Making this meal was like opening a time capsule to myself.  I’d bought the ingredients in jars and cans about a month ago, in anticipation of one day lacking fresh ingredients, except for garlic and parsley, with which to make a meal.  So, like chicken adobo, it’s another delicous meal that can be made quickly with a minimum of ingredients (especially fresh ones), and is a step up from, say, frozen dinners.  This recipe, too, can be customized however you’d like, adding more or less garlic, capers, anchovies, or olives… or anything else that you may want to add.  My only point of confusion was that the original recipe insinuated that only the plum tomatoes should be used for the sauce, but after cooking down the tomatoes into a loose mass, I decided that I wanted a saucy sauce, so I added in the juices from the can and cooked it down a bit more.  I’ve never ordered this in a restaurant, so I didn’t know exactly how liquid-y the sauce was supposed to be… but I knew what I like.  I also didn’t add nearly as much olive oil as specified… probably more like 3/4 tsp.  The recipe has also been changed around a little to reflect a “mise-en-place” idea.  Rather than chopping tomatoes as you’re sauteing the garlic for such a short time, I think it’s better to have everything ready to go before you start.
Pasta Puttanesca 
adapted from Mark Bittman, NYTimes
3 to 6 servings.

Citizen Cake demands that you think about your food.

For instance, when you look at the dessert menu, you must think about what palette of flavors you want to experience as a sweet. I was torn between the “carrot cake parfait” (carrot sorbet, parsnip cake, fromage blanc, ginger ice cream, coconut foam) and the “bourbon street” (sweet potato pudding, bourbon molasses, streusel, sage brown butter ice cream), but I also could have gone for the “chocolate y picante” (dulce de leche glazed plantains, anson mills corn pudding and chili chocolate sorbet) or the “rockin’ road” (warm chocolate cake, black walnut ice cream, marshmallow foam and cocoa nib streusel). Then, you must think whether you want to pair it with the suggested alcohol (many of them, inspired) - such as Qi, a Lapsong Souchong Tea Liquor, for the carrot cake parfait or the Nocino Della Cristina Walnut Liqueur with the rockin’ road.

I chose the bourbon street, but without the suggested Knob Creek, Kentucky small batch bourbon whiskey, since I’d already had a cocktail (which I’ll get to later).

The pudding and the bourbon molasses were extraordinary, perfect companions in flavor and texture; the pudding creamy and bursting with a bright sweet potato flavor and the syrupy molasses with deeper notes. In fact, they were so good that, for the rest of what was on the plate, I could only think, Why are they there? The sage brown butter ice cream was very sugar-y, and a little buttery, but the sage flavor got lost somewhere; the streusel was neutral element that lacked a real place to go (I found no need to let it interfere with my pudding); that too-thin-to-taste carrot puree smear on top is meant for style, I guess; and the lime segments? I think that that they were meant to cut the sweet heaviness of the rest of the dessert, but they were too severe and clashed with the rest; they may as well have been replaced by a toothbrush instead. I just used the ice cream as a palate cleanser of sorts, but I wish it had a more assertive flavor. So, instead, I focused on devouring the pudding and molasses like I didn’t know any better.

J and L got the lemon cookie. I was immediately charmed by the way that the filling is in line with the edges of the cookies, but when I broke off a piece, I was concerned by how flexible and soft the cookies were. I shouldn’t have worried, because once in the mouth, they explode with a lemon kick that makes its humble (esp for Citizen Cake) appearance a bit of a ruse. It’s a crave-worthy cookie, that I wished I could always have a stash of in my apt. It’s quite sweet and quite sour at the same time, so I suspect that it’s pulled off with a mix of meyer lemons and regular lemons, but I could be wrong.

I wanted a fuller picture of this Citizen Cake, so I brought home a few pastries. From left to right, Winter in Provence Tart, S’Moon Pie, Vanilla Cupcake.

I was thrilled that Winter in Provence has a name and appearance that I love while, at the same time, is completely fantastic to eat. Contained in a chocolate tart shell is a lavender and chocolate ganache that is topped by a black pepper creme fraiche and is coated with shredded coconut. The herbal, chocolate, and sour components combine together so well for the flavors, while texturally, I liked that the creme fraiche layer is just a little lighter and looser than the ganache. And the coconut was a nice textural and flavorful component that I wish that the streusel had been in the bourbon street dessert. On the other end, the crust was just soft enough and had enough flavor to be an integral part, too; I usually don’t eat all of a crust, but here I did. I have liked playing around with chocolate and salt recently, so the sour component is something new for me to think about, especially with such clean flavors here.

