A Good Day for Bread

I left work early today. Business has been slow and it's Columbus Day, so our usual patrons from the French school had the day off.

Coming home early, I decided to do something that I have not done in a long time: bake bread at home. The warm fall air was perfect for dough to rise. I flipped through my "Essentials of Baking" cookbook: the focaccia recipe caught me eye.

I have not baked focaccia since I was in Breads class at the culinary school. That was four years ago.

I love making bread, but the challenge is having a block of time: starting with measuring out my ingredients all the way to pulling the finished product out of the oven. Also, having the weather just right. I have figured out a way to proof bread in the chill of the winter. (I just put the dough in a container on top of the oven, and set the oven to warm. It's a bit tricky, so I would rather just wait for the right time.)

But I am spoiled when it come to bread. Students would constantly have fresh baked bread with their meals. So for thirty weeks, I had fresh piecebaguette, ballons with poppy seeds or asiago cheese, slices of levain...

So, I did have fun making the focaccia, but I wished that I had the time to let the dough sit in the refrigerator overnight and let it ferment. (The flavor is much better if you do so.)

I think one of the interesting about making bread is that you are working with something that is still alive. And, I love how simple ingredients can create something so delicious: yeast, warm water, sugar, olive oil, flour, and salt. Also, an important factor is time.


Here is my finished product. I added some tomato, green onion, and garlic.

Milk Chocolate

I often get the duty of bringing dessert when it comes to visiting friends. I guess that is part of the contract when baking is your profession.

Unfortunately, baking is the last thing I want to do when I am off work. Tell me to make potato salad or my mom's seven layer dip. Dessert? I'll do it, but with some reluctance. Don't get me wrong. I love what I do, but when you do it all day, five days a week for work, there is a stopping point.

Sigh. So, Monday was one of those days where I was commissioned to bring dessert. It was short notice. But when I saw how eager our hosts where when they had asked me, I had to say yes. I didn't want to disappoint them.

So I brought chocolate. You can't go wrong with chocolate. (I also brought some cookies that I baked off at work.)

Our friends happen to love Scharffen Berger Chocolate. I picked up two bars: the semisweet and the milk chocolate with cocoa nibs. (They have a ten year old son, so I figure something on the sweeter side would do.) My family loves bittersweet, so that is naturally the one I gravitate toward. I rarely ate milk chocolate growing up only because we never really kept it around the house. I've only recently gone beyond my bittersweet boundaries.

I often find milk chocolate a bit sweet. But it pairs with some ingredients better than bittersweet because of its sweeter, carmel-like nature. If you pay attention to Scharffen Berger's milk chocolate you can taste the butterscotch notes. I can see it going well in a chocolate chunk cookie with pecans, or mixed with some heat.

Some pastry chefs have mentioned El Rey as a good brand when it comes to milk. So I will give it a go next time. So sorry, Mom and Dad, I can't stick just to bittersweet.

Pumpkins!

Here they are. Aren't they beautiful? Imperfections and all. It's that time of year...Halloween is around the corner. Pumpkins will line porches and sit on window sills, as they are or with carved faces on them. Pumpkin muffins, pumpkin fudge, and best of all fresh pumpkin pie. (As in cooking the pumpkin, and making your own puree. Mmmmm....)


This is the rustic Fairy Tale pumpkin. Can you imagine this turning into a coach drawn by horses that were once mice?



A close up of the Jarradale.



The bright orange French Pumpkin.

How about these guys? Super Freak Pumpkins.


And this is a Swan Gourd.

When the Freezer Stops Freezing...

You have in mind your production schedule for the day. It is the afternoon and you have already baked off the morning pastries and cookies. You've iced the brownies and piped ganache on the chocolate cupcakes. Two quiches have been baked off for the lunch specials. You've even had time to test out a new pumpkin muffin recipe. The chocolate stout cake has cooled and you are ready to put them in the freezer to be used at a later date.

But the freezer smells funny. You put your hand in and it feels, strangely, warmer. You start poking at different product, expecting your finger to hit a wall of frozen items. But everything you touch give way to the pressure you apply. There is condensation on the inside wall of the freezer.

Great.

Problems happen all the time. I've always found that the problems that arise in the kitchen forces one to be creative. Much of the time, I have to stop what I am doing and find a solution of some sort. Because there's really no other choice. How perfect it would if everything came out the way you wanted. If all ovens behaved the same, if freezers didn't break down, if the temperature and humidity were just perfect, etc.

So what do I usually have in there? Unbaked product such as scones and cookie dough, cakes waiting to be iced, nuts to keep from going rancid, fruit purees, pate brisee wrapped in plastic wrap, puff pastry, and ice cream samples.

The rest of my production was put on pause for the rest of the day. I scrambled to find freezer items temporary homes in other freezers and fridges. And I made it work.

You just have to.

Alfajores

I 've been spoiled.

