Chef at Home

Archive for the ‘Egg Beater’ Category

Two questions for chefs & cooks:

How many restaurants have you worked in so far in your career?
And how many of them brought in & butchered whole animals?

I've asked this question over at Twitter, and I will post all your answers in a follow up post to this one.

And, yes, I will post my answer, and why I'm making this inquiry. You may make your response anonymous if you feel you need to for professional reasons.

Thank you in advance! I look forward to this important conversation.

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Matthew Wilbur

Jonnatan Leiva

Suckling pig & lamb raised in Vermont by Lydia Ratcliff, farmer extraordinaire.

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not just any dessert,

although they appear to have really good taste

in many a sweet thang,

but here, and now,

allow me to point you in the direction of Tasting Table NYC's March 1 edition! ~

Sweet Relief
A pastry genius touches down at 10 Downing

Because,

you guessed it,

it's about me.

yes, just moments after arriving & baking in NYC, some gorgeous press from Scott Hocker, formerly of SF Magazine & currently at Tasting Table SF. Not only did he get me and my food, spot on, he had my mouth watering on the subway while reading the latest issue of Edward Behr's ineffable The Art of Eating newsletter.

If you're not already signed up for the Tasting Table newsletter, may I suggest you consider it? There's one for LA, SF, NYC & D.C, Chicago & National.

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in the course of a day a person hears a lot of words, thinks a lot of words, writes a lot of letters bunched up  with each other, and reads even more.

in kitchens we mince words, speak incomplete sentences, shout orders, and make clear, sharp points quickly. the concept is: listen the first time because i don't have time to repeat myself. sometimes communication is done without words, happens without opening our mouths. our hands communicate, our gestures speak volumes, our eyes admonish, our bodies teach, our body memory saves our lives, and those we work with.

patience. it's an unknown, a foreign word. a full explanation is gold, but not the traded kind, the sort found on a sunk ship, on the sea's bottom. recipes are scarce, methods are memorized, reasons are few. why is a word regarded with resentment, at best. no time for why. why is a word you have to take to the library on your day off. why is a word for those with enough money to go to culinary school. why? why takes time. minutes you don't have.  minutes you could use to go to the bathroom, breathe, take a gulp of water, pause.

sink or swim.

and we do a lot of sinking, and more treading water, hopeful. that our feet will reach sand. soon.

kitchens are about the now. about the i needs and the whens and the now, motherfuckers. maintenant. 'can i have that today, please?' kitchens are about economy. the economy of movement. the economy of words. the economy of thought, opinion and critique. choose your battles wisely, timely.

communication in staccato.

you better be good at morse, at braille, at seeing: using both eyes. hard.
you better have your blinders off.
except when you need them strapped to your head. tight.

kitchen communications are written in invisible ink, in shorthand; spoken in slang colloquial dialect vernacular jargon. kitchenspeak. kitchen-uendo.

that said, all over the world, there's only one language: kitchen.

graffitti.

if you speak it here, you speak it there. even when you're not speaking. once you learn kitchen you can never shake it. tattooed into your skin.

you smell a cook before you see her cooking. you see a cook even before you smell his sallow skin. you see scars, you hear invisible scars. you know.

look up passion. it means tortured.

*

I'm in a kitchen right now with a lot of 'green' cooks. They need a lot of care. A lot of 'hand-holding.' Way more than I would have been able to get away with. Ever. A lot of explaining needs to happen. While we will always have to repeat ourselves, {ad infinitum, in fact– basically until a cooks gets so tired hearing us say the same thing over and over he will comply, merely out of annoyance!}, the management team (3 of us in total) find ourselves really frustrated by the simplest of basic pieces of information we barely remember learning ourselves. We're frustrated because it seems as though a lot of these cooks have been cooking for a little bit, but did not learn the universal language, kitchen, along the way.

This is not to say I don't remember learning as I was coming up: I do. More than most because I did not go to culinary school. I remember when and from whom I learned what an 'All Day' was. I was taught, the hard way, to use my towel every time I reached for a saute pan. {My partner placed a red hot cast iron plancha in the same stack as the 'cold' ones.}

But I don't remember anyone ever telling me not to call in sick. I remember a female line cook taking me aside and telling me how it was and would always be for female cooks. {"You will work twice as hard, and get 1/2 the recognition & pay."} I remember a sous chef telling me I had to choose between a lover or friends: that I would never have both and have this career.

