Raccoon and Lobster

I was settling in for a quiet evening curled up with my copy of Ad Hoc at Home when I come across a picture of Thomas Keller lovingly admiring a spoon.

“I do love to spoon,” he says, “I love spoons the way I love eggs, for the beauty of their shape and their multiple uses.”

And as I read those words, something itched in the back of my skull. I remembered a blog post that I had happened across several months ago, while browsing food blogs late into the night. It was an ode by a pastry chef, written to her favorite spoon. I suddenly felt compelled to find that post again and so I began to google. It took me a few minutes to happen across the phrase “pastry chef spoon favorite sauce” and suddenly the words Gray Kunz appeared in several search results. I knew immediately that this was the spoon, even though I had not yet found the post.

One more search brought me to the post I was looking for but my journey was not to stop there. What I had originally thought was one chef’s quirky love affair with a simple utensil suddenly seemed to be much bigger than that. In the comments to that post were two people talking about their own love for their Kunz spoons and a later there was a link by a third person to a post on his blog, also about this Gray Kunz spoon. Why were so many people talking about this particular spoon? It appears second on a list of top gifts for chefs, there is an entire thread about it at eGullet, and several chefs list it as their number one utensil. Everywhere I looked, people were talking about this damn spoon.

He then presents me with two items, a Gray Kunz spoon and a small, offset spatula.  “These are two items that every cook in my kitchen receives.  They are essential tools of this kitchen, and we use them every day.”

When I was at Lespinasse everyone had to work with a special spoon that the JB Prince Company later marketed under Gray’s name. Once you get used to it, you really can’t go back to using any other type of spoon.

My Kunz spoon was given to me by a chef at The French Laundry. I have treasured it for 6 years now. Everyone on the line knows not to touch my spoon.

And so it was that sometime after midnight on a Saturday evening, I suddenly found myself in desperate need of a spoon. A spoon that so many chefs had passed on to their protégés. A spoon that invoked deep love and undying devotion from so many chefs. The mythical Gray Kunz would be mine. After reading all of those comments singing the praise of this spoon in almost fetishistic tones, there could be no other spoon that could fill the spoon-shaped hole in my heart.

Already I am dizzy thinking of the things I can scoop, ladle, baste, drizzle and ye gods, form a quenelle with. Have mercy! I do not know if my delicate heart can endure the eons that stand between me and my fated love.

I couldn’t allow this enormous head of cauliflower to remain where I found him, silently plotting whatever it is that giant cauliflowers plot. Look at the tendrils of his green cauliflower leaf-hands. Can’t you see them unfurling oh-so-slowly? No? Just wait. You will.

Cauliflower, like trolls, are well known for their ability to regenerate, and the only defense against them rising up is to attack with fire or acid.

I chose to do both, first pummeling them with a blast of heat from my burners, and then finishing them off with the slow burn of my stomach acid.

My good deed for the day is done. You’re welcome, universe.

Sautéed Cauliflower

Cauliflower
vegetable oil
salt
pepper
minced garlic
chopped chives
crushed cayenne pepper flakes
grated Asiago cheese

Tear off leafy cauliflower hands and trim the stem. Rinse the monstrous creature under running water and cut it into small florets of roughly equal size.

Sauté in a skillet over medium heat with vegetable oil until golden brown. Season to taste with salt and pepper and add in the garlic. Remove from heat when the garlic is softened and fragrant and toss with the chives, cayenne pepper, and cheese. Eat with the satisfaction of a job well done.

The kitchen has been full of repeats the last few days, with some (much prettier) sweet dough cinnamon rolls making an appearance and 2 more loaves of cheddar potato bread. Along with the cinnamon rolls I made some bacon pastry slices modeled after a croque monsieur, but I may have eaten all of them before any photos were taken.

Tomorrow my angel food pan arrives and I’ll be able to attempt some sponge cakes. I’m slowly working my way from the denser, more resilient cakes like pound cakes and bundts to the fragile and more temperamental airy cakes.

For tonight, my blog contribution consists of the Omnivore’s Hundred, a list of one hundred foods every good omnivore should try at least once in their life. Created by Andrew Wheeler of Very Good Taste, and as seen on Chocolate and Zucchini :

To participate

1) Copy this list into your blog or journal, including these instructions.

2) Bold all the items you’ve eaten.

3) Cross out any items that you would never consider eating.

4) Optional extra: Post a comment at www.verygoodtaste.co.uk linking to your results.

