Cake and Commerce

Australian Bundja Coffee - Why haven't I heard of this before?

This morning, the sleep barely washed from my face and my clothes inside out, I pointed my car in the direction of Karma Coffee Roasters to pick up some freshly roasted beans. The Trader Joe's coffee (Moka Java) that I was waking up to wasn't cutting it - it was coffee in utility only.

The dogs waited in the car (early morning here is still cool) while I ran in for a pound of the good stuff.

And this is when my mind was blown. David, the proprietor of Karma, offered me a sample cup of Australian Bundja. What? I had been to Australia, and I didn't see Australian-grown coffee anywhere. Vaguely, somewhere in the back of my mind I could recall something about some lower-quality coffee from -maybe?- Australia, but I couldn't pinpoint the memory.

I did a little internet research on Australian coffee. Grown in Northern and Northeastern Australia's subtropical zone no higher than 900 meters (but usually between 200 and 300 meters), it has an interesting story. Usually lowland coffee is largely Robusta beans. In Australia, the crop is largely Arabica, the higher-quality beans that comprise "gourmet" coffee. One Australian coffee company, Mountain Top Coffee Company in New South Wales claims that the conditions in which their coffee is grown is similar to 1200 meters in equitorial regions. And it is the Mountain Top Coffee Company (MTC) that created the Bundja Brand and process as a way of distinguishing itself from other growers and its coffee from other Australian coffees.

As I learned from the Coffee and Conservation website, linked above, most large-scale Australian coffee is grown in full sun in neat rows for easier harvest - it isn't shade grown, does require some irrigation during hot seasons, is, for the most part, mechanically harvested, and usually isn't 100% organic. Bundja coffee,though not necessarily organic, is harvested in a way that makes it unique from other coffees.The cherries are allowed to dry first as 'raisins', then rehydrated before pulping, creating a more musky flavored coffee. Bundja is always from a single MTC-owned estate or privately-owned estate by agreement with MTC. According to Kenneth Davids' Coffee Review:

"The resulting coffee is quite sweet and low in acidity, tending to display fruity, mustily pungent notes, probably developed while in contact with the drying fruit on the trees."

The folks at coffeesnobs.com.au have an interesting dialogue around the Bundja coffee 2007 harvest. Opinion is mostly positive.

In Australia, the coffee is roasted for espresso makers, as 80% of the coffee sold in Australia is espresso (and most of the remaining coffee is instant). MTC claims their roasted coffee also works for drip coffee, but I find the resulting Americano lacking in subtlety and grace. In the US, coffee roasters are roasting Bundja for drip coffee makers, so there's no worry that Bunja roasted here will be slightly too dark for drip.

I acquired my Bundja at Karma. There are other US roasters selling it right now. Just search the interwebs.

Roadside Food Stands along the Hana Highway in Maui

Every guidebook, website, and person I've spoken to about Maui has mentioned the Road to Hana as one of the most beautiful drives they've taken in the Hawaiian Islands. A few places mention - usually briefly and without detail - the many roadside stands dotting the 20 miles or so between the start of the windy, slow-moving road and the town of Hana. One guide I read stated that it would behoove me, the tourist, to stop at as many stands as possible without specifically mentioning where or what they sold.

The drive itself was pretty, but after the first few 160 degree turns I grew bored with the driving. Since I was the only one in the car, I couldn't exactly turn over responsibilities to someone else. My desire to get to Hana outweighed my desire to stop driving. And there was that promise of tasty treats along the road that had me in its thrall. I took to taking pictures with my right hand as I drove with my left to keep myself entertained. I passed the same four models of car over and over - tourist rentals seemed to be largely Jeeps, Mustangs, Uplanders and Ford Focuses (or is it Foci?).

After passing numerous fresh coconut stands (they'll machete them for you) and fresh banana bread places, I finally stopped for a BBQ joint that promised real, mesquite-smoked Kalua Pig - slow roasted Hawaiian pork - in taco form. And sweet island corn. I'm a sucker for corn.

I'm not a pork eater, but the barbecue looked great:

I wandered over to the sweet corn kiosk, little more than a kettle on a portable candy stove. The corn was, as promised, incredibly sweet and delicious. At $2.50 a piece, if it was anything but it was going to be a let down.

