Ready Set Sleep.

 We're catching our breath. We're raising our glasses. We're packing our bags. 

Then we're unpacking them. We're booking flights. We're reorganizing. We're saying goodbye.

The past two and a half weeks have been, to be blunt, totally out of control. We graduated, we hosted family, we celebrated. And then we promptly sold everything we owned. We crammed what was worth keeping into the back of a jeep and wove through the mountains, belting out Piano Man and chugging Red Bull just to top up the fumes we've been running on for the past few weeks. (Do you ever notice Piano Man is always on the radio? Especially when the radio keeps cutting out through the mountains. So many opportunities and I STILL don't know all the words.)

But we are here now, with family, chillin and relaxin all cool. There've been cloudless HOT days (a welcome change) and plenty of wine to go around. In a week and a half, we fly to London whether all of our shit is in a pile or not, whether we feel like we've done all we can or not. And for the trip of a lifetime, that's a pretty romantic concept. To be swept off your feet by the world and it's people, everything that is beautiful about it. 

I'm going to sleep at a scotch distillery. I'm going to see the Berlin Wall. I still don't have a place to sleep in Paris but I'm going to be there regardless. I'm going to see the highest city in the world. Red Square. The Outback. Angkor Wat. And I'm going to digest it all here. 

It's actually happening. 

My husband has been more to me than I ever could have asked for. In all of the ways that I am a very bad person to travel with, he has worked with me and fought with me everyday to make this process meaningful and to make this trip one that we will never forget. Because we will most likely never get another shot to do it this way. I am reminded daily that I could not do this life with anyone else. And I never would want to. 

Turn to your love. Now turn back to me. Now look back at them and think, "My life is going to be far better than I can even imagine." 

Lather, rinse, repeat. 

Raaaaaaaaaw!

And here's to my first Full Moon Party. Cheerio!

 

Tartine bread

I am going to be out of commission for another few days (as I have been, regrettably) as I finish up school. I'm scouring for things to keep me going. 

 

This absolutely fit the bill. 

 

Mind blowing.

 

If you have not flipped through the Tartine bread book, I don't know how you get through every day. The photography alone is so romantic. The recipes and methods are nothing short of totally inspiring. Two dudes totally committed to bread. It's a beautiful thing. 

I finish up this week. My practical exam is next Tuesday. I miss it here. I will be so happy to write again and to get back into the narrative of life. Instead of simply pouring myself wine. Not that I'm complaining. First world problems.

I want this to be my life. The community of food. 

 

Watch the movie. Get up and do a dance. Possibly pontificate about how much you love bread. Repeat. 

Can't I just put butter on it? Butter makes everything better.

 Not gonna lie, I'm kind of tired of being in the kitchen. Thank God it's not the 50's. 

It's been a full day dry run of my midterm today. I know that it doesn't sound like a very successful dry run. 'Bri', you say, 'don't you only have four hours for your midterm? And today took you ten?' 

*In my head you sound like a Precious Moment when you talk.

But yes you would be absolutely right. I only have four hours to do everything that I took all day to do today. And there are even things that I will have to do on Wednesday that I didn't even DO today. Self-sabotage? Perhaps. My life resembled a bit of a science experiment today. I had my projections of what my midterm should look like, my HYPOTHESIS if you will -(guaranteed I just lost a couple of readers)- and compared it to what I felt I was capable of against what I was able to actually pull off. 

To my surprise -probably an hour added up throughout the day was made up of me congratulating myself on being realistic about my abilities and that I was 'going to be just fine at the midterm'- everything went fairly smoothly.  

Now being in pastry school has been an exercise in managed expectations. Anything you do at school -ANYTHING- that you choose to try and replicate at home, you will likely be disappointed. Professional kitchens are laid out with a certain modicum of premeditation. Ergonomics. "Flow". And you have a $1000 knife kit at your disposal. Your tuition has paid to enable anything you could want to put your hand to to be at your fingertips. Your apartment kitchen was made with the premeditation of "We were just going to put in a hot plate and a plug-in for a microwave but the building next door just put in new faucets and privacy film on the bathroom windows. So we have to at least make room for a full-size refrigerator." So any moments of Sound of Music-style spinning that was possible at school is only possible OUTSIDE your apartment. I don't remember my kitchen being inadequate before I went to pastry school. This is why you don't sleep around with other kitchens. Hindsight and all that.

So you get home. And you realize that you have a cloth piping bag that smells like morning breath (It DOESN'T dry well OKAY!?), you have a dough scraper that was obviously designed by someone who had never made bread before and purchased by someone (me) who hadn't a clue either, and your spatula has chunks missing along the side due to it being left on hot surfaces unattended. And then you feel sad. 

But then. You look back at your recipe. You remember the glory of school days recently passed. You conjure up your best show stopping dish. Commence dancing and inspired chanting at the glory of your semolina bread and how it's going to bring all the boys to the yard. 

