eG Foodblog: Malawry - Expecting a future culinary student

[Malawry]

In your opinion, what vegie/non-meat dishes freeze well? I've done ok with rice bowls (precooked vegies) (note - OK, not great), and frozen portions of spaghetti (sauce & cheese frozen on top) & vegie lasagna, but would like to branch out with other homemade frozen dinners. I also appreciate food that can be eaten with one hand (because the other is supporting "the baby").

Those truffles look delish. Cheesecake squares might be easier to cover if the coating is poured on, but that would take a lot more melted chocolate. And they look perfectly delicious as they are. (with thanks to Bergerka: its 8 am and I do not need chocolate....).

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Back when I was a vegetarian many moons ago, I didn't freeze a lot of meals. I did ingredients: cooked beans that I'd soaked from dry, vegetarian stock, pasta sauce. I also made vegetarian chili and soups like mushroom-barley for the freezer, along with the inevitable meatless lasagna.

I tried pouring the chocolate on the cheesecake squares, but it didn't work much better. I ended up using a combination of pouring and moving the squares around a puddle of chocolate in my hand. I think having a more sturdy cheesecake is really the solution if I decide to try this again...I had a hard time just picking it up in one piece, much less coating it.

[Malawry]

Semi-freezing the squares of cheesecake also makes them easier to dip. Though, as others have said, they certainly look good enough to eat just as you made them!

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I had the idea that pre-freezing (or semi-freezing) would lead to a streaky, bloomed chocolate coating. Have you personally done this with success? And did your chocolate bloom like I thought it might? (FWIW, I was worried about blooming from just using cold cheesecake squares.)

[Lori in PA]

When you said the very nice stranger lady who homeschools will probably appreciate a Borders gift card, I concur, says this homeschool mom.

For food: who has first-hand experience to compare Sam's Club with Costco? We've had a Sam's membership for several years, but all the Costco talk on egullet lately has me intrigued and now that dh is commuting 2 hours to Washington every day, we'll probably become more oriented in that direction for our occasional shopping anyway.

[Malawry]

I headed out for Martin's, a supermarket, earlier this afternoon to pick up a few items I need for the next few days. Martin's is owned by Royal Ahold, who also own Giant stores in the DC metro area. So, Martin's carries a lot of Giant store brand products. I did a lot of my food shopping at Giant when I lived in suburban Maryland, so Martin's quickly became my choice for nearby food shopping here in West Virginia. (The other options are the aforementioned Wal*Mart and a Food Lion store...and I don't like Food Lion much more than I like Wal*Mart, personally.)

It's a decent-sized market. The Martin's in Martinsburg, WV is much nicer, and I often stop there on my way home from my midwifery appointments. (I go to a practice with 6 midwives and 3 OB-Gyns in Martinsburg, WV, and I plan to give birth at City Hospital of Martinsburg.)

Here's what I bought:

Some ground turkey on sale, Diet Rite Tangerine for my husband (also on sale...he is very fond of soda), a new scrub brush for the sink because my other one is a bit manky, tomato juice and lemonade for Mom who really loves both beverages, mayo, russet potatoes and tater tots.

Also, pears, what were labeled as "yams," asparagus, organic herb salad mesclun, cukes, a red bell pepper, and some horseradish root.

I came home and cut up veg for the first batch of chicken stock. Often, with my classes, I have to prepare something in advance and then start a new batch in the classroom...sort of like how on cooking shows they show you how to make something and then, voila, they pull a completed version out of the oven. I had to make ganache on Monday to take to my Tuesday class, and now I'm making chicken stock to take to tonight's class.

I just checked and skimmed it and it is almost at the boil. I have a "power burner" which is great for getting these sorts of things going, and then a "simmer burner" which is great for keeping stocks going on low low heat.

Meanwhile, I was hungry, so I heated up some of these for lunch:

I also fixed myself a small salad, lest you think I never consume anything cruciferous. I washed it down with about a liter of water. I drink minimum 2 liters of water a day.

