A recipe for the day...

In the absence of having naything of real substance to share, I would like to share a recipe and quick story regarding the idea of using what you have:

I was gifted, some time ago, actually, a large amount of Baking Cocoa. Now, I have worked as a baker, when Kenny and Zukes Jewish Deli was in its toddler stage, I cut my teeth as a production baker for this amazing Jewish Deli, producing up to 100lbs of Rye bread a day, amoung other things that I will spare you right now. But that being my only experience, when it comes to baking, I get the idea, but the execution can be porrer than my expectation. That being said, I stumbled across a recipe for flourless chocolate cake that was finally in weight measurment, instead of volume. I at least learned that much, if your baking recipe is in volumes, it was put together by an amateur. Not wanting to identify with the amateurs, I decided to give it a try:

200g Butter
220g Semi-sweet Chocolate
200g graulated Sugar
4 ea Eggs, separated.

Simple. However, not having chocolate to melt, but only the cocoa powder, I made the follwoing changes:

340g Butter
200g Baking Cocoa
200g Organic Granulated Sugar
4 ea Eggs, separated
2 ea Egg whites.

Melt the butter and cocoa together. The mixture will be somewhat dryer than the recipe above at this stage, but do not worry...

Whisk in the sugar, and when cool enough, mix in the egg yolks and the 2 extra whites. Whipe the rest of thw whites and carefully fold these into the mix until you have a uniform batter. This batter will fit perfectly into a 10 inch torte pan, and has the wonderful quality of not needing a pre-greased pan. I have, as of yet, had zero issues getting this cake out of any shape of pan, whether fluted edges or not, and the shelf-life of this has been hard to grasp, as the roommates have been eating it very quickly. I recently made my own version of orange curd, and serve this amazingly dark and rich cake with my orange curb for a familiar but nicely sophisticated flavor combination. The bitters work very well together.

Enjoy!

Schooled by a Frenchman...(figures)

I once asked a catering boss of mine, when I was still entertaining the idea that catering would be the best career choice for me, how he attracted his clientele and how it was that he was so busy. His statement, albeit sarcastic, was all too true, I have come realize: Lots of Free Food. How can anyone know what it is you have to offer, especially in the case of the sensory* heavy food. (*meaning that you can sit in a chair and decide not to buy it, but once you put my food in your mouth, please don't give it back to me, even if you don't like it; it takes a more defined sensory experience to check your taste in food, no pun intended).

So now, years later as a Private Chef and part-time caterer I find myself giving away a lot of free food, or free cooking lessons as the case may be. Last night, February 2nd, I was the 'sponsor' of the Portland February Green Drinks networking meet-up. By this, I was featured to speak for a short time and introduce my business, and also give a little background of myself and how ended up doing what I am doing. One of the first things that I tend to encounter when meeting new clientele, especially on the younger side, is a lack of fine restaurant experience. In this regard, I have been very lucky, but I do not take it for granted.

As I explained last night, I named my company A Muse Bouche for several reason. First, i explained, amuse-bouche is a French term for 'amuse the mouth,' and is a reference to the small bites, smaller even than appetizers, unordered and usually termed a 'gift of the chef,' this dish brought once the drink orders are in and the table is into the evening's experience. This was what I was taught in school (WCI in Portland) this is the title of one of my favorite cookbooks by Rick Trumonto: Amuse-bouche. Now, once may immediately see the difference in spelling, which of course is an aberation to any language, but expecially French. Now, the split between the A and M of muse allows me to gloriously indulge (and give reference to) my other oral passion with is poetry and performance poetry (see my other blog for poetry posts of no particular order: http://sayv1.blogspot.com/). A Muse Bouche, in my humble translation, now means A Mouth Muse, refering to my fixation, and to the greek goddesses of the arts, from which amuse is taken, of course.

Imagine my surprise when after my talk I was approached by a young woman in the guise of a private chef (and amuse-bouche caterer) and a Frenchman, who was quick to ask me why I was using amuse-bouche, instead of amuse-gueule?

Huh?

Now, until last night, I had never even heard this term. But it goes something like this:

Taken from http://everything2.com/title/amuse+gueule

"In the most literal sense, amuse gueule translates from the French as an amusement for the mouth - but not a mouth in the human sense - amuse bouche would be used in that case (which indeed it sometimes is). It seems that gueule means a non-human mouth, either that of an animal or more intriguingly, a gun. When used in reference to humans, gueule is a slang term, roughly translating as gob. It gives you an idea of the playfulness of the dish.

