A Calming Effect

The most complicated and seemingly stressful undertakings can sometimes calm me down. It is the strangest thing. Most people, when embroiled in writing a dissertation, 18,000 blogs and doing lord knows what else, don’t think that making a massively involved dinner on a Friday after a full day of work is a particularly bright idea. Luckily, I never said I was bright.

There I was, having lived through a full day of procrastination, writer’s block, and lack of productivity, running manically from grocery store to liquor store to prepare a Spanish-themed dinner for the awesomeness that is my friend Kanchan. Kanchan was kind enough to give me a wonderful Spanish cookbook for my birthday, a Spanish equivalent of the Italian Silver Spoon. The ginormous and gorgeous book is filled with recipes that have quickly become house specials for me. Dates stuffed with almonds and wrapped in bacon? Umm, yea.

Really though, the dinner was all about paella, the most Spanish of all Spanish dishes. Here’s the thing with paella. It’s a bit of a pain in the ass. It involves all kinds of stocks and infusions and just, issues. I totally punked out of making the cookbook version of the paella, which boasted no less than two pages of directions (in small font), and opted instead for a recipe I pulled off Epicurious.


Still, it was a production, but one that I found calming me half way through the procedure. I started breathing a little slower and panicking a little less (still cursing just as much though. The cursing doesn’t seem subject to change). Even though my pan wasn’t the right size, even though I read snow peas when the recipe quite clearly stated sugar snap peas, even though I bought some Chernobyl-sized clams that refused to open even after extended cooking, instead of the little dainty clams I was meant to buy... Despite all that I felt more collected than I had the entire day.


Out of the oven the paella came, fragrant with saffron, shellfish and smoky spice from the chorizo and smoked paprika. It was great. We put as big a dent as two people could into a giant pan full of rice and seafood. We finished with some traditional crème caramel (the caramel portion of which may stay with my stove top forever. Caramel is a persistent bugger), poured the last of the second bottle of white wine for the evening and sat back. Because it hurt. Miraculously, I was calm and collected, having just run about like a chicken with my head cut off two hours prior. I don’t know if it was the bottom of the second bottle of wine, the cooking or the company, but I felt so much better. Stress can't compete with such a roster of pleasures.

A Party, by the Book (Almost)

New Year’s was a party. A paaaarty. I will not go into too much detail. Suffice it to say that my guests consumed almost all of the hard liquor in my house, and that's saying something. Yeeaaah. I think all I have left is some Triple Sec. I am glad that things didn’t reach the Triple Sec level of desperation. As it was, the end of the evening was not pretty. No offense to pediatricians, but their dispassionate treatment of various body fluids is borderline inhuman. I am not now, nor will I ever be a pediatrician. (My unbudging distaste for children helps nothing in this regard). Make of that what you will.

Besides the astronomical alcohol consumption, the New Year's party was set apart by the fact that I prepared pretty much every item from a recipe, most from cookbooks. This is rare for me. I have a house full of cookbooks but can rarely be bothered to use them. Something about forethought and planning that gets in my way. I made a concerted effort to make things out of books this time around and I was not disappointed.

The menu for that fateful (and booze-full) evening:

Crudites with hummus (perfunctory raw veg. Completely perfunctory)
Almond-stuffed dates wrapped in bacon (these were crack cocaine, I kid you not; from 1080 recipes)
Melon wrapped in prosciutto
Walnut halves with gorgonzola dolce and red grapes (Deen Brothers cookbook)


Baked brie with dried cherries and almonds (recipe posted here)
Samosas with cilantro chutney (specialty Chez Archna)
Mushroom caps stuffed with bread crumbs and prosciutto (1080 recipes)
Mixed mushroom and goat cheese tartlettes (recipe from my Mom. Need to ask where she found it).


Lemon tart (I have made it before and it was as gorgeous on New Year's as it was the first time, from Silver Spoon)
Fudge brownies dipped in chocolate and topped with chili powder, red salt, or walnuts (for the wimps) (brownie recipe adapted from Gale Gand’s Chocolate and Vanilla. The freaky toppings were my special flourish).


Archna’s homemade samosas stole the show. Starting from scratch, she made the dough, the filling, folded the samosas (with help), fried them, and made a cilantro chuntey that could make a toilet seat cover taste like haute cuisine. I may have to beg her to tell me the recipe beyond: "Garam masala, to taste." Whose taste? Taste what? Measure, woman! Measure!





