—

“Whisk, whisk!” Chef  barked, standing over my shoulder as I incorporated air into egg yolks and a reduction of white wine vinegar.  He was watching intently, waiting for me to make a mistake.  The béarnaise sauce still looked a little thin, so I continued to beat the eggs.  Once they were sufficiently frothy and stiff, I’d take it off the heat and quickly beat in clarified butter and chopped herbs.  But they weren’t frothy and stiff – not yet.

“Don’t you think you are ready to incorporate the butter?” Chef asked smartly.  He was trying to trick me.  

“No, Chef!” I said, not looking up from the béarnaise.  I heard him make a small sound of acknowledgement, and though I didn’t look back, I imagine he smiled.  I was holding the metal bowl with a towel in my left hand, but it was growing increasingly hot from the steaming pot on which it was resting.  I glanced at my thumb, which was fast becoming a rosy shade of pink.  I chose to ignore it.  

“Whisk harder!”  During his demonstration, Chef had explained that a weak wrist was an awful handicap.  I tightened my grip on the bowl and threw myself into frenzied beating.  Bits of creamy egg and shallot were flying from the bowl, landing on the stove top, my apron, coat, forehead, nose.  I ignored them too, whisking as though my life depended on it.  I could feel Chef’s breath on the back of my neck as I ran the whisk around the sides of the bowl, catching stray pieces of egg that would scramble if left untouched.  I lifted my instrument a few inches in the air and let sauce drip from it in long, thin ribbons.  It was ready.  A pale yellow stream of egg was pooling between my eyelashes as I transferred the bowl to a rolled up towel on my cutting board.  I blinked a few times, suddenly realizing why makeup was forbidden at the French Culinary Institute.  

Steadying the bowl with the now-red thumb and knuckle of my left hand, I began to pour melted butter into the bowl.  My arm was really starting to hurt, but I didn’t dare whine; Chef had told us earlier that an aching arm was the sign of an amateur whisker.  I’d used 200 milliliters of butter, but the sauce seemed as though it could use a bit more.  I did some quick math – I had two eggs in my sauce, so I could feasibly add another 100 milliliters before the sauce broke.  I continued to let the fat flow in a steady, thin stream, all the while working my whisk.  

By this time, Chef had grown bored with my competence and shuffled off to find another student in need of a verbal lashing.  My sauce had eaten up 270 milliliters of butter, and it was looking a little thick.

“Quick, water!” I pleaded across the island at my partner.  He didn’t waste a second in scooping hot water into a paper cup.  He poured a scant amount in the sauce, and I whisked it in.  The sauce was thinned ever-so-slightly.  It was perfect.  I could feel it.  I added salt and pepper, and we strained it through fine mesh into another bowl.  My partner added a few teaspoons of the strained shallots and tarragon, and we stirred in fresh chervil.  

We stuck our spoons in the bowl and I ran my finger along the back of mine.  The line made in the sauce stayed firm, indicating proper texture.  

“Let’s taste it,” I said, my spoon in my mouth before I finished the sentence.  I finished my portion and lifted the spoon triumphantly in the air.  “Oh my god!”

“Damn!” My partner said.

“It is so, so, so very good!” I shrieked, clapping my hands and jumping up and down.  Chef shot me a look, and though I immediately quieted down, I couldn’t help giggling as I stuck the other end of my spoon into the sauce and licked it off.  The béarnaise was so rich, so decadent (must be all that butter), and yet it was oddly delicate – almost elusive as it melted into my cheeks and tongue.  The addition of the shallots, while not entirely traditional, imparted a crunchy, snappy note to the sauce.  It was delicious, and I had made it.

Later, as the class wound down, Chef warned us not to get too comfortable.

“This is easy,” he said.  “ Sauces, soups, salads?  Simple.  Wait until we get to meats!”  He made a dismissive wave of his hand, but I just smiled.

If this is cooking; I thought, if creating food really feels this good, it is worth all of the sore arms, burnt thumbs and splattered clothes in the world.

—

To make a classic béarnaise sauce:

Combine 2 tablespoons minced shallots, 3/8th of a cup white wine vinegar, 5/8ths of a cup water, 1 teaspoon crushed black peppercorns and 1 teaspoon dried tarragon in a saucepan.  Bring to a boil and let reduce until almost evaporated and remaining liquid is thick and syrupy.

