Cake and Commerce

I Love Cassis. So I made some at home.

I think I had my first Kir Royale in the early '90s. At Olives, the now ubiquitous restaurant 'chain' pirated by Todd English. We always ate there early. Olives was a single, tiny restaurant in its early days. It didn't accept reservations, and to avoid an hours-long wait for a table, we'd show up at 5 pm, the entire family, to wait in line until the doors opened at 5:30. With light streaming into the dining room we'd eat our meals, which, at the time, were nothing like those being dished up at other restaurants around town. Mom would break character and order a cocktail; we weren't much of a drinking family despite the presence of a wine rack in the basement holding dusty bottles of Chateau Lafite (an off-vintage, if I recall) and dustier bottles of port, which my parents did indulge in from time to time. The sweeter the better. The tawnys outnumbered the rubies by a factor of 2.

So a dinner out with the family at a white tablecloth restaurant in town was all the occasion we needed to step out and choose one of the seemingly sophisticated cocktails on offer at Olives (remember, this was before the cocktail revolution). We started with a simple Kir - Burgundian cassis, a fragrant black currant liqueur, coupled with a lesser white wine, priced at an extravagant markup. On truly special occasions, the Kir was upgraded to a Kir Royale, cassis coupled with Champagne, and not just a random sparkler. Mom always led the charge, and we, her obedient daughter, followed with our own identical orders.

In mom's  honor, I suppose, I decided to make a batch of Cassis de New England in her basement this summer. I drove my friends Melissa and Azusa to a scenic berry farm in the valley below Mt. Monadnock in New Hampshire and spent a warm July day picking black and red currants.

The majority of the berry-pickers out that day were focused on raspberries and blueberries, leaving me alone to pick all the black currants I needed for a shareable batch of cassis, about 8 pounds. Melissa helped me pick berries after she and Azusa picked enough blueberries to make sorbet. Although we picked the berries ourselves, the price was still a heady $4/lb.

The haul:

I took them home, washed them and mashed them up with a few red currants and some lemon. I added about 4 lbs of sugar to the berries and covered the whole thing with vodka. It will sit in my basement for nearly 5 months. I'll strain and bottle it in December, just in time for the holidays. I will check it from time to time and add more sugar if it needs to be sweetened. It takes only a few weeks to dissolve, as long as I give it a stir every few days.

Some recipes for cassis on the internet  leave the berries to sit in the vodka for four months, and then in December, require the boiling of the strained juice/vodka mixture until thick. I think that's a poor idea. The alcohol in the vodka will evaporate as it boils and flavor will be compromised. A better idea - and an idea that does not jeopardize the shelf-life, alcohol content, or flavor is to add sugar when the vodka is added and allow it to dissolve over several months. If the viscosity is still not quite right, a heavy simple syrup (2 parts sugar, one part water) can be added once the currants/vodka/sugar is strained. 

Cake and Commerce's New England Cassis

• 8 lbs Currants, at least 85% black
• optional: about 10 currant leaves
• 4-6 lbs granulated sugar
• Vodka (or eau de vie or grain neutral spirits) to cover - about 1.5 1500 ml bottles
• 1 lemon, zest and juice
• 1 pinch salt

In large, non-reactive container (preferably glass) mash sugar and currants together. Add salt and lemon zest and juice and optional currant leaves. Allow to sit for at least two days at room temperature in the sun to allow sugar/berry mixture to ferment (you can skip this part if you don't have time/inclination).

Once mixture has begun to ferment, cover entirely with vodka. Loosely wrap plastic over the top or place lid over top. Store in a cool, dry place for at least 4 months (some say store in the sun...but I've always stored my liqueurs in the dark. Do as you like).

Every month, check flavor and sweetness and vodka level of cassis. Add more sugar as needed - it will need a few weeks to dissolve, so make sure all the sugar you will need is added at least one month before you will need it.

After four months, check for flavor. If it seems strongly flavored, strain first through a strainer and then through a jelly bag or cheesecloth. If it needs additional sweetness, add a little bit of simple syrup (2:1 Sugar:Water) until it is as sweet as you like it. Bottle and seal bottles. Give to people who you actually care about or whose favor you wish to curry.

Enjoy!

Simple Syrup - a quick solve for interesting cocktails

Ginger Syrup, Lemongrass Syrup, Thai Basil syrup. Not pictured - Thai Chili Syrup

Although I'm no mixologist, I ended up doing some freelance work for a Thai restaurant in Somerville called Ronnarong that was reinventing its drinks menu. They needed some cocktails that reflected and complemented the Thai menu. The catch? No hard liquor. No liqueur. We could use wine, sake, beer and bitters. Our license allowed only fermented beverages, nothing distilled.

