This is probably my first true culinary toy. I like to equip my kitchen with as many multi-purpose, utilitarian things as possible, which actually means having as few things as possible. So, I could just muddle on with my so-called instant read dial thermometer for all my temperature needs, but the laser thermometer is the coolest thing that I couldn’t bear to be without.

Once it’s in your hand, your environment turns into a matrix of temperatures waiting to be found out. It can only take the surface temperature of things, but for a baking and dessert person, that’s just fine. I can use it to temper chocolate, make sauces (such as creme anglaise), and see how hot work surfaces are. I just have to mix a little when measuring to make sure the temp is uniform.

Once you squeeze the trigger and aim the red laser tracking dot, you get instantaneous readings of the surfaces. It can measure between 0-932 degrees Fahrenheit by half degrees (it can do Celsius, too), and you can shoot it across the room for temperatures (though the detection spot is then bigger b/c of the distance that it travels). And it’s so clean. No wiping it off every time I want a reading; I just have to keep my hands clean.

I’ve always wondered why ovens are set to exact temperatures while stovetop controls are given arbitrary numbers or descriptions — especially since I’ve always had to make do with dodgy electric ones. With the thermometer, I’ll be able to see just what temperatures I’m cooking on — and how much the cold spots differ (caused from uneven coils, in my case). In the booklet, it gives a cooking surface temperature guide:

• Low: 150 degrees Fahrenheit
• Simmer: 200
• Med-Low (or Fry): 250
• Saute: 275
• Med: 300
• Med-High (or Griddle): 350
• Grill: 375
• High (Wok): 400
• Sear: 450

Finally! Some sort of working guide…

Going to Market was part of a plan to explore two sides of Chef Douglas Keane in one day; he’s something of a rising star chef who has two wine country restaurants. We went to the casual Market in St. Helena for lunch and to the upscale Cyrus in Healdsburg for dinner. Keane opened Market in 2003, before opening Cyrus in 2005. From what I’ve read, Keane is still an owner of Market, but he cooks at Cyrus.

Coincidentally, we had a wonderful meal at Cyrus, and a disappointing meal at Market. Oh, the menu looks great at Market — full of American food with slight California twists at very reasonable prices (including a $15 3-course prix fixed lunch)– and it took us forever to decide what to get. But once the food arrived, I couldn’t remember what the big deal had been — the dishes tasted and looked a bit tired. The flavors generally didn’t come together well, and the textures were unappealing.

Chilled Cucumber and Avocado Soup with Lemon Sorbet and Mint. I really liked the way that the lemon sorbet brightened up the soup, but it melted very soon and the flavor was lost into the large amount of soup. The soup itself was okay — it tasted like its components — but it wasn’t anything special.

Chopped Market Salad with Blue Cheese and Hobb’s Bacon. Chad thought that this was okay, but it was too sloppy and viscous for me. You could taste each individual component, which is good especially in the case of the bacon, but it just didn’t feel like there was any attempt at balancing them.

Market Burger, 1/2 Pound Fresh Ground Beef, Fiscallini Cheddar, Grilled Sweet Onion, Housemade Pickles, Fries. Ugh. I love a good burger, and hate to see its good name besmirched. The bun was too big for the patty and was very dry, the cheese was shredded and not fully melted, and the meat was rare when I’d wanted medium rare and the meat wasn’t tasty enough to hold it up. At least the fries had a nice potato flavor so that they didn’t even need ketchup, and the pickles were good.

I did learn something cool, though. The roll had little white-ish bubbles on it, which usually indicates sourdough, but it didn’t taste like it. I asked the waiter, who confirmed that it wasn’t sourdough. He said that at the bakery up the street where it’s made, they briefly use some kind of flamethrower device on it while it bakes, and that causes the bubbles.

Fish n’ Chips, Champagne Battered Ling Cod and Fries, Two Sauces. These were eerily very moist… the fish itself and the batter was almost gooey inside the crisp exterior.