Fast forward fifteen minutes: "Bah! This thing doesn't work AT ALL!"

Inspired chanting is replaced by swearing under one's breath. You make concessions for your recipe not shaping up like you had hoped. You pass the buck to the (now) broken spatula. You say that "It's just not for the home baker". And then you feel ashamed because you promised yourself that you would be better than that. Whatever you were making comes to a relative state of completion and you eat it with your eyes closed trying to resuscitate the previous beacon of talent and unchallenged winning. 

I have done this before if you couldn't tell. 

But today went well. I tried my best to preempt any tool-related shortages and use what I had at my disposal for it's intended purpose. I know you say, "Just take your knife kit home." But I would probably just say -and probably not very nicely- that it is simply not that simple. I don't know if you have ever been in the charge of a toddler or related small human before but there is this inevitable moment where you realized that they blew a shoe, or their pacifier or their blanket at all Hell breaks loose when they are without it. You search and retrace your steps. "You just had it. I don't understand." This life is my life. Everything I have is on an idiot -ahem, tether- when we go to the airport.  So two days before my midterm I am not going to lose my shoe THANK YOU VERY MUCH. 

I documented my truffle making process today because... I am a product of my generation and I have this insatiable desire to take pictures of my life on my phone using unnecessary photo sharing apps. Mae culpa, mea culpa. I worked with milk chocolate today whereas I've only worked with dark chocolate before. This made for a learning experience I probably could have saved for AFTER my midterm. Because dark chocolate has more cocoa solids in it, its sets up faster and requires less work to create the proper crystallization. The milk chocolate ganache is quite soft but it has bourbon in it so it can't be THAT bad right?

Including the Saran wrap and Archimedes the napkin holder seemed necessary. Or I just didn't realize I hadn't moved them until after. Our glass table isn't a marble and therefore will never be as great as marble but it definitely served its purpose well today. 

I also practiced my pate a choux paste today. I made eclairs, with drive me crazy but are on my exam, and then some profiteroles, which are much easier to work with and therefore more gratifying. I practiced some lemon curd today as well so instead of pastry cream I crammed the profiteroles full of lemon curd and left the finicky eclairs without any filling. That'll teach them right? Lie to me. 

 Tomorrow I have time to further finesse my agenda because I am the queen of over planning. A third of my class has already done their midterm. I want to ask them, ya know, pick their brain and TOTALLY obsess. But I know it is a short distance for me right now to go from there to rocking back and forth whispering, "I'll never teeeeeell." Best if I just keep to myself until Wednesday morning. 

Moozh did his this morning. The culinary students weren't told ahead of time what would be on their exam so Moozh went in blind. His chef told him that all of his stuff was cooked perfectly and that he did very well. And after six years of education and a master's program, Moozh still considered this midterm the most stressful exam he's ever written. I concur. Already. 

One more day to overprepare. 

Find a cookie. No, two. Find some ice cream. Make a sandwich. CUZ WHO DOESN'T LIKE AN ICE CREAM SANDWICH? Repeat. 

Monday, February 20, 2012

Don't listen to anything I say. Basically.

Heyo! So we're doing our best to get back on the once a day track for posting. Otherwise, there are simply too many pictures. And pushing 'email photo' on my iPhone more than three times in a row is just exhausting.

Today was a hard Monday. I'm not gonna lie. All day I was just wishing for a stat holiday, or even (in my silent, inside voice) for something contagious. I was somewhat consoled by the fact that I wasn't the only one that stared at myself in the mirror this morning and contemplated calling in a sick day.  But eight hours a day, five days a week is pretty good training for real life. Except real life won't be like an Italian spa.

Today had a good clip though. There wasn't a ton of 'viamo guys!' going on. As long as you nestled your head firmly in the group and put one foot ahead of the other, you looked pretty ridiculous but two o'clock arrived with everything done. Tomorrow is our last day of cakes which will involve another mousse cake (yay) and infinite glazing, which is not so much 'yeah' and more so 'nononononono not like that'. All good.

The cake we glazed today is a cake custom to the school called a 'Pasuwa'. It consists of a chocolate sponge base, chocolate mousse, chocolate chips, cheesecake chunks, another sponge layer, more chocolate mousse and cheesecake chunks and then chocolate ganache, aka Boom. I brought it home, had a little chat with my digestive system and then went and made friends with my neighbours. The conversation that begins with 'Do you guys want some cake?" really only ever goes one way.

But Moozh had a good day today. Let me preface this by explaining that my husband has what could be described as a charismatic experience every time he eats Indian food. Something about the flavours, the textures, being able to eat it with your hands…something. It just speaks to him. So when he texted me this with the caption, "Indian Buffet", I knew he was going to be a very happy man when he got home, which a little bit of a kick in his step.