I felt a bit disingenous creating a "Thai" drink menu. I've never been to Thailand, though I've been cooking Thai cuisine for 20 years. It isn't the same as having an understanding of the rules and flavors and interactions between those flavors. So I did research.

I looked up bar menus in Bangkok. I read cookbooks. I asked friends about their experiences. I stumbled upon a new drink 'invented' to lure back tourists, the Siam Sunray (ours would be a very loose interpretation made with sake and wine).

I started the actually process of making drinks by making various flavored simple syrups.

I started with a 1:1 simple syrup (1 part sugar, 1 part water). Some cocktail guides suggest a 1:2 (1 part sugar, 1 part water) simple syrup, which is less viscous and sweet. I put a touch of salt in my syrups after I've flavored them, along with a bit of acid. It helps make the flavors more pronounced.

I tried two methods - simple syrup blended with various flavors and strained, and simple syrup cooked with various flavors and stained.

When I cooked the basil in the syrup, the results were (unsurprisingly) brown. When I did not cook the basil in the syrup, the results were an electric green. When acid was added to the syrup (I put in a few drops of lemon to brighten up the flavor) it browned anyway.

The most elusive flavor to capture was the lemongrass. Both methods left me with results that were too subtle. The color was great but the citrus/corinader flavor of lemongrass was just barely detectable under the sugar. I know flavor companies make a 'natural' lemongrass flavor, but the idea of the cocktails is that they are made with real ingredients, and any synthesized flavor, no matter how natural it was, wouldn't work.

My favorite syrup was made from Thai Chilies. I cooked the chilies in the syrup and then used a hand blender to break them up once the syrup cooled off. If blended while still warm, steam will carry some of the capsacin into the air, which caused sneezing and wheezing.

With syrups ready, I started experimenting with a live audience. With Henry, the Thai restaurant's benefactor and others in attendance, I missed and mashed and muddled.  Because the restaurant has only a wine and beer license, we were very limited in our 'cocktail' development, and we didn't want to just imitate traditional vodka, gin, whiskey and rum-based drinks. Eventually, with feedback from tasters, I came up with a menu of 5 different wine & sake based drinks. We also put together a list of non-alcoholic sodas using the simple syrups as a base.

I have photos of two of the drinks.

First is the Ronn, a drier sake drink with muddled basil and ginger and chili syrup, named for the owner of the restaurant. Not the most popular drink, but interesting and less sweet.

The Thai Sangria, unlike the Spanish original, is made with ginger and lemongrass syrups, orange bitters, rose and sake, and served with muddled lychee - an interesting twist on the usual sangria fruit suspects.

So far the new drinks have been selling well. It is remarkable what a few simple syrups and a couple key fresh ingredients can do to create unique signature cocktails.

You can find these beverages at Ronnarong in Union Square, Somerille, MA.

Ronnarong/Great Thai Chef
355 Washington St
Somerville, MA
(617) 625-9296

Greylock Gin, treasure of the Berkshires in Sheffield, MA

Poking about a local liquor emporium, hands full of beer and a bottle of Pinot Gris for my mom, I found a display of gin, vodka and rum from a distiller I had never heard of before: Berkshire Mountain Distillers of Sheffield, MA. I am a lover of gin, and lately I've been digging the distillates coming out of North Shore Distillery just north of Chicago, which has fancy bottles and even fancier "artisan" blends in limited editions. I've also become a fan, in theory only, of St. George Spirits of Alameda, CA, as I have yet to sample their wares. I dream.

The draw of a 'local' Massachusetts potable suckered me in, and I picked up a bottle of the gin for $28. Debuting in early May in Western Mass, Berkshire Mountain Distillers' wares are finally making it into limited distribution across New England, and only New England.

The website (and the back label) describe the gin as one in the style of London Dry Gin:

"Berkshire Mountain Distillers’ Greylock Gin is hand crafted in small batches at the Berkshire’s first legal distillery since prohibition. Our proprietary blend of botanicals, packed into a gin head suspended over a pot still, infuses the distillate with its unique essence. We use this time honored and labor intensive method to bring you a London dry style gin of exceptional quality."

