Amuse Bouche

Bits and Bobs

Just a few bits and bobs before I return with some more food.

I bought this ginger 2 months ago at Russo's.  It had some nodules sticking out of it and it was damp and fresh so I took a chance to see if I could grow it.  Julia had written about trying to grow it in her garden before with some success.  Well, things got away from me and it just sat on the counter.  After a few weeks the nodules started to sprout the leaves and now the one nodule is starting to grow.  She said she didn't really have luck growing it in a pot, but I'm going to give it a shot.  Not sure if I should grow it in an orchid mix (very light and airy full of wood and leaf matter) or in a potting soil (more dense), but I'll do a bit of googling and see I can find some info on the enviornment where they normally harvest it.

Last weekend we went to Maine to see Mom and SD and to bob in the water with a couple of noodles.  It was heaven.

 We practiced CPR (Catch, Photo, Release)

 

Exhasted Samoyed puppies slept in strange positions after long boat rides.  It's tiring to be bow puppy.

 I wasn't leaving without picking up some local eggs so I decided to drive over to Mt Vernon to show husband the amazing general store, if they don't have it, you don't need it. 

On the way we went through Belgrade and Rome and on the road to Mt Vernon there is a farm at the top of the hill that has a little shack with a cooler and a sign that reads EGGS and an old Folger's coffee tin as the honesty box.  Mom and I call it Joe Cocker farm. 

There is a barn with the doors open and 1970's radio is always playing. Joe Cocker's With a Little Help from my Friends was playing the first time we went. We have never spoken to anyone and there is no sign naming the farm so that is how we refer to it. Outside the barn are all sorts of cages with birds and rabbits, goats and pigs.   

Here are some pics of some of the residents.

He kept rattling the cage hoping we had brought some snacks.  Next time I'll bring some carrots with me.

Is he a pheasant?  I'm not sure who he is but he is handsome.

Just hanging out listening to 1970's rock.

There are 3 or 4 white peacock and 1 gorgeous multi color one.  There were some mighty ugly birds wandering around outside the cages I was wondering if they were the pea hens.

And last, if it works, a little snippet of my favorite sounds on the lake.  We have a platoon of loons this year.  Up to 9 or 10 of them swanning around, fishing in the morning, calling out from cove to cove in the evening and at night.  I was grilling and I recorded this snippet, the noise in the background is Mom in the kitchen and my SD watching the Red Sox.

 

Download Loon call

 

A new direction

Smoked duck breast, seared foie, pickled cipoline, marinated artichoke heart, sauteed mushrooms, sauteed apple, mache, arugula sprouts and mesclun

I haven't been posting recipes here for quite some time.  Either it's just more of the same old same old, Tue chicken, Weds fish, etc., or I haven't felt like taking pictures before dinner and as we know if you are going to write about food most people want a picture to drool along to.  Even, my SD won't buy a cookbook unless it is loaded with pictures.  Recently however, Easter day as a matter of fact, marked the day a few things changed around here.  That was the last day I consumed sugar, seed oils, grains (hence no gluten) or legumes.

Why?

Well I'm not a dieter.  Never believed in it.  Why change your eating for a few months only to go back to your old habits when it 'ended'? I've never, ever been thin. I never really ate junk food.  I don't drink soda.  I'm not a sugar junky, I'd rather have a steak over a piece of cake any day, but I did grow up in a house of starch.  Loads of starch.  Pasta? Ah, hello...Italian.  Mom never made a meal without a starch of some kind.  Potatoes, rice, pasta made an appearance every night and garlic bread was her holy ghost.  Out of habit I've always done the same.  Husband and I did however dabble in Atkins once a few years ago.  It worked great for him.  He dropped weight without even thinking about it but eventually we stopped for no apparent reason. I had no intention of doing this, I wasn't seeking a change, thin is not my goal, I don't even think it is possible for me, but being healthier and feeling better is.  At one point after hearing about 3 friends experiences with bariatric surgery I was actually contemplating going down that long, dark, expensive road.  But on a lark one day Sam and I were talking at work about ideas for some new classes for Create a Cook.  Sam is a nutritionist and creates our healthy cooking classes.  We tossed out raw, vegan, new vegetarian menus, more gluten free for the allergy crowd and then Paleo came up.  She wasn't sure what paleo was exactly so she said she would go home and research it.  The next day she rejected it out of hand the next day saying it was all about eating bacon all the time.  LOL!  Typical nutritionist response!  I'm working on her though and she just *might* be coming around.

