Chef at Home

Archive for November, 2009

chocolate-licorice delice {pot de creme}, caramel sauteed plums, almond cocoa chili wafer {pectin based tuile}, chantilly, chocolate granita.

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The link to this kitchen tool is not for those faint of heart. It is a device used for the quick and painless killing of fish and we believe might be really good for working with lobsters. When Dave and Nils from Cooking Issues became obsessed with the Ike Jime fish preparation technique and, as they do, went to extremes to refine and document the process, including locating and utilizing fish anethesisa, we sat up straight and began extrapolating ideas. Their research sparked ideas of what other fish and crustaceans could and should benefit from this sort of handling. My first thoughts were to lobsters and crabs. It turns out that they too had similar thoughts and have refined a technique, which they hang before us like a carrot tantalizing a horse here.

In any event, we have been working on lobster cookery and investigating a kinder killing method. The tool which caught my fancy is the Iki Jime tool, a curved spike used to totally destroy the brain of a fish instantly. If the spike works and can easily be applied to a lobster we may have a better way for killing lobsters for cooking. The technique is intended to delay rigor mortis, which in lobsters would include tail curling and flesh tightening. This may then allow for an incredibly succulent raw lobster preparation and excellent benefits in low temperature cooking.

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With the smoker perfuming the air like the wood burning fire place we wish we had, all kinds of foodstuffs were getting there smoke on. While we have enjoyed Smokey Blue, a cheese smoked with hazelnut shells we have  continued to leave smoked hazelnuts off our to do list, until today. We had some space in the smoker and some hazelnuts in the cupboard. The smoked nuts are great as is. Thankfully we cannot leave great alone and looked to further uses for this delicious nut. The hazelnuts worked out wonderfully zested over raw fish as well as tenderized in a pressure cooker and mimicking the aesthetic and place of chickpeas. These are our first encounters, we are looking forward to the growing relationship.

 

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The idea for the triple crust pie came about by accident. We thought we saw a baked apple pie with streusel baked on top of the top crust. How cool is that? It turns out we saw what we wanted to see. The glorious inspiration was really a coffee cake with a streusel topping. This closer examination did not deter us from chasing down the unheard of triple crust pie.

 

We found it and devoured it in our kitchen. Now we need to fine tune the ginger ice cream to go along with it.

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hazelnut meringue, coconut-guava-vanilla bean sorbet, tropical fruit salsa of mango, pomegranate seeds, pineapple, lime leaf, ginger, fresh coriander {cilantro}, palm sugar, mint, galangal and lemongrass.

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We have had the pleasure of working with Stove Monkeys in creating and designing an Ideas in Food shirt. Stove Monkeys is a t-shirt company created by cooks, really stove monkeys, for cooks. Our first shirt is exciting on many levels. First of all it is the first. The design process was not easy and that is a good thing. It takes time to take an idea, plant the seeds, let it grow and harvest it at the right time. The shirt will be sold through Stove Monkeys website and they will begin taking pre-orders shortly. In fact, lets get the ball rolling, email them if you are seriously interested. Realize that in being serious they will most likely expect you to pay for your enthusiasm upfront.

In actuality we have to thank Bob for the phrase “Break an Egg.” We were headed off to do some cooking and like the theater’s catch phrase break a leg, he joyously chuckled “break an egg.” The saying took and has grown into more than just a few words strung together. Ideas and innovations come from breaking the eggs, not just waiting for them to hatch.

 

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The idea has been growing on the counter for about a month. It just took a different angle to see it in front of us.

 

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I’m
traveling through time. Over one body of water, from one piece of land to
another. I’m high up, in the air, where there is no time, where there is no
ground, and I’m thinking about how I know not what’s next, except for the
obvious, the concrete, the empirical. 

I
consider NYC my home and yet it’s been years since I physically inhabited it.
Since I walked its streets daily, hourly.

I’m
going to NYC for practical reasons. It’s closer to Europe, to London, where
I’ve lived for the past year, albeit tenuous, precarious.

When
you travel you lose yourself. You lose mirrors and memories and history. You
step into another history, another language, another neighborhood. You’re just
around the corner and no one can find you. You can’t find yourself. You have
this whole life behind you, but you left it at the airport gate.

While
it’s impossible to become someone you’re not, it is possible to re-invent.
Perhaps you were stuck where you lived before you traveled, and after doing,
what you had always done, you wanted to do something new, and getting the
upstart to kick a transformation into gear felt like molasses stuck to an
elephant walking through swampy mud.

Traveling
sheds. The airplane takes off and your feet can’t touch the ground. You are a
child in a big seat. You swing your legs, feel lighter, float in the seawater. The sky looks so different from here.

It
feels possible, whatever the it is you want to get to. Even
if you’re not sure what it is, you know you need to make a big change.

 Or maybe the move came to you and you just followed the breadcrumbs.

Risk.

Adventure.

Spontaneity.

Making it up as you go along.

You
are one or the other: Roadrunner, Coyote. And whether you stop just short of
the canyon, fall over it’s edge, or make it to the other side because you’re moving
cartoon fast, it’s a journey you must make.

       Got
dusty? flattened yourself in a ravine?

No
matter.

This
is what transformation is about. It’s about the sun being so high in the sky,
shadows appear to disappear. You are your shadow. Your compass is broken.

The
people you love are left behind. They write and you write, they call and you
call, they plead for you to come back, but you stay.

Some
chapters are better saved before published, indexed before edited. Some
chapters are better written by hand.

People
ask you, when you go to New York, 'Are you moving there?'

You make a joke. {You
think it’s really funny.}        You say you don’t know if you’re moving to New York.
You say you’ve asked g-d, but he hasn’t replied. You say that if anyone who has a
direct line to g-d, can you please let me know, because as far as you know, {the only thing you know} is you
are moving, Officially,

To
Limbo.

O.
And there are a few complicated pieces. Secret Lovers. Old loves. Loveletters.
A flat you secretly rent in a place you’re not supposed to be living.  A {restaurant} kitchen you’re not supposed to know as
well as you do.

Because
you’re going back to the place you’re from, you plan on looking for work.
Postman’s Holiday. You can’t wait to work there again. It’s been over 10 years.
You never meant to be away this long. In fact while you were living on the
completely other coast, in the most rural setting you had ever come across, you
lost your desire to live in a major city. You decided to make Northern
California your permanent home, and even called it that.

Until
you moved to London exactly one year ago. And everything changed.

I’m
traveling through time. Time Travel.

The question is: am I going from my future to my past;
my future to my future; my recent past to my stopover, and then back to my past;
my past to my past; or my question mark to my question mark?

I
don’t have any answers.

Just
questions.

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Recipes and ingredient lists are constantly printed on packaged goods boxes and wrappers. The information contained there is often glossed over and even thought of as fruitless or at least pointless details. I regularly read boxes and packages, not specifically to gain insights, rather I get bored standing in line at the grocery store. While my motivation may be skewed, the results are not. This mindless reading of lists and simple recipes designed by manufacturers regularly sparks thoughts and begins idea avalanches. Today we were working with non-fat milk powder and it was Aki’s turn to read the box. She read a recipe for whipped milk using the non-fat milk powder and water. The results were astonishingly good. The ideas, well you may imagine what we are thinking. Besides being pleased with the results it started another conversation about the proteins in non-fat milk powder and the hows and whys of whipping and furthermore our options for utilizing this knowledge.

 

All of this from a box of dried milk before breakfast was even over today.

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A composition of butternut squash raw and cooked complimented by bananas powdered and whipped. The burnt marshmallow is seasoned with Szechwan peppercorns for an aromatic tingle on the palate.

 

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