Place 2 egg yolks, a bit of water, and 2 tablespoons of the wine reduction in a stainless steel bowl over a pot of simmering water (d0 not let the water lap at the bowl). 

Whisk the egg yolk/reduction mixture until light and frothy.  You’ll know it’s done when it has a bit of heft against the whisk.  Don’t let it overcook, however, or you’ll end up with scrambled eggs.  If you find yourself in danger of this happening, simply move the bowl off the heat and continue to whisk.

Whisking all the while, add warm clarified butter in a slow stream.  2 egg yolks can emulsify up to 1 1/4 cups of butter, but you should start with at least 7/8ths of a cup.  Thin the sauce with warm water if you must, but do so with a cautious hand.

Add chopped fresh tarragon and chervil – or parsley, if you have some, as well as salt and pepper.  Strain through a fine mesh sieve and, if you desire, add back the strained shallots.  

I’ve modified this recipe – which will nicely coat 2 steaks – slightly from the French Culinary Institute’s version – mostly to accommodate my love for shallots and for ease in measuring ingredients.

“Nora Ephron and Ruth Reichl have both written strudel pieces,” he’d said, spinning his laptop over to face me.  I read Ephron’s and grew increasingly curious.  She had described cabbage strudel as an unassuming, quiet favorite – and one that had escaped recognition, as well as, it seemed, production in recent years.  When she discovered Andre’s on the Upper East Side of Manhattan was turning them out, she was eager to try – and just a bit skeptical.  Would it compare to the strudels of her youth and current daydreams? Turns out she adored it.  She described it as “crisp but moist” and “buttery beyond imagining.” 

Sounded good to me, so off we went, desperately seeking strudel.

It was late, and pouring, so I’m not entirely sure my proclamation of the restaurant as being “so super adorable!” was based on a real reaction.  I would’ve ducked into a slaughterhouse if it kept the pounding rain from sticking in my eyelashes and pooling at the nape of my neck.  Besides, I had preconceived notions; just like my idols, I was going to love everything about the place.

We ordered wine – and I have no idea what I drank, because I couldn’t entirely understand the waitress and was too shy to ask her to repeat herself.  It was listed on the menu as very dry, and when I asked her to describe it, she flicked her wrist and said it was a “bull’s blood wine.”  

“Um, is that good?” I asked, not yet knowledgeable enough about Hungarian wine to know that Bull’s Blood wasn’t, you know, bull’s blood.

“Yes, yes, it’s very nice,” she answered, and she was smiling so sweetly that I just nodded and told her that’d be fine.  Fine it was – red and easy.

We also ordered soup to start.  My partner had a creamy cherry soup that was delicious, if not a bit too sweet for my tastes (but this is coming from a woman who ate caramel ice cream and Prosecco for dinner last night, so you don’t really have to take my word for it).  I ordered a tomato soup that was teeming with soft, pillowy rice.  The flavor of the soup was so, so something – rich?  deep?  comforting? – that I ate the entire bowl and wanted more.  It was reminiscent of, forgive me, Spaghetti-O’s.  I mean that only in the sense that it was so very thick and satisfying.  It was perfect rainy day food, and I had, in some odd sort of way, been splashing in puddles.

The soup bowls left and I sipped my wine, liking it more and more.  When the cabbage strudel arrived, I had to laugh, because it was entirely dwarfed by the plate of stuffed cabbage my friend had ordered.  While his dinner-sized plate was piled high with leaves  bursting with ground meat and rice and smothered in tomatoes, I received a small, dessert-sized plate on which sat a small, square pastry.  So this was cabbage strudel.  

I cut into it and took a bite.  And, you know, it really was lovely – buttery, flaky pastry tucked loosely around meltingly soft ribbons of cabbage.  It was good, yes.  But I didn’t love it – and I still don’t know why.  I ate the entire thing, searching for something extraordinary, something wild.  With each bite, I held the strudel in my mouth a little bit longer, hoping to hear Reichl or Ephron in my head, pointing me toward understanding.

The more I ate, the more worried I became – what was I going to say about this piece of pastry that hadn’t been said before (and more eloquently!) by writers greater than I?  Maybe I wouldn’t write about it at all.

I found my answer within dessert.  Forgive me for being brash, but I’m now quite positive that Ruth Reichl and Nora Ephron have got it all wrong.  It isn’t cabbage strudel that is so utterly transporting – it’s poppyseed!