Butterscotch Pudding with Whipped Cream. This seemed more like a slightly thickened creme anglaise than a pudding. It was too slimy for me, and the butterscotch didn’t have a strong enough presence. On the other hand, Chad doesn’t usually like puddings because their thickness, but he liked this.

They have a wonderful drink menu — as does Cyrus. And fortunately, they lived up to their descriptions. On the left, the Market Cooler with Key Lime Charbay Vodka, Cock n’ Bull Ginger Beer, Fresh Lemon Juice & Mint. This was so refreshing, like a kicked up Mojito. On the right, the Cane You Dig it? with Charbay’s New Cane Juice Rums-Tahitian Vanilla and Clear, Grand Marnier, Lime Juice. I think I’ve deciphered that correctly to mean that there are two rums. Anyway, this was a lot bolder, hitting you with the lime and liqueur-y orange before the vanilla unexpectedly diffused the bitterness.

And you’ll notice the cool stone walls of the restaurant in the background. It’s a beautiful restaurant, with good drinks and also a wonderful wait staff; I just wish that the food matched.

Quite a few reviews that I’ve read compare Cyrus favorably with The French Laundry, so given my imminent visit to the French Laundry, I thought I’d go check out this Cyrus upstart.

We had a bumpy start. Just a couple hours before, we’d wandered around Foppiano Vineyards, which leaves shoes looking like this…

I wiped them off as much as I could, and felt that it would be okay walking into “business casual” dress Cyrus for dinner with jeans and mostly clean shoes… Except that the moment we walked into the elegant restaurant, I saw that everyone else was in much fancier and cleaner dress.

As I tried to blend into the dusty peach paint on the walls, we were led down a hallway to the dining room, where the hostess stopped at a table with a phone. She picked up the receiver, and informed The Chef that we had arrived. So, yeah, apparently, it’s a direct line to the chef (EDIT: that is used to introduce every party as they arrive). I was so tempted to try out this line to The Chef (who was referred to often during the meal as such; his given name is Douglas Keane) myself during the evening, but I figured my shoes had already used up my Get Out of Jail Free card for the night.

Anyway, we were seated, and a Caviar & Champagne Cart was immediately docked at our table and accompanying menus placed in our hands. Would we like to start out with a bit of champagne and caviar? Hmm…. champagne was sold by the bottle, 4 oz glass, and 2 oz glass (even that was about $25, I think), and I don’t even remember how the caviar was served. So… Uh, no.

At this point, we were a little bewildered and uncomfortable. I thought that the phone call to the chef was a little over the top. I suppose that it would okay if he were to personally come out and greet us, but he didn’t do that for anybody (and normally, of course, wouldn’t be expected to) — instead, everyone got Amuse Bouches (which are great in any case). But then, to be set upon by the outrageous cart, I felt like it was a bad way to start off the night to have to refuse something.

But then… things calmed down and ascended… We enjoyed a wonderful meal — one that Chad said was among the best of his life. Basically, they have a very flexible prix fixed menu, from which you choose courses out of such categories as soups, foie gras, poultry, pasta and risotto, dessert, etc. You can have any number of courses between a three course meal for $58 to the seven course Chef’s Tasting Menu for $95. Edit: We were told that they adjust the portion size depending on how many courses you get.  Faced with so many alluring options on the menu, we deferred our choices to The Chef for the 7 course menu.

The food was fantastic. I’ve spoken of the Craveworthy Test before in which I try to think whether to highly recommend a restaurant based on whether I’d crave dishes, but there’s also the Perk Up Test, which Cyrus also passed with flying colors. For all of the dishes I had, the tastes and textures made me perk up and enjoy how wonderful food can be. So, I highly recommend it. And as far as comparisons to the French Laundry go, I can’t speak to that completely, but I know that it’s about half the price of the French Laundry and much easier to get a reservation. So, if you can’t get a reservation at the French Laundry or just don’t want to pay the price, consider Cyrus instead. The French Laundry has a 9 course tasting menu, but Cyrus gives so many extra dishes that I don’t you’ll feel deprived of those roughly two courses (though I’m sure TFL gives extra courses, too).