Right now, I'm going to go write a pack list and class sequence for tonight's class, and then start packing up things to take.

[MelissaH]

When you said the very nice stranger lady who homeschools will probably appreciate a Borders gift card, I concur, says this homeschool mom.

For food:  who has first-hand experience to compare Sam's Club with Costco?  We've had a Sam's membership for several years, but all the Costco talk on egullet lately has me intrigued and now that dh is commuting 2 hours to Washington every day, we'll probably become more oriented in that direction for our occasional shopping anyway.

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Anyone who gave me a Borders card would be at the top of my list!

No experience with Costco here; they don't exist in this neighborhood. But we do have a choice of warehouse stores. Last year, instead of renewing our Sam's membership, we defected to BJ's. I liked the idea of putting the money into someone else's pocketbook, and I haven't heard the employee horror stories about BJ's that I have about the Walmart empire. Furthermore, of the two stores in our area, the BJ's locations are nicer to shop in, and have more of the products we get on a regular basis. Because of that, when the time comes, we'll probably stick with BJ's.

I have been to a Costco: the one my sister in Tucson uses. Their selection of produce was to die for, compared to what we see here, but that's possibly more because she's in Arizona, closer to where it's all grown.

MelissaH

[Darcie B]

Housing is significantly cheaper in Jefferson County, WV than it is over the border in Maryland or Virginia, partly because tax rates are rock-bottom in all of WV.

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Off topic, I know, but overall, West Virginians are some of the most taxed citizens in this fine country. Real property taxes may be lower than surrounding states, but it is made up for with higher income tax rates, gasoline tax rates, food taxes, and personal property taxes. Heck, you are even supposed to include chest freezers, hot tubs, and dogs on your personal property tax return. The items taxed and rates make WV quite regressive.

All in all, though, the total cost of living in Charleston, WV is 82% of the national average (source: bestplaces.net). For housing, COL is 60% of the national average. To veer closer to topic, food costs are 97.7% of the national average.

[jm chen]

I had the idea that pre-freezing (or semi-freezing) would lead to a streaky, bloomed chocolate coating. Have you personally done this with success? And did your chocolate bloom like I thought it might? (FWIW, I was worried about blooming from just using cold cheesecake squares.)

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It's my mother's advice, and she didn't mention any blooming -- I'll ask her about it and drop you a PM.

Keep the great pictures coming! One of the things I love so much about these blogs is to see the documentation of not just beautiful plating, but the other parts of cooking -- the shopping cart, the MIP, the before-and-after shots. And now I am hungry for tater tots.

[Malawry]

So, I'm nearly ready for tonight's class. The stock is working, I've packed all the nonperishables, and I have a list of perishables to make it quick and easy to load a cooler and pack it in the car.

Unlike in Frederick, I am able to use the supplies in the kitchen I where I work in Jefferson County. However, this kitchen is not equipped with professional-grade equipment like the locked cabinet in Frederick is, so I often end up bringing things I consider basic like a scale or a big stockpot with me. Some of the things in that kitchen are of such poor quality that they're hard to work with, like the whisk I tried to use for whipping cream 2 weeks ago. Also, I can't leave anything at all at the Jefferson facility, so I end up schlepping things like salt and flour back and forth every week.

Here's my pack list for tonight's class:

Onions

Carrots

Celery

Parsley

Bay leaves

Black peppercorns

Thyme

Chicken

Butter

Canned diced, peeled tomatoes

Completed Chicken stock

Salt and pepper

Sugar

Heavy whipping cream

Eggs

Lemons

Crisco

Vanilla

Flour

Stockpot

Chinois

China cap

Spider

Cambros

Some deli cups

Whisk

Tart pan

Scale

Parchment

And here's the class sequence:

Cut mirepoix

Assemble stock ingredients

Start stock

Pate sucree

Strain and finish stock

Tomato soup

Lemon filling

Eat and clean up

I'm going to have to figure out how to get a big pot of stock to the classroom without tipping it over. I may end up transferring the contents to a Cambro that I can cover, and then putting them back in the pot when I arrive. (I have 2 stockpots, one of which currently has stock working, the other of which is clean and waiting in the car.)

[mizducky]

I tried pouring the chocolate on the cheesecake squares, but it didn't work much better. I ended up using a combination of pouring and moving the squares around a puddle of chocolate in my hand. I think having a more sturdy cheesecake is really the solution if I decide to try this again...I had a hard time just picking it up in one piece, much less coating it.

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I suspect this is the one downside to having forgotten the pound of sour cream in this cheesecake--the additional fat and protein might have made it less crumbly. (Though I'm sure it tastes just fine without it.)

[prasantrin]

And I'm curious--isn't Costco a big box store?

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This will be my last word on the whole Wal*Mart issue. Costco is a world apart from Wal*Mart in terms of how they treat their employees, and employee treatment is one of the top things that concern me when I decide where to spend my dollars. I am also very happy with their product line, their service and their low prices. But yes, Costco is a big box store--I am not opposed to every big box store out there, though I am more limited in my big-box shopping than most American consumers because I am very specific about where I spend my money.

As someone who is socially-responsible consumer, would you mind wandering over to this topic on chocolate and weighing in? When you have time/energy...It seems you've given a lot of thought to issues such as this one, and I think you could probably give a balanced perspective.

I've been loving your foodblog! Will you be posting recipes for some of the foods taught in your class? I love any kind of lemon tart or pie, and I've not had one since coming back to Japan. It's still cold enough here to do pastry, so I need to do it while I still can!

Waiting for the obligatory pictures of your cats.

[Lori in PA]

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Waiting for the obligatory pictures of your cats.

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[purplewiz]

For food:  who has first-hand experience to compare Sam's Club with Costco?  We've had a Sam's membership for several years, but all the Costco talk on egullet lately has me intrigued and now that dh is commuting 2 hours to Washington every day, we'll probably become more oriented in that direction for our occasional shopping anyway.

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I do...although my experience with Costco was 10 years ago, because that's when we moved to an area with plenty of Sam's Clubs: the nearest Costco is about 75 miles away. I'm not sure BJs is even in the state.

Overall, I miss Costco. I remember the products being of higher quality, that there was a larger selection, and the checkout lines were not the nightmare of Sam's Club. Both stores have a similar feel to them - you've been in one warehouse, you've been in them all.

I'm still a member of Sam's Club for two reasons: the frozen chicken breasts and the canned nuts. I tried very hard to find a substitute for both of these this spring, since I planned to let the membership lapse, and basically found nothing I liked anywhere near as much. There is a longstanding rumor that we're going to get a Costco, and if we ever do I plan to switch over. I still have my 10 year old card in my wallet and hope they'll let me back in!

Marcia.

[patti]

Rochelle,

I've taken great pleasure in your previous writings, particularly your sorority chef blog. I'm happy to see you sharing your culinary adventures with us again.

When I read the intro and saw that you'd recently bought a home in Harpers Ferry, I thought maybe you'd bought the house of a friend whose home was sold in the recent past (knowing that the incorporated area of HP is not very large). Anyway, I sent him a link to your blog and while it turns out that you aren't the new owners of his old digs, he asked, "Can you tell her about my favorite waffle recipe, w/ cheddar cheese and bacon on top of the batter before you close the waffle iron?"

So I'm passing it on.

And now I need to catch up; I'm only on page 2 of this blog!

(Edited to correct Rochelle's name!)

Edited February 17, 2006 by patti (log)

[Malawry]

As someone who is socially-responsible consumer, would you mind wandering over to this topic on chocolate and weighing in?  When you have time/energy...It seems you've given a lot of thought to issues such as this one, and I think you could probably give a balanced perspective. 