In a culinary sense amuse gueule refer to tiny, mouth size morsels of intricately designed food that is presented to the diner before a meal.

Picture this scene; somehow you have gathered the folding to dine at a 3 star Michelin restaurant in France. You are seated, presented with menus, provided with the best mineral water to slake your thirst, and the sommelier is on his way to discuss a deceptively perfect Sancerre to accompany your starters. This does not happen quickly, you are in for a full on, 5-hour gastronomic tour-de-force. Amid all this pleasant cacophony, an uninvited plate arrives - somewhat to your surprise. Perhaps it is a single oyster, garnished with the finest unpasteurized osetra caviar, or it may be a demi-tasse filled with an enchantingly green fresh pea soup - topped with a single sea scallop. The idea behind amuse gueule is not only to "amuse the mouth", but as a display of hospitality as well.

To the chef, amuse-gueule provides a breaking of shackles. No longer is the emphasis placed on carefully balanced flavors, which must harmonize with the rest of the menu. An amuse gueule brings a sense of playfulness and decadence to an occasion - one that lets all hell break loose in a single, blissful mouthful. "

And I thought I was playing with words! How beautiful an irony that in fact the roughness of the word gueule, as an animal mouth, gives the lascidasical attitude some justification in its simply throwing a mouthful of wonder together.

Given this new light on the definition of what it is I am most passionate about, I must beg this explantion: As amuse-gueule is rough in its translation and asks for animal mouth to be supplanted for the human, giving an almost barbaric tint to an otherwise perfect piece of art, so too let my butchering of the language be the roughshod animal mouth blundering of this American, giving an almost ironic mouthful of hilarity to my philosophy on food and the life therein!

Canning as you go

Man...I guess this is the speed of life, but things are progressing int he kitchen quite rapidly. Exciting recipes, ides, thoughts and journalling...so far all scrawl. I will keep the followers of this blog up to date as soon as I tackle the monster of a task of disciple in the home kitchen (see my lecture series). A blow by blow account of actually living in my own kitchen, rather than in the idea of it.

Starting about two weeks into the New Year, my lover and I decided to set forth on a task of regularizing our schedule, purchasing and preparing food weekly, to make sure we were set up for the week to come: chopping all the necessary ingredients for a whimsical salad, cooking off a chicken and making stock, canning extras, taking the leftovers and creating sides out of them. At first, the idea of canning leftover seemed pretty foreign, as far as it seemed like every time I have set up for canning, there has been a process and a whole day. But when it comes to acidic foods, simply cooking these sealed jars in Boiling water for 15 minutes post canning ought to do the trick. Lo and behold, after dinner, you have dinner for some unknown time in the future. If you have space in the freezer, being prepared at the end of each meal to freeze the leftovers will also save space in the fridge, prevent the moldy science experiment in the back of the fridge, and give a delicious meal later on. (we no longer have space in the freezer, and will glad take the donation of a drop freezer at the drop of hat. If you have an extra one.

At any rate, this practice is one that I have been regularly tending to now for the last three weeks, and while we have certainly spent more money on food than in previous weeks, we have a stock of food canned now, in the freezer, have items cut up, and I have about 18 new entries for the kitchen cookbook, waiting to be tested and perfected and printed for your enjoyment. The updates will keep coming.

Much love and happiness in your kitchen,
Your Culinary Coach

Zachary

Risking Attention

As far as I know, I am talking to myself. And my friend Kim. So with that said, I must say the echo in here is drowned out pretty well by the vacuous space surrounding it. So if you are out there, foodie peoples follow me and see where this leads. I cannot tell a lie. I am totally inspired by Julie Powell in Julie and Julia, though at the same time I have to agree with Julia Child's reaction: Julie is using Julia Child's hours of hard work to capitalize on her own narcissism...though it is clear it didn't start like that. What a funny world that people can easily access your work and assess your character based on what you choose to put into the world.

With that said, I would like to invite readers to comment on something of which I have just become aware, and that is a (fairly) new product call Xocai (Show-Sie). This is raw chocolate at its finest it seems. Someone decided to capitalize on the the raw cacao tip, and has patented a cold-press process that keeps the cacao berry under 110°F at all times, making sure the bio-flavinols and the anti-oxidants are not destroyed n the process. The result? A piece of chocolate, sweetened with stevia, acai and blueberry powder, that has higher antioxidant ratings than anything else. Pomegranate doesn't even come close. Oh and it helps you lose weight by curbing your appetite, helps diabetics lowers cholesterol, tastes good and its chocolate.

So, if anyone has any good reason as to why this isn't a good product, please let me know.... because otherwise, you ought to talk to me and see how you too can get a hold of something that for now seems almost too good to be true.

Broast Lamb

Well hello there. I want to start todays segment by saying that I do not support endorse, or otherwise even understand what the term Broasting means, but I felt compelled to use it in the title, just so I could have this rant. That and I think I broasted my leg of lamb, and it was delicious. To me, to braise something, you steam/boil, read: Braise it is a liquid, covered or not, until the meat is tender and well done. Roasting on the other hand, is a dry heat, in an oven, done until the internal temperature of the roast is roughly 15°F cooler than you want the final temperature to reach (this is called carry-over cooking). The significant difference, of course, is the total disolution of the cartilage tissue during braising, extracting gelatin from the meat and bones. This dissolving of the tissue holding the meat together is reason is falls apart to the touch, and the reason the resulting sauce congeals. J-E-L-L-O! or something like that. I never saw Cosby advertise lamb jello...

So I had this Leg of lamb, boned, and ready to roast, or whatever. I opened it up, spread copious salt and a little less copious amounts of ground black pepper, rolled it back up and seared the sides to get the browning of the sides and develop a fond (this is important for brasing and for gravies made after roasting). While the pan was still searing hot, I added 1# of large dice mirepoix and got some more brown, using some masa at the very end to make a rudimentary roux. I placed the lamb on top, and covered with 2 cups of eggplant marinara from end of the season, and two.5 cups of chicken stock. This I covered, and put into the oven.

Naturally, this is braising. However, when the lamb was finished, lo, the top with plenty marinara still attached and nicely browned, had much more of a roast fell than the submerged meat (though due to the high steam content, the difference was really very minimal). I removed the lamb, carefully due to its FTWD status (Fork Tender Well Done), defatted the remaining liquid, and using my hand held Cuisinart, blended the mixture to a smooth rust-orange luster. What a sauce!

The lamb disappeared much faster than the sauce, which has subsequently been used to rehydrate and thus perfect some older chicken breats from the fridge. This is Chef Zack, signing off for the first report of week one: culinary adventures of the extremely busy.

2010

I recently was able to view the What's Hot for Food Service in 2010
( http://www.restaurant.org/pdfs/research/whats_hot_2010.pdf). This .pdf document is the culmination of a large abd broad based survey among culinary professionals, speculating and creating the trends for this our new year. No surprisingly, the top of almost every list is sustainable, local foods. Local vegetables have been a hot for some time, and granted, here in Portland, where Chef resides, we are quite spoiled when it comes to the freshness of our ingredients.

But local meats? Is there enough production locally to supply the growing demand of artisan, local meats and animal products? Again, I am aware of my own spoiled nature. I grew up getting milk from our local Dari-mart, family run now for over 45 years (http://www.darimart.com/), and surrounded by farmland. Much of that land now, outside of Eugene, is being quickly developed as the allure of the Willamette valley grows, but what of the new demand for locally produced proteins. It doesn't take a genius to recognize the absolute fallacy presented in the mass slaughterhouses (killfloors) or the 100,000 head of cattle bumping and pushing up against one another in a frenzied attempt to find some kind of nutrition is the corn they are being fed (cows eat grass, by the way).

I could talk ad nauseum with reagrd to the proper handling of all of your food. The energy given to something along every part of its path is transferred, in some small way into your sells as you integrate the food and energy. Fear, antibiotics, adreniline, poison, E. coli and other bacteria, ammonia, chemicals, cow manure, etc. are all common in these feed lots. Personally, I don't have any recipes for how to make E. coli more pallatable, nor can I find an amuse bouche to make rBGH cute and attractive. The food movement is more than a movement, this is a call to return to the self-sufficiency of our great-grandparents (if you are in you 30s-ish, that is).

My partner's mother and I were discussing what we call the "great forgetting." She remembers fondly getting the bag of margarine home and how it was the kid's job to squeeze and squish the annatto coloring into the white Crisco to make the new-fangled spreadable fat look more like butter. The concept was so hi-tech, so new, that it was preferred simply due to its novelty! I grew up eating I-Can't-Believe-It's-Not-Butter, I can't believe its not food! Actually, I have no problem believing that it is not food. We have been duped into buying our energy from a system so sick that it requires more energy to grow corn (our mainstay crop in America) than the energy gotten out of it (see Michale Pollen: The Omnivores Dilemma). This is absurd. The whole point of food is to convert the hard to access energy of the sun into Carbohydrates that we animals can harvest and use to build our bodies and keep our hearts ticking. Is is really so difficult to envision a wolrd in which this is actaully what we are doing?