I have seen a lot of marriages end. I have witnessed a lot of addictions flourish. I have seen a few miracles. I have tasted a lot of tears. I have talked to a lot of people from the edge of a bridge. Mine, theirs.

*

If cooking is your calling, I suggest you pick up the phone. And listen.

If no one is teaching you kitchen, allow me to school you.

~

If you're cooking in the kitchen of some famous chef's empire, but you are not learning, get the fuck out of there. You have no time to waste.

If you don't know how to properly give notice, whether as a dishwasher or a sous chef, ask someone who has been cooking longer than you. If you start burning bridges at the beginning you will have no way of getting to the next job, later. Remember: the worst reference of all is no reference. If you think you will never come across the people you are working with now, again, you are sorely mistaken. No matter how many thousands of miles you travel, I guarantee you you will work with someone who knows someone else you worked with. People talk. Reputations start getting built early.

Stick with the winners. Watch the cooks who do it better than you. Watch cooks who are more organized, work cleaner, are more efficient, have composure, can take criticism, are graceful. Watch. Hard. Study, yo. LEARN GOOD HABITS NOW. Think of it this way: it's easier to learn good habits now than get bad habits beaten out of you later.

Stop moaning, whinging, complaining, pouting. Have you ever babysat? A silent, resentful cook takes all the energy out of a room, a kitchen, team. You are no longer a child. You are not the most important person in the kitchen, even if you're the strongest. There are no cowboys in kitchens. Kitchens are teams, yo. If you're so strong, help someone who isn't. If you need so much attention that you will fuck up on purpose to get it, a good chef will weed you out and press eject. If you need help, ask for it like an adult. Passivity is annoying. Ask for what you need. Be direct. And if one cook says no one night, she might say yes the next, so keep asking. Sometimes the most noble bravery is vulnerability. 

Watch, listen, learn. TASTE. I can't stress watching enough. Memorize your station, and the station next to you. Inventory, taste EVERY PIECE OF YOUR MIS EN PLACE EVERY DAY, every night, every service. Even if you are the only one on your station. Even if you don't want to. Some ingredients/components just take a few hours to go off. If you serve bad food it's on you. Have INTEGRITY. And if you hate your job/menu/chef so much that you don't care to taste your m.e.p., leave. Please. You have no time to waste.

Read. Read the restaurant reviews in your town. Do Google searches on your place of work. Read what people are saying. Read about the cuisine you're serving. Read food magazines, cookbooks, food blogs, industry magazines. Just read. Please. Look up ingredients. Read about how ingredients are used in their native foods/cuisines/dishes/ceremonies. 

If you're allowed: eat where you work. Get perspective. Try eating something you serve, start to finish, with the utensil your front of house serve it with. If you don't want to eat the whole thing/a certain component, then it's a good bet your diners don't want to either.

Stage. If you have a day off, go to another kitchen. Go to another kitchen to watch, to look, to see something else, to hear something else, to smell something else. Use your days off well. The first day is for laundry & sleeping, but if you have another: study. Even if you don't have money to eat out, look at other menus. Surf the web and look at restaurant websites. I'm not the only chef blogging… Read, look, comment, ask questions. 

Shut up. Shut up and listen. "Yes Chef," or "Oui Chef" should be your only response to critique. You have another opinion? Save it for the bar after work. Save it for someone who cares.

Someone I worked with recently thanked me for my patience, my teaching, my explaining. She said she had none of these attributes. She told me how she 'teaches' in her kitchens.

"I say, 'This is unacceptable. This is how you do it. Any questions?'"

Remember that your response to critique/instruction informs your chef about how to talk to you the next time. If you don't respond to thoughtful instruction, but you change after being screamed at, you will surely be screamed at from then on out. If you're in a kitchen where the chef only screams and you can't learn in that environment, find another kitchen. But I warn you: this industry isn't nice and patient. If that's all you can handle, there will be a lot of kitchens you'll never be able to work in. Learn from.

Clean clean clean and then clean some more. You can never be too clean, too organized, too efficient. Learn how to use 2 side towels. Yes, I said two. Not twenty. Try keeping your whites white. Whether butchering or making chocolates. It comes back to integrity. It comes back to sticking with the winners. You want to be fast? Be good first. Work clean, work efficiently, move with purpose, with grace. Look up the word INTENTIONAL if you don't know what it means. If you don't know how to practice it. Speed will come. I promise you. But if you're moving really fast, and you're a fucking mess, then you're not doing a very good job. You're no one I want to promote. You're no one I look up to. You're no one to judge.