I've been loving your foodblog!  Will you be posting recipes for some of the foods taught in your class?  I love any kind of lemon tart or pie, and I've not had one since coming back to Japan.  It's still cold enough here to do pastry, so I need to do it while I still can!

Waiting for the obligatory pictures of your cats. 

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I'll try to look at that topic later, and weigh in if it's appropriate and I have something new to add.

Sure, I can post the recipes I wrote up for my handouts. I usually write savory recipes without measurements because I want my students to learn how to judge proportions for themselves, though, so the recipes are not always easy to cook from if you weren't there to watch my demo. My pastry recipes almost always have measurements/weights.

I did take one picture of Diana eating a snackie the other day. My cats are pretty camera-shy, but we'll see if I can get some more of them over the next few days. We have a constantly-circulating water filter for them since they like running water so much...

[Malawry]

And the obligatory pictures of your kitchen!

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I was hanging onto them until I had more time to explicate, but here's a preview:

[Malawry]

When I read the intro and saw that you'd recently bought a home in Harpers Ferry, I thought maybe you'd bought the house of a friend whose home was sold in the recent past (knowing that the incorporated area of HP is not very large). Anyway, I sent him a link to your blog and while it turns out that you aren't the new owners of his old digs, he asked, "Can you tell her about my favorite waffle recipe, w/ cheddar cheese and bacon on top of the batter before you close the waffle iron?"

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I actually suggested bacon as an add-in to waffles in the waffle story I recently wrote for the Martinsburg Journal-News. Waffles with bacon AND cheese sound like a very good accompaniment to roasted chicken. Hmmmmm.

Everything goes better with bacon!

(Oh, and my name is Rochelle...I thought you were talking to Rachel Perlow at first!)

[Malawry]

So I'm back from tonight's class, and a little wrung-out. I went ahead and unloaded my car and unpacked everything (usually I leave the nonperishables in my car until the next morning) because I just wanted to be done with it. Besides, it's unseasonably warm and I knew it would be cooler tomorrow, ergo less pleasant to be messing about with junk in my vehicle.

Class went well, though those who wanted to sample the soup and the tart had to stay a little late in order to do so. There was one major mishap: the mixers in the kitchen either don't work or else do a piss-poor job. I'm annoyed that this means schlepping my Kitchen-Aid in and out of that space for future classes involving pastry work (which is pretty much all of them). Everybody seemed to get a lot out of the stockmaking demo and discussion, which was what I was hoping would happen. I semi-joked that to me, the difference between somebody who dabbles and a serious cook is whether or not the person makes their own stock, and that seemed to drive home for them the importance of stockmaking in a single sentence. (After all, everybody wants ME to take them seriously! )

More detail, and some photos of the kitchens both at home and where I teach Thursdays, to follow tomorrow (unless I can't sleep again, in which case you might get them at 4am...sigh...).

[patti]

(Oh, and my name is Rochelle...I thought you were talking to Rachel Perlow at first!)

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I knew that! And I don't even have pregnancy as an excuse for my brain drain. Mea culpa!

[dockhl]

Rochelle, congrats on the coming addition to the fam! While I see that there's a sizable mashed potatoes contingent here, I know that artichoke season is nearly upon us, and many people I know haven't a clue about how easy it is to prepare them. I'm a big fan of the toothpick stool: after trimming and lemon-juicing the cut parts, stick three toothpicks into the base and you've got a handy steaming stand, with the tough stem down but not immersed in the water.

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That's a neat trick, Chris, and one I hadn't heard of before. However, if I'm gonna do asparagus next month, I don't really want to do artichokes right now. Next time they're on sale, though, I'm gonna give this a try. I buy fresh artichokes once every 6-8 weeks when they look good and aren't expensive and steam them. I can put away 2 or 3 of them myself as dinner (I mean as the whole dinner), with homemade mayo or melted butter or both as options.