The alcohol gluttony was out of hand, the food consumption was a close second. For me, anyway. You know, they say (and by they I mean my grandmother) the way you spend New Year’s eve is the way you will spend the rest of the year. By that measure, I will spend the next months eating great food, drinking with my friends, and dancing on chairs to Salt ‘n Pepa’s Shoop. Old school, baby.

The Politics of Pans

I shall title this piece “A Jackson Pollock Moment.” Look for it at your friendly neighborhood Sotheby’s.

My Jackson Pollock impersonation is a top view of the buttery, buttery (did I already say buttery?) vanilla-blueberry crumb cake from Gale Gand’s new cookbook. Now that I have come to the firm realization that science makes me gag, I have been spending a lot more time doing what I want to do, and much less time doing what I am supposed to do (the point at which this will bite me in the ass is rapidly approaching, I am sure). So I have been cooking, and baking, and reading, and watching TV, which I haven't done in years... and I have to say, relaxation is worth the hype.

Anyway, the cake I made: it was pretty to look at, pretty to eat, and pretty to photograph. The cake was smooth and luscious and lovely (but not after two pieces. Two pieces just make you feel sick, take it from me). A bit of brown sugar in the dough gave the sweetness dimension it would otherwise lack. The butter gave it... well... everything else. I may need to find a way to squeeze a little more vanilla into the recipe. Vanilla sugar instead of plain granulated, perhaps?

The part of the recipe that I thought absolutely inspired (and the reason why I will make this cake again and again) is removing a cup of dough for the crumb topping before adding the full amount of flour. Brilliant! The topping, light on the flour and heavy on the butter, turned out crunchy and light, not doughy. The crisp, crumbly top was a much needed textural contrast to the fresh blueberries that melted into jam and the silky smoothness of the 48 pounds of butter in the dough. Overall, a great recipe.

Crispy, crunchy top made the cake.

But. There is a but. I have a bone to pick with Ms. Gand. The pans she calls for throughout the book are not standard size! This particular recipe calls for a 9-inch square cake pan. I don’t have a 9-inch square cake pan. Eight inch square pan is the standard pan size for people who don’t have professional kitchens at their disposal (no matter how hard they try). Eight, Gale! Not nine! I baked the cake in the too-small pan a little longer and it turned out just fine - a little underdone in the center, just how I like it. So, ha. I boycott the 9-inch cake pan. You can’t make me get one, Gale Gand, y’hear? Y’can’t. It’s a matter of principle.

See that Gale? That right there is an 8-inch pan. Eight. That's what it looks like. Take note.

Whew. That may be the sugar rush talking. Ok, yelling. Judging by the accent, I turn into a drunk West Virginia farmer when I am angry. Curious. Learn somethin’ new every day.




P.S. I wish to add the disclaimer that just because I have never owned a 9-inch square pan doesn't mean that many many other people don't either. However, I don't think 9-inch is nearly as common as eight.


P.P.S. If I have offended any drunk West Virginia farmers in this post, I guess I sort of apologize... Kind of.

Had to Share

I don't have time to write a full post (NNB reviews due in 36 hours and I still have one more restaurant to visit. Eeek) but I couldn't wait to show off a photo of a vanilla-blueberry crumb cake from Gale Gand's Chocolate and Vanilla cookbook. I am finally starting to conquer my giant and ridiculously complicated camera. I don't know which of the two I am happier with - the cake or the picture.

Wicked Good

People who live in Boston are intimately familiar with the MassHole accent. It is highly specific to Mass, perhaps just to the areas immediately surrounding Boston. MassHole is characterized by a complete absence of R’s and the promiscuous use of the word “wicked” - and not for its intended meaning. In MassHole, wicked means super, or extra. As in, “Oh, that guy is wicked smaaht.” This accent is most often found in combination with track pants, T shirt, and a baseball hat.

Nowhere is MassHole more prevalent than in Medford (pronounced Medfud, of course), a neighborhood North of Boston that happens to be Melissa’s new home. Have y’all seen Mystic River? It’s kind of like that (correct me if I am wrong, Melissa). Medford is a heavily Italian Catholic town where every carefully manicured front lawn features a Mary statuette in a strange little enclosure resembling a vertical scalloped bathtub. Dubbed by Melissa, Bathtub Mary. I don’t know what’s more irreverent – to make fun of Bathtub Mary or to actually have one in the yard, like a somber Christmas reindeer.