Pay attention. Look beyond yourself, your station, your job. Attempt to see yourself as part of the whole. I know it's hard. It's impossible when you're first starting out.

Be ACCOUNTABLE. Learn the word accountability. Take responsibility for your actions, your inactions, your lies, your mistakes, your commis' mistakes, your cooks' mistakes, your achievements, your fears, your strengths, your weaknesses. You didn't order enough? Say sorry but do more than sorry. You think only about yourself? Open your eyes and pay attention to/support the cooks you work with/for/next to. Your station is never set up? You can't figure out how to keep it clean or leave it clean for the next cook? Stay late. be receptive to learning.

Ask questions. Ask how to be better. Ask questions silently. Go to work every day with a question and get it answered at the end of every shift, even if you can not utter it aloud.

Be better today than you were yesterday.
Every day.

Become versatile. Think you're great on saute? Grill? Come in on  your day off and work in pastry. learn your voids. Fill your gaps. Dive into what you're afraid of. TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THE MOST SKILLED PEOPLE IN YOUR KITCHEN. Volunteer to butcher. Apprentice the gnocchi making sous chef. CHALLENGE YOURSELF.

~

In the kitchen where I work now the chef is bringing in whole animals. You know what the crime is? NOT A SINGLE COOK HAS ASKED TO LEARN TO BREAK THESE ANIMALS DOWN. What the fuck are they waiting for? A formal invitation? Come on now. Are you serious? I can count on one hand the kitchens I've worked in that have brought in whole animals.

What else?
What 'schooling' have you received?
What am I forgetting?
What did you learn that has stayed with you through the days, the hours, the years, the grueling jobs, the awful kitchens, the shoe-maker chefs?
What do you teach your cooks?
What do you pass on?
What do you wish you never learned?
What's indispensable?

*

I'll leave you with these words, which I recently submitted & collected from my friends & colleagues on Facebook ~

Urgency,
Communication, Responsibility, Finesse, Listening, Accountability,
Organization, Humility, Mindful, Efficient, Receptive, Critical,
Questioning, Curiosity, Taste, Common Sense, Empathy, Resourcefulness, Creativity, Consistency, Fearlessness, Self-Critical, Levity, Focus, Grounded, Preparedness {aka Mental mis-en-place}, Humor, Taste Memory…

*

If you're in the wrong kitchen, I urge you to leave. If you're not learning, I urge you to find a kitchen, a city, a cuisine you can learn in/from. If you can't afford culinary school, don't go. You have a myriad of options.

I can't possibly be the only chef passionate about teaching, about apprenticing, about sharing.

I can't possibly be the only chef who believes these words with all her might.

Remember, know this:

we can only keep what we have, by giving it away.

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Some of you want to know where I'm working now. Now that I'm back in NYC. Seemingly, for good.

The restaurant has a lot of names. None of them names, per se. The address is the name. The name is the address. The address is not one you'd know, unless you knew the West Village really well.

10 Downing Street. No, not the famous UK address. {But ironic, dontcha think?}
10 Downing Street, on the West side of the street, just a blink South of where Bleeker criss-crosses 6th avenue, aka Avenue of the Americas.
Downing Street intercepts Bedford street, the two being tinier than the next.

We have a nice view of the Empire State Building, are a corner space with sidewalk to ceiling windows and boast an intriguing art collection…

But better than the view or the space or even the marble bar with the handsome, witty bartenders, is the chef, Jonnatan Leiva, and sous chef, Matthew Wilbur, in the kitchen. And our amazing team. We don't have a single 'extra' person. Everyone counts, works hard, and is growing leaps & bounds before our very eyes. I sound like a proud parent, I know. It's how I feel.

I'm proud to say I work with and amongst them. 

The jury is out on whether Jonnatan's clean, beautiful, vegetable forward, seasonal, soulful, whole animal, vegetable stock based food is what New York City wants, but we'll keep on until they catch up.

Jonnatan arrived at 10 Downing at the end of October, Matthew followed soon after in early December, and I was hired right before Christmas. All of us spent a great deal of time working in & living in California, but I never met either of them until I arrived.