I'd heard enough about Paelo to know there was more to it than bacon, but believe me there IS bacon.  That weekend I started googling Paleo and Primal (see this great Venn diagram for the differences between Primal, Paleo and Atkins).  I found Wolf and Cordain and then a slew of others who spoke about the diet, its origins and loads of testimonials from former fatties or those with autoimmune or health issues like diabetes or PCOS on what it has done for them. In fact if you aren't a reader spend a bit of time and take a little gander at this documentary and then think long and hard before you scoff at the very idea.  One thing I did learn going down this road is that it's all about the insulin baby.

Now let me take a moment here to assure you I AM THE WORLD'S BIGGEST SKEPTIC.  My father done raised me right.  Nothing comes for free.  Nothing good is easy.  Nothing you buy on an infomercial works. Ron Popeil is a shiester. There are no shortcuts, well except the one he once took that was 20 miles out of the way but we were at least MOVING, I digress.  I went into my research with a high degree of 'WHATEVER' and then I came out the other side buying books, reading them cover to cover, trawling sites, eading papers and curious for more and then I decided WHAT THE HELL you were going to have MAJOR surgery it can't hurt to try can it?  And really a diet about eating meat and vegetables is a diet lifestyle change I can get behind!

I am here to tell you that just 1 week in to the change, ONE WEEK after giving up grains and hence gluten, my joints felt absolutely amazing.  Knees that creaked and crack?  No longer.  Aches and pains that I attributed to age. NO MORE.  Ocassional GI issues that I wrote off to other reasons GONE. No longer am I tired after I eat.  NO more do I want to take a nap after a sandwich for lunch or pasta for dinner.  I am five weeks in and I can easily see this becoming a lifestyle.  I crave nothing that I can't have.  I don't want sugar or chocolate.  I ate potatoes 3 or 4 times a week before.  I haven't had a spud in 5 weeks and I am down with that.  100% fully down. Bread? WHATEVER! 

Now I'm not here to proselytize.  I will never lecture you for eating that cupcake.  I could care less if you wanna suck down that loaf of freshly baked sourdough. And you will not scoff at me for eating bacon or liver without first reading the research and then coming to your own conclusions. However I will tell you why I'm not eating those things - if you ask.  I'm also NOT a saint.  Yes, I have a beer.  One.  Or maybe a glass of wine or a NORCAL margarita. And bourbon - oh sweet bourbon you distilled, gluten-free saint!  I ride the line somehwere between primal and paleo.  I think grass fed butter is just fine.  And the 1 TBS of milk or cream I put in my tea is not going to stop the world turning is it? And, yea sometimes I'm gonna use gluten free tamari cause I loves me some Asian food and coconut aminos just do NOT taste like soy no matter how much they smell like they should. Hell dudes I even bought a kettlebell.  Baby steps folks.  B-a-b-y s-t-e-p-s.

Over the coming weeks I will be pouring through my archives and marking things that fit the lifestyle, some with modifications which I will note on the recipe.  A word off the bat.  I am a cook.  I will not be skipping salt in my cooking.  I know the lifestyle wants you to forgo but I am controlling my own intake and I am using sea salt with trace minerals.  NOT GIVING IT UP.  And I will be using tricks in my arsenal like sous vide.  If you haven't heard of it I am sure you have heard of google.  Do a wee bit of research.  I will tell you now that is simply one of the most efficient ways to cook meat EVER.  Perfect level of done EVERY TIME.  Sure, I have some equipment that might be out of your range, but don't fret.  My friend Helen Rennie of Beyond Salmon will tell you how to make a rig on the cheap.  How cheap? How's $15 bucks?

So all of this is just to tell you that I just might come back here again and put up some recipes. Nothing wrong with meat and veg is there?  In fact when you see these dishes the last thing you should think is that this food is diet food.  The very last thing this place will ever become is an eat this/don't eat that, follow my rules, sanctimonious food site.  All food is good, just some foods are better for some of us than others.  There will be no lectures, no numbers, no mention of diet.  Just good food. Lots of good food.