It was the rich, impossibly thin pastry shell that I liked best about the first strudel, so to end my meal, I decided to order another, sweeter one.  Apple and cherry and cheese all sounded fine, but poppyseed!  Now there was something really special!

My dessert came packaged just as the cabbage strudel had – stuffed inside pastry, warm to the touch, on a small, plain plate.  But as I sliced into it this time, a thick, black-as-night tumble of poppyseed compote came oozing out.  I took a bit onto my fork and, very tentatively, brought it to my mouth.

It was sweet, yes, but not overwhelmingly so.  In fact, if I wasn’t searching, I might not even have detected the sugar.  The jam-like innards coated the pastry shell in a way the cabbage hadn’t – thorough, almost invasive.  It was as if every inch of strudel existed just to hold the seeds.  I ate it in large bites, bringing the fork to the very back of my mouth.  There, I held the strudel on my tongue just long enough to let it dissolve and disappear easily, seamlessly.  One needn’t even really chew the strudel, which is good, because if one did, one might find poppyseeds in one’s teeth for weeks after.  Instead, I let the seeds roll around on my tongue, feeling their firm yet light texture through the syrupy coating.  

I ate that entire pastry too, but not because I was searching.  I had found my strudel, and though it wasn’t Ruth’s or Nora’s, it was every bit as good as I’d hoped.  

—

There are two things of which I am certain. The first is that no matter how long, how unbearable, how biting the winter may be, spring will come again. The second is that my mother is an excellent baker. And you know, now that I think on it, I’m not really even positive about that first one.

I love my mother because she loves to eat. She understands the pure joy of sneaking one last cookie before closing the package – in fact; I think it was from her that I acquired that habit. She’s content to spend a weekend curled on the couch with just a book and a bowl of nibbly-type things – I know for a fact that she instilled this trait in me. What’s more is that she is always up for a trip to the grocery store; which is good, because so am I.

As I embark on my own culinary journey, I’ve grown quite curious as to how my mother honed her kitchen skills. I’ve taken to peppering her with questions about her favorite foods as a youth, the dishes her mother prepared, and what she cooked for my father as they began their courtship.

Hearing her recall her past is almost as good as being there. I can listen to her for hours (provided I have a bowl of nibbly-type things, of course) as she describes her 4-H cooking classes and the time she made donuts for her mother, subsequently spilling hot grease all over the kitchen floor.

Every year, she would bake for days just so she could enter her treats in the county fair’s baking contest. “The prize for a blue ribbon was $2 or so,” she told me this Sunday, as we made our weekly trip to the supermarket. “I’d end up with $40. Not bad for a little kid.”

I quickly did the math. At $2 a ribbon, that meant she’d have to have entered … twenty baked goods. I was floored; it sometimes takes me an entire afternoon just to make muffins. Muffins that, I might add, pale in comparison to hers. I wanted to hear more.

“Once I borrowed a mold for a lamb-shaped cake,” she said.

I squealed. “A lamb!”

She smiled and focused her eyes on the road. “The body of the lamb was flat, and the head was raised above the rest of the cake. It was beautiful. But my brother drove me to the fair, and I guess he took a corner too fast.”

“No!” I gasped, my hand flying up to my mouth. “Did you cry?”

She ignored my panicked look. “The head fell off. We propped it up with toothpicks.”

That’s another thing I love about my mother. Had I found myself with a headless buttercream lamb, I would have just dissolved into tears and scrapped the whole thing, retreating home to write about what a miserable failure the day was. My mother, however, is resourceful and clever in the kitchen, and in life.

We completed our shopping trip and spent the remainder of the afternoon baking a moist, chewy carrot cake. It was delicious. I don’t know if this recipe ever won a prize, but to me, it is worth all of the blue ribbons in the world.

—

Carrot Cake, Two Ways

• 3 large eggs
• 2 cups granulated sugar
• 1 ¼ cup canola oil
• 2 tsp. baking soda
• 1 tsp. cinnamon
• 1 tsp. salt
• 2 tsp. vanilla extract
• 2 cups flour
• 1 cup shredded coconut (untoasted)
• 1 cup chopped walnuts
• 1 cup crushed pineapple (canned is fine)
• 2 cups shredded carrot

For the Cream Cheese Frosting

• 4 tbsp. softened butter
• 3 oz. softened cream cheese
• 2 cups powdered sugar
• 1 tsp. vanilla

For the Citrus Glaze

• 1 ½ cups sifted powdered sugar
• 1/3 cup fresh orange juice
• A squeeze or two of fresh lemon juice
• 1 tsp. vanilla

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Using a standing box grater, shred 3-4 medium carrots, ultimately yielding 2 cups of carrot. Place carrot in a sieve and press down firmly over a bowl, to extract any extra moisture. Set aside.

