Everything You Wanted Know About Potatoes!

Episode 32 - Eagle Creek Seed Potatoes from Kevin Kossowan on Vimeo.

Spider Street Art

The Rivington street between Chrystie and Bowery has become a hot bed of street art over the last couple of years.  Yesterday on my way to Whole Foods to get some last minute groceries for last night's dinner party I saw these new red spiders which I thought rather handsome:

Last Nights Menu: Chris's 60th

It's a bit blurry which is exactly how I feel today. Thanks to my friend Debbie helping me in the kitchen I was able to pull this off.  One day I will learn to not be so overly ambitious....

More on this later with my new root veg and farro salad recipe 

Transgenic Pollution = Monsanto

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Food Rules

Dobos Torte

This Saturday we have throwing a sixtieth birthday party for a dear friend who we have know for 25 years.   Although it seems insane that I would be sent into a tizzy about a dinner party, as we have one or more a week, every now and again I feel like I need to up my game and make something really special.

In this instance special was an over the top traditional "fancy cake" a Dobos Torte, 7 layers of hazelnut butter cream topped with caramel.  The recipe I used was Lindsay Remolif Shere (one of the founders of Chez Panisse and the original pastry chef there).  It seemed straight forward enough, an fairly easy cake, or 7 cakes, some butter cream all topped off with caramel.  The only thing that really worried me was that the cake had to be divided into 16 equal pieces so I went to NY Cake store in Chelsea and bought a kit that had a template you place your cake on and it tells you where to divide it.

First thing that went wrong was I over heated the eggs white so they wouldn't fluff up.   Then I over cooked them because I thought they should be browned which indeed they didn't (and the recipe didn't call for it).  Then there was the butter cream, which had to have sugar syrup at the thread stage mixed into eggs yolks - there was an ice bath involved and a thermometer and butter - then the amount of chocolate used wasn't enough or was it that I used 63 percent coca and it should have been more like 76% she did say bitter.  Anyway I added 2 extra tablespoons of coca and all was well.

The cake rounds were formed on parchment paper that I had drawn 8' circles on so they were more or less the same, but they were not exactly the same, and I only got 6 not 7 like the recipe called for.

Then there was the caramel which was too hard. In the end it wasn't too horrible.  I could have used more icing and if I had made the rounds thinning I would have gotten 7.  The second time around I had no problem with the egg whites, but I also didn't heat them.  If they are really ate room temperature you will get the volume you need.

This cake if you should dare to try it is way better the next day or even two after.

Here is the thing though, I was lucky to have the time to try this first before I made it for the actual event.  What came to me after a day of cake experimenting was that this kind of cake is something that maybe if I took a course and made them a lot more that I might be good at, but at the end of the day it's not something that really reflects me or how I cook.  I want to make honest food that taste good.  This kind of cakes seems like fancy for the sake of fancy.  It tastes good, but it doesn't taste any better than chocolate pudding upside down cake which looks a mess and is almost impossible to fuck up.  No water bath or thermometers required.

So next time you have to make a dinner where you want to impress people and make them happy I have some advice, which hopefully from here on in I will listen to as well, make what you know and that you know works.  Special occasions are anxiety provoking enough no need to make a 7 layer cake.

Galloping Gourmet

My recent reference to my childhood food hero has made me go on a YouTube journey down memory lane.
My apologies for not having some actually cooking and real content this last week but between my camera breaking and this damn flu I have not been on top of my game, tomorrow I deal with the camera, the flu thing well....my fingers are crossed it will be over by the weekend.  I've been working on a fancy Tobos Torte and homemade Marshmallows....much more soon....

I love the travelog in this episode: Firenze in the snow! I forgot how much Graham Kerr loved to guild the lily, but at the same time is actually very educational for example the dish he is making in this episode ia a gateau saint honore.  A cake that I have tried to make with absolutely no success...given the name I would have thought it was French, but apparently no it's from Florence?  I think I need to Google this, but in the mean time put aside 20 minutes and watch this episode - it was a different work in the 1970's and other then Julia Child this was it for cooking shows (no Food Network back then).

Even now I think he is pretty funny.

Some Joel Salatin Love

Southern Table

This video makes me hungry.  The farmer who is shown with his hogs and his sheep, is touching when he talks about how he has no problem with eating pork or beef, but he won't eat lamb, because ...well watch and find out:

The Perennial Plate Episode 91: Southern Table from Daniel Klein on Vimeo.
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I'm in week 2 of this damn cold and then today my camera seems to have died, ugh.  I have been working on home made marshmallows made from marshmallow root and no corn syrup and a big fancy cake called  a Tobos Torte hopefully I will be up and running by the end of the week with some cooking and recipes!

Toast

Toast is the name of a very poignant movie about Nigel Slater's childhood caught me by surprise. Nigel, as many of you already know, is the charming and chatty British food writer and chef whose articles and videos appear in the Guardian and on the BBC with great regularity (I've posted a far share myself).  His cookbook Tender, which was published in the UK several years back made it's US debut last year and was an instant hit with anyone who opened it.

It always seem like he is speaking directly to you when you read his recipes, he is familiar and friendly in a way that is quite unique in cookbook writing.  He also has the ability to make everything sound mouth watering.

But I digress, the movie focuses on his Dickensian childhood and how in the midst of all this tragedy he managed to nurture his love of food.  Certainly not something his mother or step mother were able or willing to help him with.  In many ways it reminded me of my childhood, I started to cook at a very early age as a way of helping out my widowed mother so she would have less to do when she got home from work. Taking the hamburger out of the oven soon became making the chili, as my mother had little to no interest in cooking.  The one advantage I had over Nigel was Graham Kerr who inspired me every afternoon with his show the Galloping Gourmet.

Here is the trailer: