Archived entries for

A Choux Story

I’ve made pâte a choux before.  I followed a recipe in Gourmet magazine earlier this year for gougeres, and the result was a tray of puffy, airy, cheesy, golden, adjective-filled pastries.  I was awfully pleased with myself for tackling such a difficult and traditional recipe, and to great avail.

So when I realized that making pâte [read more ...]

DSA

CSA, or community-sponsored agriculture, is all the rage. It seems that everyone I know is signing up to receive boxes of local farmers’ bounty. Fellow New York City-based food blogger, The Feisty Foodie, even writes a weekly round-up of her CSA goodies.

Well I haven’t jumped on the bandwagon yet, but my mother’s visit brought something [read more ...]

Surviving

When I walk into the classroom on Tuesday, the first thing I notice is Daniel, cutting butter into his flour with a sense of urgency.  I’m confused; we’re making genoise cake today, not tarts.

“WE ARE MAKING ZEE APPLE TART TODAY,” Chef yells to me and the other few students who’ve arrived early.  ”You do NOT [read more ...]

A Poll

My mama is coming to visit me in the big city this week.  I’m so excited – I even have plans to make a real, French Culinary Institute-inspired meal for her and my sister tomorrow night.

But I need your advice!  Should I make:

a) braised lamb shanks
b) fish with grenobloise sauce or 
c) steak with béarnaise sauce

Time’s [read more ...]

Surviving Chef X

A version of the following will appear in this week’s Syracuse City Eagle.

It’s Thursday night, and we’re supposed to be cooking eggs.  We’re supposed to be making omelettes, poached eggs, baked eggs and boiled eggs.  We’re not.  It’s 10:30 on Thursday night, and Chef has decided that he’d rather we make pastry dough for Saturday’s [read more ...]

Heat, Food, Ice

Later that night, after he’d left, I lay on top of my sheets with the fan an inch from my face.  

I listen only to the motor, a consistent sweeping sound, and hold an ice cube in my right hand.  My body is sticky from the heat, from walking outside, from opening and closing the [read more ...]

Getting Together, Eating Together, Staying Together

My Aunt Patricia is a good person.  She’s a good person in the way that, I regret to say, I, along with many, many of us, am not.  She is a kind, caring, patient person – all adjectives, I realize, that in our youth we use to describe people we like (later, when we grow [read more ...]

Secret Bar #2: In Which I Wear Mickey Rourke’s Drink

In keeping with my tour of top-secret Manhattan bars, I visited Apotheke last night.  It’s a sleek, sexy-cool place in Chinatown that boasts healing cocktails.  I loved that the drink list was broken up into ailments – stressed? Feeling ugly?  Want to get laid?  Apotheke has a cocktail for that.  The drinks are good, albeit [read more ...]

The _________ Clafoutis

I like to anthropomorphize my food.  I wrote once about a Rogue Clafoutis – the thought of a quiche-like dish having bad boy tendencies just tickled me to the core.

I’ve gone and made another clafoutis – this time with lavender and nectarines.  Shall we name it together?  I’ve got a few ideas, but want to [read more ...]

"I Would Slap Someone in the Face for this Meal:" Meat-Stuffed-Meat

Last night, at FCI, we made beef pockets stuffed with ground pork.  Why this is a necessary part of the curriculum is beyond me; when have you ever gone into a French restaurant and said “I’d like a chewy piece of beef, pounded to a thinner, longer piece of chewy beef, then wrapped around dry [read more ...]