He thought I asked for two pieces, so I ate both. It was to be last hot food I ate for the next 24 hours. Oops. Had I known that, I would have had the fish tacos, too. The squeeze bottle on the left is full of melted butter. Mmmmm.

They were also selling green bananas there. Bananas grow everywhere along the road. If you look up as you near Hana, you'll see bananas hanging over the road. I didn't get a picture of the banana trees but I did get one of the individual green bananas for sale:

Corn downed, I got back in the car and headed to Hana. I stopped to take a look at one stand's banana bread:

I don't know if it was the best as I didn't feeling like shelling out $7 for a mini loaf or stopping at each roadside stand to make a fair comparison. So I'll take the judges' word for it.

After driving a little longer, I turned on to a road that promised a state park with black sand beaches. Along the road, I found two unattended fruit stands selling passion fruit and bananas. I was able to stop the car and get a decent photo (turns out taking photos by simply holding up the camera, pointing it out the window, and hoping it looks okay doesn't really work). I didn't pick up any fruit - I didn't have much of an appetite.

At the beach, parked in front of a graveyard, was a shave ice truck. Shave Ice is a Hawaiian staple - a huge cone of shaved ice drowned in the customer's choice of syrup flavors. There are the typical fruit flavors (raspberry, cherry)  and then the typical Hawaiian tropical fruit flavors (passion fruit, lychee, pineapple, li hing mui (dried licorice spiced plum), coconut, lime, etc). I usually go for a combination of lychee and passion fruit.

After the park I headed back to the airport to make my flight back to New York. Since I had plenty of time, I stopped for one final booth I had seen on my way to Hana - an ice cream stand.

The booth - and the road - was eerily quiet at 4 pm, when I stopped in for a gelato. Lisa, who runs the stand, spends half her year in Maui and half her year in Maine.

 She had worked at Ono Gelato Companyin Paia, about 15 miles down the road, and decided to give a gelato stand a try. Lisa has the best - and, truly, only - gelato stand on the road to Hana. And has exclusive rights to sell Ono Gelato on the highway.

The operation is pretty low tech. Ice cream is kept cold with ice packs in styrofoam under a Sponge Bob blanket. Somehow it manages to stay at almost the perfect temperature most of the day.

Signage is low-fi, with adorably clunky handwritten lettering.

A cone is $6 - but it is a huge waffle cone and Lisa will give you up to three flavors. I chose Baci (chocolate and hazelnut), Acai, and Pineapple. She had run out of a few other flavors by the time I arrived. I have a photo but it isn't incredibly appealing - the tropical heat melted the gelato almost as quickly as I could eat it. It was so delicious I decided to track down the Ono store on my drive back.

Ono is owned by three Canadians who moved to Maui from Victoria, British Columbia. Stefano, one of the partners, is a third generation Gelataio from Turino. In Canada, the team operated a European-style cafe. They opened up Ono in December 2007 and in the process of creating their green vision for their shop, have used Ono as a platform to support local organic and sustainable businesses. While Ono does use Italian-made bases for their dairy gelato flavors, they do use local fruit as much as possible in their dairy-free flavors. They also use organic milk and organic Maui sugar in their products. And the results are delicious. Usually I despise gelateria that use bases, mixes, or flavors, but Ono is great. The gelato is fresh and smooth and has a velvety texture. Flavors are bright and distinguished. I love Ono. Even if it is $4.95 for a small dish.

If I could do it all over again, I wouldn't change my approach to the Road to Hana. Light on the sights, heavy on the nibbles. And winding up at Ono. Yeah, that's five hours well spent.

Greetings from Hawaii

It hasn't been a food-focused trip, but we did get to enjoy a little bit of Hawaiian plate lunch:

Five Spice Roast Duck, Hoisin Sauce, two scoops of rice, no macaroni salad (a plate lunch staple that I don't really care for):

Kalua Roast Pork with cabbage, macaroni salad, scoop of rice, side of poi, coconut gelatin:

And fancy food - a little bit of ahi tuna:

Lilikoi, the delicious and ever-present yellow passionfruit that sells for about $.25 each

Grom-ness

I crossed Manhattan to get some Sicilian Ice at Grom. Love the gelato, but I was in a lemon mood.

 

While trying to get a photo of the monthly menu, my camera decided the woman taking a picture of Grom's exterior was more interesting.