I imagine often a time-trveler from the America past coming to the future and seeing what we have made of a dream that, while perhaps misguided, was at the very least noble in it cause for growth of the humans spirit. They arrive, see the corn belt, read the financial aspects of the modern farm industry, and go home to their time, and call off the whole American revolution and go home, deflated and depressed that we could flounder in such a cesspool of ignorance and stupidity.

Of course Local is the answer: and this is no trend. Any person posed the question "Where does your food come from?" Will probably give the same disconcerted answer....slight pause, and then: "...I don't know...."

Lets change this. What the chefs see as trends for the New Year, Chef Zack sees as the inevitable movement back toward self-sustainability...

So you have a Farmer's market....now what?

I was recently attending a decompress for a very intense Food Policy conference held way back in August of this year.  The attendees, even of our sparcely populated decompress were still coming from a wide variety of food policy backgrounds, from the Oregon Hunger Initiative, to the Sydney Lezak Project, a social justice non-profit, members of a subsidized housing community in North Portland called New Columbia, and from within that the community garden project managers, local attorneys whose interest is in protecting the public from harmful and untested pharmeceuticals.  Despite the common thread of a fairly liberal mindstate there was another considerable similarity: each expressed some kind of dismay with what do with their wide variety of beautifully grown local vegatables.  Most were simply at a loss when it came to cooking a meal at home.  As one attendee said as she laughed, cook a vegetable? Just add cheese!

Which brings us to a big problem.  We need more than just growing lessons.  We need more than just local food awareness and nuttritional awareness.  We need more that just people growing as much of their own food as their portion of Earth allows them.  We need to learn how to cook (again)!  Somewhere during the explosive glut of soft drinks and fast food, bad information (coconut oil is bad for you: see http://www.udoerasmus.com/fatsmain.htm), and simply inedible food products that cost more at the end product: poor health, diabetes, etc, than at the beginning (Family Farms in North Dakota spent more on Health Care than on food, for example, 18% of their household budget, versus 14% for food).

Learning to cook food correctly could save a lot of money on Health care, as the midwest version of boiled dinner all but assures that most if not all of the essential nutrients are destroyed in the process.  Correct preparation and storage of foods (some foods, spinach for example, lose 50% of Vitamin C within 24 hours of picking, others, like potatoes, develop toxins if store improperly).  But nature, humans are creatures of habit.  In 2008 we voted for change.  While that may be a buzzword in the political arena, I have witnessed incredible movement in the local scene as well as the national food security movement to make sure that we are in fact secure.  Change is coming, and if what I read on a daily basis from the COMFOOD network, change is already here if you are paying attention.

But the root of this change is personal change, and if we are the sum of what we consume, then we need to change the way we approach feeding ourselves.  Movements like SlowFood USA provide excellent information on how to approach our personal responsibilty, and are organizing local movement. and those local movements need to be supplemented by a series of simple local cooking classes that are far -reaching in scope, nor complicated in process, teaching skills like how to sharpen and keep knives, how to use them to achieve knife cuts for even cooking, aesthetics of fresh vs. dried ingredients, time-saving (and herb saving) devices such as compound butters, advanced preparation, canning and frezzing techniques for storing seasonal items, wild-crafting techniques to ecourage a visceral connection with our immediate surrounds, and to return a sense of ownership to this thing we call our own lives.

At the center of a country routed in food security, is a populace rooted in self-security: one who knows how to prepare their meals, find variety in the woods and at the market, and keep a record of what they are doing, to help bring about a better learning curve:  because if we ever stop learning and moving forward with our understanding of personal well-being, then we have stopped striving to be the dream that Americans seem born to strive for: to be the best.  In this case, 'best' is a measurable success, showing itself in the quality of nutrition and food we put into our bodies; best is falsifiable, and requires little more evidence of this than a quick look at Super-Size Me; and 'best' is repeatable: throughout history, a well nourished populace is capable of anything, and this axiom cannot and will not be altered.  Total cerealr may have 100% of every isolated, removed, extracted and re-added nutrient and vitamin, but somehow, somewhere, there is something missing, I think I know what that is...