the eclair tops in chocolate, the rest will get strawberries. The profiterole have had holes made in the bottom with the tip of a paring knife. I pipe into them, rather than splitting them and piping onto the bottom.

...and the finished product, ready to go into my showcase. You have to look closely to see the chocolate drizzled onto the cream puffs. Future batches of the strawberry eclair will not have the berries sticking out so far, as I find it gives them a buglike appearance. They're selling well.

The skillet cornbreads. I cut these into six portions each.

Each strudel is six portions, as well. The charred, crusty bits around the edges are just surplus eggwash.

Finally, two pictures of this morning's breakfast in progress.

===========================================================

So, to resume the narrative...

After we'd had brunch my son went off to a friend's house for a movie day, and my daughter asked me out for coffee (since I'll be working on Father's Day). We got out the golf umbrella and strolled up to the mall, with her revelling in having some alone time with Dad (ie, she talked my ear off). Our first stop was at Wal-Mart to drop off the film from the last few days. Then we went to the coffee shop in the mall and sat down to schmooze for a while over our respective beverages (mediocre Mocha Java for me, hot chocolate with lots of cream for her).

Having visited for a while, we set about strolling through the mall. Her first stop of choice was the clearance bookstore (that's my girl!) where she picked up a Jack London book. Then we went to the library, where I picked out three cookbooks that were on my "to-read" list; two of Mediterranean food and one of central European pastries. More about those on another occasion.

Leaving the library we went to the dollar store, where I picked up a plastic strainer for use with my newly-acquired kefir grains (apparently they resent metal). By this time my pictures were ready, so we headed back to Wal-Mart to retrieve them. I didn't want to get my groceries until I'd picked up the pix, so that we could go home immediately afterwards.

I cruised back to the chicken guy's table and picked up two of his stewing hens and three dozen free-range eggs: one dozen of the large and two dozen of the smalls, which he had a good price on. Then I hit Safeway for a few essentials, and finally Kuhlmann's for carrots and potatoes. Then my daughter and I headed back to the bus, well pleased with our outing. Last week it was my son I'd brought to the market with me; one of the secrets to maintaining a family life with a schedule like mine is to have time blocked out for everyone. My wife and I get our alone time when the kids are visiting their friends, and it more or less works out for us all.

Of course, one thing we've always done is to sit down together at mealtimes. This week I've been away for a couple of dinners, but as a rule we are gathered at the table almost every day. This anchors our family life, whatever else is going on around us.

When we got home I put away the groceries, then made a batch of pasta dough. I put that aside to rest, and set about breaking down my chickens (this will come up in the second batch of pictures). The first one I broke down into wings, drums, thighs, breasts, and carcass. The second I did a bit differently; I peeled the skin off in one piece to make a ballotine with on another occasion. Then I took off the breasts as "supremes" with the first joint of the wing still attached. I'll slow-cook these one day. I broke down the rest in the conventional fashion, then packaged up everything except two thighs and took it all down to the freezer.

The thighs I boned out and cut into small pieces. I ran them through my geriatric Cuisinart with a panade, some scallions from the garden, a bit of cream, and some salt and pepper. I put that aside and rolled out my pasta into sheets. Then I piped the chicken onto the pasta and made up chicken ravioli; 40 pieces altogether. Over at the stove I slowly panfried bacon from the local butcher with onions and mushrooms. This went over the finished ravioli, with a sprinkling of scallions for garnish. That, and another salad from my garden, was dinner tonight. Dessert was an impossibly sweet honeydew melon that I found at Safeway (after looking through almost the whole bin, and coaching my daughter on how to pick 'em).

Afterwards, feeling mellow, my wife and I indulged in a glass each of LBV port, a recently-acquired taste. For those who are into such things, it was the Noval 1997 in a "split" (half-sized bottle, which matures faster than the full bottle).

And that was basically my day, except for grappling with ImageGullet and my scanning software. Nice and quiet.

Edit: found my problem with ImageGullet, which basically was me being a dumbass. If you copy the link to the thumbnail, you shouldn't be suprised when the end result is a thumbnail. Oy.

Edited June 19, 2005 by chromedome (log)

[BarbaraY]

Nice photos, chromedome. I truly appreciate your idea of sharing time with your family and always having your meal together, something that isn't always easy when you have teens.

Looking forward to the rest of the blog.

[jackal10]

Fantastic! I couldn't do what you do, and maintain family relationships as well.

Can you give the cornbread recipe please?

Edited June 19, 2005 by jackal10 (log)

[chromedome]

The cornbread is easy enough to make. Those of you who hail from the southern states will immediately note that I do use a wee bit of sugar; in response to which I can only observe that hey! I'm not a southerner.

A pertinent point, while I'm thinking of it...the cornbread is one of my personal recipes which I took in to work, therefore I'm at perfect liberty to share it. That's not the case with company recipes...but if I mention something you're interested in, ask anyway. If I can't give you that particular recipe I'll tell you so.

Although many of my recipes are in weights (he says defensively) this one is in volume measures:

1 1/3 c cornmeal

2/3 c flour

1 c buttermilk

1 c milk

2 eggs, separated

2-3 tbsp butter, shortening, or lard

1/2 tsp salt

1 tbsp sugar

1 tbsp baking powder

Place cornmeal, buttermilk, salt, and sugar into a mixing bowl. Stir until the cornmeal is well-moistened, and add enough of the milk that the grain is "swimming" in it...there should be enough liquid that after stirring a bit of the milk will sit on top. Leave this sit for at least half an hour, or ideally overnight. Overnight soaking frees up some of the corn's natural sugars, but pre-soaking for at least half an hour allows the corn to absorb lots of moisture from the milk, which in turn guards your finished product against dryness. I do this with anything I bake that includes cornmeal.

Preheat your oven to 375F. Once it comes up to temperature (I guess you don't need to worry about this part, do you Jack? Jammy AGA usin' so-and-so... ), put an ungreased 10" cast-iron skillet into the oven to preheat for 20-30 minutes. The longer it preheats, the nicer the crust on the bottom of your cornbread.