Wiley, the backyard pit master of Humboldt Park

One morning I woke up to the savory aroma of hickory wood smoke. As I walked through my alley trying to find the source of the smell, I stumbled across my neighbor Wiley tending one of the biggest pits I have ever seen in anyone's backyard. He was putting together a catering job for 150 out in the suburbs and the smell was intoxicating. And I don't even eat red meat.

That was a few months ago. Since then I've kept my camera close to my door so I could grab it the next time I saw Wiley cooking. I waited. And waited. And waited.

And finally last weekend - paydirt!

There he is - can you spot him?

From my balcony I could see Wiley in his backyard at about 7 am getting his barbecue together. He told me to come back later when he would have his Weber going. "Oh," I asked, "one of those regular Webers?" "Oh no," responded. "This ain't no regular Weber."

 With two hands he needed to open it up.

It is definitely NOT a regular Weber. That's Wiley on the right. Ribs and links on the grill.

At this point, the ribs and links have been on the grill for 2 hours. They're just about done. The ribs have been marinating overnight. On the side of the grill, Wiley builds a small pile of charcoal and leans a single hickory log next to it. Look at the bottom half of the photo.

The ribs and links look great:

Wiley learned grilling back in Arkansas by observation. When he moved to Chicago, he mastered the art of grilling ribs. Wiley is a dry griller - no sauce ever touches his meat, unless a customer wants to dip after the meat is served. He told me, "Usually, once they taste it, they realize they don't need sauce. It just tastes that good."

Wiley marinates the meat in a combination of spices and oil. He uses four different spice mixes in a secret combination:

 

When Wiley caters for larger affairs, he fires up his pit. The aroma is heavenly.

Having a backyard griller like Wiley  in the neighborhood is enough to get me thinking about maybe, someday, eating red meat again. Maybe.

July 4th Wild Blackberries in MA

These berries are the taste of summer to me. As a kid, I'd pick these and make jam. Now I just grab a few as I walk by.

Foraging for mushrooms - in my Chicago Alley

The other day as I was taking my dog out to do her thing, I decided to take a closer look at the dead tree next to our building that the developer has, inexplicably, decided to leave for us to deal with.

Looking more closely at its trunk, I noticed some white fungus. Familiar looking white fungus.

Recognize it yet? Maybe a closer look will help:

This picture, of the bunch I ended up picking, shows pretty clearly what I found: oyster mushrooms.

Back when I lived in Vermont I used to forage for mushrooms, but never found oyster mushrooms. And here in my inner city Chicago neighborhood, oyster mushrooms were growing on a dead tree in my yard. No one shared my excitement - friends seemed frightened at the promise of a meal focused around my Chicago-foraged mushrooms. I tried to reassure them that there are no poisonous oyster mushroom-lookalikes in North America. Yeah, didn't help. So I ate them by myself, sauteed in olive oil with garlic, red chilies, and thyme. They were delicious. And no, I experienced no gastric distress. Or death.

More than just a tote bag - www.chicagowig.com 's 46 x 16 grocery bag

Oh man oh man oh man.

I have bag lust BAD. For years I've been avoiding plastic/paper bags when I shop but I don't always have the right bag in my trunk to hold all the groceries - or lug them up the stairs. My usual messenger bag holds enough for one meal, but not for a week of groceries. The last bag I used fell apart after one use. Wig, a Chicago-based custom messenger bag (and knickers and backpacks and whatever suits their fancy....) manufacturer run by Wendy and Isaac, has been offering a super-deluxe heavy duty grocery bag on their website since March of 2007. I nabbed the photo below from their flickr photo stream. Bags start at $75 (I imagine if you want it customized it may cost a little extra. But I just made that up, so I could be wrong).

The bag comes with handles and an over-the-shoulder strap for easy portability when going up and down stairs, or filling with groceries as you stroll the aisles. The bag isn't meant to be used in the same manner as a messenger bag - it is a bit long to work on a bicycle.

Of course, the messenger bags are amazing. You'll have to check them out on the website.

My dessert portfolio: 1997-1998

In a previous post about cakes I made once upon a time I mentioned a photo album I foisted upon the unfortunates who happened to be in my home for more than five minutes. Recently I scanned in some of the photos from that album so I could share them with the hapless few who, by mistake or by design, end up at Cake and Commerce.

These are desserts I made when I was the pastry chef at Restaurant Sent Sovi, David Kinch's first restaurant, in Saratoga California. The plates were, believe it or not, the height of fashion at the time. Hard to believe that in 10 short years these plates - and some of the symmetry and saucing - would look as anachronistic as big shoulder pads and sun dried tomatoes.