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Trader Joe's has frozen baby artichoke hearts in a bag.........cook up what you need and throw the rest in the freezer ! So easy !

[MarketStEl]

Its curious that the romantic rural idyll is of small locally produced artisanal produce, including cheeses, breads, and the like. Yet in practice in most of small town USA (and most of the developed world)  its the poor end of mass production, and the place to get "artisanal" goods are in expensive stores in big towns, manufactured by refugees from that life trying to live a dream that never really existed...

I guess it may be different in Amish and other special areas.

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In Pennsylvania Dutch country, yes, you can get really good locally grown/produced food at reasonable cost, but even there, the "artisanal" stuff fits the model you describe above.

You can find both ends of the spectrum at the Reading Terminal Market on the weekends, when the regular Amish merchants are open and the Green Valley Dairy proprietor (a French emigré, BTW) is also selling his absolutely fabulous and breathtakingly pricey Cheddar.

I don't know whether he sells his cheese at Lancaster's Central Market. If he does, I realize it's a bit of a trek from northern West Virginia, but it might be worth it to check it out.

[KatieLoeb]

Hello friend! I'm a little late to pipe up but I'm so happy to see you blogging, and very glad to hear that all's well with young Colin Elijah. I'm glad your teaching and writing gigs have worked out, since I know that was something you were really interested in doing. Looks like you're a busy lady who's earned her bon-bon time.

You aren't going to reveal the Super Secret World's Best Hushpuppy recipe to your students or readers, are you? I'd keep that an eGullet exclusive.

[Malawry]

Guess who woke up at 2am and couldn't get back to sleep? My feet are sore and I was hungry, besides. I ate another brownie from the Tuesday class and came down to the computer for a while.

So, something I forgot to mention about last night's class is that I had a student who screwed something up. I asked her to zest 4 lemons for the lemon tart (3 for the filling, 1 for the pate sucree shell). She did so beautifully after I showed her how to use the microplane...and then she threw away the zest. (My mom did that once many years ago and has yet to live it down.) So, when I needed the zest, I asked my student where it was, and she said, "I threw it away." I said, "ha ha, no really, where's the zest?" And she looked like she was about to cry as she repeated, "I threw it away, I didn't realize you needed it." I mean she REALLY looked miserable. So I had to console her and tell her we'd make the most out of not having lemon zest (in an unusual move, I did not buy extra lemons at Wal*Mart).

She was very quiet the rest of the class, and then I realized about 30 minutes later that she was gone completely from the classroom. Fortunately, her husband is taking the class with her, so I asked him where she was. He explained that their puppy was fixed today and she'd wanted to go home and check on him, so she'd left. I hate it when students don't tell me these things...I really thought she'd left because she was so upset about the zest incident. She'd only thrown it away a moment before I asked her for it, and we were able to rescue some of it since it was just sitting on top of some paper towels from handwashing that were in the trash...so it really wasn't a big deal. I did take the opportunity to explain what zest is and why it's yummy to the class, and when I saw how upset she was I was very gentle with her, but really the whole situation was pretty hilarious. She's never, ever gonna forget that experience. I told my husband about it when we retired last night and we shared a good chuckle over it.

[Malawry]

You aren't going to reveal the Super Secret World's Best Hushpuppy recipe to your students or readers, are you?  I'd keep that an eGullet exclusive.

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I hadn't even thought about it until you brought it up! I don't think of that recipe as a secret, and it's unusual in that it's about the only recipe I've written that I thoroughly tested in over a dozen permutations before completion. I am not a methodical cook in this regard normally, but for the occasion of my culinary school final (when I developed the hush puppy recipe) I knew that the perfect pup was very important. I actually have about 4 bags of the homemade mix sitting in my pantry leftover from the last Varmint's Pig Pickin that need to be used...hmmmm. Might make an easy summer column. See, Katie, you never shoulda suggested such a terrible thing if you didn't want it to happen!

For those wondering what all the hoopla is about, try this recipe and see for yourself.