Whip the egg whites to soft peaks. Add the fat and egg yolks to the cornmeal mixture, and stir until well incorporated. Combine the baking powder and flour, and add to the cornmeal mixture. The mixture should be a soft, slightly loose batter (add as much of the remaining milk as you need). Gently fold in the egg whites. Remove your skillet from the oven and, working quickly, drizzle oil into it and swirl around the pan to coat. Pour off the excess and immediately pour in your cornbread batter and return it to the oven.

This will yield one thick, fluffy cornbread; alternately you may wish to make two thinner ones which will be crispier. If you don't have an oven-safe skillet, I find that a Pyrex baking dish will give a reasonably good bottom crust (I don't preheat those in the oven).

At work I make a *slightly* larger batch (enough to do me for several days), and do not separate the eggs. This will also give a perfectly acceptable cornbread, though not as light. The milk measurement is slightly variable, depending on your flour and cornmeal, as well as the size of your eggs and whether you opt for separating them. The egg whites, of course, will mean that you probably don't need the whole cup of milk.

This recipe also makes very acceptable corn muffins, well adapted to adding savoury ingredients.

[chromedome]

One thing I will say about having a cheapie camera...it makes my jacket look nice and white, and my pants/apron nice and black. I like that! No sign of the pan marks on my sleeves, or the dough on my apron. The black pants and apron are standard-issue storewide, and my bakers and I joke frequently about how they're perfect for baking, since they hide the flour so well. I'm not really bitter about it (laundry notwithstanding), I just find it amusing.

I'm coming back now to some things I'd touched on, above. The three books I collected from the library yesterday are Rick Rodgers' "Kaffeehaus," Paula Wolfert's "Cooking of the Eastern Mediterranean," and Clifford Wright's "Little Food." The Rodgers has been mentioned frequently on the pastry forum, and Wolfert and Wright of course are frequently-cited authorities here and elsewhere on all things Mediterranean. I will confess that I'd not known about Clifford Wright prior to eGullet, which is one of the reasons I love hanging around this place.

Some of you may find interest in knowing what the stack of books on my bedside stand contains, so I'll offer it up here as an aside: from top down, I have the Clifford Wright book, Boccacio's "Decameron" (just finished), a cookbook of tapas by Penelope Casas (just finished), a complete Chaucer (bedtime reading for the rest of the year), my recently-acquired Apicius, the Time/Life volume on Mid-East cooking, the Time/Life volume on Caribbean cooking, James Morier's 19th century best-seller "Hajji Baba of Ispahan," Sandra Mackey's "The Iranians" (recently finished), and a short story anthology that was one of my wife's university textbooks. This is a fairly typical sample of what I'll be reading in any given week.

On another recent post, I mentioned having recently acquired some kefir grains. When I was just a sprout, my father began subscribing to a post-hippy homesteading magazine called the Mother Earth News, which at the time was also just a sprout. "Mother" has flourished over the years, and remains an interesting source of tips and techniques on gardening, homesteading, alternative energy, off-grid living, healthy food, and many other useful things. I don't subscribe to the magazine, but I do get it regularly from the library and also visit their website. The kefir grains resulted from a recent article about making yogurt, kefir, and chevre.

I'd made yogurt a time or two at home with good results (and will again), though I found the process a bit fussy. Kefir interested me for two reasons: one, the process is much simpler than yogurty; and two, my kids both like it. I used to bring it home as part of my organic box when I worked for this Halifax organic-foods delivery service. Admittedly, the stuff I brought home was blended with fruit for additional palatability, but hey, I can do that too. I have the technology.

Anyway, I followed one of the links at the end of the article to a matchmaking site that lets kefir wannabes find donors of starter grains; and after a couple of false starts I hooked up with someone a couple of blocks away from my night job. Yesterday I bought the non-metallic strainer for separating the "grains" from the finished product, so I'm going to go and sample the inaugural batch right now....

Yum. Tart and slightly fizzy on the tongue, like a mixture of yogurt and a very dry sparkling wine. I know that sounds odd, and it certainly wouldn't be for everyone, but I like it a lot. Like yogurt, it's very refreshing in the hot weather. Kefir sites from around the Web give instructions for making fresh cheeses and a variety of other great-sounding recipes from kefir, either "straight" or drained, like yogurt. I plan to explore them all, over the course of the summer. Milk is one of the few things that's cheaper here than Nova Scotia, so I want get back into making yogurt, as well as quark, paneer, and a few other similar little goodies.

As an aside, I didn't take any photos of the kefir or kefir grains. Now that I've had a chance to assess the abilities of my new camera, I knew that a) white kefir in a white bowl wasn't going to result in a usable picture; and b) the zoom function doesn't get close enough for the kefir grains to show up. These "grains," btw, are little off-white thingies like lumpy tapioca. They smell not unpleasant, but very very "cultured milk-y." The grains are extremely complex colonies of beneficial bacteria with a few yeasts, and have proven somewhat resistant to analysis. Researchers have identified most of the microflora that make up the grains, but still don't understand the symbiosis involved.

Those of you who are lactose-intolerant may want to look into kefir. Not only does the bacterial activity make the milk digestible for many, you can also use the kefir grains in water to make a different beverage with similar health benefits. Use the same kefir grains (you may want to pour away the first batch if you're paranoid about the residual dairy); the only thing that changes is once they've been used for water kefir they can't go back to making milk-based kefir.

The kefir-making process couldn't be simpler. Just add milk (or water) to the grains in a non-metallic container. Leave it sit for 24 hours at room temperature. Next day, strain it through a non-metallic strainer, and you're done. To make a large batch, add extra milk after the first day, stir, and leave for a second day.

While I was typing that, my son brought me my Father's Day breakfast. He's been on an omelette kick lately, as mentioned upthread, so he made me a cheese omelette with a side of honeydew melon and green grapes. I've got to hand it to the boy, he makes a damned good omelette (photo to follow). He's been taking "foods" as one of his high school electives (one-half of what we used to call "home ec," the other half is now "fashions"). He's getting a big kick out of it. He was one of the few in his class who didn't burn his roux for the cream soup, which he bragged about for days. Last weekend, he woke us up with individual cheese souffles for breakfast. I've picked him up an 8" chef's knife and a boning knife (the short rigid kind) as the start to his own kit (the yellow-handled commercial Henkels). We're doing a sort of "knife skills 101" as time and opportunity permit.