Ice Cream Sandwiches with hot fudge

We already had an ice cream sandwich on the menu - I took the idea and dressed it up a bit with two layers of ice cream, a smaller size, and lots of gooey sauce. I suspect these were very hard to eat. Another dessert I'd add to the "good idea, bad execution" list.

The "Cappuccino Cup" - a shortbread cup, filled with two kinds of mousse.

I developed this dessert after having Nicole Plue's amazing shortbread and mousse dessert at a rather well-known San Francisco restaurant - I'm not able to remember the name of the place right now. I took the idea, turned the shortbread into a cup, complete with a tempered chocolate handle, and topped it with whipped cream and chocolate shavings. It was tasty. It was slightly too complex, however, and I sometimes struggled to get my mousse prepped in time for service.

Malted Chocolate Stonehenge

It wasn't called Stonehenge on the menu, but every time I look at this I think, "ah, that looks like Stonehenge." I was obsessed with ingredients like malt, chicory, palm sugar, pastis, and fennel. This chocolate cake had minor textural contrasts - snappy tempered chocolate pieces, soft buttercream, whipped cream, and malted chocolate cake. It was more homey than elegant. But it was damn tasty!

Chicory Cake with two kinds of buttercream and house-made sorbet

I loved this cake and the chef let me change its shape from time to time. Based on a recipe by Michel Bras, a French chef operating an auberge in the Auvergne, this dessert used hickory to flavor the flourless cake layers and was filled with a bitter chocolate and hickory mousse. I made the sorbet from tangerines and candied the skins and froze them to make small, attractive cups to hold it in place. I also candied kumquats, which must have been in season when I took this picture.

New Years Eve, 1997: Cherry Chocolate lava cake with White truffle & Port ice cream

The white truffle & Port ice cream was the bane of my existence. I usually didn't make ice cream in-house - we didn't have an ice cream maker and it was hard to make it by hand without significant ice crystal formation. But for that New Year, we did exactly what every other restaurant with a fine dining reputation did - we served a truffle-themed menu, and our ice cream supplier wouldn't supply just a few quarts of our one time only ice cream. Chef wanted me to come up with a white truffle dessert, with the caveat that I would have to use white truffle oil rather than real truffles. This was heart-breaking - truffle oil is foul and there's very little that masks its flavor in the sweet world. I found that Port - not necessarily vintage - tempered the fakey truffle flavor just enough in the ice cream to make it subtle rather than the focus of the course.

In 1998 I moved to Atlanta to work at the Four Seasons's pastry shop. In the beginning I was allowed to make nightly specials - something the chef quickly discontinued for reasons unknown to me, but I suspect ego played a large part. Here's one of the more memorable desserts I made - rather unusual considering the year.

Earl Grey-Chocolate Cake with Orange Earl Grey Ice Cream

What I really liked about this dessert was how it looked jet-age and 80s at the same time. Chocolate, tea, orange - those were the unifying flavors, obvious though they were. At the Four Seaons I took over ice cream duties and was responsible for all the ice cream we served, including this one, made with a base of Earl Grey Tea and orange ice cream and swirled with chocolate fudge.

The colors were a little limited - orange and chocolate, with a hint of white in the ice cream and tuile - as I had rejected mint garnishes sometime during my time at Sent Sovi. Mint. Gah. Thankfully, the most offensive dessert trend of the 90s, garnishing everything sweet with mint sprigs, regardless of flavor, seems to have fallen off the radar.

No mint garnish. Ever. Unless it is part of an edible diorama.

Sweet Collective: Three Pastry Chefs, one business

Last October, three pastry chefs, Lauren Pett, Cathay Rayhill and Alison Bower, opened the doors of their  jewel box of a shop, Sweet Collective, in the Lincoln Square neighborhood of Chicago. Each of the chefs runs a separate business out of their shared space. Lauren's business is called Rich Chocolates & Candies. Cathay runs The Sugar Syndicate, a specialty pastry and cake business. Alison sells ice cream under the name Ruth & Phils Gourmet Ice Cream. I'm a big fan of collectives...there's something about the word 'collective' that makes me feel warm and fuzzy all over. Running a small food business takes a lot of time and resources, and profitability can be very challenging. By sharing resources, the three women share the burden of operating a retail space, a cost that often leads to the ruin of many a small business.

