Cake and Commerce

In which I go foraging for ramps...

...and find them:

 

I'm not an over-forager. I pick carefully, digging out but one or two of these fragrant relatives of the lily from each patch I discover. I try and take only as much as I will need for a single meal. There's no point in getting greedy, even if the season comes and goes in just a matter of weeks. Ramps take five years to grow from seed to bulb. If a patch is picked bare, the ramp will not return unless intentionally replanted. 

I can't say where I found these. Foraging locations need to be kept secret lest the less responsible exploit them for gain. But I will give you one clue: as I was driving I spotted ramps growing along the side of the road not far from where I found these. These were deeper in the woods.

I took this bouquet-sized haul home and lactofermented them. Following a procedure I learned from my friend Alex at Feed Me Like You Mean It, I had pungent pickled ramps in five days. Just enough for a crisp occasional reminder of the cool spring day when I picked them.

Where can you buy light buckwheat flour?

The answer: a lot of places, actually. But I'm particularly fond of one mill based in the middle of nowhere: Harvey, North Dakota's Dakota Prairie.

I love that they sell retail quantities of their amazing, finely ground gluten-free flours direct to consumers.

They mill all their gluten-free flours in a separate, certified( GFCO) gluten-free mill. There's no fear of cross-contamination. Most of the flours they mill are organic, though you can buy some conventional flours (but why would you?). All are GM-free.

I love their buckwheat, millet, rice, quinoa and sorghum flours. Their brown rice flour is lovely. 

Here's the website.

Here's the ecommerce site.

(and ps...I'm not shilling here. All of my GF flours are from these guys. The quality is remarkable).

The Craft of Baking Cookbook Giveaway!

10/27 Update: Winner announced! Piroska will receive the Craft of Baking! Thanks to all who participated in the giveaway!

If you've read my review of Karen DeMasco and Mindy Fox's new baking and sweets cookbook, The Craft of Baking, you know I'm pretty excited about it. I've already cooked out of it and really love not only the results, but also DeMasco and Fox's approach to building both a great baking pantry and developing technique and skill.

Cake and Commerce is giving away a copy of The Craft of Baking to one lucky reader. Between today and October 27th, the official release date, readers who are interested in the cookbook can enter to win it by simply leaving a link to their favorite sweet recipe, photo, or blog post in the comments section of this post and explain briefly (one sentence) why you love it so much. It doesn't need to be your own recipe or blog post, but it should be something you love that you'd like to share with other readers. Make sure you enter your email address when leaving your comment so I can contact you if you are selected - if you do not leave your email address and I cannot contact you, I will select the name of another reader.

On the 27th I will randomly select one name (I use an excel spreadsheet with the 'random' function) to receive the cookbook. Easy enough, right?

So...what are you waiting for?

Afternoon Coffee Break

At 5 pm on Thursday in Cambridge, I indulged in macarons purchased in Paris at Pierre Herme on Monday. They were hand-carried for me by a brand-spankin' new acquaintance who is moving to Belgium in a few months. I can't quite see myself asking him to bring back Belgian beer in his luggage, but who knows.

(Gluten-Free) Lemon Sponge Custard - A Joy of Cooking Classic that never gets old

This past weekend I put together a simple brunch for a family celebrating their son's Bar MItzvah. I recruited my mom to make noodle pudding and strada, a layered bread and egg dish. I made all the desserts - cookies, cupcakes and one of my favorite homey desserts, lemon sponge custard, a classic from the Joy of Cooking. In the above picture, it is the dessert on the bottom left, in the blue Le Creuset casserole.

What makes this dessert great is that in a single dish there is both a sponge cake (on top) and a smooth lemon custard (on the bottom). There's no dignified way to serve it unless you bake it in an individual terrine. One fine dining restaurant where I worked incongruously sold this as a dessert as a gloppy mess, dished out from a large hotel pan onto a dessert plate, until they (finally) invested in a pastry chef. 

Days after the brunch, guests were still talking about it. So I decided if it was that good, I better try to make the gluten-free version. The lower fat, dairy-free gluten-free version.