Andrew has also published a FAQ answering some of the more obvious questions that come up from seeing this list.

The VGT Omnivore’s Hundred:

1. Venison

2. Nettle tea

3. Huevos rancheros

4. Steak tartare

5. Crocodile

6. Black pudding – I’m counting blood tofu as satisfying this requirement

7. Cheese fondue

8. Carp

9. Borscht

10. Baba ghanoush

11. Calamari

12. Pho

13. PB&J sandwich

14. Aloo gobi

15. Hot dog from a street cart - impossible to live in NYC and not

16. Epoisses – cheese shops are a lot of fun

17. Black truffle – only the US “false” truffle so far

18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes

19. Steamed pork buns

20. Pistachio ice cream

21. Heirloom tomatoes – tastes like what I remember tomatoes tasting like when I was a child.

22. Fresh wild berries

23. Foie gras

24. Rice and beans

25. Brawn, or head cheese - tried it for the first time a few weeks ago. Quite good. Reminds me of certain Chinese sausages.

26. Raw Scotch Bonnet pepper

27. Dulce de leche

28. Oysters

29. Baklava

30. Bagna cauda

31. Wasabi peas

32. Clam chowder in a sourdough bowl

33. Salted lassi

34. Sauerkraut

35. Root beer float

36. Cognac with a fat cigar   Not a smoker. Never will be.

37. Clotted cream tea – Scones with clotted cream and jam, yes, but not with tea.

38. Vodka jelly/Jell-O Shots

39. Gumbo

40. Oxtail

41. Curried goat

42. Whole insects – not intentionally, as far as I can remember, but my mother may tell a different story.

43. Phaal

44. Goat’s milk – goat’s milk yogurt is quite good. Sheep’s milk yogurt, on the other hand, is distinctly…rustic? pastoral? agrarian? Strongly evocative of farms, in the worst possible way.

45. Malt whisky from a bottle worth £60/$120 or more

46. Fugu – soon, I hope

47. Chicken tikka masala

48. Eel – purchased live from a street vendor in China. And also in sushi, but that’s more boring.

49. Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut – meh. Mine are better.

50. Sea urchin – One day I will try this again with good quality sea urchin, as the one I had was quite vile.

51. Prickly pear

52. Umeboshi

53. Abalone – the texture is not unlike biting down on a thin piece of balsa wood. Very odd.

54. Paneer

55. McDonald’s Big Mac Meal

56. Spaetzle

57. Dirty gin martini

58. Beer above 8% ABV – I initially skipped this, but Chimay apparently qualifies.

59. Poutine – Not for lack of trying. I’ve ordered it at a restaurant only to have it not brought out.

60. Carob chips

61. S’mores

62. Sweetbreads

63. Kaolin – bwuh?

64. Currywurst

65. Durian – not as bad as advertised. The Boyfriend finds it quite objectionable, but I think he’s just being dramatic.

66. Frogs’ legs

67. Beignets, churros, elephant ears or funnel cake – all of the above

68. Haggis

69. Fried plantain

70. Chitterlings, or andouillette

71. Gazpacho

72. Caviar and blini

73. Louche absinthe – I’ve had absinthe, but only in cocktail form.

74. Gjetost, or brunost

75. Roadkill  - I can imagine a few scenarios that might change my mind, but it’s not very likely.

76. Baijiu

77. Hostess Fruit Pie

78. Snail

79. Lapsang souchong

80. Bellini

81. Tom yum

82. Eggs Benedict

83. Pocky

84. Tasting menu at a three-Michelin-star restaurant – *sob*

85. Kobe beef – Only beef called Kobe but is technically Kobe-style  Wagyu.

86. Hare

87. Goulash

88. Flowers

89. Horse

90. Criollo chocolate

91. Spam

92. Soft shell crab

93. Rose harissa

94. Catfish

95. Mole poblano – it took a recent trip to Rivera for me to see the light on mole.

96. Bagel and lox

97. Lobster Thermidor

98. Polenta - I’m especially fond of the Thomas Keller way: cook off the water and replace with butter and cream.

99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee

100. Snake – not particularly special except for the foodie cred.

If I counted correctly, that’s 74 tried, 24 to be tried, and 2 items that will never make the list. A few items I had to really think hard about, and it’s a mystery how I managed to avoid ever having a single Jello shot. That said, for the most part my policy is that for the most part, I’ll try anything once. Many of the more exotic items on the list appeared so long ago in my past that I forgot several at first pass.