And just looking back at that last paragraph, you can tell that I’ve given a lot of thought to the French Laundry recently, and after having read a bit of the cookbook, I couldn’t help comparing them during the beginning of the meal… but that wasn’t fair to Cyrus, so I weaned myself off with references to the “Spanish Firehouse” before I just concentrated on the experience as it was.

Also, our servers were also fantastic — very accommodating, efficient, and friendly… and there were no more disconcerting maneuvers after the bumpy start. There was just good food, which I think mostly speaks for itself… (I was told that I’d be given a transcript of our menu at the end, but it was vaguer than I would have liked for some courses, so excuse the vagueness with some descriptions since I didn’t try to memorize anything at the time)

Amuse bouche with Asparagus Tartar and Rabbit.

Lobster Amuse Bouche.

Green Garlic and Buttermilk Soup. This — the third amuse bouche — was one of the best courses of the meal. I couldn’t believe how well the flavors came together. Genius.

Bigeye Tuna and Uni with Daikon and Carrot.

Thai Marinated Lobster, Avocado, Mango, and Fresh Hearts of Palm.

We had a course of Seared Foie Gras with Crispy Endive and Gingered Rhubarb, Vermouth Reduction at this point, but I must have forgotten to take a pic in my zeal to eat it.

This was my second drink of the night. The Waverly Place Echo had Hangar One Mandarin Orange Blossom Vodka, Chinese Five Spice Honey, Lemon Juice, Pixie Mandarins, Orange Flower Water and Seltzer.

Before that, I’d had the Thai Boxer with Charbay Tahitian Vanilla Bean Rum, Thai Basil, Spearmint, Cilantro, Lime Juice, Thai Coconut Milk, and Ginger Beer. It went very well with the Thai Marinated Lobster course, and made me wish that restaurants did cocktail pairings as well as wine pairings for courses.

Rice Flake Crusted Soft Shell Crab with Fingerling Potatoes, Thai Red Curry Sauce.

Poached Local Egg with Fresh Grits, Asparagus and English Peas, Bourbon Verjus Sauce.

Strawberry Verjus Ice Lollipop.

Veal Loin with Sweetbreads, Leeks and Black Trumpet Mushrooms, Madeira Sauce.

Artisanal and Farmhouse Cheeses with Bread, Panforte, Grapes, and N. Cal Dates. Our server brought the awe-inspiring cheese cart to our table, and talked about each cheese as she selected them — after having first asked what types of cheese we like. We said every type, so we had a wonderful array of cheeses. She said that since I’m a student at CIA, she tried to pick interesting West Coast cheeses as well as some from further afield. As she placed the this amazing plate on the table, she said, “I may have overdone it.” Granted, we didn’t finish it all, but I’ll regret that for the rest of my life. Unfortunately, I can’t remember any of the cheese except for the leaf wrapped cheese from Sally Jackson and an amazing goat cheese from Petaluma that was made by Dante Creamery (or something similar…? Aldante? I can’t find any info about it online)

Mojito Soda intermezzo, which didn’t have alcohol, but instead a mojito syrup that the server spritzed with seltzer tableside. I love the metal straw.

Caramel Soup with Kettle Corn Sorbet and Chocolate Filigree and Crepes “Suzette” with Strawberries, Caramel, and Whipped Creme Fraiche. The Caramel Soup is a brilliant idea that I loved at the first bite, but got a bit weary of as I ate more. It basically makes the caramel sauce the main player of the dish, garnished with popcorn, chocolate, and sorbet. It was good and fun, but I think a bit too all out sugary. It needs more depth.

The crepes were a little odd. I didn’t really like having to navigate my spoon to multiple places across the plate to build a perfect bite. The strawberry component was good, but after the sorbet and caramel of the Caramel Soup, I wish that the crepes had different components than the whipped creme fraiche and caramel sauce; there could have been more contrast. Also, the crepes themselves were rolled into rather dry little spirals; I liked the moistening elements between crepe layers at Terra a bit more.