Today being a beautifully sunny day (the first since I started blogging) I'm going to spend a bit of time in the garden before I head off to work. The space I'm working with this year is still rather limited, but during this summer the landlord is putting in a new fence, and he's going to move the fence line about 5m (15-16 ft) further back into the alley, which will give me a whole lot more garden! Next year I expect to grow enough potatoes, onions, carrots, peas, beans, beets, etc to fill my basement and freezer, and to be basically self-sufficient on vegetables for about half the year.

At present, my garden consists of two sections. One is centred around the apple tree, and is a more-or-less random mixture of flowers, herbs, and a certain quantity of weeds.

On the other side of the walkway is the strawberry patch and the rest of the garden. I have planted two types of beets, which will be my main cooking greens all summer, and then storage beets and pickled beets for the winter. The carrot I planted this year is Nantes Express, which is short and sweet and matures quickly. I have both ruby chard and spinach planted as well, though the spinach will be a solitary pleasure; my wife loves it but is allergic, and my kids (like kids everywhere) won't touch the stuff. My salad garden is sown with four kinds of lettuce (butter, romaine, green leaf, and red leaf) plus a commercial mesclun mix given to me by a neighbour who was moving away. This includes things like arugula and escarole. Last year I got very poor germination and little lettuce, so this year I sowed them thickly and of course everything sprouted.

[Edit: foreground middle=salad garden, foreground left a bit of the herb bed; background middle chard and spinach; background left tomatoes and radishes, background right carrots and weeds...with all the rain we've been getting, everything you see here has mostly doubled in size in the three days since this pic was taken.]

That's okay. I'm harvesting the baby lettuces whole, right now, and slowly but surely leaving the survivors in three distinct rows, which in turn I will thin out to a good spacing. I put the lettuces in a spot where they'll be shaded by the fence for part of the afternoon, which will help keep them from bolting. I'll also be putting in a second planting of lettuces at the beginning of August, which will pop up rapidly in the warm soil but will not bolt, owing to the shortening of the days and cooling of the weather by September. If the new fence is finished in time, I'll probably also plant some late greens there, some mustards and oriental greens and that sort of thing. I'm told that with row covers or a cold frame, those can be nursed along as late as January.

I have planted chives, dill, basil, cilantro, chervil, and probably one or two more that escape my pre-coffee recollection (Coffee! That's what's missing! Doh!). I have seeds for rosemary and thyme as well, but I'm going to put those in pots so I can hang them in my kitchen and use them year-round. I've got a few tomato plants started so far, and will add two or three more this week. I've got a couple of early-season slicing tomatoes and a roma (the other one died inexplicably), and I'll complement these with a couple more romas and maybe a couple of cherry tomatoes. I've got lots of onions in, conventional yellows and also multiplier onions. the multipliers keep me in scallions all year, and when mature make a pretty functional substitute for shallots. I've also got two bell peppers in.

I'll be planting a couple of hills of squashes this week, not so much for the squashes as for the blossoms. I don't plant zucchini, usually, since everybody I know is trying to offload some when the season rolls around. I have Scarlet Runner beans planted at the base of my apple tree, for the blossoms primarily (though if the beans mature before the frost, this year, I'll be perfectly happy with those, too). I also have regular and oriental (yard-long) beans and snap peas planted down the side of my garage, where they can bask in the afternoon sun (and where I can "stake" them to the garage wall, opportunist that I am). I have gotten seeds for a short-season pickling cucumber, and will take a stab at making my own garlic dills this fall.

Short-season cultivars are not really mandatory here, btw, the long summer days provide enough light to largely compensate for our Zone 5 climate. Prudent gardeners look on them as insurance, though, since you never really know...

I garden organically, except insofar as my kitchen waste contains peels and trim from non-organic produce. I have two composters behind my apple tree, as you'll see when I add in the pictures, and they provide me with a reasonable degree of compost. I've also bought some organic compost from a fundraiser my daughter's school did, which is not all used up. My next-door neighbour has offered to take me out to his girlfriend's farm for a truckload of well-aged horse manure, and of course I'll have a summer's worth of lawn cuttings and leaves in the fall.

I take a laissez-faire approach to gardening. My strawberry patch has lots of daisies growing in it, and I just let them grow. The berries will choke them out all on their own in another year or two. My lettuces leave no room for anything to eke out an existence in between them, and I planted radishes around my tomatoes to perform the same service. As my "intentional" plants grow and mature, and as I thin the rows out, I'll start laying down layers of mulch in between my plantings. These help fertilize the plants, and also help to choke out weeds. A lady named Ruth Stout was writing about this style of gardening back in the 60's, and it's recently come back into style as "lasagne gardening" (ie, you just add on layers). The key is that you never again turn the soil over after you've begun doing this. That means the weed seeds stay buried, and your own seeds are sitting in the nice soft layer of organic matter at the top. After a few years, you've got the effect of the deep-bed method, without all that tedious excavation. And drainage and soil fertility come as an inherent part of the package.

So, if I get some persistent dandelions and "quack-grass" in the short term, I don't sweat it too much. I eat the dandelions, and pull quack-grass anytime I happen to be passing by.

I've also left a border of "native growth" (ie weeds) at the fence, around the perimeter of my garden. Both the Mother Earth News and Organic Gardening espouse the value of leaving some habitat near your garden for beneficial insects to grow in, as a natural control against insect pests. Having read these magazines avidly throughout my childhood, I've gardened this way as long as I've had a garden. It works pretty well.

I'm going to leave off now for the morning, and scan a couple of garden pictures to edit in. Then I'm going to get out there and do that gardening I spoke of, before I got to work.

Until tonight...

Edited June 19, 2005 by chromedome (log)

[SushiCat]

I'm fascinated by your blog - thanks for fitting it in! As one who feels I never have enough time in my day, I'm very impressed with your gardening - not sure when you find the time! Perhaps you don't need much sleep?

Quick quesiton, as I'm ever searching for the right way to make cornbread ... can you indicate approximate cooking time for the bread after you return the cast iron skillet to the oven?

[jamiemaw]

Chromedome,

On this Father’s Day, I awoke to CBS’s Sunday Morning broadcast. They reported that Mother’s Day is the busiest day of the year for children calling home. Father’s Day, however, is the busiest day of the year for children calling home collect.