[Malawry]

So, here's some images of my home kitchen as promised. I don't have the mental energy at this hour to upload all the photos from last night, but they'll be coming at a more decent hour today, I swear.

This is the view of the kitchen from the living room, which is all one large open attached space. You can see my kitchen work table right in front of the camera, the island beyond that, and the range against the far wall. We ripped out the electric range that was in this house when we bought it and installed a gas range to replace it. Natural gas service is not available in this area...Harpers Ferry is at the convergence of the Shenandoah and Potomac rivers, and supposedly the rivers make it impossible to run natural gas lines for some reason. There is a gas log fireplace in the living room with a propane tank outside to service it, so I called the propane company and had them run a line from the tank into the kitchen so we could cook on gas, and then they installed the range for us. Most gas ranges come with a conversion kit so they can run on either propane or natural gas. Our range is a midlevel Kenmore version, with 5 burners (2 "power burners," 1 "simmer burner") and a generously-proportioned oven.

You can't see it, but just before the fridge on the right along that wall there's a second oven, a wall oven that we also had installed when we moved here. It's electric. I use it for all pastry applications and anything else where temperature consistency is important because I think it heats more evenly than the gas one. The gas one is kinda mucky inside because I crank it and put seared meats in there to finish cooking all the time...so the fat spatters all over the place. The gas oven also has a pizza stone in it at all times, 'cause you never know when you need a pizza. The electric oven looks much like the photos Marlene posted after she cleaned her oven on the inside 'cause we never put anything potentially messy in there. I don't use the second oven all that often, but it's indispensable when I do need it.

I absolutely love the John Boos worktable we bought for the kitchen. It means I can set up a lot of different things at once when I'm working on a catering job without running out of counter space. You can see the living room (and the gas log fireplace) behind it. The table is super heavy-duty, and when the metal shelf underneath it is empty it makes a cool "bonnnnnnnng" noise if I set something heavy on the maple butcher-block top. The table is enormously heavy and cost about $750 including free shipping from Chef Depot. This table theoretically makes it easier for me to run cooking classes out of my home, which I plan to look at more seriously after Baby Colin arrives...

I think where you eat is as important as where you cook. This solid wood table belonged to my Bubbe (Grandmother) Ruth Myers, who passed away about 10 years ago. It resided in my parents' home for many years, but it came to me when we bought our last home in Maryland. I have a strong emotional connection to this table because I really loved my Bubbe, and I always think of childhood Passovers when I sit here. We junked the chairs that were with the set when we moved last summer...they were in terrible shape, they didn't really match the table (Bubbe and Zayde bought the chairs about 10 years after they bought the table 'cause they didn't like the chairs that came with the set originally), and we didn't like them. We're very happy with the chairs we bought to replace them, which actually DO match the table and look rather handsome besides.

I enjoy sitting in this room eating my meals quite a lot. The windows allow me a peek at the backyards of some of our neighbors, so last summer I saw things like kids playing on a trampoline a few yards down and a family holding a backyard campout while I was eating dinner in here.

The book on the table is Larousse Gastronomique, which my husband bought me as a birthday gift last November. I am reading it slowly front-to-back whenever I eat alone. I'm about 250 pages in so far and I've learned a lot already. I haven't cooked anything out of it yet, though.

Speaking of food books, most of mine reside in a bookcase in the formal parlor attached to the dining room. Those are school notebooks and a few Foods of the World books on the lower left. I like that this bookcase resides on the ground level (all the other books are in the basement with our office and entertainment-center spaces, or in the guest bedroom). I often pluck a few off the shelf and browse at the dining room table or at the central kitchen island when I'm researching something or just plain bored. I never get tired of looking at cookbooks and wish I had the budget to buy a lot more of them!

[Malawry]

Question about those "yams" (which I think are really sweet potatoes)...

Is it better to boil or bake them if the goal is to mash them up and mix them with other yummy things?