I like the Greylock Gin a lot - in a side-by-side with Tanqueray (its all we had in the house), the gin was smooth, bright, clear, slightly herbaceous with subtle anise and strong juniper flavors. The finish was pleasant and clean tasting. Though I'm a Hendrick's fan (I love the cucumber flavor...mmm), the Greylock Gin mixes beautifully and cleanly in cocktails. I've been obsessively making one cocktail over the last few nights. Though I didn't realize it at the time (I was using whatever I found in the fridge) it is a variation on the Foghorn. Given the inclusion of orange bitters, I suppose this drink could be called the Orange Foghorn or the Greylock Foghorn.

Greylock Foghorn

3 dashes Fee Bros Orange Bitters to line the glass

1 squeeze lime juice (about 1 t)

1 measure Greylock Gin

1-2 measures of Journey Ginger Brew or Ginger Beer

Lime wedges to garnish

Ice as desired

Admittedly, the recipe does mask the Greylock Gin quite a bit, but damn, it's a yummy cocktail. And you already know how to make a gin & tonic, so if it is Greylock Gin you want to taste, make one of those.

The Chemex is back and badder than the 70s....

Get rid of your French press or at least put it away deep in a cabinet where you store your old fondue pot. The Chemex is back, and it wants your love. A great example of American design (created in 1941 by Dr. Peter J. Schlumbohn, a German-born Chemist who immigrated to the States in 1936), the Chemex is still manufactured in Pittsfield, MA. Its' popularity has waxed and waned in the decades since, but if the recent introduction of personal Chemex coffee at Intelligentsia Coffee and Tea (where I took all of the pictures in this post), a well-respected leader in the boutique cafe and coffee world, the appearance of the Chemex on shelves of cafes around the country in space usually reserved for the French Press, and the explosion of 'Chemex' tags on flickr is any indication, the Chemex is staging a comeback and it is taking no prisoners.

I first became aware of the Chemex renaissance when my go-to coffee expert, Liz Clayton, started uploading photos of her Chemex to Flickr. Though I do not have one (though I am, for reasons unknown to me two years ago when I discovered my first package, stockpiling vintage Chemex filters), I plan on scouring the local thrift stores until one pops up. I have very fond memories of Chemex as my first great cup of coffee was made in a Chemex sometime in 1986. Though I had been drinking coffee daily since I was 12, the experience of great coffee, when I was 16, is indelibly seared in my mind.

I was in New Hampshire in the mid-80s, spending the weekend with my friend Leslie at her family's country place. Dan and Karen, her parents, were fond of great food and used weekends at the country place to cook up fatty bacon on their wood-burning stove and make coffee using a device that I recognized from my parent's basement, long abandoned after the advent of automatic drip coffee makers. I imagined my parents using the Chemex once or twice, my mother in a maxi-dress serving coffee to an assemblage of neighborhood wives, similarly dressed. I have no visual proof or memory that this ever happened, but that's the only scenario that makes sense to me. The coffee was rich, dark, and smooth. I remember the foam on top of the grounds, and recalled that at home I had never seen anything like that. I was smitten.

Resembling less a coffee maker than an attractive chemistry lab relic, the Chemex has a fetching hourglass figure with an open top, with a handsome wood middle tied with a simple leather string that makes it easy to handle when full of hot coffee. The idea is simple: you place an ultra-fine, thick-gauge filter, also made by Chemex, in the open top. You then place ample fresh-ground coffee in the filter and pour water, off the boil (approximately 200 degrees), into the filter, a small amount at first to allow coffee to 'bloom',  then add more water, stirring carefully (if desired) to make sure all the grounds make contact with the water. The resulting fine-filtered brew has fewer soluble solids than a comparable brew made in a conventional filter, and it is easier to keep clean of coffee residue than the plastic parts in a drip coffee maker or coffee cone.

Here's how they prepare the Chemex at Intelligentsia. The cost for Chemex for two starts at $6. I ordered the Nicaraguan Finca Limoncillo Cup of Excellence #2

Once the final cup of water has been poured on, they bring it out to your table with two mugs. Once it is finished brewing, you remove the filter and enjoy.

There is an element of novelty in the Chemex - it is retro, it is mid-century modern, it is attractive, and it does make great coffee. In an area of connoiseurship where the geeks are constantly seeking new and improved ways of making (and drinking) coffee, outside the home (ie in cafes and restaurants) Chemex presents a custom drip coffee experience that few under age 30 have seen before. In-home, it allows the coffee geek to return to drip coffee without the high cost of the Moccamaster, the low quantities (and incovenience, and in the case of plastic, the residue and -of course- the plastic) of the single- and double-cup cone, the messy clean-up involved with the French Press (not to mention the frequent breaking of the beakers) while making a statement about aesthetics and design, with or without intention.

You can buy a Chemex at your local coffee shop if you are lucky. If you aren't, there are a vast number of mail-order sources, including the Chemex site, linked above.