I feel personally blessed that Moozh has learned to make Indian. Especially such a spread. I am going to request an instant replay of this meal complete with everything you see represented here and I will dangle WHATEVER CARROT I HAVE TO in order to get. You have no idea how seriously a white kid can take Indian food.

Moozh also made quite the spread last night for our small group. Nothing is better than having people you love to pieces over for delicious food and wine. Nothing.

Rack of lamb, cumin rice pilaf, garam masala bean medley, roasted asparagus, and roasted veggie tower with a raspberry vinaigrette-pearl onion compote.

Not bad right?! My life, I tell ya. The man does me right.

Monday, January 16, 2012

Simple in theory but loud in practice.

Chef is probably on a plane at this time, flying to the land of gelato (Italy) where he will make fun of Canadians, eat lots and covet high quality olive oil. And little over a week from today he will compete internationally in a gelato competition, Salone Internazionale Gelateria. I am blessed to learn under someone who is so driven and so gifted. He is a chef that teaches work ethics and real intention towards honouring a craft. And he gets back in time to teach us how to make amazing ice cream and gelato, so it's all works out in the end.

Today was solely dedicated to the mere understanding of laminated dough. Laminated is, when you find out what it is, exactly what it sounds like. Think of taking a sheet of paper to the printers and they laminated two sheets of plastic overtop that hold the paper within them. Now imagine that the paper is butter and the plastic is a yeasted dough.We sat from seven in the morning to well after two o'clock talking about lamination, mixing croissant dough, watching (four times over) the enclosing of the butter, or beuragge, in the croissant dough, or the detrempe. We made vanilla pastry cream and almond cream; we watched single folds and double folds, envelope shaping and croissant rolling. It's an anxiety inducing process because in order to make really good croissants you need to consider many different conditions. And croissants are a lot of work so if you mess it up you will be righteously pissed. Really the worst thing that happens with the croissant process going awry is that you end up with a bready dough, instead of flaky. You end up with brioche, essentially. Which is not really a bad thing, is it?

I made one of the batches of dough today. These aren't mine. Mine will come out tomorrow. We all had to hammer out (literally hammer with a French rolling pin) our 'butter block', which is a slab of butter about 1/4" thick that is 'enclosed' within the croissant dough which is then rolled out to create the layers of flaky pastry. I think I have a handle on the detrempe, it'll just be the actual lamination process that will take some getting used to.

And seeing the process repeatedly was really helpful. If gave me a sense of what we're looking for in each of the different stages: the butter crumbling, the seams lining up, rotating the dough for folding, etc. And Chef's turns of phrase never get old.
"You want lots of space. You don't want to be too confinated."
Truth, Chef. You speak the truth.

So nothing of my own to report for today, but I do have weekend yumminess to report. Our small group meets every Sunday night and we chill out, eat good food, drink good wine, laugh lots, pray lots. It's always such a great time. And it provides a great outlet for Moozh and I when we host at our place to try out some of the things that we're learning. As soon as I read Smitten Kitchen's most recent post, I knew I had to try it out. I have what can be considered rather quirky obsessions: Jewish people, Russian people/food/music/history, musicals, knitting/crocheting, octopus, steampunk, etc. And I can get MANIC. So when I started Smitten Kitchen back in high school, it was so endearing to me that she was Jewish. And then, just last week I discovered via her post that she is married to a Russian man (or a man from a Russian heritage rather). Kind of clinched it for me, not gonna lie.
Soooooo.
I also though what better way to break in the set of appropriately red Russian nesting doll measuring cups that I got for Christmas than a Russian recipe for cake?! Or is it cake? All night, I tried to figure out what it could be described as. I landed on an apple pie/meringue cake. It's like pie but it has no crust. It's like clafoutis but it has no milk in it. It's like cake but it has SO MUCH FRUIT in it. So you kind of have to land on whatever makes sense. It was demolished after dinner so I think any ambiguity about it's identity didn't get in the way of much.

That is Kooknaya, which is Russian for 'kitchen'.

The recipe, which is made for a 9" springform pan, calls for six granny smith apples, so you get this beautiful tart, brightness amidst the sweet. It's not too sweet though. There's not a ton of sugar in the meringue and the apples add a nice subtle sweetness and that delicious comforting flavour.

This is a super poor picture but it's the only decent one I got of it in the pan before it went in the oven. You can see that I opted no for a springform pan (namely because I don't have one). I instead used a regular 9" pie plate. I couldn't fit in the last apple but the cake didn't suffer any. It would have looked great with even some powdered sugar but it was WAY too hot and I was already late on my way.

And now what is that. The top came out looking toasty browned, just like a meringue, with that beautiful crunchiness. It's a really simple recipe and it comes together really quickly. The most labor intensive part is the peeling of the apples and, like any good pie, I think it would be just as good with the peels on. Grannies can get a little waxy but their peels lend a slight bitterness for balance. *That sentence reads differently taken out of context.

If you like what you see, head over to Smitten Kitchen and check it out.