Joanie's Pastry Adventure: the beginning

For those of you who don't know, I recently moved to New York - not only to get away from my dull corporate job, but to finally realize my dream of going to pastry school and becoming a real pastry chef! (cue triumphant music) And because I know all of you are checking this blog not just because you love food, but in order to procrastinate from working for the man or studying, I'm going to blog about my experience as a pastry student!

I have a full-time job working as an administrator/office manager at a small artisanal bakery in SoHo. Monday, Wednesday, and Friday evenings I hop on over to the French Culinary Institute for 5 hours of class. The FCI is an intense program aimed mainly at those who do not have a lot of restaurant experience. Most people in my class have worked in bakeries or in food service and are avid home bakers, which is my experience as well.

Wednesday my classmates and I all arrived super-early to get our ID cards & get dressed. Our uniforms consist of houndstooth MC Hammer pants (complete with elastic waistband...tres chic) a neckerchief, chef's jacket, long apron, and side towel. Class starts quickly, with Chef Rebecca & Chef Kir introducing themselves and all of us eager students doing the same.

Day 1 is apple tart day, so appropriately, we start off with apples for an apple compote. Chef Rebecca does a quick demo and then we're off! The demo is informative, but very basic - she doesn't spend time going over every minute detail. My table partner and I grab some apples, get our mis en place ready, and start peeling. The peeler we are given is abominable, so I resort the ubersharp paring knife. Unfortunately, I don't peel apples that often - I'm lazy and like peels - so I was rather slow and ugly in my peeling. My knife skills also left much to be desired, but that could have been the slightly squishy Golden Delicious apples I had to work with. Then again, it wasn't like my entire class was schooling me in perfect dicing - you just feel pressure to be totally awesome in a class environment where there's a professional chef eyeing your knife technique.

After the dicing part, we concocted a simple apple compote with our diced apples, sugar, lemon juice, & vanilla paste (more concentrated than vanilla extract, not quite as good - or as expensive - as vanilla beans). It cooked til it was a chunky applesaucey consistency and then was spread out on a sheet pan to cool.

Next was pate sucree. Francophiles and foodies will know that this means "sugared pastry" and is a very simple dough to make. We creamed butter & powdered sugar together and gradually added eggs to make an emulsification. Then cake flour was slowly added to make the dough. Pate sucree is similar to a shortbread dough, and not nearly as temperamental as pate brisee or a traditional pie crust.

For our own tart shells, we used pate sucree made by a previous class, because dough needs time to chill and rest before shaping. We started by hammering out our dough circles with rolling pins. With 18 students on stainless steel tables, it was a bit loud. We brushed off all the extra flour from the crust (more flour = more gluten = tough dough) and rolled it into a prepared tart ring.

Post-dinner, the tart shells came back out and were filled with the cooled apple compote - which looked kind of like canned crushed pineapple, oddly enough. We had to peel more apples and slice them ever-so-thinly to spiral around the top. Never have I appreciated granny smith apples more - they are so nice and firm, so perfect for cutting into thin fancy slices! Golden delicious apples, not so much. Many of my thin little apple slices came apart, but I managed to salvage enough so that they appeared pretty. I spiraled my apples and then we sprinkled them with vanilla sugar, then into the ovens!

While we were finishing our tarts, Chef Rebecca told us a little about the philosophy of French pastry. For apple tarts, cinnamon is a major faux-pas. The French believe that the pastry to be about showcasing the fruit, with only a limited number of other ingredients just added to enhance the natural flavor. So for the apple tart, only some lemon juice, vanilla & sugar, et voila! another class.

One apple tart may not sound like a huge undertaking for a 4-hour class, but it went quickly and we were rushing around using every moment. Even having made pies and tarts before, it was a bit stressful. None of us quite know where everything is yet, but are all trying to impress and make our tarts as beautiful and as tasty as possible.

Once I stumbled home late at night, my roommates peeped out of their rooms for some apple tart enjoyment. It was still warm and quite tasty, with a thick crispy crust and sweet filling.

Stay tuned for more adventures in tart-making....



Technorati Tags: Baking, Cooking Class

Cheap/Tasty: Penne Alla Awesome

"Oh. Heavy cream? Skip, is there anything I can substitute?"

"No. Absolutely not. Please Robin, don't substitute anything for the heavy cream. We're talking 1 tablespoon (per serving). Please. Just have a little less and eat a salad."

This story started last week when I didn't feel like making dinner. I'm still settling into Birmingham, and cooking sometimes feels a bit overwhelming. It's getting better, though. Anyway, I decided to walk over to Chez Lulu for something light.

I ended up ordering penne alla vodka. It rocked. I was very pleased. Good sauce. Pleasantly spicy. It was everything I'd hoped for and the dish helped me figure out how I gage restaurants: if I can make it better than the restaurant, it wasn't worth it. When I finished my pasta, I decided that it was at least as good as something I could have put together.