 

I've been Googled

 

I really don't know where to begin this post because what happened is so surreal, so fabulous, so crazy that even I have a hard time believing it happened but I'll try to explain the incredible event that happened to me and subsequently, and more importantly, to Create a Cook.

I received a call one day from a man named James.  He had a lovely British accent and said he was calling from Google and would I mind taking a few minutes to chat with him about my small business, my marketing and my business hopes for 2011.  Now if you are a small business owner you know that you get at least 10 marketing calls a week. Usually these calls are radio and television stations or more insidiously, social marketing or coupon based marketing groups.  They try to suss up who they have on the phone, claim to have just found our website, love our business, promise to take a class soon with their husband, boyfriend, girlfriend, kid, and oh by the way would you like to spend your marketing dollars with us.  Some of these marketing callers are lovely and nice and when I tell them we spend most of our marketing dollars as underwriters on WBUR (public radio for those out of towners) and in a few children's based parent publications they wish me luck and ask if they can try again in 6 months.  Others are not so nice, refuse to take no and basically try to tell me how foolish I am for not choosing their product to promote my business.  James had two things going for him, he was polite with a fabulous accent, and we all know how I feel about British accents right?  After all I did marry one.  The other thing that caught my attention was that he was calling from Google.  I already use Google for most things, Gmail, Google reader, Google analytics, Google docs and you know good ol' Google search.  In late summer quite unexpectedly we had received a sticker in the mail about 8 months ago that said that Create a Cook was a Favorite Place on Google.  I hung the sticker on the door, made sure my Google listing was correct, added some photos, contacted them about the map discrepancies and then never thought another thing about it.  I thought perhaps these two things were related, but I came to find out later that the two groups work independently.

Back to the call.  James and I chatted for 10 minutes or so about the business, my desires for growth in 2011, the marketing we had tried in the past and what we do now.  When we finished the call he asked if he could call back next week if he still had any questions and I said, sure - why not? 

Monday the call came from James and he said, "I have to come clean and tell you the real reason I am calling".  It turns out that they were coming to Boston the following week and wanted to know if they could come and film an interview with me discussing the very things he and I had chatted about.  Again, he was lovely and polite so I figured why not do it, it could be fun and, at the least, interesting.

Bright and early at 8:30 I'm tidying up from the weekend and staring at the usual pile of broken kitchen tools on my desk when in comes James and be begins apologizing for the large crew he has tagging along with him.  The door opens and in comes 2 camera men, a sound guy, and a producer.  They set up the equipment, wire me for sound and James and I talk about what questions he is going to ask.  We start filming and redo a couple things and then boom - the interview is over, or so I think.  James again says, I'm about to come clean again on why we are here.  I have a few people I want you to meet and he looks over towards our door.

Outside there is another producer, she opens the door and in comes a man all dressed in blue wheeling a cart covered in wrapped presents.  "These are new laptops and droid phones for your business to use".  The man drops to his knees in front of me and does a Vanna White towards the boxes.  He gets up, wheels his cart behind me and starts doing the Google dance. Oh yea.  The Google Dance. Next another man comes in.  He's dressed in a jumpsuit with a hard hat and cat5 cable around his shoulders. "And we are going to pay for your broadband for a year so you can use these new computers!".  He shakes my hand and gets behind me to dance with the man in blue.  Next to come in is a woman all dressed in red.  "We realise as a small business owner there are many things that you have to do that take you away from the things you want to be doing to move your business forward so we are going to pay for your account and financial advice for a year."

By now I am starting to tear up.  I mean really!  This is a bit overwhelming and a tiny bit like Undercover boss gone mad. 

Next in is a woman all dressed in green. "We know you would like to make your business greener so we are going to pay for you to have a consultant come in to help your business become greener". She shakes my hand and takes her place behind me with the army of people doing a Google dance. 

Then James says there is one more person I want you to meet.  In comes another gentleman who James introduces as James from the Google small business department.  He shakes my hand and thanks me for taking the time to speak with them and agreeing to meet today and he hands me a bucket filled with those plastic magnetic letters that you use on your fridge. "We're going to give your business a $100,000 Ad Words campaign and we'll help you set up your campaign and work with you through the year so you can grow your business."