Here's my first and only attempt at the gluten-free, dairy-free version:

• 2 T Coconut Oil
• 2/3 C Rapadura
• 1/8 t Salt

• 3 egg yolks
• 1-1/2 T Tapioca Flour
• 2 T Teff Flour

• 1/4 C Lemon Juice
• Zest of 2 lemons

• 1 C Rice Milk

• 4 egg whites, stiff but still shiny

Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. Combine first three ingredients. Beat in yolks. Add flours. Beat in juices, followed by milk. Fold in egg whites, pour into greased pan or ramekins. Bake in water bath for 30 minutes or so.

And the results? Uhhh, cognitive dissonance would be an understatement. Butterscotch-colored sponge and custard (thanks to the rapadura) that tasted like lemon with a faint hint of molasses and a stronger hint of coconut. Not bad if you ate it blindfolded, but even blindfolded it wasn't quite right.

Even my mom, the diabetic sweets fan, told me, without prompting, that she would never waste her calories on this particular version.

For a 'healthier' version it wasn't bad. But for a dessert that could cross the GF/CF divide and appeal to a broader spectrum of eaters, this rapadura and coconut oil version wouldn't satisfy.

Back to square one.

So I repeated it, replacing the rapadura with organic sugar (still processed, still not so good), the coconut oil with butter (there goes the dairy-free, casein-free claim), and the rice milk with raw, local, unhomogenized milk (again, bye bye dairy-free, casein-free claim). I used tapioca flour and I found that the starch settled to the bottom and made a slimy crust on the pan. In a batter that is not a complete suspension, tapioca starch - and longer cooking starches like rice flour - should be avoided.

I eliminated the starch and used 100% teff flour. Results? Great!

The color was appealingly lemon yellow. The flavor was bright and clear. It was tasty. And almost identical to the original, thanks to the very low flour content in the Joy of Cooking version.

Here's the final recipe, less healthful, but cognitive dissonance-free:

Lemon Sponge Custard (adapted from the Joy of Cooking)

• 2 T Butter, soft
• 2/3 C Organic Sugar
• Pinch Salt

• 3 egg yolks
•  3T Teff Flour (or the flour of your choice EXCEPT rice or starch)

• 1/4 C + 1 T Lemon Juice
• Zest of 2 lemons

• 1 C Local, grass-fed milk

• 4 egg whites, beaten until stiff but still shiny

Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. Combine first three ingredients. Beat in yolks. Add flour. Beat in juices, followed by milk. Fold in egg whites, pour into a well-greased pan or ramekins. Bake in water bath for 30 minutes or until no longer jiggly when shaken.

Teff Flour

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

Cake and Commerce's sugary redesign

After nearly four years looking at the same boring blog layout and banner (Cake and Commerce - one girl's salt is another girl's fleur de sel) I decided to ask my friend Betty Turbo (aka Agnes), a wonderful cake maker and artist residing in Nashville, to design a banner for me in her signature style. Lots of cake. Bright colors. Obscure references to old cookbooks (she blew up an old cookbook photo of petit fours for the background). A good amount of pink.

What do you think? Good? Bad? Indifferent? Too girlie? Not girlie enough? I'd love to hear your thoughts.

And, if you get a moment, help me repay Betty's kindness (she did this as a favor!) and visit Betty's shop on Etsy. You'll be able to buy adorable screen prints, lino cuts, notecards, and digital prints such as the one below, her homage to William Carlos Williams:

"so much depends upon
a red wheelbarrow
glazed with buttercream icing
beside the white chickens"

Spring must be here if the (maple) sap boil down is on!

If you're curious, like me, you'll follow the chalk.

The markings start in Union Square in Somerville:

When you get to the Community Growing Center you know you're there. The sweet smell of boiling sap, traveling on a breeze, may reach you before the sign does.

I had never before witnessed the achingly slow spectacle of a maple sap boil. Every spring, all around New England and Canada, and everywhere else maples flourish and people enjoy the sweet taste of maple syrup, tin hatted buckets attached to the sides of sugar maple and red maple trees store the collected drips of the annual spring sap flow. Over days and weeks the sap grows from a small, occasional drip to a more insistent and frequent drop, eventually making enough to be pooled and collected into large buckets and finally boiled down into the sweetest maple ambrosia.

It takes approximately 40 gallons of sap to make even a single gallon of syrup. The exact amount depends on the sugar content of the sap (usually between 2-3%). Sometimes it takes less. Maple trees yield anywhere from 15 to 40 gallons of sap in a season. And the season is short - temperatures that trigger flow are between 40 and 45 degrees F. Any lower and the sugary sap stops flowing, any higher and the sugar becomes starch (and ceases to flow). It is a fleeting task with only the briefest window of time. A window that is captured in these charts made by school children participating (I presume) in the Growing Center's programs.

Because of the New England propaganda I've been subject to since childhood, I always imagined the boil down taking place exclusively in a sugar house, staffed by Pendelton-clad farmers with sun-aged skin and weathered hands.

The boil down at the Community Growing Center on March 9th and 10th took all those preconceptions and chucked them out the window. There was not a flannel to be seen. One of the volunteers was wearing something much more intersting - a hoodie with this sweet-themed illustration sewn on:

The scene around the boiling, bubbling cauldron of sap was less farmstead and more urban casual.

The sugar vat was surrounded by 5 gallon buckets, many marked up and labeled. All of them had come from Somerville, on a piece of land owned by Tufts University. The project is a joint partnership between Tufts (whose students teach the maple curriculum in the Somerville public schools), Groundwork Somerville (a city-run program) and the Community Growing Center. The syrup, when finished, will be used for fundraisers and some of it will be donated to food assistance programs.

On Saturday, when I visited, the sap had already been boiling for a day, all day and all night. On the first day, March 9th, more than 200 public school students stopped by to learn about the process and taste maple syrup. The volunteers boiling sap were working around the clock and on the second day would work well into the night until they were finished cooking down the 80 gallons of sap they had collected. Because the surface area of the vat is so big, the volunteers would take the almost-finished syrup home (approximately 2 gallons when done) and finish boiling it in a smaller container to prevent it from burning.

The vat is a thing of beauty. A hot wood fire keeps the sap on the boil. There's even a second warming area where the sap is poured to be gently heated before it is added to the boil. Adding cold sap to the boil could be dangerous - it could cause a sort of boiling eruption, which could cause burns.

The vat itself was made by metal fabrication students at Somerville High School who left their mark:

Wood is added to the fire by a door on the side:

As the sap boils, scum collects on the surface. It is constantly skimmed off:

When the level of boiled sap gets low, a spigot is opened and hot sap is added to the boil:

The steam is a key reason why boiling maple sap down is something you should never do in your kitchen. It will mold your ceilings and steam your windows unless you have a great hood.  Most of the time, the boiling sap is obscured by a cover of steam.

When the sap is reduced to the half-way mark, it begins to look like syrup, with a light amber color:

They let us taste the sap and the half-boiled sap. I loved the faintly sweet flavor of the sap - it was something I could imagine drinking as a stand-alone beverage. And the half-boiled sap was pleasant and light, though it lacked the viscosity and body one expects from  finished maple syrup.

Next to the bottle of half-boiled sap was a display of different grades of syrup, which are determined by the USDA (!!). The lowest grade B is always dark and made late in the season, with strong maple and caramel flavor. The highest grade - Grade A Light Amber - is a mild, light colored syrup with more subtlety than substance. In culinary school, we stocked the kitchens with grade B, as it was better suited to our baking and cooking and withstood the assault of heat and other ingredients. This website has a great explanation of the grades and is a handy reference to all things maple.

Grades, left to right: A Dark Amber, A Amber, Vermont Fancy A.

Next to the table with the syrups was a table with some of the tools the syrup makers were using, including a nifty MASSIVE sap thermometer from New Hampshire (the syrup is finished when it is 66-67% sugar at 7.1 degrees above the local boiling point):

The finished Grade B Somerville maple syrup (which you can see in the right corner of the above photo) is very dark and viscous. It has a deep caramel flavor that out-competes the maple flavor. When I tasted it, I couldn't tell right away it was real maple because of the pronounced caramel notes.

Here's what some kids had to say about the flavor of the maple syrup:

I was really wowed by the Maple Syrup Project. In a few short minutes I learned more about maple than I had ever learned in years of eating and cooking with maple syrup - and I'm not even the target audience. I was also impressed that something usually associated with the rural countryside - maple syrup making - was thriving in the city. This spring I'll look around my mom's property for maple trees. If I find some, I'll be setting up my own taps and a boil for next year.