Unfortunately, the S’Moon Pie and the cupcake were disappointing. The cracker on the bottom of the s’moon pie was too chewy and had too whole wheat-y of a taste to be enjoyable with the rather soft marshmallow filling and thin chocolate coating. Maybe the cracker was designed to infuse more flavor into the traditionally very sweet dessert, but if anything, I think that the good chocolate should be most prominent (maybe even in the form of a chocolate syrup btw the cracker and marshmallow for a suggestion of a hot s’more), then a more honey-ish note from the cracker, and then the sweetness of the (firmer) marshmallow. The cupcake had an icing with a strong vanilla flavor (and it was studded with vanilla seeds everywhere), but I think it was also too sweet and was a little too granular from the sugar in it. The cake was a bit dry and laced with tunnels from over-mixing that we’ve spent much energy in class to avoid.

On the savory side…. I had a L’Autostrada sandwich for lunch: ham, smoked turkey, salami, proscuitto, provolone with tomato-pepperoncini. The filling was very nice, and I loved the hint of spiciness from the tomato-pepperoncini… and was indulgent about the oil from the cheese and meats that came out of the sandwich when picked up or slightly squeezed. Unfortunately, the bread had too over-powering a texture for me. The outside was so stiff that I was tempted to knock on it like a door and then the inside was a bit too toothsome, but in a chewier way. The salad was good and fresh. And by the way, I once had an amazing Autostrade sandwich at Campanile’s Grilled Cheese Night on Thursdays in LA, which was not only tasty, but had slices of proscuitto grilled to adhere onto the outside of the bread.

They also had a creative cocktail menu, and I was thrilled for a change of pace from wine. I got The Harlot, which had lillet blanc, cointreau, lime juice, and cranberry juice . It tasted like a tropical fruit punch crossed with a cosmo, with a balanced taste of alcohol. I liked it, and am happy to see lillet blanc pop up in cocktails.

We sat at the bar, and the service was attentive and affable. Be warned, though, that there might be a wait involved. We got there at about 2:30 and we waited for 20 mins. Then there was some confusion about whether they would serve desserts btw 3:00-5:30 because the kitchen was supposed to get ready for the evening, but then we were able to get dessert… So, I don’t know if plated desserts are available all day, but there are always treats in the pastry case.

On the whole, I had happiness and sadness with Citizen Cake, but it’s like a rollercoaster–even if it’s not always great, it’s still an interesting ride that leads you on surprising paths and sometimes around a loop-de-loop, like the Winter in Provence tart.

As a pastry student, these are some additional thoughts that I had about Citizen Cake:

• For the desserts, the large number of elements in one dish is a safety net and a high risk venture at the same time. On the one hand, the more elements there are in a dish, the higher the chance that something will be off, but on the other hand, with so many elements in a dish, there is bound to be at least one thing that you like.
  Also, I like the variety of ingredients used and the creative uses for them individually and with other elements. Sometimes, I wished for greater focus, but as the lemon sandwich cookie shows, they are capable of that, too.
• Also, style can go a long way. Beginning with its clever name (both intellectual and cute) and slick decor, people really want to like this place, and the appearance and combination of flavors in the desserts carry a large amount of cache. I was heartwarmed to see their squared edged cakes free of piped icing, but decorated instead with shards of chocolate cigars and chocolate shards sticking into or on them. On the other hand, call me literal, but I wish that there were more varieties of cakes; they were outnumbered by plated desserts, pastries, cookies, etc.
• I like that there are a lot of traditionally savory elements in their desserts. I wish I could have tried more of them to see how they integrated them into sweet flavors… it must be more than just adding lots of sugar…

For the next three weeks, our homework every night for our Basic and Classical Cakes block will be to pipe out different shapes of shortening and water whipped up to impersonate icing. We drew lines on cardboard, covered it with plastic wrap, and held it in the oven for a little while to create a sealed surface, so we can pipe our shortening unfettered. I’ll just be happy if my car survives unfettered by shortening while transporting them.

I’m a bit uneasy about this block. Although I usually love tasty cakes, there is one huge element of some cakes that I don’t like: piped frosting. I just don’t like the way it looks. I’ve already written my tirade against the star tip, so I won’t repeat it here except to express my concern. Because, not only do I have to aid and abet the piping, I have to do it a lot and try to perfect something that, in my mind, can’t be perfected: it will always be a star tip, or a plain tip, or a flower made of frosting. Many people might not see what the big deal is here–it’s just a cake, so deal with the frosting, it’s cute–but to me, my desserts are expressions of how I think dessert should be enjoyed, and I regret wasting that on empty appearances that conflict with what I consider appealing. It also takes time away from exploring more minimalist and unique designs. Of course, inspiration for a better alternative can come from mundane sources and technique is technique blah blah blah, so for every single rosette that I pipe, all I can do is internally chant, “Good will come of this… Good will come of this… Good. will. come. of. this.” We will have a Contemporary Cakes block later on in the program, so eventually, we’ll break loose.