I went to Sweet Collective because Lauren had generously offered to donate a box of chocolates to a charity raffle that I was running (don't ask....). Since I hadn't been there before, I brought my camera with me. I'm a bit lighting challenged - one of these days I need to go take a class on lighting - but I did my best to capture a few photos of the shop.

One of the first things I noticed when I walked in was the ice cream case and the beautiful food porn shots on the wall above:

There's another case dedicated to Sugar Syndicate. The day I was there Cathay had the most adorable mini cupcakes for sale:

Lauren's chocolates are displayed in a case right in front of the door. That's Lauren behind the counter with the Windy City Rollers shirt:

Lauren has a great story. An artist by education and inclination, her life took a turn in 2002 when she was laid off twice and found herself making a lot of art that gave her little joy, charged as it was with the frustration with current -and past - American politics. She decided to go to culinary school, and was part of the second class to enroll in Kendall College's Baking and Pastry program. After a four-month internship at Vanille Patisserie in Chicago, where she met Cathay, After her internship ended, she did something I was afraid to do (but wished I had) back when I was in culinary school: she dropped out. She went to work at Bleeding Heart Bakery, an organic bakery in Chicago, where she worked just about every job in the house. And then she opened up Sweet Collective.

Lauren's thing is chocolate. She's a firm believer that chocolate should be sweet, regardless of the trends. She leaves the savory chocolates and 'novel' ingredients to other chocolatiers in town, such as Vosges and Coco Rouge.

She has a number of chocolate 'collections'. My favorite is named after Chicago Neighborhoods. Here are few - including one tropical-themed treat named after my neighborhood, Humboldt Park:

Here's an extreme close up of the Humboldt Park:

Because I didn't have my food porntastic macro lens with me, I bought a few chocolates to bring home. To photograph. I swear. At $1.95 per piece, they were a steal.

I can't remember the names of all of the chocolates I bought, but they were all delicious. Lauren's ganache is smooth, soft, and has the perfect viscosity. Her Fulton Market caramel was velvety smooth. 

Here are a few that I brought home:

S'mores (yes, it is topped with a graham cracker, and is studded with graham crackers and marshmallow)

A cross-section of another neighborhood chocolate...maybe Pilsen?

Here's what it looks like from above:

This is the Chinatown. Sesame! Reminds me of the white chocolate and sesame bar Mich'l brought me from Sadaharu Aoki in Paris:

And then my favorite - from a comfort perspective - the peanut butter truffle. Peanut butter + ganache = all I need:

Making whole grain mustard at home

So I'm moving.

And in the process of organizing and tossing, I came upon a small container of mustard seeds that I had purchased four years earlier for some Indian dishes I was making. Evidently I didn't use too many of the mustard seeds, as the jar was nearly full.

A month earlier I had been visiting with my friend Soyoung in San Francisco when she pulled out a large French glass canning jar full of whole grain mustard. Her husband, James, stated, as if an uncontestable truth, "Soyoung's mustard is the best in the world." Surprised, I asked her how she made it. "I soak the seeds in Gewürztraminer, then I grind it and add salt." After I spooned a healthy portion on to my plate, I excitedly dipped my fork in and tasted. James was right. It was the best mustard I had tasted. I was determined to try my hand at it when I got home.

But then I forgot. I busied myself with packing (my last day in my place is June 30th, but I'm anxious to get the packing done so that I can enjoy the early summer in Chicago without the worry). Going through my spices last night, I rediscovered the mustard and my long forgotten ambition.

I grabbed an open bottle of   Cour-Cheverny from my refrigerator, which I haven't been enjoying as much as other bottles of Loire wine (perhaps because I am spoiled by my more regular downing of Savennieres). I covered the seeds in the wine and left them out at room temperature overnight.

I tried the seeds after they had soaked for a few hours. It didn't taste spicy. I let it continue to sit.

The next morning I gave the seeds another taste. They had become pleasantly hot. I drained the wine out and set it aside so the seeds would be easier to grind in my mortar and pestle. Here's what they looked like before I ground them:

I then ground them for a few minutes:

The seed coats separated from the yellow seed easily, but the seed was still a little firm. I pounded the seeds a little more:

Since the seed and the skins were still pretty tough, I covered them in the reserved wine I used for soaking.