I'm standing there in shock starting to tear up and really not sure that everything that just happened was real.  Well I assure you, not only was it real, but it was about to get even better.

It turns out that Create a Cook was one of 5 businesses in the country chosen to launch Google's new small business oriented adwords project.  We all flew out to Mountain View, California on Tuesday to tour the Google campus, meet each other and talk with the Google guru team about the plans for our 2011 adwords campaigns.  The other businesses are: Twinkle Star a children's clothing boutique in Cambridge, the lovely, and hilarious, mother and son team from Cloud 9 cupcakes in Roswell GA, Ramy's Garage in Houston TX and Atlas Flooring in TX.  There are more pieces to this gift that will slowly unveil themselves over the next year.  Next week we begin working on our campaigns.

To say that this is an amazing opportunity is an understatement.  This gift that Google has given us could change our lives, help our businesses to grow in an uncertain economic climate, maybe give us the ability to hire new staff, build another kitchen, etc.  Right now it feels like the possibilities are endless. Here is a link to the Google blog talking about the launch.  Thank you James and James and Kelli and the whole Google team the trip was amazing and you've certainly made my year!

A Weekend in Maine

For your delecation and visual stimulation a weekend in Maine.

A bottle of wine saved my my stepdad to celebrate his retirement.  It was divine.  We had it with these...

A couple rib eye David Chang style.

and these...local Maine dug spuds, Nigella style.

We went out and picked things in the garden and met some visitors.

 

and someone who had lost their way hundreds of yards from the water.

I named him Morris P Turtle. SD brought him down to the shore and released him.  He said he swam like Esther Williams.

We went to visit my favorite local butcher, Ballard's to pick up a few things to bring home and I said hello to the mascot.

and we thought about purchasing this seasoning mix for dinner.

We went out for a final cruise on the boat to look for wildlife.  We saw these fellows heading south.

And a bit of Jacob's ladder and the leaves starting to turn

But sadly, no wildlife.  Unless of course you count our neighbors known around here as 'the boys' and their faithful bow puppy, Zack.

My SD built us a new prep table.  You can't compete with this view.

 

There were cocktails on the deck with visiting peanut thiefs.

And then there was time with furry kitty love. Mr Blizzard in a rare moment.  SHHHH don't tell Mom I put him in our suitcase!

The grande dame Ms Ta'a (age 16)

 And Nicho our local Siberian

And then there was the return drive home with stops for pies, and produce, for fuel (Starbucks in Topsham) and the very best Whole Foods I know of, in Portland, before the final stretch home. I'm so glad Mom and SD now live in Maine full time.  It is one of my very favorite places and I hope to make it one of yours.

Ideas in Food at Craigie on Main: Activa

I've been following Alex and Aki at Ideas in Food for several years now and I managed to somehow miss the class they did at Stir so when it popped up in my twitter stream from @tmaws that they would be doing several classes this week as a lead up to their already sold out James Beard House dinner I decided to find a way to go.  My pal Ali from here and here is home from the UK for the summer so emails were dispatched and agreements were reached and we booked in for the Activa class on Tuesday.

While Ali and I were driving over he said "How much would you like to bet I will be the only person under 18 in the room?"  I knew we would get some looks, but if anyone heard him talk about food they would change any preconceived notions immediately.  I've known Ali for about 4 or 5 years now when he started taking classes with us at Create a Cook.  He has gone from mildly interested to sincerely passionate about food in that time. He is my first choice to call for any foodie field trip.  He takes classes at Stir and spends so much time there and at No9 Park that Barbara Lynch invited him to the soft opening at Menton.  How's that for 14 years old?  He's toured her kitchens, lamented missing the pigs head with me at the Craigie on Main pig night, and  his parents just built him his own experimental kitchen in the basement.  He is currently obsessed with getting a Pacojet and an anti-griddle and this class did nothing to dampen his enthusiasm for the Pacojet.Quite simply he wants to be the next Heston Blumenthal or Ferran Adria.  I'm just along for the ride to feed his brain with ideas and maybe someday get a good table.