My personal additions to the list:

101. Jamon Iberico - sweet, nutty, and melt-in-your-mouth amazing. I would eat this every day if I won the lottery.

102-104. Tripe. Tongue. Trotters. – all delicious. The Boyfriend was not amused when I made trotters. At all.

105. Marrow – fat is flavor

106. Wild mushrooms – of course, I’m biased on this of late

107. Huitlacoche - humorous link aside, I find the premise interesting and a recent mention by Rick Bayless pushed me over the edge into wanting to try it for myself.

108. Natto – also appears in a Steve Don’t Eat It! segment. I’m curious to see how it compares with Stinky Tofu.

109. Bitter Melon – I knew I was a real grown up the day I ordered this at a restaurant and enjoyed eating it. When I was a kid, it was the worst kind of culinary torture. I won’t drink espresso and I avoided dark chocolate for the longest time, but bitter melon I’ll eat.

What food needs to be at 110?

The lemon luxury layer cake left me with an abundance of egg whites. About 13 of them. I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to try my hand at making some fancy pants macarons. I read Syrup and Tang’s fantastic guide to macaron techniques and troubleshooting and decided that the slightly more difficult Italian meringue or sucre cuit method was for me.

Never has the world seen such wrinkled, deformed little beasts claiming to be macarons.

The batter was too thin and so the act of putting them into the oven caused the circles I made to ooze into amoeba blobs and melting snowmen.

None of them developed feet. The ideal macaron also has a crispy shell and a soft meringue interior. My crispy shells were usually cracked and the interior had giant air bubbles with a dense layer of chewy batter at the bottom. All wrong.

And yet, strangely addictive to eat.

Maca-so-wrong-they’re-rights?

Maca-gones?

Maca-real-beauty-is-on-the-insides?

Maca-noms?

Help me out here.

Inspired by this post by Michael Ruhlman:

—I cook because good food is its own reward.

—I cook because I enjoy witnessing the alchemy of transforming raw ingredients into a meal.

—I cook because breaking bread with other people is one of the most basic ways to express love and friendship.

—I cook because my pups deserve more than just kibble from a bag.

—I cook because food you make yourself just tastes better.

—I cook because learning to make a new dish is an achievement to be proud of.

—I cook because I live in a state where fresh, locally grown food is in abundance and it just begs to be used.

—I cook because nobody sells brioche made with equal parts of butter and flour.

—I cook because making food that other people enjoy is also an achievement to be proud of.

—I cook because I am a food snob and cooking is cheaper than eating out every day.

—I cook because eating mashed potatoes made with a stick of butter and a cup of heavy cream is less sinful if you make it yourself.

—I cook because some parts of it are just plain satisfying.

—I cook because soy lecithin, partially hydrogenated oils, high fructose corn syrup, potassium bromate, and diacetyl are too high a price to pay for convenience.

—I cook because I take pleasure in doing something well for its own sake.

—I cook because I started a food blog on impulse and now I have to keep it going.

At this point I am baking enough of Rose’s cakes that I can’t in good conscience continue posting recipes for every one I bake. This is a four layer cake (made from two 9×2 cakes) with two layers of lemon curd and one layer of the white chocolate custard buttercream that also forms the frosting.

Between all of the components, this baby took me the large part of the day but I got to break in my new rotating cake stand and my enormous 14″ cake slicer. Assembling all of the pieces to put together a cake is the most fun part for me right now, actually eating the cake comes in a distant second. Good thing I have a willing army of cake eaters at my beck and call.

What color were the mushrooms you used in your breakfast omelet? Mine were purple.

I was invited to go on a second foray and we found more edibles than were needed for the fair, so I was able to take some home to try. The Boyfriend spotted these and I was thrilled to be able to identify them as blewits (Lepista nuda). They are sometimes found in high end grocery stores under the name Bluefoot mushrooms and they sell for a princely sum. It’s still a little harrowing to eat a wild mushroom; ill effects from dangerous mushrooms may not appear until several days after ingestion, and by then it can be too late. More experienced mushroom hunters verified my ID and I took a spore print at home just to be extra sure. And in case you were wondering, they tasted like danger.