To learn more about maple syrup making, the University of Maine has a handy guide here.
To learn more Tufts University's involvement with Somerville, including this program, you can look here.

And, while you are checking links, please check out FIGHT BACK FRIDAY, the Food Renegade's celebration of real food. I promise it will be worth your time!

Good Morning, espresso!

A pull from a recent espresso I drank at Karma Coffee, Sudbury, MA

Recession Meal #3 - tips for stretching your (turkey) meatloaf

How can you really stretch a pound of ground turkey? Easy...add a lot of bread to it or a lot of vegetables or both...and turn it into a hybrid of Shepherd's Pie & Meatloaf.

My mother loves meatloaf. I don't make it much - the idea of eating a baked loaf (or cupcake) of ground meat doesn't hold much appeal. But I'm a guest in my mother's house and I will oblige her...and eat what I make. And if I make meatloaf, meatloaf I will eat.

In the last month we've made two versions - one heavy with vegetables (mostly carrrots, onions and peppers, with some mushrooms and flageolets thrown in) and the other padded with toasted (gf) bread. They were both good, but I'd recommend against the heavy carrot/onion/pepper route. It made the meatloaf a little sweet. Here's a picture of the veg mix prior to its addition to the ground turkey:

There was about as much of the veg mix as meat.

The resulting meatloaf resembled a through-the-looking glass version of country pate with a potato crust:

I form a gully in the middle of the meatloaf to facilitate more even cooking - it helps a little, though I think the presentation is more dramatic than the improved speed in baking.

The second version replaced the vegetables with GF bread. I added a little extra chicken stock for moisture - the bread needs to be moistened or the meatloaf can get very dry with the bread acting as mouth moguls - something to eat around.

I think meatloaf is a personal matter. I'm not going to provide a recipe - I change mine every time though there is some consistency with eggs, ketchup, and certain spices.

This was the most recent version we made - notice the stripe of potato? it runs almost to the bottom of the pan:

That's paprika on top - that's unsmoked, plain ole Hungarian paprika. I used thyme and a lot of sage - mom requested a 'Thanksgiving' flavor. It was delicious.

To really stretch your meatloaf, add more eggs, bread, and vegetables to the mix than you ordinarily would. You could throw in some ricotta, too. Test the flavor before you bake it by testing out a pinch in a saute pan. I always test everything - I don't believe you can get a true feel by eating the raw mixture (and with approximately 1/3rd of all turkey rumored to have salmonella, I don't want to take the risk) - so that I can balance flavors properly before I make some difficult-to-reverse underseasoning mistake.

The final key to stretching your meatloaf is potatoes - make your favorite mashed potatoes and spread them all over your meatloaf. Dust them with paprika or your favorite spice (or just lots of cracked black pepper).

So here they are, in convenient list form, my tips for stretching your meatloaf:

• The vegetable alternative: Chop up and saute onions, a few carrots, peppers and mushrooms - or any vegetable combination of your choosing. The cooked product should be about 2/3rds the volume of your meat/turkey.
• If you like beans, add in a half cup to a full cup of the beans of your choosing. I like mine pureed, but if you like seeing the shape of the bean in your meatloaf, leave it whole.
• The bread alternative: Add about 2/3rds the meat/turkey volume in stale bread chunks, dried out bread, or stuffing mix. Wet it down with a bit of stock - toss the bread in the stock but do not make it too soggy.
• The bread and vegetable alternative: add equal amounts of BOTH vegetable mix and in bread mix so combined they are the same volume as the turkey.
• The even more filler alternative: add the bread and vegetable alternative AND two extra eggs, which you have whipped to ribbon stage. If you want to get really crazy, throw in a half cup of drained ricotta cheese. I cannot guarantee you'll like it...you are entering territory that few dare to tread.
• The potato route: carve a gulley into the middle of your meatloaf. Fill the gulley with potatoes, and then cover the top of the meatloaf with potatoes.

Got other tips? Share them in the comments section

Global Bounty: care package from mich'l

No one puts together a care package like mich'l.

I've mentioned her before, but her story bears repeating....