My point is that I admire your values. You've found a way to carve a new career that inspires you while retaining your embrace of family, friends and literature. You have also found a path forward to take up less space on this planet, with no small humility, than those who might seek an artifice of more, more, and more.

All of these things shine brightly in your highly literate blog.

With thanks,

Jamie

[Smithy]

...

When we got home I put away the groceries, then made a batch of pasta dough.  I put that aside to rest, and set about breaking down my chickens (this will come up in the second batch of pictures).  The first one I broke down into wings, drums, thighs, breasts, and carcass.  The second I did a bit differently; I peeled the skin off in one piece to make a ballotine with on another occasion.  Then I took off the breasts as "supremes" with the first joint of the wing still attached.  I'll slow-cook these one day.  I broke down the rest in the conventional fashion, then packaged up everything except two thighs and took it all down to the freezer.

The thighs I boned out and cut into small pieces.  I ran them through my geriatric Cuisinart with a panade, some scallions from the garden, a bit of cream, and some salt and pepper.  I put that aside and rolled out my pasta into sheets.  Then I piped the chicken onto the pasta and made up chicken ravioli; 40 pieces altogether.  Over at the stove I slowly panfried bacon from the local butcher with onions and mushrooms.  This went over the finished ravioli, with a sprinkling of scallions for garnish.  ...

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Your photos are working out nicely! Thanks for taking the extra time required when you have a film camera. As with all the other posters on this thread, I'm amazed that you have the time and energy to blog atop everything else you're doing.

Would you please elaborate on the following, listed in order of my curiosity (instead of order of mention) in case you run out of time?

1. Panade. I have one recipe for a panade, I really enjoy making it, and am looking for more panade ideas. Your usage of 'panade' above makes me wonder if we're talking about the same thing. What is it in this case, and how do you make it?

2. Ballotine? What's a ballotine?

3. How will you slow-cook a chicken breast without drying it out? If it isn't a trade secret...

[chromedome]

Home again, home again, jiggety-jig...

Questions first.

SushiCat: baking time for the cornbread will vary somewhat, depending on whether you make one thick or two thin; and also how accurate your oven is/how long you preheated your skillet. Within those parameters, 15-20 minutes is a safe bet for a thick cornbread; while the two thin ones can be finished in as little as eight minutes. When the top is domed and begins to show fine cracks, reach in and gently prod it with your fingertip. If it's firm, it's done. Haul it out and serve immediately. I eat the thin ones with butter and honey (or whatever) drizzled over the top; the thick ones I cut or break into individual servings and split open to butter. This recipe, despite the modest amount of sugar, does lend itself well to savoury uses as well. Try a bit of caramelized onion and some browned chorizo in it. Yum.

As for gardening, well...the way I garden doesn't take a whole lot of time, that's one of the beauties of the system. A few minutes at suppertime (usually while I'm there anyway to pick scallions or lettuce) is all the maintenance it really needs.

Sleep? What's that?

Seriously, I run most of the time on about six hours' rest, which is adequate but not more than that. I get my best sleep between the hours of 4AM and noon, and as long as I get to sleep in once or twice a week (ie, Saturday and Sunday) I'm good to go. Blogging has cut into that a little bit but it's only a few days, right?

Jamie: thanks for your kind words. Living lightly on the earth is one of my ongoing goals, though I'm not nearly as far along with it as I'd like. As for the comments you and others have made about the "density" of my lifestyle (so much packed in), all I can say is that it's wonderful what you can manage when you don't watch TV. I don't think I've had mine on since Superbowl, in fact.

...not that the 'net in general, and eGullet in particular, are anything but a time sink...but it's a time sink I file under PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT!

Overall, this week has cost my wife a bit of "hubby time," but it's short term. I'm the son of a sailor, and she's the daughter of a long-haul trucker, and one of the first things we sorted out all those years ago was that I would be a sleep-at-home husband. However stressed or tired we may be, and for that matter even if we're pissed at each other about something, we always have that time together at the end of the day. It keeps things working.

Smithy: panades, in this context, are non-fat binders added to a forcemeat or stuffing to improve moistness and texture. In this particular instance, it was nothing more elaborate than chunks of my homemade bread soaked in milk until soft, then incorporated into the pureed chicken. If you've ever used breadcrumbs in your burger patties, then you've essentially used a panade. When I was a kid in Nova Scotia, rolled oats were often used for the same purpose (that Scottish ancestry "thing"). A panade in this sense could also be cooked rice, a thick Bechamel, or perhaps even choux paste.

A ballotine is similar to a galantine: usually the breast meat of a chicken or other fowl laid out in an even layer on the intact skin, which is trimmed to a neat rectangle; then stuffed with a forcemeat usually made from the rest of the bird (but which may also include various garnishes, etc). The whole thing is then rolled up into a nice neat cylinder, and tied with string. A galantine will be wrapped in cheesecloth, then poached and cooled in a suitable stock (ie chicken for chicken stock), and ultimately sliced and served cold. A ballotine, once rolled and tied, will be roasted in a pan containing some mirepoix, which will eventually be deglazed and used to make the sauce. These are served hot.

I should interject, at this point, that if I've used a cooking term any of you don't understand, please do ask. One of the hazards of being in the business is that we have that specialized vocabulary, and you tend to forget that other people might not understand what you're trying to convey.

As for my stewing hens, I'd planned to elaborate on that if nobody had asked. I have plans to do a few different things, none of which rely on the chicken being young and tender. The breasts which I took off as supremes I will likely braise (and probably stuff). I do a lot of slow-cooked items, because they suit my need for advance preparation. They're not really thought of as summertime dishes, but there's no reason not to serve them during the hot months. I'll typically put them with a hot or cold grain dish (ie rice, or perhaps tabbouleh) and some green salad or marinated fresh vegetables.

So, to answer your question, braised slowly for a couple of hours in a suitable poaching liquid, perhaps chicken stock or something wine-based; and with some mirepoix in the liquid to reinforce the flavours.

I also have the alternative of slicing the breasts (which are rather large) horizontally into thin layers and pounding them into very thin paillards, which can be marinated and grilled or pan-fried. Because of the thinness and pounding, they will not be tough. And of course, I could dice the breasts and stew them, then use them in chicken pies, pasties, and similar concoctions.