Place pineapple in a sieve as well, and let drain until completely dry; extra moisture will beckon a cake that is concave in its center.

Crack eggs in a large bowl and, using an electric mixer, beat for 3 minutes, until frothy and light-colored.

Add sugar, oil, soda, cinnamon, salt and vanilla, and beat until incorporated. Add the flour, a cup at a time, and beat on low speed until fully mixed.

Using a wooden spoon, mix in coconut, walnuts, pineapple and carrot.

Pour into two buttered 9-inch circular pans. Place in center rack of oven and bake for 40 minutes, or until cake is golden and pulls away from pan slightly.

To make cream cheese frosting, beat all four ingredients with an electric mixer until smooth. Slather generously on one almost-cool cake.

To make the citrus glaze, mix all four ingredients in a bowl with a handheld whisk until creamy and devoid of any lumps. Pour over cake, or, if you wish, reserve and drizzle over individually sliced pieces. Garnish with extra walnuts.

If you’re a regular reader, you might’ve heard the first part of this story. Read on to discover what happens when blenders go bad.

—

At a family gathering this summer, my relatives and I caught up over a hearty dinner in an Italian restaurant. We started the meal by sopping up olive oil with wedges of bread, and as one of my aunts took a bite, she made a face. She didn’t like garlic, she explained, and the oil was spiked with it. I proceeded to tell her how much I absolutely adored garlic.

“Oh, I absolutely adore garlic,” I said. “I eat it with everything.”

She chuckled, obviously tickled at the words about fly across the table. “Really? Maybe that’s why you’re still single!”

Yeah,” I shrugged and dodged her bullet, gnawing on the crust of the bread. “That, and I’m a witch.” Except I didn’t say witch.

I really do love garlic. Who knows if its pungent smell is the cause of my solo Saturday nights – all I’ll say about the matter is: if you can’t appreciate the scent of garlic seeping from my pores as you nibble my neck, then we were never meant to be, anyway.

Why am I so enamored with garlic? Well, to start, It’s earthy, comforting and warm. It’s surprisingly versatile, lending itself to so much more than marinara sauce. I’ve been known to roast it until soft and pliable, then slather it on crackers and swirl it into homemade hummus.

I’m not the only one who feels this way. A girlfriend described the addiction with great finesse: “I love to cut garlic and smell it on my fingertips days later. Despite many showers and handwashings, including doing the dishes constantly because of our lack of a dishwasher… I can still count on the scent being there. It’s a beautiful thing really.” I couldn’t have said it better.

One afternoon this January, I stared out my window, shuddering as snow swirled violently before pattering the pane. My house was chilly, the weather was miserable and I was very hungry. (Okay, no fair on that last one; I’m always hungry.) I ran through my cache of go-to recipes for something simple and hearty, something comforting and enveloping. Not feeling particularly inspired, I reached into the cabinet for a can of ready-made soup. My hand was on the can of harvest tomato when I remembered Giada. Giada deLaurentiis, the mind-bogglingly beautiful celebrity chef with inexplicably perfect hair, had recently outlined a recipe for white bean and garlic soup. The instructions were simple, and with the addition of whole cloves of garlic, it sounded like something that’d be right up my alley.

I mixed together the necessary ingredients, adding a few of my own (I have an odd inability to follow any recipe without deviating from the instructions). The last step of the recipe called for pureeing the whole thing in a blender until smooth. Easy enough, I figured, ladling half of the soup into my machine. I blended with expert precision and then, as I lifted the glass vessel from the base, something went haywire.

I hadn’t properly attached the blade to the bowl. It clattered to the floor as the contents of the blender gushed down my front, soaking my shirt, pants and socks, as well as completely coating the countertop. I let the blender drop from my hand and stood there, mouth open and eyes closed. After a few minutes, I peeked out from under my right eyelid. The soup was dripping onto the floor, and I was sopping wet. I sank to the ground to compose myself before cleaning the mess.