I  added a little acetic acid to it in the form of sauerkraut juice and let it sit a little longer and then gave it a robust mashing. Here's what it looks like on day 3:

Lula Cafe: I named my dog after this restaurant

Lula the dog:

Lula the restaurant, Logan Square, Chicago:

Lula's brunch menu for June 1st, 2008:

French toast at Lula:

The 'tamales' (=polenta) at Lula:

The website for Lula Cafe: http://http://www.lulacafe.com/

B&R Artisan Bread, Framingham MA

In an obscure strip mall that I remember from early childhood as having one of the only KFCs within a 10 mile radius of our house, Michael Rhoads and his wife Jen have opened up one of the finest bread bakeries in Boston. Yes, Boston. Technically it is 20 miles from Boston, but I don't know of another bakery in the Hub producing bread as good as his.

Commercial rents are high in Boston. Commercial/Retail rents in the burbs are significantly less. So Michael ended up setting up shop 20 miles from most of his wholesale customers, which include restaurants, shops, and clubs. While he may not have a huge following in Framingham  (he's been there for over two years and Framingham is better known for its sizeable Brazilian population than for its food artisans) his 50 or so daily walk-in customers know they're extremely lucky to have him in the neighborhood.

Although I went to culinary school with Michael, I didn't officially meet him until after I finished when he started spending time with my roommate, who was also in culinary school with us. I knew him to be a baker - before culinary school, he had been building wood-fired ovens around the country and had already developed a reputation as a great baker.

I didn't see much of Michael after my roommate situation dissolved (long, sad story), though I popped into Sel de la Terre, where he was working, and chatted with him briefly about what he was doing (baking, mostly). I think that was sometime around early 2001.

Flash-forward seven years. Mom and I are sitting in a locavore-friendly restaurant in Cambridge having some of the best bread I've had in years (Chicago, sadly, doesn't have bread that even comes close to this). We ask the owner of the restaurant, who also happens to be our server, where the bread is from. "Oh," she says, "Its made by my husband's best friend. B&R - they have a bakery and retail space in Framingham."

Shocked that someone opened up a great bakery so close to my mom's house, I immediately get to googling when I get home. For the last two years there had been an artisan bakery almost in my mom's backyard, and we were only now figuring it out.

I stopped in on Michael the next day. After checking each other out with some uncertainty (I think we both looked rather different...or, at least he did, with some very chic oversized googly glasses perched on his nose), we shook hands. "Yeah, I thought I recognized you," he said, charitably.

We chatted a little about business, bakeries in Chicago (he had heard from Baker's Guild members that there was still lots of opportunity in Chicago), being one's own boss, long hours, and his new son who was no longer so new. I asked him if I could come back the next day to take photos. He agreed.

I arrived mid-morning the next day to take pictures. Michael was out and his wife didn't know that I was coming in. I didn't want to be obtrusive and take pictures in the bakery (had Michael been around I would have asked). I took as many photos as I could of the bread that was on display and the equipment in the front room.

To all the cakes I've done before...1999-2006

Recently I entered the oughties with the purchase of a printer/scanner. It was an accident - I thought I was buying a significantly cheaper printer and I was too lazy to walk it back when I found out it was about $40 more than I wanted to spend.

Turned out to be a good thing. For more than 10 years I've been sitting on a portfolio of pictures from my pastry days. Anyone foolish enough to sit on my couch with more than 10 minutes on their hands found themselves forced to look through 2 small albums of photos of desserts I had made from 1997-1999. The albums also featured photos of cakes I had made for friends' weddings. Until the scanner's arrival I had no way to overshare my personal life. And now I do. Aren't you lucky?

For me, cake making is a hobby rather than a business. I only make cakes for friends and usually only charge the amount for ingredients if I'm asked to charge them anything. Usually I just give the cake to the betrothed as a gift. My mom is usually my second in command and acts as the baker while I'm at work or otherwise occupied.

Only recently has the mania for representative cakes (it looks like a bridge! It looks like your dog! It looks like the cover of your favorite book!) taken hold at weddings. At the time these cakes were made there were only a few art cake makers around the country. I've never been one to focus on appearances - if the cake I make isn't one of the tastiest cakes my friends have ever had, I consider my effort a failure.

So here are the cakes and their stories.