And then I got the bill. Sixteen dollars for a smallish plate of pasta without any meat. I was not happy. Right, and they don't take American Express. Ugh.

On the walk home, I decided to make the pasta for myself. The next day I found Lidia Bastianich's recipe, gathered the ingredients, and rocked it out. I cannot remember a dish I've prepared that tasted so good, came together so quickly with so few ingredients. I ended up using a can of crushed San Marzano tomatoes (instead of whole) and didn't puree them (because I still don't have a food processor larger than 1/2 cup). And since Lidia didn't give any kind of direction with the red pepper flakes, I used three large pinches (which I estimate at around 1 1/2 tablespoons). The result was at least as good as Chez Lulu's, a pleasant spice level (though next time I may put a little more), and, as you'll see in a moment, incredibly cheap.

It wasn't much more than 35 mintues from boiling the water to sitting down at the table. So worth it.

Final cost per portion - $2.05 per serving.

Service Extraordinaire: Are you Being Gouged?

I love Google mashup maps. This morning I found some that compare the cost of a head of lettuce, a quart of milk, and six-pack of beer around the five boroughs of Manhattan (and some neighboring locales). The purple lettuces in the picture above indicate heads of iceburg lettuce with a cost greater than $1.75, and the green ones indicate a price of $1.25 or less. The beer map is a bit more shocking.

It's something everybody knows about (the $2.80 box of Kashi at Trader Joes and the ludicrous $6 package of the same Kashi on Central Park South) but it's always interesting (and useful) to have all of that information in one place.

The Crowdsourcing project from which this map (and the others) came asked Brian Lehrer show watchers to find the local prices and upload them to the WNYC website. That's pretty awesome.

First Bite: Urth Caffe (Melrose, LA)

After an entertaining and delightful dinner at Sushi Sushi on North Beverly, Jenn and I went out for brunch at the Urth Caffe. I had been hoping to check out some of Suzanne Goin's cooking at the Hungry Cat, but it just wasn't meant to be (which is too bad, considering everything I'd read; I had planned to stop at the Santa Barbara location for lunch, but they don't serve it, and then on Saturday morning, the LA branch wasn't serving brunch. Next time).

Back to the Urth. Since Jenn lives in walking distance of the Avalon Hotel (pictures) where I was staying (mostly overrated if you ask me, though you haven't), she gave me the choice of going to the close Urth Caffe or the cute one. I looked back, quizzically, and asked if one had better food, and if they both had outdoor seating. She said they were both identical, so I went for the cute one (Melrose). Why not?

I was hungry, but had no idea what I was getting myself into. When I got to the front of the line, about 10 minutes' wait, I ordered the assorted bread basket with Brie, a small dolce cappuccino, a side of eggs, and a side of potatoes (and a brownie. I hadn't had my morning chocolate fix). I'm not sure what I was thinking, since the bread basket came with five breads, but when the waiter came my plates filled the table. Filled it.

The cappuccino was good (not as good as Intelligentsia) but the bread basket was not terribly exciting. The demi-baguette shaped loaf was the best, followed by the bagel. The rest were unexciting. Bland. Crumby (which is to say unsuitable for the Brie).

Jenn's caramelized banana bread pudding was the star of the day. The subtle sweetness, beautiful bananas, and the little pot of sweetened cream made this a near perfect breakfast in my eyes. And it made me long for Birmingham a bit. It's true.

Urth was fine, just don't order the bread basket, eggs, and potatoes unless you want to share it with at least one other person. The caramelized banana bread pudding was to die for.

"I feel like I'm going to die every day" basically sums up my motoring experience in L.A. Jenn said it, but I definitely felt it. More than a bit scary for driving.


Don't forget our flickr site.

First Bite: Lo Mejor de Michoacan

Holy frijoles. I cannot believe the tacos at Lo Mejor de Michoacan in Paso Robles, Calif. Incredible. The filling, the sides, the (soft, warm, delicate but sturdy) corn tortillas, I can hardly convey how unbelievable their food is. Well, perhaps stating the fact that Kim and I ate there three days in a row will suffice.

Over the few days, we had three different kinds of tacos (carnitas [pork], camarones [shrimp], al pastor [pork with slightly sweet pastor sauce]. Additionally, we tried some chicken and pork tamales and chicken mole.

We both loved the carnitas (Kim ordered them every time), but the shrimp tacos were just as good. The Tacos al Pastor were all right. The pastor was bit chewy, and lacking in the usual pineapples and sauce. It was, however, similar to the tacos al pastor I had at La Casa de Tacos back in SpaHa.

Their chicken mole was also in the highest order. Perfectly balanced mole. It balanced the salty, sweet, and piquant, and the chicken fell off the bone. Not the prettiest picture but damn it tasted good.

Go to Lo Mejor. It is el mejor. The best. It makes me sad to leave. Take a look at some of our other delicious photos on flickr.