Caffé Baccini is the best venue in which to observe Medford dwellers in their natural habitat. It’s a real neighborhood place where everyone knows each other and all are welcome. The café has a full bar, hot pressed sandwiches and pastas, gelato and pastries. The music is the best of the 80s, from Bryan Adams to Walk Like an Egyptian. It’s brilliant. Melissa and I walked over for an after dinner coffee and dessert, and ordered the almond cake. Almond it was, and potently so. Layers of white fluffy cake were soaked through with amaretto and almond extract, covered in a thick pastry cream, all topped with crushed toasted almonds. It was wicked good.



Caffe Baccini
394B Main Street
Medford, MA 02155
(781) 393-9333

Things That Make You Go Hmmm...

I am a good eater. I really am. I don’t need to be hungry to eat and enjoy my food and I will eat (or at least try) just about anything and everything. “Eww, that’s gross” is not in my vocabulary.

I was trained to eat when I don’t necessarily need or want to. There was no such thing as leaving food uneaten when I was little. All food on all plates had to be consumed, none thrown out, none wasted. Neither my cousin nor I were allowed to leave the table till our plates were clean. One day, desperate to get away from the table, my cousin stuffed everything left on her plate into her mouth… and kept it there. For hours. But her plate was clean! Do you see the brilliance of that approach? She was a clever 6 year-old. Now she is a very very clever 21 year old, but that’s a different story (she shares my love of piercing. It must be genetic. She rocks).

This eating boot camp made me able to eat whatever, whenever. It’s never too early or too late for me to eat. Like I said, I am a good eater. Quantity and timing of food consumption aside, I hold no preconceived notions of what should or should not be eaten. Thinking about what I am eating has never got into the way of my eating it… insides and outsides of various creatures alike. I can play the “what’s the weirdest thing you have ever eaten” game for hours.

This weekend I made a dessert that is fit only for adventurous, non-prejudiced eaters such as myself: chocolate ganache with fruity olive oil and flaky salt, inspired by a recipe off my new favorite website, Chowhound. Chocolate, olive oil and salt. Weird, right? Maybe not entirely. The combination of sweet and savory is the trendiest thing. Salted caramel and salted chocolate are appearing on menus all over town and in every shop. Food blogs are screaming about sweet and savory combinations and the Boston Globe even ran a huge story on the subject a few months ago. The trendy person that I am, I had to jump on the salty bandwagon and try it for myself.

The chocolate/olive oil dessert is the simplest combination of four ingredients imaginable, which is why all four have to be of the highest quality. I used Valrhona Manjari chocolate to make the ganache, topped it with red Hawaiian sea salt and poured my favorite olive oil around the chocolate island.

So what did it taste like? Puzzling and a little shocking. It was so out of the norm, so far outside what I am used to eating that I really didn’t know how to process it. It made me pause and think, staring at my dessert, trying to put the taste experience words. Hmmm...

Let me begin with the texture. The crunch of the salt crystals served to break up the richness and creaminess of the ganache and oil. The thin and runny olive oil coated each bite of the smooth, soft chocolate, simulating a chocolate truffle with a warm liquid shell and cool solid center.

And the taste… surprisingly harmonious, with each component heightening the flavors of the others. The salt took the sticky sweet edge off the chocolate, allowing the chocolate flavor to deepen and stand out with all its subtleties. The oil stood its own ground with a completely separate flavor from the chocolate – in harmony, not in combination. In other words, each component of the dessert remained distinct yet enhanced the flavor of the others. Neat and thought provoking. Should you consider yourself a good eater, try it. Tell me what you think.



Chocolate ganache with flaky salt and olive oil (for good eaters only)

3 ounces chopped Valrhona Manjari chocolate, or any top quality chocolate, ~70% cocoa content
1/3 cup heavy cream
olive oil
Red Hawaiian sea salt, or any flaky salt of your choosing

1) Heat cream till almost at a boil
2) Pour hot cream over chopped chocolate, let stand for 2-3 minutes
3) Mix chocolate and cream till all the chocolate is melted. Rap the bowl on the countertop to rid the ganache of any air bubbles that may have become trapped during the mixing.
4) Place plastic wrap on the surface of the chocolate and refrigerate for about 2 hours or until set
5) Scoop out a modest hill of ganache, top with salt and surround with olive oil.
6) Set aside five quiet minutes.
7) Taste slowly and thoroughly.
8) Sit and think.


* It just occurred to me that Hawaiian salt really isn't flaky. It's more granular or crystal-like. Somehow, chocolate ganache with granular salt doesn't sound nearly as appealing. For the sake of aesthetics, I will stand by the misnomer.