Sarah and Ivan, 1999

Sarah is one of my closest friends from high school. Ivan is, obviously, her husband (who first met as toddlers...but didn't date until grad school). She's an artist and I wanted to make a cake that reflected her personality. I hadn't made any wedding cakes before but I knew how to handle fondant and build up layers, so I figured I was ready.

Turned out I was only part right. I didn't yet know about gum paste, and tried to make small bees from fondant - they wilted and didn't really hold up. It didn't much matter, however, because I hid them under flowers - real, inedible flowers. I had -and still have- a rule about using inedibles on anything I make. I think it came from one of my chef instructors at culinary school, but I can't really remember. Inedibles are verboten; stems, pieces of plastic, most flowers and anything else I forgot to mention that can't be eaten should never be included on a cake or on a plate. But in this case I told myself I was only kinda sorta violating my rules, as the flowers were on top of the fondant, which, as it later turned out, was peeled off and thrown out by the caterers (a move that initially upset me then ultimately made me happy when it spared the guests gummy mouthfuls of sugar clay).

Although you can't quite tell, the cake is in the shape of a bee hive and is decorated with gold leaf and sugar bees. Sarah had made a bee painting and I wanted to try and capture its spirit in a cake. The cake itself was lemon and it was filled with ground pistachios and white chocolate mouse. It was moist and delicious. Because it was wiltingly hot outside the cake spent most of the wedding in the air conditioned sanctuary of Sarah's Dad's office and only came out for the cutting.

JJ and Anthony, 2000

 

JJ and Anthony were getting married in the fall and didn't want a traditional wedding cake. They wanted a rich chocolate cake and I was only too happy to comply (thank you Grandma's Chocolate Cake). We decided on a fall fruit marzipan cornucopia - along with slightly out-of-season ivy leaves (oops) and the occasional donut (front, center).

A week before the wedding I started working on the marzipan fruits. A day into painting them with edible colors I realized that I needed help. JJ came over to my friend Weldon's house and together the three of us painted the fruit, which I affixed to the cake with toothpicks (there I go, violating my rules again).

Douglas and Lisa, 2001 (?) Cake Topper Only

Douglas is a friend of mine from college who originally wanted me to make his cake - unfortunately I was too busy with work to do a good job so instead I opted to make his cake topper - a gum paste koala and a tree. This was definitely not edible - I used wires to connect the leaves into a free-flowing canopy. I dusted the koala in gold dust - I'm still not quite sure why. The cake and fruits were done by someone else.

It took me a week to put the cake topper together because of the time I needed to wait for each piece to dry. This was especially important for the tree - if the leaves weren't completely dry, the wire loop fell out. I transported it very carefully from my mom's house outside of Boston to the wedding in New York. I kept having visions of it crashing to the ground and shattering it pieces. Obviously that didn't happen.

And then there was a long lull. I went to grad school. I avoided pastry. Cake fashion changed. Suddenly the 'cake decorator' job description was a viable career. I was, meanwhile, working a corporate job and finally able to afford to buy decent pastry. I thought I'd never make a cake again.

And then two of my grad school friends got married and I came out of retirement (along with my long-suffering mother, who tolerated -just barely - my kitchen rants during our previous cake partnerships.

Elikem, 2003

I remember so little about this cake, completed during my last month in grad school. I  made it in honor of Elikem's 30th Birthday to Elikem's spefications ("pink and white cake!").  I remember making it in my tiny apartment kitchen and storing the cake layers in the freezer, taking up all the space, while it was in process. I really don't know how I managed to make the cake look good considering I had very little equipment and absolutely no room to work. I didn't use any gum paste or fondant on this cake - it was all marzipan, butter cream, and extravagant mousse and curd layers.

I ended up hosting a sit-down buffet for more than 30 dinner in my apartment. The cake sat in the center of the room the entire time, another guest of honor.

Leti and Mandy, 2006

This cake was simple. White butercream. Edible flowers (I think I spent about $150 in edible flowers alone). Tall. The only complexities were the cake and the filling. That and the fact that when I arrived chez mom to do the work, she didn't have a working Kitchen. Nope, it was under construction, although the electrician kindly connected a few of the outlets and the double oven so that I could mix and bake.