Activa, for the uninitiated, is simply an enzyme that allows proteins to bond together.  There are versions that work with dairy, versions that work well with soy and two that work well with meats. Alex ran us through all 4 versions with a demonstration of the application.  The photo at the top is his shrimp salumi.  Basically chopped shrimp, seasoned with cayenne, smoked paprika, garlic powder and salt and then bound with Activa RM, pressed into a ring mold and then put under vacuum and left to chill.  Texturally it felt a bit like a firm jelly, cooked it would have the nice snap of the shrimp in the mouth. Sliced thin and wrapped around a scallop and seared or layered between beef for a spin on a surf and turf.  A dish I could never understand the appeal of, but obviously widely loved by the number of times you see it on menus.

The coolest demo though was for mozzarella noodles.  Yup.  Noodles made from cheese. Spin that around for awhile my fellow cheese hounds.  They took mozzarella and ricotta some salt and the Activa Y-G and spun it a few times in the Pacojet. Using an offset spatula Alex spread it thinly on some acetate sheets and then you let it set up in the fridge for 18-24 hours.  It peels off the acetate in a thin sheet and then just cut it into fettucine or tagliatelle with a knife. They passed them around both raw and cooked in a bit of butter.  I loved the texture raw, but wasn't as enamoured when it was cooked.  But just imagine it raw tossed with a fresh tomato salsa. Caprese fettucine?

Ali's favourite dish was the bread pudding that tasted like a ramped up version of French Toast. I loved the hangar steak, folded in half, glued, wrapped with thin slices of bacon, compressed and then...Deep fried. HELLO. It was almost impossible to see where the halves were attached when sliced.  Really amazing. Alex is incredibly knowledgeable about the various products and their uses, but I wish we had more demo.  It was really fascinating to see the products transform in front of you. Our heads were spinning with ideas as we left Craigie. Ali was remembering an episode he saw where they had to make a turducken in 30 minutes.  He was already thinking of taking a breast of each, pounding them thin and then pasting them together and compressing them.

Is this something the average cook is going to use everyday? No. Will it gradually trickle down and find some home applications? Absolutely.

Eventually we wound up over at Formaggio on Huron, Ali had only ever been to the one in the south end and I felt that he should go to the mothership.  He was, for lack of a better word, gobsmacked. Every nook and cranny was investigated. I lead him room to room and then said " And now we are entering the room of happiness", and I waved my arm at the cheese wall. "Cheese" we both sighed. Like rats we both picked up a bit of this and a bit of that and grabbed two sandwiches for lunch.  We hopped back in the truck and we decided we needed to find a place to eat our spoils.  We headed over to the most beautiful place I could think of on short notice, the Mt. Auburn cemetery, and had a drive around and ate our spoils in the midst of the eternally quiet.  I'm taking bets on which one of us will order some Activa to play with first.  The circulator awaits.

Master Chef

I just wanted to poke my head in to tell you all about something I'm really excited about.  Fox contacted me a week ago to see if we would host the casting call for the new Master Chef series at Create a Cook.  I've always been a huge fan of the UK series (here's a you tube video if you have never seen the show) and I was pretty mad when they stopped showing them here in the states.  I've only been able to catch snippets of the new one on You Tube.  I have also always felt that Gordon Ramsay's image in the US is quite different than the image he has in the UK.  If you watch any of his UK shows he isn't exactly warm and lovable, but he is certainly less acerbic and nasty than the show in the states have shown him to be.  I think this show might just be his chance to change his image on this side of the pond.  Don't be afraid to come and try out.  This show is meant for the home cook, the amateur, the person who hasn't worked in professional kitchens.  See the press release below and sign up if you want to try out!

GORDON RAMSAY AND THE PRODUCERS OF THE BIGGEST LOSER ARE NOW CASTING AMATEUR CHEFS FOR A NEW INSPIRATIONAL COOKING SHOW!

 

Can you cook well despite never having been formally trained? We are currently searching for budding chefs from all walks of life - amateur chefs, passionate foodies, the ultimate dinner party host/hostesses…

 

Now one of the world’s most acclaimed chefs, GORDON RAMSAY, is giving you the opportunity to become a MasterChef!

 

MasterChef is a show that celebrates great people who make great food. The show will give contestants the opportunity to develop their cooking skills while being encouraged, mentored and celebrated by the industry’s best and evaluated by world-renowned judges!