Variations On A Theme

The good (and very very clever) people at M80 and Nestle sent me a new chocolate to try (Nestle Chocolatier Baking chocolate) as part of what I understand to be a grassroots advertising campaign - they make bloggers do all the work for them. See? Clever. Again, as I understand it (or imagine it), Nestle is trying to compete with Ghirardelli in the upscale chocolate chip market – you know, an option besides the Hershey’s or Tollhouse “chocolate flavored” chips. Ick.

Try out the chocolate I did. I have been a baking machine for the last week. A machine, I tell you. One pain in the ass cake and two batches of brownies later, I am approaching baking burnout (hee) but still have a ton of chocolate left over and some very happy lab-mates, who have been the direct beneficiaries of my baking binge.

So, the pain the in ass cake. I am desperately unoriginal in my desperate love of Julia Child. However, taking in the sight of my kitchen, with every bowl and appliance dirtied from making one of her recipes, I almost (almost) fell out of love. With a splat. The fifteen thousand steps that went into making the Reine de Saba (Queen of Sheeba) cake required the use of pretty much everything in my kitchen. I may be exaggerating (a little), but it was a pain, and close to one of the most complicated things I have ever baked.

The cake consists of almonds ground with sugar, mixed with chocolate, and lightened with beaten egg whites. Sounds simple enough, right? Sure. The instruction that broke the camel’s back was Mrs. Child asking me to sift cake flour. Sift. Cake. Flour. Look, lady – the whole point of cake flour is that is has been twice sifted before packaging. Some nice person in a big plant did it all for me. Why do I have to do it again?? Is this a French thing? A torture-the-grad-student thing (oooh that’s redundant)? What?

But I relented (as in, sifted). The cake was finished, the ganache icing went on, the kitchen was resuscitated, and all was well. The cake itself was light, with some texture provided by the ground almonds. I should have used a little more chocolate in the cake than I did… the consequence of that being that I couldn’t form an opinion on the chocolate that I used (other than tasting the naked chocolate itself).

This is why I made the brownies - to test the chocolate… not at all to make a ton of brownies. Yeah. I first heard about these brownies on an NPR food podcast (I know I am a dork) and they sounded great. Thick and fudgy, stuffed with nuts and chocolate, complete with a fantastical story of their origin – apparently, the recipe was Katharine Hepburn’s own. Whether that is true or not I cannot say, but the brownies sure are good.

I made two batches – one with almonds/almond extract, another with almonds/almond extract and dried sweetened cherries. Mmmmm. Heavy, smooth, just barely set, with a depth of flavor beyond the ordinary brownie (I really wanted to type "pedestrian brownie" but stopped myself. For a second). They were the intersection of brownies and fudge. The striking thing about the brownies was the strong chocolate taste – not the sugary, candy-like chocolate taste, but the slightly bitter, fruity chocolate that grown-ups like, probably from including both cocoa powder and chocolate. The Nestle chocolate chips were very soft and fudgy. Even after the brownies had cooled, the chips were smooth and crunch-less, almost melting into the batter, yet still maintaining their own chocolate chip identity. I am not sure if the depth of chocolate flavor was there in the chips themselves, but they served their purpose marvelously.


Chocolate Fudge… Brownies
Adapted from Dorie Greenspan’s recipe for NPR Food.

1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 stick unsalted butter, cut into 8 pieces (or not cut, if you are as unobservant as I am)
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
2 large eggs
1 cup sugar
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
½ teaspoon almond extract
1 cup toasted almonds, very coarsely chopped (or ¾ cup almonds and ¼ cup chopped, dried cherries)
4 ounces bittersweet chocolate, coarsely chopped

- Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F.
- Butter and flour an 8-inch square baking pan.
- Whisk the flour and salt together.
- Put the butter in a medium heavy-bottomed saucepan and place the pan over low heat.
- When the butter starts to melt, sift the cocoa over it while mixing. Continue to cook, stirring, until the butter is melted and the cocoa is blended into it. Remove from the heat and cool for about 3 minutes.
- Using a whisk or a rubber spatula, beat the eggs into the saucepan one at a time. Next, stir in the sugar, vanilla, and almond extracts (don't beat anything too vigorously — you don't want to add air to the batter), followed by the dry ingredients, nuts and chopped chocolate. Scrape the batter into the pan.
- Bake for 30 minutes, at which point the brownies will still be gooey but the top will have a dry papery crust. Transfer the pan to a rack and let the brownies cool for at least 30 minutes.





I am out of butter. Again.
Scary.