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.

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.

Moment of Glory: Dark Lord Day 2007

And because we didn't plan ahead, all we could buy were three bottles.

At Three Floyds Brewery, Munster, Indiana April 28th 2007

Coffee in Australia

I just came back from a two week trip to Australia and was absolutely amazed and ultimately worn down by the ubiquity of espresso and espresso-based drinks in restaurants and cafes. Espresso consumption in Australia is a subject of national pride. According to a report available on the AASCA's website, Australia is has the number two per capita espresso consuming country after Italy. Along with the Italian biggies like Lavazza and Illy, Australia boasts dozens, if not over 100, homegrown coffee roasters supplying what many consider the best espresso on earth.

I can't vouch that the drinks I had were the best available anywhere - I'll be the first to admit to having a somewhat dead palate when it comes to assessing the quality of a hot, dark roasted drink. But I can vouch for the consistency (excellent) and accessibility (everywhere) of espresso, cappuccino, mocha, macchiato, and a host of other drinks, including the intriguingly named 'long black' (Americano) and 'flat white' (basically a latte with no foam).

The downside to this is that options for conventional 'drip' coffee are limited. So limited, in fact, that I don't think it would be too much of a generalization to say that in out-of-home settings, it is impossible to find a cup of drip coffee (alas, I never stumbled onto the elusive French Press-offering cafe during my trip). Not only does Australia have a profoundly sophisticated cafe culture, but it has a profoundly disturbing penchant for instant coffee beverages. According to the AASCA's report, 85% of all cups of coffee consumed in Australian homes are instant. That's the equivalent of replacing your daily cuppa with instant - except for Sundays.

After a week of Cappuccino, I grew tired of the frothy drink and ordered an iced coffee, which I soon discovered to a heavy dessert drink made with whipped cream and iced cream. After seeing tiny thimblesque cups of some coffee drink and then finding out it was a macchiato - espresso with the tiniest dollop of foam - I switched over.

Here's the first macchiato my sister ordered at Van's, a really remarkable cafe in Cottesloe, Western Australia:

One thing that I liked about cappuccino in Australia was the heavy hand with which baristas applied chocolate shavings or cocoa powder to the top of the foam. A small bakery in Melbourne's Fitzroy suburb had an exquisite cup:

Even McDonald's has gotten into the act. Their McCafe concept, a dud in the US, seems to have actually broken through in Australia. There's no instant espresso maker in McCafes -- it is a big, beautiful Italian model with all the bells, whistles, and hand-tamping you could ever ask for. Although I didn't get a photograph (I thought about it and then decided not to), I did get a picture of some of their window art, which sums up how I feel about coffee,too:

Order your Rancho Aloha 2006 Now!

Today I opened my inbox and found the following email from Bruce Corker of Rancho Aloha:

Dear Rancho Aloha Customer:

We are in the midst of the 2006 Kona coffee harvest.  The new crop of
Rancho
Aloha coffee is now available and we invite you to order.

THE 2006 CROP REPORT: Excellent quality coffee with Kona’s noted
characteristics of rich floral, aromatic flavors and bright acidity. 
However, this will be a short crop.  Production throughout the Kona
region
is predicted to be down by 1/3 to 1/2 from last year’s levels.

We request that you have holiday orders to us no later than December
10. 
Because of crowded roasting schedules, we will not be able to assure
holiday
deliveries for orders after that date.  We will be off-Island from
December
19 through January 3, and will not be processing coffee orders during
that
time.

To order:  Visit www.RanchoAloha.com

Aloha and Happy Holidays,

Bruce and Lisa Corker
Rancho Aloha
PO Box 417
Holualoa, HI 96725

I'll be placing my order tomorrow...

(for more info on Rancho Aloha, scroll down to my post of winter 2006)

Scary Dairy!!! A Halloween dinner for Cheesemongers

I was talking to Daphne, former colleague and current proprietor of Essex St. Cheese, about an upcoming dinner she was hosting for 15 of New York's most storied cheesemongers. "Scary Dairy" was her seasonal celebration of cheese expertise, a cool but underpaid profession and the monsters of fermented milk. So, I asked her, what are you serving?

She answered me as if I were really stupid. "A chunky soup, a main course, and Scary Dairy." Of course, silly me.

What, exactly, I asked, is Scary Dairy?

"Anything the cheesemongers think is scary."

Oh. Like Red Dragon? Like Cotswold? Like Charlie Cheese?

Yes, like all of that. And maybe callu de crabbetu, if anyone could find some.