I've known mich'l since the late '90s, when we both were at the Four Seasons in Atlanta. I was expecting to hate her, as I expected her to be another pastry chef go getter, the type of person I usually scared out of the kitchen (my ego had a body count - I think I effectively scared two cooks out of our kitchen with my abrasive, unfriendly style - what can I say, I was rather aggressive in those days. I assure you I've relaxed considerably since then - all it took was quitting the kitchen).

mich'l  had been an itinerant Four Seasons cook, moving from property to property working her pastry magic along with her boyfriend, X, who worked the front of the house (he managed and assistant managed in the restaurants and in banquets in those days). She was easy-going (though frantic at times) and and extremely knowledgeable, having worked under Sebastian Cannone and En-ming Hsu (among others) when they were both still with the Four Seasons. Her favorite stories from her time at the CIA were of toasting Pop-Tarts to perfection on the expensive rotating deck ovens in the pastry shop there. She loved great food and she loved junk food. High and low coexisting in her pantry were not a contradiction to her.

She and I only overlapped a few weeks in the pastry shop at the Four Seasons. I didn't like our boss, he didn't like me, so I moved on to the fish station on the dining room line. Somehow mich'l and I started talking and I realized I actually liked her. She had a cynical streak, spoke her mind, and raced around the kitchen as if on fire. She loved sweets, too, and we talked a lot about sugar. She introduced me to my favorite chocolate cake recipe. And though you would never have guessed it if you saw us now, we also shared a love for extreme music, though her salad days were shows at Gilman Street in Berkeley, when she was a punk, and mine were in Boston and Japan, where I developed a love for noise.

On our overlapping days off we would go junk food browsing - we'd hit the local Target and walk its aisles, reminiscing about our favorite candy. We didn't buy much - it was more about browsing. We didn't have much money to spend, either - the Four Seasons didn't pay well at our level, though they did supply benefits and a 401K.

Mich'l and I haven't lived in the same city since 2000. I always try to visit her wherever she lives, but since she and X moved to Egypt it has been hard. Once a year mich'l puts together an amazing care package, full of Japanese treats (she knows I love them, and she does too) and goodies from wherever it is she has traveled to.

This year it was a Turkish/Japanese care package. Right before coming back to the US for a several-month visit, mich'l and X went to Istanbul. She picked up a few treats for me - a bracelet to ward off the evil eye (lord knows I could have used it in 2008 when I was laid off twice), gum with both coffee and mint flavor (stinks and freshens breath at the same time!), chocolate halva (how did she know I love it?), and some fresh ground Turkish coffee from one of the premier roasters in Istanbul (too bad that they didn't offer to vacuum pack it for her - I know it will be a mere shadow of what it was a week earlier). She also raided her local Japanese goods shop, and sent me a mochi-center candy surrounded by toasted soy powder-flavor white chocolate (kinako mochi candy!), a little plastic set of Kyoto-style pastries (I collect tiny Japanese pastries in plastic...the sets are so fun!) and heart-shaped caramels with a tiny hamster-sized children's book.

If I had to choose one thing that I adored about the care package (other than the thought and care that went into it) is the packaging on the kinako mochi "chocolate":

The ghostly mochi character looks remarkably like...the SHMOO!

If the Shmoo were made of mochi, I think I'd actually like him. Or, rather, I'd like to eat him. Especially if he were filled with sweet azuki beans and rolled in kinako.

Gluten-free Gnudi -- lighter-than-air ricotta dumplings

It sure looks like a pillow, doesn't it? A pillow with flecks of thyme.

Gnudi, a 'naked' dumping - essentially ravioli filling without the pasta to envelop it- won a huge following in the US after the Spotted Pig, the restaurant that introduced the term 'gastropub' to America, presented them on its first menu (where gnudi remain to this day). It was love at first bite - even for me. I adored the little plump, impossibly soft dumplings. And promptly forgot about gnudi. For nearly 5 years.

And then a visit to Sportello reminded me of how much I loved gnudi (though I wasn't crazy about Sportello's accompanying bitter walnut sauce). How could ricotta taste so heavenly? The soft, supple texture was just so darn appealing, I couldn't stop eating them. I didn't really want to share them with my dining companion. But I played nice. And give him a couple.

I don't know what came over me this week, but I was suddenly hit with the urge to make gnudi - and make them gluten-free. I looked at a few recipes - all of them had flour. Some had semolina and white flour. Some just had white flour. Gnudi don't depend on flour for texture but for binding. So a conversion to gluten-free was rather simple.