Mignardise. I know that’s Gewurztraminer Jelly on the bottom, but the other two, I can’t remember the details. They were all very good, except the jelly was a bit too cloying for me.

With our bill, we also got a cute little gold bag with some treats for later, but they were a little odd: Ginger Tootsie Pop, A Mini-Palmier with Hazelnuts, and an Apple Hard Candy. The ginger was way too strong and the palmier was boring and looked sloppy, but the hard candy was great.

It’s a little awkward for everyone when guests go into a cozy, friendly winery tasting room and don’t like any of the wines from a free tasting. Of course, there is nothing wrong with that, but at Foppiano Vineyards, I had a nice experience where we went through about 6 wines that I was unimpressed by until I had one that was one of the best I’ve had in recent memory. So, don’t give up, don’t feel bad about pouring out a sample if you don’t want to finish it, and don’t make excuses… Just keep an open mind for every glass because you never know what will turn up.

Foppiano specializes in Petite Sirah wines, but we also went through recent merlot, cabernet sauvignon, pinot noir and such during our tasting (they have whites, too). But then they brought out reserves for tasting. The 1986 Petite Sirah was amazing. Just a touch spicy, it had a rich, deep berry taste until it finishes with what I can only describe as a swirl of flavor in your mouth. It just seemed to develop and harmonize continuously for seconds after it left my mouth. And it made me realize just what seemed wrong for me with some of the wines we had tasted: they were too young and acidic. Even the 1987 Petite Syrah wasn’t quite ready yet. So, it turned out that the 1986 is peaking now — when I asked if it should age more, we were told “no” — and to have it with dinner that night.

By the way, we happened to randomly stop off here on our way from St. Helena to Healdsburg. It’s in the Russian River Valley area of Sonoma County, and it’s been a family run winery since 1896. You can take a self-guided tour of the beautiful grounds and vineyard, and I liked this picture in the tasting room (where they also have oil and sauce samples). And the grapes aren’t out yet, of course, but they’re in the works.

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You can now purchase my handmade candy bars and marshmallows at http://www.bonbonbar.com/
Mignardise are fun little bites, usually at the very end of the meal. It was interesting to make these because it was the first time that I realized how much recipes guide you to a certain result. I think that when I started in January, the class that worked on the other side of the kitchen was at about this block. At the dessert buffet, these desserts seemed rather advanced because they are so small and delicate and exact. But after doing them, it wasn’t all that hard. Sure, there are pitfalls and mistakes, but if you follow each step, it’s almost impossible to come up with something that looks completely wrong. Of course, as always, though, the skill is in the details. So, we produced them as they were produced before us.

On another note, I used to like apricot, almond, and fondant — together or separately — but we’ve done so many desserts with that combination that my tastes buds hardly respond to them anymore. The combination of fondant and pastry cream, as well as almond and chocolate, are also on that list. It just makes my eternal quest for new flavors and textures all the more important.

We started off with macaroons. From left, Hazelnut Macaroons, French Macarons, and Coconut Macaroon. French Macarons are one of my favorite cookies (perhaps b/c I was lucky enough to stumble upon arguably the best in world at La Duree in Paris years ago as my first ones), but ours were over-folded so they didn’t get the feet or puffed shiny top. It’s a tricky cookie — here’s an excellent blog entry on perfecting the technique for it… and with a mouthwatering finished product. A cool part of our recipe was to pour a small amount of water btw the parchment and the sheet pan when they were fully baked. This created steam and released the macaroons from the parchment (macaroons are notorious for sticking to parchment).

I don’t much like hazelnuts, but I’d like to sub cashews for the hazelnut macaroon recipe… and to try out making fruit flavored ones with jam in the middle.

Clockwise, Sebastopol Cookie, Harlequin Cookie, Linzer Cookie.

The Sebastopol Cookie had a short dough crust, brandied cherries raspberry jam filling, and an egg white/sugar/almond topping, and tastes very good, especially for such simple ingredients. The recipe said to roll the dough to 1/4 in thick, but it’s probably better thinner, like an 1/8 in — or else there’s just too much crust.