 

If you are passionate about cooking and ready to change your life then audition for MasterChef, an inspiring cooking show from the producers of The Biggest Loser!

 

BOSTON CASTING CALL INFORMATION

                                         

          

SUNDAY JANUARY 10, 2010

1PM - 5PM

CREATE A COOK

53 WINCHESTER ST.

NEWTON HIGHLANDS,MA 02461

  *Casting Call applicants must bring a prepared dish.

Contact: [email protected]

 

• We will NOT be considering professional chefs who work in professional kitchens!

• Applicants must be at least 18 years of age and either a U.S. citizen or permanent legal resident with the unrestricted ability to work in the U.S.

For more detailed nationwide audition information: Fox.com/casting

 

45

....Happy Birthday to me.

The makings of birthday dinner. 

Keith, if you are reading, this Sauternes is the one you sent about 10 years ago with the lovely basket of Foie Gras.  I've held on to it all this time and I figured what the hell, I'm turning 45, I'm buying a cooking school*, it's time to crack the bottle, and yes, I left the dust on the bottle as it adds to the character!  The foie I bought myself as a present.  Note the 'A'. Don't worry, it's not ALL for dinner, there will be a few preparations, but dinner will be grapes soaked in the Sauternes with seared foie and a salad and I shall sip more of that wine.  Simple.  Beautiful.

And nothing makes a girl happier than a stack of reading and listening from friends and family.  Pretty  hard to tear myself away and head to work!

*What?  I forgot to mention I was buying a cooking school.  More on that later kiddies, I'm off to Russo's for grapes.

Presents!

Look at these yummy presents from my friend Beth who sadly deserted us at Create a Cook to move to North Carolina.

Grits!

Mmmm grits.  There might need to be some low country shrimp and grits for dinner one night.

Homemade Sausage: Chorizo, Brats and Chipolata

Those of you who follow me on twitter (joamuse) have heard me mention my 12-year 13-year old foodie friend who I take along with me on field trips.  He started out as a student at Create a cook with some of the other instructors and they all kept telling me you have to meet him. After 1 conversation Alasdair and I became fast food friends.

Let me introduce you to him by saying one of his goals is to get his parents to take him to a 3 Michelin starred restaurant.  At home he has his own personal kitchen set-up in the corner with his Cuisinart standing mixer a portable induction burner and more tools than most home kitchens. He and I can discuss any cooking technique, and cookbook, chef, etc., at length. He's eaten in far more restaurants than I ever have, in fact he's my 'date' for a friend's birthday dinner at Craigie on Main for Whole Hog night next Tuesday. He dined at Stir recently and Barbara Lynch was the chef that night. He schmoozed her up and told her he wanted a pacojet and a thermal immersion circulator so he can start trying out sous vide cooking but that he was having a tough time convincing his parents, Chef Lynch not only came to his defense saying of course they should get it for him, she also told him he was welcome to come spend a day with her at no 9 Park. Jealous! The boy is food mad.

A few years ago we started out by making a traditional Christmas Pudding at his house.  We hit farmer's markets, we went to Baza when they opened to ogle all the unfamiliar ingredients, we went to Kam Man a few weeks ago where I introduced him to banh mi with head cheese and pate and we wandered up and down every aisle investigating while he helped me pick up ingredients for some upcoming Vietnamese, Korean and Thai classes. There were two things he wanted us to make, brawn or head cheese and sausages.  I figured we could start with the easier of the two since finding a pig's head may require a trip to Maine to visit Heritage Hill Farm in October (more about my visit there later!) so sausages were the first choice.  

Through Kinnealey I picked up some fat back, pork butt and hog casings and then a perusal through Ruhlman and Polcyn's Charcuterie to make the final decisions.

I chose Mexican chorizo, Bratwurst and the 3rd recipe would possible be Italian sausage, but in a nod to Alasdair being British, not to mention husband, we went with the chipolata from the book Alasdair brought me as a gift Professional Charcuterie by John Kinsela.  He chose the book because he loved that all the recipes were charts.  I need to get him a copy of Ratio stat!

I knew it was going to be around 85 - 90F in my kitchen and about an equal percentage of humidity so I bought loads of ice, chilled down all the equipment in the fridge, left the fat in the freezer until the last minute and cut all the meat partially frozen. 