The thighs may also be stewed for savoury pastries (or just for stew); or slow-poached and used hot or cold. The wings and carcasses I'll be using for soups and stocks; though I'll probably poach the wings slowly in a stock which will then be sturdy enough to use as an aspic, since the wings have lots of gelatin. The wings I might then sauce and grill, or perhaps take the meat from them for a salad or something.

Mainly the stewing hens are all about having stock in my freezer. You can never have too much stock. I use it for sauces and risottos, and it's super-handy for making quick soups. My wife also likes to use it for cooking a pilaf, when she has to make a quick supper. She used one of my carefully-hoarded litres of goose stock for a pilaf last month...I didn't have the heart to tell her that it wasn't chicken.

I'm big on thorough utilisation of the things I buy; I don't like to let anything go to waste if I can help it. It offends my East Coast Frugality Gene. Unfortunately, a lot of leftovers and half-used items scurry to the nethermost recesses of the fridge and I only find them when they're too far gone for anything but the composter. This is what happens when four people put things into the fridge, but only one takes things out...

So, to resume the narrative:

Shortly after writing this morning's post, I hopped a bus up Whyte Ave to my other job; Clifford Wright having kindly volunteered to keep me company. Busing gives me much of my reading time, in fact when I was driving regularly I rather missed that. I got there a bit early this week, and had some time to sit in the sun and read before anyone arrived to unlock the doors and let me in.

Typically Sundays are a light prep day. The only time there's a lot to do is if they got absolutely slammed on the previous evening, and it's rare that they're caught unprepared. Usually what it'll be is an unusually high number of people ordering a specific menu item. Of course if you're short of anything, that's what it'll be!

Saturday night is the big cleanup night, so my starting point on Sunday is to get out a stepstool and put the cover thingies back inside the vent hoods (the housing that goes over the fan, I mean...they get taken down and run through the dishwasher on Saturday night while the hoods are getting cleaned). Next, check the res book...32 covers, first table at 5:30, last table at 7:00 (yay! early night). Then check the prep list.

I'm making up one of our signature desserts (the same one I detailed in last year's blog, so I won't repeat myself), so I turn the oven onto 350F; then start running cold water into one of the prep sinks. Grab a bus pan, go into the cooler, and fetch out four heads of Romaine. Core them, separate the leaves, discard the nasty ones, and dump the works into cold water to rinse and crisp up. Later on I'll drain them, tear them into pieces, and wrap them in an apron. They'll go into the salad cooler.

After that, I bring out the makings for the tarts and get them assembled and into the oven. I "silver" two pork tenderloins, in case we get a run on the pork entree (ie, remove the tough "silverskin" membrane that sheaths the muscle); then I French out five lamb racks and season them for the lamb entree. I'm hoarding the trim from several lamb racks in my freezer at home, against the day that I make some sausage, so I bag up today's trim to go home with me later (if I'd been off this weekend, I'd have made sausage to coincide with the blog. Oh well.).

Wash up scrupulously, then finish the lettuce; when that's put away finish the pastries and put them on a tray in their designated spot. That's the bulk of the prep out of the way. Now I'll count out enough veg sets for tonight's reservations, with a bit of margin for late bookings or walk-ins; blanch & shock them, and put them aside in small tubs for later. Refill the steam table for the starches to go into, fill it with inserts, and turn it on to heat. Put the big four-basket blanching pot onto the stove, fill it, and turn it on. Place a stack of appetizer plates and a stack of dinner plates on top of the range we use for cooking most of our entrees; the heat venting from the oven serves as a plate warmer.

The chef has been doing her own prep and setup during this time; now she's done so she goes upstairs to rest for a little while before service starts. One of the other cooks arrives around this time to be my backup for the night. With our menu 32 covers would be a bit much for just me, but it's a nice mellow night for the two of us plus the chef. I haven't been there much of late, so I'm not letter-perfect on which starches and sauces go with which dish; so we arrange that I'll be #1 for the night (entrees, see upthread) and he'll be #2 (starches, veg, etc).

My colleague will finish getting the sauces prepared for the night, and I'll take a look at our entrees. I've just prepped the lamb, so that's good; we've got enough of the bison and caribou tenderloins; I've done pork tenderloins in case we get a run on those...when all is said and done the only thing I need to brown off in advance of service is the beef tenderloin. What with today being Father's Day I'm expecting the carnivores to be out in force; so I brown off lots of beef, season it, and throw it into the lowboy. I'd already started an extra quantity of the sauce we use on the beef and caribou.

[NB: If you go back to the beginning of this thread and click on the link to the restaurant's website, you'll find the complete menu online.]

As usual it's "hurry up and wait." We have two early tables, then a half-hour break, then everybody else between six and seven o'clock. It's unusual for the last res to be as early as seven (usually seven is the most-desired time slot), but I'm not complaining at all. Most of our clientele order the five-course table d'hote, so a meal here will typically run 2-3 hours. I take advantage of the lull between setup and the first orders to have a couple cups of coffee and to nibble on some bread ("caff up" and "carb up" is my routine before service). I usually butter the bread and spread some chili paste on it (not sambal oelek, but the similar Vietnamese paste with all the garlic in it) to make little sandwiches.

With two of us, service goes pretty smoothly. You never get a perfect night (I overcooked one of the beef entrees) but on the whole it was good. In the event, we sold relatively little of the beef and a lot of the various seafood dishes (the jumbo prawns, seafood medley, salmon, and halibut all were popular). Colour me surprised. My wife hates it when I come home smelling of seafood! Guess who's not getting a hug until after he showers?

We were able to start breaking down and cleaning up relatively early tonight. Staff meal was chicken breasts and creminis in cream sauce with fettucine and fresh basil. I was able to sit down and eat while we were waiting for the last table to have their entrees. Why is it that the last table on an otherwise-early night is always the slowest? With the bulk of the cleaning done, and only the last table's desserts to go, the other cook calls it a night. I pre-plate the last desserts as far as I can, then put away the sauces I won't need and clean down the dessert bench. I get the floor swept and mopped before they call the last desserts.

Of course, the *slow* last table ordered desserts about five minutes too late for me to catch the 9:30 bus, so I help the server haul away the night's dirty linens and help our dishwasher put things away until the 10:00 bus. By 11:00 I'm home, to my wife's pleasant gratification. It wasn't even really dark yet when I left work. Of course, the solstice is only a few days away.