When I make gluten-free conversions, I don't use a one-size-fits all 'all purpose' mix. Because I don't like the taste or texture of potato starch and try to avoid corn because of inflammatory issues, I don't include either in my recipes. I avoid rice flour unless I can hydrate it prior to use, which is impossible in most baked goods (the rice flour makes the product taste sandy). Though some don't like it, I find that buckwheat, especially light buckwheat, has a mild flavor when part of a gluten-free combination of flours. In this gnudi recipe, I used light buckwheat, tapioca starch, and, for dredging the gnudi (coating in flour) I used rice flour. Because the gnudi are cooked by poaching, the rice flour actually forms a nice seal around the outside of the dumpling.

gnudi with walnut-parmiggiano sauce

To make the gnudi, you combine ricotta with egg and Parmiggiano-Reggiano, an herb of your choosing, a little salt and pepper, and some flour for binding. The dumplings are then poached (rather than boiled) in hot water and then sauced. Because they are extremely delicate when they first come out of the water, they need to be handled with care. If allowed to sit, they will toughen up a bit as they cool (thanks to the starch matrix) and can be finished in sauce later on.

Add too much flour, and the delicate pillows become a little more chewy. Add not quite enough, and the gnudi fall apart when you attempt to lift them out of the water. Never try to drain the gnudi in a colander - you'll just make a mess. A slotted spoon is your friend. Not literally. I mean, it could be. That would be kinda odd. Ahh, who am I to judge?

Gnudi can be made ahead, though I don't recommend holding them any longer than overnight. They'll need to be refreshed - poached in water or simmered in sauce - and they'll lose some of their suppleness. In an ideal world you'd make and serve them immediately. Since few of us actually live in that ideal world, making them ahead by an hour and holding them at room temperature until you are ready to finish them will work well without compromising them too much.

You'll want to give yourself a few hours to make the gnudi - not because they are complicated but because you'll want them to sit twice - one after you've mixed them and again after you've dredged them in rice flour. The sitting time gives the flour time to absorb some of the moisture and helps the gnudi bind a bit better.

gnudi with brown butter and kale

I haven't written down any formal sauce recipes here. I believe you should serve your gnudi with the sauce of your choosing. If you Google "gnudi", you'll find a range of sauces and suggestions. I enjoyed mine in two sauces - a walnut/parm/olive oil 'pesto' and in a simple brown butter sauce augmented with the juice of the pink lemons I purchased yesterday. You can serve gnudi with just about anything - as the cliche goes, you are only limited by your imagination.

One last thought: you can test your mettle by reducing the amount of buckwheat in the recipe by 1 to 2 teaspoons. Obviously the less flour in the dumpling, the more delicate it will become. Good luck!

Gnudi with butter, kale, lemon, capers, chicken stock, parmigiano-reggiano

Cake & Commerce's Gluten-free Gnudi

Preparation time: start to finish, about 1.5 to 2 hours.

For the dumplings:
3/4 lb Fresh, local Ricotta (sheep is preferable...cow is fine)
3 to 4 oz  Parmigiano-reggiano, grated
1/2 t salt
pepper to taste
1 egg yolk
1/4 teaspoon fresh thyme, tarragon, or the herb of your choosing, cut into near-dust
fine zest of a single small lemon or 1/2 a large lemon
squeeze of lemon, about 1/2 t lemon juice, fresh
2 T Light Buckwheat Flour
1 T + 2 t Tapioca Flour

For dredging gnudi before poaching:
2 T Rice flour
1 t Tapioca flour

(To make these with conventional flour, substitute scant 1/2 cup flour for the buckwheat and tapioca and dredge in wheat flour instead of rice and tapioca).

Procedure:
Before starting, make sure ricotta is relatively dry. If it is wet, place ricotta on a few paper towels inside a colander and drain. If it is dry and drained, it will not leave marks on the paper towel. Allow to drain for about an hour if wet.

To make gnudi, combine all ingredients in a bowl and mix with a spoon until well combined. Let the mix sit for about 30 minutes - the flour will absorb some of the moisture and the dough will become stiffer and slightly easier to handle.

Combine rice flour and tapioca flour together in a mixing bowl. Wetting your hands beforehand, pinch off a piece of the gnudi dough and roll into an oblong shape not unlike a football. Roll the gnudi in the rice flour and tapioca flour mixture, making sure gnudi is coated. Place gnudi on a sheet pan lined with parchment. If you use a lot of flour, you will have no sticking issues. Allow gnudi to sit out at room temperature for at least 30 minutes - again, the flour must absorb some of the water on the surface of the gnudi.

At this point you can set gnudi aside for a few hours if you aren't ready to cook them yet. If you are planning to serve them as part of a meal, it is actually easier to cook them ahead and store them in the refrigerator - as long as overnight (though I don't recommend that. I actually left them for two nights, and by the second day they lost some of that 'lighter than air' quality I liked about them immediately after making them).

To cook the gnudi, bring a pot of water to a simmer. DO NOT BOIL - the gnudi could fall apart! Gently simmer the gnudi for about 2 minutes or until they float to the surface, and remove from heat with a slotted spoon. VERY GENTLY place on a parchment lined pan. If you want to get fancy, you can rub a little olive oil on the parchment for the perfect non-stick surface.

At this point you can store the gnudi - overnight at most - or finish your dish. It is okay to hold them out for an hour - they will start to dry out, so keep them covered with a little bit of plastic.

Here are some idea for sauces for you. I don't have a single suggestion for a sauce - there are many great recipes out there that will pair well with the gnudi. A few suggestions:

Pesto
Tomato Sauce
Sage Brown Butter
Toasted Walnut Brown Butter Sauce
Cream Sauce
Poached lobster sauce (please kill them humanely, okay?)

I tossed mine in brown butter and garlic with thyme, Aleppo pepper, parmigiano-reggiano, and kale. It was delicious. The walnut/parm pesto was really good, too, but it was a little too heavy for the gnudi. I'd prefer something a little lighter. maybe something with a shellfish stock or poultry stock.

Toasted walnuts: don't toast them too long or they get bitter! And take as much of the skin off as you can.

Enjoy.

Thank you to Ms. Jacqueline Church of The Leather District Gourmet for featuring this recipe on her S/O/L/E Food Tuesday post.

Making kale taste great - not as hard as you'd think

Someone I know really hates kale. Passionately. Problem is, I can't remember who it is. So after I write this, there's a good chance the kale hater in my life won't see this. And will continue hating kale.

Which will be a pity. Because kale is great. And versatile.

Kale gets a bad rap. It is a member of the brassica family, which includes cabbage, broccoli and Brussels sprouts, some of the more polarizing vegetables on the plate. Kale is extremely sturdy and does better in cooler climates, so in areas like New England is it available long after the last broccoli has yellowed and the tomato plants have been pulled out of the ground. It holds up well in coolers and can be stored for long periods of time.

But then there's the issue of flavor. When raw, kale tastes like cabbage. Rough, tough, woody cabbage with the subtle stink of sulfur. Think boiled eggs and hot springs.

Cooked, however, Kale becomes an elegant vehicle for flavor. Think of certain pasta shapes and their ability to carry sauce. Kale, with its curls and twists, similarly holds sauce.

A zillion years ago, when I was an intern at a country French restaurant in Boston, one of my tasks was cleaning ridiculous amounts of kale, cooking the life out of it, and then adding to a decadent cream sauce that was loaded with cheese (not quite sure which one, it may have been Parmigiano-Reggiano). The kale was the vehicle for the sauce. A virtuous vehicle for hundreds and hundreds of calories.

Once kale has been beaten by boiling, roasting, frying, or sauteing until limp, it no longer has the profoundly 'off' flavor that so many find disagreeable. It can then be used in any number of other dishes, hidden in meatloaf (if that's how you roll), incorporated into stuffings, tucked into pockets and baked or fried, rolled into rice wrappers with other fillings, pureed and served with the herbs or spices or fats of your choosing - you can do anything with it that you would cooked spinach or chard.

So what did I do with it? After I removed the rib from the leaves (a must - that rib is woody!), I plunged the kale into boiling water. I don't usually boil my veg, but kale needs to be tamed. After a few minutes it softened considerably. I removed the kale, ran it under cold water, and set it aside. I finely chopped some of it and threw it into a pasta sauce.