Anyway, this block is a little different from the others so far because, instead of 1 practical at the end of 13 days of class, we will have 2 practicals, one for each of the two 6-day segments. One practical will be for the Filled Cakes and Tortes, and one will be for Unfilled Cakes and Tarts. Coming up, our cakes include Black Forest Cake, St Honore with Chibouste Cream, Vanilla Charlotte, Raspberry Yogurt Cake, Chocolate Cognac Cake, Chocolate Raspberry Cake, Chocolate Grand Marnier Cake, Chocolate Shingle Torte… Yes, I approve of all the chocolate… Then Frangipane Tarts, Tarte Tatin, Lemon Semolina Cake, Basque Cake, Torta Ricotta, Cheesecake, Flourless Carrot Cake… So, some warhorses steeped in technique, but also some interesting spins.

If the last practical made me focus on making consistent products, this time it was about working fast. We had 3.5 hours this time (instead of the usual 4.5, with the last half hour supposed to be for baking and clean up only, not decorating) to make:

• 6 eclairs (made out of pate a choux) with chocolate pastry cream and chocolate fondant top (fondant and simple syrup pre-made)
• 6 paris brest (made out of pate a choux) with praline pastry cream filling and topped with almonds
• 1 cherry pie with a lattice top (dough pre-made)
• 2 genoise/sponge cakes, undecorated and unmolded

If made at home, one at a time, I think they’d be nice, leisurely projects with flexible in-between time between stages, but when made at school with a deadline, they’re more like boot camp.

That said, I was in a very good mood that day, and frankly, practicals don’t really scare me now. If they were about grades… well, we’re graded on our work every single day… and grades are intrinsically subjective and crude measurements; if they were about making products on our own… well, we divide up the work in our groups, and you are relied upon for your work; if they were about making good products… well, this is often the second or even first times we’re making some things, after only 2 months of working in an academic/professional kitchen for me… and we make good things on other days; if they were about working under pressure… well, I’ve had some ridiculously stressful jobs before.. and have learned that there is always a time when things go wrong, go boom and life goes on.

Now, that said, I do appreciate practicals as an exercise to focus on your own techniques and accountability for a day while making a variety of products. We’d get complacent otherwise, especially since we’ve often had extra time most days in the past few weeks and have made a lot of great things. I’ll probably be more concerned about practicals later in the program when my cumulative abilities should be more developed from more experience and practice and kitchen wisdom… Since my pastry career will have to start for real soon after, I better be able to make consistently good stuff before I graduate.

So, as far as this practical being about speed, it was good to see how I reacted to the time crunch. I liked that my instincts have been acclimated to the kitchen to the extent that I prep bowls/equipment/ingredients more efficiently, know the general rhythm of recipes, have a sense of dividing up my space, and at least notice what is going wrong (and fix it, if I deem it worthy of the time) rather than being in an oblivious or suprised haze.

But, things did get out of control… I’m usually rather neat when I work, but my space occasionally became a kingdom of dirty bowls, pots, tools, and splattered pastry cream/chocolate/batter/dough/cherry pie filling. And when I did wash a star tip, it cut my finger. I couldn’t take the time to clean everything all the time; to make matters harder, we arrived to find that most of the dishes were still dirty from the previous group, so we had to hunt for and wash most of our dishes. I also lost all sense of time (and a clock that I used to rely on has disappeared from our kitchen wall), so I only had a Pavlov’s dog’s reaction to my kitchen timer to make me walk to the ovens; so I should stop forgetting to hit or inadequately hitting “start” after punching in the time, and I should keep a better tally of the state of things baking at the time. As described below, I also had to let some errors go uncorrected… Right or wrong, I wanted nothing more than to finish, so that’s what drove my decisions. And I did finish, at 12:58.

(more…)

Yesterday, I did my taxes and figured out my refund… and this morning, I booked a table at Thomas Keller’s The French Laundry for Chad’s birthday in June. Thank you, Turbo Tax! It would have been a shame to live so close to the restaurant and never have the chance to check it out.

I’d read some pretty intense helpful hints to snag a reservation, which should be made 2 months in advance of the day desired, so I enlisted Chad’s help to start re-dialing and re-dialing them at about 9:58am, with contingency plans for the wait list and times available. We signed onto AIM to communicate progress. It turns out that by 10:05am, we both got through to the automated menu and were on hold. Chad dropped off when a person answered my call, and I went on to make the reservation. They offered plenty of times available for that Friday night, and that was that.

So, in two months, I will be taking an embarrassing number of photos of their 9 course tasting menu… and probably a few of Chad being embarrassed. Stay tuned.

Edit: My grand plan to get a reservation was to try over a course of 3 days and take anything btw Friday dinner to Sunday lunch, but with Saturday dinner as our top choice. Chad tried for Saturday dinner this morning, from 10:00 until 10:40, and only got a busy signal…. So, we were very on lucky to have gotten through on Sunday. Who knows, maybe less people remember to reserve on Sundays….