I've been having a lot of fun with my menu, as you've seen. {*Lemon, *Gingerbread, *Chocolate,  *Butterscotch.} And as winter slips slowly, sleepily into Spring, our menus change and grow out of the outfits they get tired of wearing. 

Gingerbread, gone, Hazelnut, brown butter & pears in. Rethinking chocolate. Slipped in a lebne cheesecake with kumquat marmalade, then it exited stage left. Am playing with an apple chausson with rosemary caramel cream & a weird and wonderful pickled apple & pomegranate salad. And for those of you looking for something slightly less obvious ~ supple chocolate & pistachio cream, rose petal sugar, sour cherry sauce, toasted kataifi & cool rose-mastic cloud…

I'm also having a good time with our Saturday & Sunday brunch menu. I've revamped the granola by buying local honey, omitting nuts, replacing regular yogurt with lebne & making it with as "unsweet" as possible by using maple syrup & honey instead of brown sugar.

I've been bold & nudged in my favourite breakfast item: EGG BABIES! Aka Dutch Pancakes.

And I never thought I would do it, but I have overcome my fear of making marmalade & right this minute you could be served one or all of the following with your French Toast, Dutch Pancake 'Souffle,' and/or'Pastry Basket': kumquat, lemon, blood orange, Meyer lemon, or Mineola Tangelo!! We just yesterday finished a grapefruit-fennel marmalade that was one my first attempts.

Although brunch service happens only 2 days a week I've gone all out for the pastry basket. Every week I challenge myself with a new yeasted something. This past weekend I was utterly ecstatic to find Deb's Monkey Bread recipe in time for Friday testing.

If you came in this past weekend, your pastry basket had toasted flour & almond Polverone, ANZAC, cornbread, buckwheat-banana-walnut-coffee-candied ginger muffin, Monkey Bread & a cheesy-pear biscuit.

A lot of you have come in, introduced yourself and allowed me to meet you in person. What a joy this has been! Thank you thank you for supporting the restaurants where I work. It means so much, especially these days.

For any of you who want to see more behind the scenes photos of 10 Downing St. Restaurant kitchen & cooks, I've put up three sets on Flickr. One, Two & Three. Yes, I will continue to bring my camera in & document menu changes & cooks cooking.

And if you live anywhere near or in NYC, I hope to meet & feed you soon…

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I don't have to tell you that the economy of your country, city, town, continent, family has tanked.
I don't have to tell you anything about it. You know.
I don't have to tell you to hold onto your job. You have. As long as you've been able to.
I don't have to tell you not to spend your money on frivolous items. You either have or you have not; either out of need or need to rebel.
I don't have to tell you how many restaurants have closed, how many cooks and chefs and pastry chefs are out of work.
I don't have to tell you that if you love, really love a restaurant, you may want to become a regular.
I don't have to tell you that if you really love a chef or a pastry chef's work, you should tell everyone you know to go eat at said person's workplace. You know.
I don't have to tell you the power of positive press is far quieter than the power of negative press. Whether you rant indignantly on Yelp, or feed a piece of barely true gossip to Eater, or pan a place on Chowhound, or talk doo-doo on your own blog/Twitter/Facebook about a particular place,
you play a part in the wild fire that will surely consume said business.
I don't have to tell you anything. You know why? You know.
You're smart.
You read as much as I do.
Probably more.

I don't have to tell you what happened on September 11, 2001. I don't have to tell you that the Internet Bubble, based on money which did not exactly exist, but which was generating thousands of businesses to be born, and invite more people than could even fit in San Francisco & beyond to move there, and displace thousands more, burst. At about the same time as September 11, 2001.
O yes. It was a fun year. A great time to be working in a luxury industry making food people neither needed nor could afford.
I lost my job of 2 years that year. After that I was unemployed for longer than I have been since I started working, at age 14. I witnessed over 6,000 restaurants close in San Francisco. In one year.
You probably remember that time as well as I do.
I know you remember what you were doing that day.
And if you lived in NYC or the Bay Area, you remember the recovery time.
It took years.

It is for these memories, these reasons, these experiences, which I still feel, still know, viscerally, that I remain forever grateful to have a job, when I have one.
It is for these memories, these reasons, these experiences, which I still feel, still know, viscerally, that I have grown.
It is for these memories, these reasons, these experiences, which I still feel, still know, viscerally, that hope to always know perspective, even the smallest amount, is utterly important.

Because

a little perspective

goes

a long way.

When it happens all over again. History is only important, if you can learn from it.