Each of the four layers was different. I wrote about this extensively here at the time of the wedding. I may not have mentioned that the cake started to list after it had been out in the heat for about 5 hours and I was worried that it might collapse before the cutting. For some reason that I cannot entirely recall, I ended up slicing the cake back in the kitchen with the catering manager and hustling it out to the table once I had sliced up enough pieces. Staff kept coming back and talking to me and the catering manager without doing much of anything. I learned a lot about their weekend plans while I sliced cake in my nearly strapless silk dress.

I'd like to make more cakes. Just nothing dog- or baby- shaped.

Roasting Ethiopian Harrar at Karma Coffee Roasters in Sudbury, MA

Imagine my surprise last year when I went to visit my mom in suburban Boston and discovered a boutique roaster barely 2 miles from her house, an easy morning walk from the house where I grew up.

The town is about 20 miles from Boston and a world away. There's no public transport, no way in and no way out unless you have a car or know someone who does. There are four traffic lights - an increase of two since I was a kid. The sidewalks were all put in after I left town to go to college. Walking is a serious hobby for many in the town, who take early morning constitutions "around the block" - anywhere from 1 to four miles, depending on the route. These consistitutionals take place on the road, as few streets actually have sidewalks, including some of the most treacherous (curves, hills, blind corners).

There's been decent coffee there for a while. There's a coffee roaster in the center of town and a Starbucks just down the street from that. But until Karma Coffee Roasters opened up, the consistent quality and season beans - and friendly, familiar service - just wasn't there. At least not for me.

Karma's improbable location - behind a Papa Gino's in a building that used to house a discount shoe store about 30 years ago, a building that can't be seen from the road unless you are looking for it - makes it a secret that the owners enjoy keeping. There's a small seating area, a few fresh baked goods from B&R Bakery the next town over, and whatever non-perishable product the owner feels like stocking at the moment.

I decided to take my camera over there the day before I returned to Chicago. Luckily for me David was roasting coffee (the Ethopian Harrar that came in the above burlap bag) and invited me to take pictures of the process. I've watched others roast coffee, but none as carefully and deliberately as David.

When I showed up, David was about to package something from Central America. The roasted weight of the batch was a little over 13 lbs.

He then began the Harrar after cooling down the roaster. Here's a series of photos showing how, over a little more than 12 minutes, the roast went from green to perfect (photos taken every 1-2 minutes):

As the coffee roasted and darkened, David's activities became more frenzied. More frequent smelling and viewing of the beans, jotting times and notes, sometimes as frequently as every 15 seconds, kept him completely occupied. He'd check the color under a multi-spectrum lamp which gives a more accurate read than the celing-mounted flourescents.

Here's how David checked the color (the white blob is the multi-spectrum lamp):

With every view he let me smell the progress of the beans. First grassy. Then herbaceous. Then slightly floral. Then berries. Then blueberries. And chocolate. He explained that in the final roast, he liked to have a variety of colors (city roast to full city roast for the layperson) because each had a slightly different character and gave the coffee complexity. You can get a better look at the roasted coffee, still cooling, below:

For every batch David starts with about 15 lbs. By the end of the roast, the weight has decreased by about 15-25% and the volume has doubled.

After watching David roast the coffee, one of the guys made me a cappuccino to go:

(above is the requisite shot pulling picture. Sexy crema!)

And then the thing of beauty and skill: the leaf:

These guys make them the way I like them.

How to make Grandma's Chocolate Cake

By the time Mich'l and I worked together in the pastry shop at a hotel in Atlanta, I already knew that I was going to leave to cook on the restaurant's hot line. After nearly three years of non-stop pastry, sometimes 18 hours a day, I was ready for a change. And just as I was getting ready to go, Mich'l showed up. Armed to the teeth with legendary experiences (working for and with the stars of the pastry world) and heart-breakingly wonderful recipes (collected over more than a decade as she moved through our hotel's properties around the country), Mich'l was a welcome dose of frenzy -and optimism - in our otherwise dreary shop. Unlike other newcomers to the shop, she wasn't jockeying for a title or ownership of our product. That role belonged to our executive pastry chef who preferred autocratic control and traditionalism over productivity and happiness. Newcomers either fell in with him - and, by default, the rest of us - or grew quickly dissatisfied and found better jobs at other hotels or country clubs. No one left the shop to work in the benefits-free zone of restaurants.  Mich'l was neither cowed by his barking or put off by our established routines and recipes. With a manner that was a cross between doting mother and Betty Boop, with a touch of SoCal rebel thrown in for seasoning, she was able to convince our exec to change up t