I didn't take any pictures at work today. I'll round out the second film tomorrow with a few more pics, and get it developed after supper. The day after tomorrow is the end of my blog already, much to my surprise. I can't think where the time's gone.

Tomorrow, Wendy, oatcakes...just for you!

[hathor]

Nice blog Chromedome! Not sure how old your children are, but you are spot on when it comes to making time to eat together. The payback came when our son was in high school, and he would bring all his friends over at dinnertime. We wound up with a large extended family that I wouldn't trade for anything. Dinnertime is sacred...especially when everyone is busy and going in different directions.

Those eclairs look very yummy! And didn't you just love the Decameron? Those stories hold up well. And your garden looks great! What's the growing season like? I mean when you can you plant tomatoes? lettuces? When do you typically get the first frost?

We are in the process of trial and error with a new 'orto' (vegetable garden in Italian), dealing with hefty winds, strong sun and not very much water. So far...its been ....ok and educational. The only total loss was the watermelons. Somebody ate them all in one night.

Blog on!

[Abra]

Besides your general energy level, Chrome, I'm also truly impressed by your devotion to your family life. Not just showing up, but doing so much cooking for them, real food, day in and day out, even after what I would consider to be some pretty grueling days. I hope they adore you for it!

Imagining that butterscotch fenugreek cake is driving me mad. I too love those flavors, although I've never dreamed of combining them. Would you share that recipe?

[Milagai]

thanks so much for the kefir essay.

i'm a recent convert to this product since i've

always LOVED salty indian lassi (buttermilk,

blended till bubbly with rock salt, toasted cumin powder,

crushed ice, maybe hing, pinched curry leaves and green chillies if wanted).

kefir also makes a great foundation for persian doogh (sp?)

which is similar to lassi, only with just a little dried mint

instead of the other stuff (maybe a tad of salt).

enjoying yr blog so much,

milagai

[arbuclo]

Cromedome, how do you stay so focussed for your extra long blog entries? They're enthralling!

OK, Saskatoon berries...firstly did they make that name up for a laughs?! Sounds like a character in a kid's Saturday morning TV program. I did a bit of looking on the net and they seem to look like blueberries. Do they taste like them too?

My other question is perogies. I have only seen them once (last year). Can you describe them further? Do you ever make them at home or at work?

Thanks! Blog on...

[Pam R]

OK, Saskatoon berries...firstly did they make that name up for a laughs?! 

←

I always assumed they were named after the city of Saskatoon

They are tasty though - especially good when made into Saskatoon Perogies... yum.

Chrome - I'm really enjoying your blog. I'm facinated by everything that you do - when I get home from work I often just want to rest. I'm in awe.

Thanks for sharing with us

[Safran]

OK, Saskatoon berries...firstly did they make that name up for a laughs?!  Sounds like a character in a kid's Saturday morning TV program.  I did a bit of looking on the net and they seem to look like blueberries.  Do they taste like them too?

←

arbuclo,

Saskatoon berries are God's gift this area of Canada. When I first moved out west I was given some and couldn't quite believe the taste: a cross between a cherry and , hum, fill in the blanks..... They are WONDERFUL!!! And I miss this fruit so much now that I'm back in Ottawa.

Cool cool blog, Chromedome.

[chromedome]

Okay, here we go again. Can't believe that tomorrow is the end of the blog; seems like I just got started.

I guess that's a good sign, since I plan to eventually write for publication...

Okay, q & a time again:

Hathor: the gardening routine here is similar to most of Canada. Start things indoors (depending what you like to grow) in April or early May. Victoria Day long weekend (third week of May) is when most Canadians outside of southern BC and the Niagara peninsula will start their direct-seeded plants and transplants (the latter may require cloches, at first). Hardcore gardeners may start pet projects like watermelons or Atlantic Giant pumpkins indoors a bit earlier, but that's the general guideline. Frost generally becomes a significant risk in mid-late September, but there can be sharp variations. Any longtime gardener can remember years when there was frost in, say, late August. Those years are definitely the exception, though, and usually we are able to grow most of the common garden items thanks to the long summer days.

Abra: that cake was an adaptation of a quick-cake recipe from the Joy of Cooking that I use quite a bit. In my (1973) edition, it's called a "Hurry Up Cake." I've altered the methodology somewhat. In the original, you sift the sugar and flour together, then dump in the fat, eggs, milk, and remaining dry ingredients and beat the hell out of it until it comes together into a batter. My variation is to combine the dry ingredients, then cut in the butter/margarine/whatever as you would with pastrycrust. At this point, the dry portion may be refrigerated or frozen to use at leisure; and (depending on the fat you use) may also be held at room temperature for up to a month. When I want to bake it off, I add two eggs, an appropriate liquid (usually milk), and bake it. The basic recipe would be:

2 c flour

1/2-3/4 c sugar (depending on the cake)

1/2 c fat of choice

1 tbsp baking powder

2 eggs

1/2 c milk or other liquid

This may be scaled more or less indefinitely, though for home use this comes together fast enough to just make individual batches. To make the butterscotch version, use brown sugar instead of white and butter for your fat (or at least, a better-quality margarine). To make a cocoa version, sub out 1/4 cup flour with cocoa. Use it for an upside-down cake, or stir in whatever berries or fruit are seasonal. Heat the milk, soak a quarter-cup of all-bran in it until cool, add molasses/ginger/allspice/cloves and it's a quick-and-dirty gingerbread (the molasses compensates for the milk soaked up in the all-bran).

In short, it's a fast and infinitely manipulable cake that's just as quick as a store-bought mix, but better. My bunch aren't keen on icing (neither am I, truthfully), so I'll sometimes dust with icing sugar, sometimes serve with whipped cream or caramel sauce, sometimes drizzle with a fruit puree or compote, and sometimes (a big family favourite) spread with butter-tart filling while the cake's half-baked. The filling gives a lovely rich layer, partly glazing the top and partly sunk into the middle.

When I speak of milk "or other suitable liquid," that's because I've made it with various fruit juices and concentrates as well, and they're pretty good. I make the chocolate version with a soured/cultured milk for choice; be it buttermilk, yogurt, or "fridge-curdled." I guess the kefir would now be a strong contender, too. I find that the soured milk gives the chocolate more presence, and I also use brown sugar in that one because it gives a moister, softer, crumb.