I can't just have any cookie. I recently nibbled on a brand name oatmeal chocolate chip cookie. My reaction: No. Can't do it. Bleh! I think I've stopped eating store-bought cookies altogether. I remember my childhood favorite: Oreo's, Pepperidge Farms' Milanos, Famous Amos, and Chips Ahoy. Nope. Not for me.

With that out into the open, on to alfajores.

Alfajores are cookies from South America. Imagine dulce de leche sandwiched between two biscuit like cookies. A layer of powdered sugar elegantly dressed onto the top layer. The cookie part is rich and crumbly, and at first makes you feel like you need a glass of milk, but when you taste that ooey, gooey dulce de leche, your need for counterbalance is satisfied. The experience melting away in your mouth.

My sister had brought some for me from her trip to Argentina. She had bought me a box and had it waiting for me at my family's home. But my aunts and uncles would come by and peak in the pantry. And before you know it, only four individually wrapped cookies were left. They were my first alfajores and I enjoyed each one. Yes, they were the store-bought kind, and they were dipped in chocolate. But that was years ago. I had forgotten what they tasted like, but I remember I liked them

Then I came across Monica's alfajores. It is a Peruvian recipe, and they are freshly made. Yes! I have found a supply. I just love how they melt in my mouth. And, as they disappear they leave me with an expression of delight.

Fall Begins

Labor Day has come and gone, and school is back in session. The maple leaves are slowly starting to change their shades and flutter to the ground, the first breaths of autumn before it awakes.

The change from summer to autumn is a bittersweet time of year. We start to give way to our shorts and beach trips for sweaters and raking leaves. I start to say goodbye to my beloved summer fruits: the juicy hunks of honeydew, the sweet flesh of peaches, and the fragrant strawberries. There will be no more free-form blueberry tartlets or Sharlyn melon agua frescas.

The shadows begin to lengthen, and the air gets a little chilly. The skies become a canvas of vibrant oranges and pinks at sunset.

Every Wednesdays while I was in culinary school, I would pass by the farmers' market. I found the best plums and peaches here for a great price. I became hooked on dried mission figs. Over time I would notice the changes in produce as fall came around. The change was subtle as the quality and quantity of summer fruits began to fade and make room for apples, pears, and persimmons.

Autumn is that time of year for candied apples, poached pears, and everything pumpkin. It's that time of year for cranberry compote, roasted figs, and maple pecan pie. And as much as I love the summer, autumn is my favorite time of year as it alludes to the holidays. The weather is cool, yet we still catch one last hint of summer heat as Indian summer makes it way through. There is nothing like having a hot cup of coffee with apple cranberry muffin, scooping out pumpkins seeds as the rays of the setting sun pour into my kitchen, or walking outside on my way to work and seeing puffs of breath as I exhale.

Slow Food Nation

I made the mistakes of not buying my tickets early. I think for the most part because I was unsure if I would be able to make it.

Slow Food Nation was a celebration of food that took place this past Labor Day weekend in San Francisco. There were opportunities to taste samples from different farmers and producers, to learn about food-related issues, and see cooking demonstrations.

What is Slow Food? Well, what is fast food? Fast food, much of the time, is junky, unwholesome, and unsocial in this speed-of-light time that we live in. Slow Food USA is a movement that focuses on good wholesome food, linking the environment and the community. It’s about getting food back to be being good for us, not just the consumer, but for every component along the way: whether it is the soil that our produce comes from or the workers in the field.

I was disappointed for not jumping on the opportunity earlier. But, I received word of one event that was happening today: a US Artisanal Chocolate Makers Roundtable. Basically, it was a discussion between five chocolate producers in the United States. I made my way to Fort Mason to learn more about what it means to be "artisanal." What was the difference between their chocolate and companies such as Hershey's and Ghirardhelli?

The panel included representative from Taza Chocolate, Amano Chocolate, Askinosie Chocolate, Patric Chocolate, and DeVries Chocolate. I definitely learned a lot about the art of chocolate making: about production, about single origin beans vs. blending, and about issues regarding larger chocolate makers.

I think what really struck me the most was how much each person really valued keeping the purity of the cacao beans: bean to bar. This means not having extra additives in their chocolates, but protecting the flavors of the beans. The flavors of the beans depend on variables such as where they are grown, how they are fermented, and even how they are roasted.

Shawn Askinoisie of Askinoise Chocolate focused on his strong belief on building the relationships with the providers of the beans, with having fair net profit share with them. (He once was a criminal defense lawyer who pursued his new passion.) Steve DeVries, of DeVries Chocolate, spoke about how he would fly out to Costa Rica for the harvesting of the cacao beans to insure quality.

Perhaps that is why these chocolate are expensive: the care that goes into the production and the purity of the ingredients. I must note that artisanal chocolate making is fairly new in the US. (Scharffen Berger being perhaps one of the earlier pioneers that paved the way.) And though I have yet to try the brands represented in the panel, I am not likely to use their chocolate for baking purposes. (For $8 a bar?) These chocolates are meant to stand alone, not melted to make a mousse or chopped up for cookies. That would go against the principles of these artisanal chocolates.