There are very few restaurants that do not have to worry. About food costs. About labor percentages, about inventory, rent, the economy, holidays, weather, natural catastrophes, equipment, vermin, waste, stealing, lawsuits, worker injuries, etc. Very few. Not none, but probably less than a percent I'm guessing.

Everyone thinks it's so much fun to be a chef. So creative. So nifty. So delicious. So exciting. So glamorous.

And they're right.

Some of the time.

The rest of the time they're wrong. Very wrong.

Because sometimes the most creative things you're doing is

• figuring out how to cut costs without firing your entire staff
• changing your menu overnight because none of your purveyors will deliver to you because of outstanding invoices
• working every station even though the kitchen is composed of 6 stations in the layout of a 3 bedroom house
• juggling a myriad of medication to take while working sick
• offering every kind of 'special' that will attract every kind of diner at any price point you think all of these people can or will want to afford
• filching your numbers to reflect what the owners want to see
• keeping your management away from the bar where you know they're drinking away any of the profits you might otherwise be barely seeing
• figuring out how to serve food you worry is going off but can't afford to throw out
• shaving ounce after ounce off of your plates of food in ways diners won't notice so you don't have to raise prices, which diners always notice
• keeping your body alive on 3 hours of sleep, no food and coffee as your only imbibement
• switching arms, hands, wrists, because your primary one is so injured you can no longer use it well
• and
• p.s. you don't have health insurance
• even though
• you work in one of the most physically challenging indoor workplaces you know of

Menu Changes.

These words are a stand in for other words.

Menu Changes mean a variety of things. A menu changing is a symptom. Menus Change because they have to.

After September 11th, 2001, Menus Changed. In order for restaurants to stay afloat, they had to lower prices, drop expensive proteins, lay off extraneous staff {ie pastry chefs}, ask the staff that stayed to take pay-cuts & do twice the work.

A lot of Menus Changed and many restaurants started making Comfort Food. The United States needed comfort. A lot of it.

So tonight, when I was asked to change my menu, radically, I understood. I didn't like it, but I didn't stomp my feet and say, "It's not fair!"

I understood its implication. I know its history.

I had my "reactionary, emotional, angry" self tempered, calmed {silently} by my 'Grounded Self,' and I took the order as a challenge.

For I am only one of millions who has [had] to Change Menus. Change plans. Change on a dime. 

Change Menus. Get grateful. Turn challenge into lesson. Know life is full of lessons. Have perspective. Calm down enough to see the forest through the trees.

Because you know what?

Changing Menus is changing directions is life changing, and

the only thing you can rely on is change.

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I don't know if you have a bakery in your town that has marshmallows on strings hanging from its ceiling.

But I do.

City Bakery, Maury Rubin's masterful bakery palace on 18th street, just a few paces West of 5th avenue.

Marshmallows edible & knitted.

Hanging on strings, piled in bowls, packages in fluffy clear packages like edible pillows, waiting to be floating, sunglassed, in a pool of thick velvety rich hot chocolate, the flavor of your choice.

Because February Is

 
The City Bakery annual Hot Chocolate Festival Month.

And this year, it's 17th year running,

if you're free the night of Thursday February 18th

you could learn

HOW TO KNIT A MARSHMALLOW!!!!!

yes. I'm way excited. too.

Come one, Come All, Come Knitters or Chocolate Lovers or both or neither!

Last night I had Lemon Hot Chocolate. Mmmm lemon & chocolate.

But there are many other flavors to be had– check out the hot chocolate festival interactive calendar…

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Butterscotch Pot de Creme, Dulce de Leche & Brown Sugar-Cumin Roasted Pecans

You could say I know Butterscotch. I know it well. And more than most people, I know what Butterscotch is not, never was and, if it's up to me, which of course it's not; because I need the help of all pastry chefs worldwide, not to mention the massive corporations who decide what you eat, in what form, and, {did you know?!} with what flavorings… But I digress.

If it were solely up to me, I would make sure everyone, e v e r y  one, knew the true, real taste of Butterscotch.

At my current workplace, I appear to be doing a good job of just this sort of delicious education. Because, contrary to popular plated dessert menu logic, this Butterscotch Pot de Creme is oftentimes selling better than my chocolate dessert.

I kid you not.

The People?

They appear to want the real thing.

Take that you imposters! You pretenders! Take that artificial butterscotch chips! POW! Artificial flavors be banished!

The People have spoken. With their mouths full. 

Butterscotch, the passion. Who knew? Underdog or trendsetter, flavor or philosophy, back road or freeway, Butterscotch could very well be bipartisan. Who do you know that can cast aspersions on Butterscotch?

In some ways you could say Butterscotch is simple. It is merely the flavor of its parts. No fancy flips or one-handed emulsion tricks, no major machinery needed, no ingredients you can't get at your local regular supermarket.

Dark Brown Sugar. Butter. Cream. Madagascar "Bourbon" Vanilla Extract. Salt.

See? Easy. Easy as a pot on a stove, whisk in hand, a dash of patience & a good, solid, belief in the seasoning & balancing power of salt.

All that said, pot de creme? It's not so easy. I worked for a pastry chef once who, after I asked nervously, "How do you know when they're done, when they're just set?" said, "You'll come to have a pot de creme sense. You'll know before the timer goes off. The oven will talk to you. Listen. The custards, and their corresponding ramekins, will teach you. You'll see."

And she was right.

But not everyone has it.

You have to be a student of the egg. You have to understand coagulation. You have to understand why. You have to be a Why Asker. You have to get quiet. Really quiet. Because when eggs talk, when eggs school, they do so quietly. Eggs are great whisperers. 

You have to understand steam. You have to know what a water-bath does. You have to understand your oven. You have to understand the physics of ratio. Ratio of ramekin weight & depth to liquid custard. 

You have to be patient. You have to have a gentle touch when checking up on your setting pot de cremes. You have to have the eye. Your eyes need to be connected to your mind, but also your heart. For an overcooked pot de creme looks a lot like an underset one.

And you have to know something about carryover cooking.

Yes, carryover cooking isn't just for meat cooks. All protein, all baked goods, experience carryover cooking.

All that warning aside. A pot de creme is worth it. Worth every worry, worth every every ramekin of wobbly, custardy joy, worth every pot de creme you have to dump immediately in the garbage bin because you waited 1 minute too long.

Pot de creme is not forgiving. Overcooked pot de creme? Scrambled eggs. Literally. Not smooth texture. Overcooked pot de creme feeds the garbage gods, who laugh in your face. But you have to stare them down, even with tears streaming into their hungry, mean mouths, and get back on the pot de creme pony.

A perfect pot de creme will evaporate in your mouth faster than cotton candy. A perfect pot de creme will keep you from sharing. A perfect pot de creme will leave you wordless. Will humble you.

I promise.

And so… the dessert at hand.

Butterscotch plays well with others. Butterscotch pairs with many other flavours sweet & savoury. Being that we're still in the thick of January & winter's brittle clutch, my dessert menu leans heavily on warm, hearty compositions. Butterscotch can still taste like itself up against some pretty powerful ingredient egos. Like cumin.

Who says cumin has no place in desserts? I seem to remember proving y'all wrong a few years ago when I made a Cumin Pot de Creme with Heirloom Apple Salad & Bee Pollen.

Cumin can be a bit frightening because of it's sharply bitter edge which is never demurely hiding against the wall waiting for Coriander or Black beans to ask it to dance. Cumin will more likely steal your car than open the door for you. So, yes, you do have to be careful with cumin.

But, up against Butterscotch, cumin checks her guns at the door. She hooks the arms of one slender, dashing, buttery pecan, stands up straight as an arrow, shows off a little leg, and lets a night of brown sugar, butter & sea salt take her away.

And if you're still not convinced, these brown sugar-salty butter-cumin roasted nuts sit on a deeply colored dulche de leche: one of the world's most voluptuous, silky, milky, caramel known to all whose tongues have come   with across it.

I make one final stroke. {You could say I learnt it in London.}

To offer a bit of 'refreshment,' brightness, & mystery to the dessert, I pour a thin stream of cream on the butterscotch pot de creme's surface. The taste of cold cream is one of life's rare, secreted, pleasures.

If you were a wee bit afraid of whether butterscotch were going to be too sweet for your elegant palate, the cream is there for your tempering pleasure. If the plate were slightly too wintery browns for your intelligent eye, the lid of juxtoposed white would immediately balance the plate's aesthetic dynamic.

And if you, were anything like me, you would allow me to blindfold one of your five senses, and trust me to take you on a journey filled with familiar & unfamiliar, common & uncommon, rich & deep sensations, beyond your wildest imaginings.

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