The specific variation I baked the other night I have no recipe for. I just threw the anise seeds and methi into my spice grinder until it looked good, and added enough ginger for it to play the leading role. When I'm at home I tend to "wing it" a lot, which leads to occasional misfortune but a lot of serendipity. My feeling is that if I like something I've thrown together at random, I have adequate "chops" to re-create it intentionally until I've got it the way I want it.

Milagai: I've never had salty lassi. The ones you see here are usually something on the order of a yogurt "smoothy" with a bit of water added (sometimes in the form of crushed ice). Not that these are bad, by any means.

Arbuclo: the "saskatoon" berry is a European corruption of the Cree word "misaskwatomin," their word for this important foodstuff. The city is named after the berry, rather than the opposite, because that particular place along the river grew saskatoons (the berry) profusely.

The berries look somewhat like blueberries, but only in a general sense. They have a more pronounced "crown" around the blossom end, and range in colour from a deep reddish-pink to a grape-like purple. They grow on a large bush/small tree which can reach 20-30 ft in height (10 m) in sheltered areas. Usually they're only 8-10 ft high...at least where I've seen them. They grow widely in my native Nova Scotia, where they are known as "Indian Pears" (at least the area where I grew up), but are little-used.

The flavour is rather different from blueberries, and less pronounced (to my blueberry-trained palate). Raw, they are rather bland; like cranberries they only really come to life when cooked. The first time I was served a Saskatoon pie I was downright shocked! As Safran says, they have a distinct cherry note to them, but with fugitive hints of several other berries and fruits. If you have the persistence to pick only the past-ripe-starting-to-shrivel ones, and freeze them separate from the rest of your crop until you have enough to be worthwhile, you can make a jelly that has an almost port-like character.

They do have fairly large seeds (bigger than raspberry, smaller than grape). I don't care to eat those, so once they're cooked I I tend to mash them and strain out the seeds.

=====================================================

Joke: two yuppies from Saskatoon like to go somewhere hot every year for their vacation. One year, they settle on Australia; and just for shits and giggles they get onto the plane swathed in their full winter regalia of hand-stitched parka and mukluks. Somewhat inebriated and definitely enjoying the stares, they decide to take things one step further...from Sydney they hop a plain to Alice Springs, and then a bus into the outback...still in their parkas, although the joke is wearing rather thin by now.

They finally stop at a "town" consisting of a general store, a pub, and a filling station. As they walk into the pub in their parkas, conversation dies abruptly. Playing their parts to the hilt, they order two pints by pointing and grunting, then sit down at an empty table and put up their mukluk'ed feet. Around them the conversation resumes in a low but agitated buzz. At one table, a group of stockmen are putting up one of their friends to go talk to these alien invaders. Finally, the unwilling victim saunters over to their table and, feigning casual conversation, asks them where they're from.

"Saskatoon, Saskatchewan," one replies. The stockman ponders this for a moment, nods, and returns to his table. The others are eagerly awaiting his report. "Where were they from?"

"Dunno, mate," shrugged the stockman. "They didn't speak English."

======================================================

(It was on topic...they ordered a beer)

As far as perogies/pierogy/piroshki/verenike are concerned, they are a very simple food. Like many others (Yorkshire pudding, for example) they were created as a way for peasant families to fill their bellies inexpensively.

Essentially, they are like many other stuffed pastas or dumplings; you have a dough wrapper, and you have a filling. The dough wrapper may have little or no egg in it, depending on whose tradition you're following...my wife's Mennonite grandmother uses one egg for every three cups of flour. The fillings are essentially endless, depending entirely on what you like and what you've got in abundance.

Probably the most common filling, in North America, is potatoes. This is perfectly legitimate and authentic, as potatoes rapidly became a staple food when they were introduced to central and eastern Europe. They may be mixed with cream, or egg yolk, or cheese, or butter, or bits of bacon/sausage/onion/whatever, but the ones you find in the supermarkets are almost always potato-based.

In many areas of the "old country" (whichever country that happened to be) dairy products were a common food for the poor, especially various versions of fresh cheese or cottage cheese. These are also popular fillings for perogies; my wife's family make their verenike with dry-curd cottage cheese, mashed with egg yolk and salt and pepper.

A third staple version would be stuffed with cooked shredded cabbage, or leftover cooked sauerkraut. Richer variations might have a bit of ground meat or sausage or bacon or fish or poultry added. I'm partial to a 50/50 combination of cabbage and sauerkraut, with onions and a bit of crumbled sausage cooked in.

In my wife's family, they simply boil the verenike until they're done, then toss them in a sauce of reduced cream and butter. More often, here, they're panfried in a bit of butter or oil along with onions and sausage. Any way you choose to serve them, they're pleasant belly-ballast.

That was just a few of the savoury versions. There are many sweet versions, too, filled with pretty much any fruit or berry you have to hand. Common versions in Europe would include cherry or plum-filled, or apricot, or chestnut (not a fruit, I know, but it's a sweet one), or stewed prunes, or apples, or whatever. Here, Saskatoons are a popular choice, as Pam R says. Sweet perogies could be served with cream, whipped cream, fruit coulis, vanilla sauce, caramel sauce, or just a sprinkle of sugar. Whatever appeals to you.

The most-traditional shape is little half-moons, made of course by filling cut-out circles of dough. In my wife's family they make larger, rectangular verenike about the size and shape of a supermarket egg roll. That's old-school farm cookin'...

Like many other labour-intensive foods, these are best prepped in a large batch in a social context. Gather the whole clan around the table and go hard!

One further word before returning to the narrative portion of the blog...I don't want to give the impression that I'm some sort of super-Dad paragon or anything. It so happened that this last couple of weeks have coincided reasonably well with how I *try* to do things. It doesn't always work like that.

On one thread a few months ago, I told another prospective career-changer that one of the hardest things to do is come home absolutely whipped, and listen attentively as your youngster prattles at you for an hour. It takes a serious amount of mental toughness to stay engaged with your family in the teeth of fatigue, and it's one of the biggest reasons that restaurant people have relationship problems. My kids know now that Dad needs a bit of time to decompress, most days, and re-adjust to being here. And, having said that, there are some days that I just can't do it...I'll lock into a book, or the computer, and just wall everybody out for a few hours.