Alasdair acted as official Spice mix master.

We ground the meat into the bowl over another bowl of ice to try and keep it nice and cold.

Even with all these precautions to keep everything ultra cold we still had to pause occasionally and let things rest in the fridge before resuming the next step we sat down at the table with 1 fan aimed at us and 1 fan aimed right at the poor Kitchen-aid to try and cool the poor thing down.  You could fry an egg on the motor housing. Since he has been reading Eric Ripert's new book On The Line we were discussing the various stations in the kitchen and he was telling me how long it takes to progress down the line at Le Bernadin, today of course we were working the Garde Manger station.  I told him about Ms. Glaze's Pommes d'Amour and told him he really needs to look her up for a first hand account.

After it rested in the fridge and we gulped down more liquid, the meat and spices would go back under the mixer with the paddle attachment to add some liquid, in the case of chorizo it was ice cold tequila and red wine vinegar!

After we made all three sausage mixes, cooked off little patties of each to test for seasoning and chilled everything down it was time for the stuffing.  Alasdair referred to the hog casings I been soaking in water all morning as 'granny stockings'.

The first batch, the chorizo, took us over 30 minutes to stuff, by the time we got to the chipolata we were down to 10 minutes.  Sure, we overstuffed here and there, there were a few 'blow outs', but we just squished it back in the bowl and started again.

Alasdair took charge of the link twisting.

We started at 10:30 and finished the last of the sausages by 5:30.  We were both dripping and exhausted but it was a great day.   I sent home half with Alasdair and we kept half here to freeze later.  Even though the sausages were twisted when we cut them to cook them I tied each end off to prevent the sausage from oozing out the ends as it cooked.  Husband and I sautéed some onion and peppers from the farm stand we stopped by in Ipswich on Friday and grilled some of the Brats and I made some of the Cooks Illustrated recommended Yukon gold fries that you start in cold oil (novel, but it worked!) and all was well in the world.  I'm not going to give you the recipe here Charcuterie is well worth the investment. Stay tuned for head cheese. YIKES!

A good place to dream

I've always loved to float.  My Mom and I often joke that neither of us ever required flotation devices.  We can spend hours bobbing on the lake without 'noodles' or rafts or any other accoutrement. When we are at the lake I will often sit on the boat to read just so I can bob around on the water.  Rocking chairs and gliders and big farmer's porches always appealed to me as well as place to just sit and read and daydream.

But at home I never really had a great place to just sit and read.  When I worked on Federal Street and took the commuter rail daily I devoured books.  Sometimes taking 2 a day with me just in case I finished one on the train.  I was that crazy person you would see walking down the street with their nose buried in a book just looking up long enough to not trip over the odd tree root.  But once I went to culinary school and subsequently started working in kitchens all of my reading has been based exclusively in recipe development, or food research. There are books on my bedside table that have been piling up for years.  I even promised to dive into this tome with a group for summer reading.  This weekend that all changed.
After a month of rain and cold and rain and cold and mizzle and warm, and downpours and cold the skies finally cleared on Friday as I was shopping for supplies for next weeks classes.

Given my SD's eye surgery and the fact that none of us would be heading to Maine for the 1st time in 22 years for the 4th, I had a little seed in the back of my mind and I knew on the way back from my 3rd, yes, 3rd, trip to Ikea in as many weeks I was going to pull off and hit the Dedham plaza.  I walked straight into Lowe's and loaded my cart with a hammock and a frame.

I brought it home, promptly assembled it and realised the frame took up the entire garden and there was no way I was going to stare at it all summer.  I dragged husband from the basement and pulled out the measuring tape.  There were two trees.  Just two that had any chance of making this dream work.
We measured and drills were obtained and more measurements taken and well....here...

I broke it in gently with this reading...

...thus clearing off the top right hand 1/3 of my bedside table. 

Now I think I am ready to tackle the beast..

I had the added bonus of watching not 1 but 2 hummingbirds in the garden as well as a never before seen, in my garden at least, pine siskin.  All in all a rather spectacular weekend with weather to match.  More of this please and I could just be inspired to hit the kitchens.
Off to make dinner, I hope your 4th was just as lovely.