Utterly defeated, I sighed then stuck my finger into the belt loop of my jeans and licked off the soup that coated it. It was very garlicky, and, as follows, absolutely delicious. As I ran my index finger along the top of my thigh, collecting a stream of soup, I had to laugh. I was alone in the kitchen, coated in soup and licking my pants like a crazy person. I called to mind my aunt’s observation. Maybe, I admitted thoughtfully, it wasn’t the garlic. Maybe my disconcerting kitchen behavior was the reason I was single.

“Oh well,” I stuck my finger in my mouth. “More for me.”

Two Bean, Garlic and Basil Soup (Serves 1, quite obviously)

• 1 tbsp. lemon-infused olive oil (alternatively, you may use light olive oil)
• 1 tbsp. diced shallot
• ¾ cup drained and rinsed canned cannellini beans
• ¼ cup drained and rinsed garbanzo beans
• Salt and pepper, to taste
• 1 cup vegetable broth
• 2 large garlic cloves, peeled and halved
• 4 large fresh basil leaves, plus more for garnish

In a medium saucepan over medium-high heat, add oil and shallots. Cook for a few minutes, until soft. Add both varieties of beans, and stir to coat with oil. Add salt and pepper, and adjust seasonings to taste. Incorporate broth, garlic and basil and stir to fully submerge herb. Lower heat to medium/medium-low and let simmer for 30-45 minutes.

Transfer entire mixture to blender or food processor (working in batches if you have to), and puree until smooth. Put soup back in pot and warm over gentle heat. Ladle into serving bowl and garnish with julienned basil.

–

I’m of the mindset that finding a good liquor store is not unlike the search for the perfect man. They’re both maddeningly difficult endeavors, and as soon as one finds a promising prospect, it shows its true colors, giving one a million reasons not to settle down.

At age 21, I’ve been on the prowl for the perfect liquor store for eight excruciatingly long months, and have come no closer to securing a match than I was in May of 2008. (The search for the perfect man has, on the other hand, been going on since just about birth, and is equally fruitless.)

I’ve bopped around from store to store all over Syracuse, trying them on for size. The small ones are, well, too small, and the large ones are intimidating and daunting. At each establishment, the staff seems bored or annoyed or pretentious or all three.

I do think that the best way to feel out any sort of establishment is to engage the employees and owners in discourse, and so I always make it a point to chatter with clerks upon entering a new store. This practice usually leaves me with a positive feeling about the establishment – except in the case of liquor stores. A recent exchange between a young clerk and myself went as such:

• Me: Do you sell bitters?
• Clerk: Nope.
• Me: (Slight pause) Oh.
• Clerk: (Longer pause) Y-e-ep.
• Me: Do you know where I might find them?
• Clerk: (Quickly) Nope.

As it turns out, one can buy bitters at Wegmans (I should have known!) Ultimately, I made my Manhattan without them. It was highly disappointing, though I did I drink it anyway – no sense in being wasteful, right?

More unsettling than the less-than-stimulating cocktail was the actual exchange. Worse still was this one:

• Me: (Purses lips like Giada de Laurentiis and adopts Italian accent) Do you sell limoncello?
• Clerk: (Unamused) You mean lemon vodka? Maybe.
• Me: (Frustrated sigh)

What bothers me, I suppose, is that even when I walk out with the perfect bottle, I don’t feel particularly sunny about it. I refuse to believe that it has to be this way, though, and am steadfast in my quest for a liquor store that feels like home … okay, maybe not that comfortable.

The thing is, most of us are a little intimidated by wines and spirits. Millions of questions run through our minds when shopping for alcohol: do we really need to stick with the “Pasta calls for red, poultry for white” rule? Does the vintage actually matter? Is it okay to purchase a bottle because I like the label? How can I know if I’m picking a good one? These are all legitimate questions – and certainly not cause for embarrassment. I’ve heard it pointed out that when we have medical questions, we don’t hesitate to ask a doctor’s opinion. We shouldn’t, then, be afraid to chat with an expert in wine and spirits about our favorite festive beverages. It’s discouraging, though, when we aren’t provided with the answers we seek.

And so, if I may, I’d like to place a sort of personal ad. If you are a liquor store – or know of one in Syracuse that fits my bill, please do contact me so we can commence the important business of falling in love.

Single white female seeks:

Local liquor store that boasts a warm and knowledgeable staff, both sparkling conversation and wine, a vast selection and adventuresome attitude, as well as a shared affinity for New York State reds.

True, it’s a tall order, but let’s face it: the perfect liquor store, just like a vintage Cabernet – or the perfect man – is something very much worth waiting for.