This Sunday the LA Mushroom Society is holding a Wild Mushroom Fair at the LA County Arboretum. To prepare for the fair, they held several mushroom forays that were open to the public. I thought this would be a great opportunity to start learning about finding my own edible wild mushrooms so I signed up for a foray in the Santa Monica Mountains. Thanks to the increased rainfall, the mushrooms were out in abundance this year. In just 2 hours time, we collected 4 giant coolers worth of mushrooms. Several people never made it out of the picnic area. You were in danger of stepping on a mushroom with ever step you took. Later, a smaller party went to another park and gathered even more mushroom varieties.

We soon filled the tables up with different mushroom types.

We found some big chanterelles.

And some really big chanterelles. They’ll be at the fair if someone doesn’t accidentally eat them first.

Can you tell them apart from the false chanterelles that will make you sick?

I saw more mushrooms than I had ever seen in my life. Some were obvious.

Really obvious.

Some were less so.

My personal highlight was finding this little teal blue mushroom, which is apparently quite rare. The mycologists were very excited! You can see it at the fair tomorrow.

The mushroom fair is on Sunday, February 14, 2010, at the LA Arboretum, 10am-4pm. I am told that visitors will get a kit to grow their own oyster mushrooms at home. Maybe I’ll see you there.

Do me a favor and click  to see the large version of this picture. Please.

I don’t really care for Valentine’s Day, but once I saw the recipe, I couldn’t resist making this rich, fudgy, chocolate cake. I just can’t stop baking from this cookbook. The cakes that come out have great texture and flavor and the pairings with frostings and glazes are spot on. If you are looking for a cake recipe book to buy, this one is it. Just stock up on eggs and butter and renew your gym membership first.

Double Chocolate Valentine from Rose’s Heavenly Cakes

ingredients	volume	weight	metric weight
unsweetened alkalized cocoa powder	½ cup plus 1 tablespoon	1.5 oz	42 grams
boiling water	½ cup	4.2 oz	118 grams
~4 egg yolks, room temperature	1/4 cup plus ½ tablespoon	2.6 oz	74 grams
water	3 tablespoons	1.5 oz	44 grams
vanilla extract	3/4 teaspoon
cake flour or AP flour	1 1/3 cup	5.5 oz	156 grams
baker's sugar	1 cup	7 oz	200 grams
baking powder	2½ teaspoons
salt	½ teaspoon
unsalted butter, room temperature	9 tablespoons	4.5 oz	128 grams

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Line a 9 x 2 cake pan with a cake strip, coat the bottom with a thin layer of shortening and top with a sheet of parchment cut to shape. Butter and lightly flour the inside. Turn the cake upside down and tap to remove excess flour.

Whisk together the cocoa and boiling water until smooth and cover and let cool to room temperature. Whisk together the egg yolks, the 3 tablespoons water and the vanilla until just combined and set aside.

In a large bowl, beat together the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt until well combined and any clumps are broken up. Add the butter and the cocoa mixture and slowly increase the speed to medium and beat for 1½ minutes, scraping the sides of the bowl as necessary. The batter should be light and fluffy.

Add half of the egg mixture and beat for 30 seconds, then the other half and beat for another 30 seconds. Scrape the batter into the prepared pan and bake until a cake tester comes out clean and the cake springs back when pressed lightly in the center, about 30-40 minutes.

Ganache Glaze

ingredient	weight	metric weight
dark chocolate (60-62% cacao), chopped	3 oz	85 grams
heavy cream	6 oz	174 grams

Scald the cream and pour it into a bowl over the chopped chocolate. Whisk until smooth and set aside. By the way, if you taste the ganache glaze by itself, it will seem a little too dark. Paired with the cake though, the two complement each other beautifully.

When the cake comes out of the oven, poke holes into the top and brush half of the glaze onto the cake. Wait 10 minutes and flip the cake onto a flat surface covered with plastic wrap. Remove the parchment paper and brush the remaining glaze onto the cake. Cool until the chocolate is firm to the touch, at least 1 hour.

If the chocolate is set you can now transfer the cake by flipping it onto a flat, plastic-wrapped plate, and then again onto your final cake destination*.

Cover the cake with fresh raspberries (one of the perks of living where I do is that fresh raspberries are available at the farmer’s market in February) and dab with warmed red currant jelly.

*Final Cake Destination would be an awesome movie. Or a truly terrible one.

I can’t decide which is worse: missing a stick of butter because a puppy dog ate it, or missing a stick of butter because a puppy dog hid it. Either way, it’s not going to be pretty when I finally find evidence of the crime.