The Harlequin Cookies are made from a short dough that’s rolled 1/8 in thick, and then chilled before using round cutters to cut them to 1.5 in. They’re then baked, and half are glazed with apricoture completely, and then red food coloring is added to the apricoture, and is piped on to half the cookie. They are then sandwiched to a bottom with apricot jam. Then we hold the cookie upside down by the bottom cookie and gently dip them in thin fondant. The cookies are extremely fragile, so a few got broken along the way. They make for quite a sprightly cookie, though. I would just try to find a natural replacement for food coloring… and a flavor different from apricot.

The Linzer cookies are cut out from hazelnut dough, and half of them are cut out in the middle. Then they’re baked (on separate sheet pans, b/c they take diff’t time to bake), and a small ring of raspberry jam is piped around the edge of a whole bottom cookie to help the top adhere. Then the middle is completely filled with jam. Our cookies were a bit dark and bitter since they were overbaked — they’re supposed to be quite light and taste light, but the powdered sugar hides the color pretty well (which is probably unfortunate for unsuspecting cookie eaters)

From top, Lace Tuiles, Almond Tuiles, and Florentines. The tuiles are kind of a rough because you have to pretty much work from the oven to pick up the tuile and immediately roll it over a rolling pin or into a mold with halfpipes. And the almost tuiles, maybe because they’re un-uniform, seemed to finish a few at a time on the sheet pan. We also dipped the sides in a little chocolate. They had a satisfying crunch and a pleasant enough taste.
The Florentines are also made with a thin nut batter (plus some rolled oats) that is spread to 3.25 inches. We made a parchment with the circles already drawn as a template, and then put that under the parchment with the batter. We could then slide the template out and use it again. After they’re baked, they have to cool just little before they are trimmed with the same round cutter and allowed to cool. They were then laid on a sheet pan of melted chocolate, and then cut out again. Then, they were given a dollop of chocolate on the bottom and scraped through with a cake comb.

We also tempered chocolate for the first time for this. Books have been written about this, so I won’t go into much detail — here’s a link that does. The larger amount of chocolate that you temper, the easier that it is, because small amounts lose their temperature much faster. We also used a laser thermometer to take the temp while mixing (so that the whole bowl represented), and it’s just about the coolest culinary toy I’ve come across recently. And if one group had it, they could shoot it to another team’s bowl across the table and give a reading.

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Next up were Banana Milk Chocolate Truffles (top) and Coconut Cointreau Truffles (bottom). The Banana Truffles were very good, and I liked that they have sauteed bananas blended into the ganache. We used pre-molded spheres with a hole in each (like empty eye balls) in which to pipe our ganache. Then we gave a pre-coat and a final coat by rolling them in some chocolate in our glove-covered hands, and then rolled them down a rack to get a spiky look. The Coconut Truffles were done similarly, except they were rolled in a pan of lightly toasted coconut to finish. They had to stay in the coconut for a little while after they were rolled so that they could set round without being disfigured when moved. We have a whole section about chocolate this summer, so we’ll do more with chocolate eventually.
We also did Rochers, which I’ll talk about with the practical next week.

And finally, we did Petits Fours. The trickiest thing was pouring the fondant over the little layered cakes because the fondant likes to run away from the corners. It helps to pour a lot on one corner and then move to each in turn. It’s also hard to cover a side of it was cut inward at a slight angle, because the fondant has to go inward from the top. We’re still doing piping homework (but with piping chocolate instead of shortening), so we practiced some patterns the night before. The one above was one of the easiest, but we were pressed for time and I just wanted to get them out. The minimalist in me was satisfied, too.

We arranged them all on a mirror for presentation, and used a ruler as a guide for each line, moving it as we arranged each new line… because once you put something down on a mirror, you can’t move it or else it’ll leave a mark. The chef also told us that it’s weird to pipe on a mirror (as for a border), because you’re distracted by looking at yourself the whole time.