Over the years my wife has come to understand that, although I'm "on" for hours at a stretch while I'm at work, I'm essentially an introvert. I need time to myself, and time with just one or two people around me that I'm close to. This means that sometimes I'm an unresponsive or uncommunicative husband; and sometimes that means that she's a testy wife. On the whole, though, she's come to understand my need for periodic disengagement, and I've come to understand her need for social time. We have our rough patches, but we're still going strong eighteen years later, so I guess it's working for us.

Okay...back to the narrative.

Breakfast this morning was toast and a glass of water. I was a bit groggy from the weekend's exertions, and found it hard to get going. My brain was somewhat foggy. How foggy, I discovered when I got to work...I'd left my uniform at home. Fortunately a) I'm just a short bus ride from work; and b) I'm always in 30-40 minutes early. I was back at work, dressed, and on station by 9:00; only a half-hour late. The twins were awfully surprised and pleased to see me walk through the door. "Uncle back!" I got a second set of wee hugs and kisses before I headed back to work, so it wasn't all bad.

In spite of that initial setback it was a pretty productive morning. I pulled out my day's eclairs from the freezer and set them in the oven to thaw and re-crisp; then pulled some four-inch tart shells and made up a dozen butter tarts (four each of plain, raisin, and pecan). I use my mom's butter-tart recipe, though in recent years I've started adding a hint of cinnamon to humour my daughter's passion for that spice. I like the way it works, so I've taken to using that variation at work too.

I also fetch out a big mixing bowl from the dish room and make up a batch of cornbread. I don't use the Blakeslee for this, because it's just as easy to make by hand and a whole lot less cleaning afterwards. In and around this, btw, I've checked off my Monday order, bagged and labelled product, and all the other usual morning things that I've described to you upthread.

I pull out my choux products and leave them to cool; then go to the back to receive my cakes, which have arrived from our south-side sister store. I'm awfully happy to see them, since we'd gotten wiped out completely on Friday as detailed above. Unfortunately, I forgot to set a timer for the butter tarts (I usually bake those by "nose," rather than time) and by the time I come back my poor neglected little darlin's are rather overbaked.

Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa...

So, muttering vile things under my breath about dumbasses who think they're too good to need timers, I fill the showcase with cakes, cheesecakes, and slices; then go to the Digi scale/labeller and print off labels for all the pies. I put them into back showcase (sandwich area) with the other desserts, and return to the bakery. I'll bake off more butter tarts during that short interval between the end of cashier breaks and the beginning of the lunch rush.

Then I make up my eclairs and puffs. As I have for the last few days, I make half of the eclairs chocolate-dipped, and half with the strawberries and the dusting of icing sugar. The strawberry version is now outselling the chocolate version, but I'm prepared either way: I'm pulling out more than I need to fill my showcase and keeping back some plain ones. That way I can either dip them or berry-fill them, according to what I find in my display case after the lunch rush.

By now it's almost 11:00, when I'll have to become a cashier for a while, so I throw two skillets into the oven to get good and hot, and pour myself a mug of coffee, and head over to the till. Initially I'd really resented having to cover the till during my morning production time, but I don't mind it any more. I know I'm good with the customers, and I also have come to grudgingly accept that the store needs me more as a leader than a baker. One of those "careful what you wish for" moments that I was alluding to in the title of my thread.

Coming off the cash at 11:30, it's off to the back to retrieve a pair of strudels and get them eggwashed, sprinkled with coarse sugar, and into the oven. Then the hot skillets come out and get their cornbread batter; and back in they go. Looks like I won't have time for the butter tarts, so I'll postpone those until lunch is over. Run a few things back to dish, drink some water/pour some coffee/go to the bathroom/take a deep breath...and it's lunch rush again.

After lunch is over I cut the strudels and put them into the now half-empty showcase alongside the cornbread and the remaining scones. Next it's the butter tarts. Once I've replaced my dozen I've only got a little bit of filling left, so I scoop out three more plain ones and add that tub to my stack of things going back to dish. In go the butter tarts, but with a timer this time...

Then I get to go for my lunch. Today, instead of using my staff discount and having lunch at work, I go into the food court and head over to the little Indian restaurant there. The owner is a very outgoing, friendly sort; he's built a loyal clientele in a pretty short time. His food is unexceptional, but consistent and well-executed. I get rice, lamb, chickpeas, and lentils; all of it quite tasty. I cook similarly at home during the summer (on weekends, mostly). As mentioned at the beginning of the thread, I love Indian and Mid-East food.

Coming back from lunch, I have a fairly set routine. Cover the shorter afternoon breaks on the cash; check tomorrow's catering orders; replenish the showcases. I'll be closing the bakery again today, meaning I'll be on the cash by 5:00 at the latest. That doesn't give me a whole lot of opportunity to start any meaningful projects (considering I have to jump on the till if we get a lineup); so I content myself with peeling a case of bananas for my night baker to use in the muffins. I also sneak out for a few minutes to try and find a maple-leaf shaped cookie cutter, but without success. Canada Day's coming, dammit, I need that cookie cutter!

I've been thinking in terms of a few photos of Edmonton sights to round out this next roll of film. When I get off work, I think of a restaurant a block away that's run by a great-nephew of the painter Renoir. That's something not every city can boast, right? Except when I get there, the patio contains two of my favourite classmates from cooking school. So I sit and drink wine with them, instead. One is moving to Victoria in a couple of weeks, the other is moving to Halifax in October. Anybody looking for a good young cook around then?

Since I was late tonight, my wife and son had improvised a simple but effective meal: mashed potatoes with grated cheese on them, topped with poached free-range eggs. Nothing wrong with that as far as I'm concerned, so I poach a couple of eggs myself and set to.

After that, well...basically I'm in here typing.

Wendy, I didn't know in advance that I'd be working late today, so the oatcakes will have to wait 'til tomorrow. I will fit them in, though. And more pics, to round things out. 'Til then...

[Abra]

Thanks very much for the cake recipe - I think I can wing it from there. AP flour?

[Darcie B]

Chromedome, your blog is awesome. I am sitting at my desk feeling drained just thinking about all the work you do in a day! I am seriously considering a career change of just the sort you did, and reading this blog provides some great insights.

Not to add to your workload, but could you share the butter tart recipe? Thanks.