The rest I chopped coarsely. I heated up just a little butter, threw in some garlic, finely chopped capers, a little bit of Aleppo pepper (a little hot, a lot of flavor). Then I tossed in the kale and heated it through, threw in some salt and pepper, and then squeezed a bit of fresh lemon juice on it (just at the end...you'll turn your greens army green a little too fast if you add it early). I added a little stock to it as well - I like how rich it tastes with the greens. Once I plated it, I garnished it with a local goat cheese (Ada's Honor from Carlisle Farmstead cheese) and just a touch more Aleppo pepper.

Since I was eating alone that night, I ate as much of it as I could. And the rest I gave to the dogs - Lula and Spike - who ate every last bit of it. Lula is a picky eater. I know that if she ate it, it couldn't have been that bad.

The Variegated Pink Lemon - Pink, Sweet and Lemony

I had no idea that pink lemons existed until I went to my local natural foods store - Debra's - and saw a basket of organic pink lemons. Why I never stopped to ask myself if pink lemonade really came from pink lemons I'll never know. I always assumed pink lemonade was a creation of the beverage industry and a fanciful fiction. Pink Lemons, first 'discovered' on a lemon tree in 1930, are a low-yield crop with limited growers and distribution; 'real' pink lemonade thus remains mostly fictional. This New York Times article tells the story of - among other lemon varieties - the Variegated Pink Lemon, which gets its' pink color from lycopene (as does grapefruit). 

I was pretty excited by the pink lemons, never mind they were over $6.00 a pound. I'm easy that way. Really. Bring me something I've never worked with before, and I'm over the moon. When I lived in California I had access to all kinds of citrus but I never saw the pink lemons.

And here I was in Concord, MA in February. And there was a basket of pink lemons. And of course I wanted to give them a good, albeit temporary, home.

I immediately decided on risotto. I took my lemons home and sliced one up. A jewel. I could not waste it on risotto. No, I needed something a little more...sexy. A little more risque.

And so I decided on gnudi, those little, light, plump, flavorful ricotta pillows, the cheesy cousin to gnocchi. I'll post more about that tomorrow.

After I used as much of the lemons as I needed, I sliced a few up and cooked them in simple syrup. I loved the way their color changed as I cooked them.

First they turned tangerine orange and then a deeper shade of brown...

Tomorrow I'll have some chewy candied lemon. Mmmm.

These could be used in a cocktail or as a garnish. Or just eaten out of hand, if you don't mind the slightly bitter rind....

Pink Lemons are available October through February.

Making ketchup at home: easy as...ketchup

I love ketchup. I think ketchup is a gorgeous condiment and I can't resist how it tastes with eggs and fries and anything on a bun (except hot dogs. Never hot dogs). And, for reasons I cannot even begin to understand, I've never thought of making ketchup at home. I've made mustard, cured olives, bottled pepper sauce - if it can be made, I've made it. Or so I thought.

Browsing Tastespotting one day, I noticed a picture and a recipe for home-made ketchup. Ketchup? Ketchup! My friend Lynda, too, started making ketchup at home, using Sally Fallon's recipe for fermented ketchup.

I looked at a few recipes online and decided to go with my gut rather than follow someone else's well-worn path. I also wanted it to be cane sugar-free and vegan. Ketchup recipes usually contain Worcestershire sauce, which contains anchovies, or fish sauce. I'm not vegan, but I wanted to create an alternative to the standard ketchup recipes out there.

The recipe below is strongly seasoned - I'd recommend cutting the spices in two if you like slightly more subtle ketchup. And leave out ingredients you don't like. I'm a firm believer in tailoring dishes to your own taste and trimming, cutting, and adding ingredients where it makes sense. Except in baking. So feel free to play with the recipe.

Cake & Commerce's Tomato Ketchup (never call it catsup!)

• 24 oz pureed tomatoes
• 10 oz water
• 1/4 C agave syrup
• 1 T Molasses (Grandma's or similar)
• 1 t soy sauce
• 1 onion, chopped
• 4 cloves garlic, smashed

Whole spices (place these in cheesecloth and tie with string or your life is gonna get tough):

• 1 t whole cloves
• 1 t whole black peppercorns
• 1/2 t whole allspice
• 1/2 t whole mustard seed
• 1 t whole green cardamom
• 1/2 stick cinnamon
• 6 slices ginger, about 1" diameter each

Ground spices - combine:

• 1/4 t cumin, ground
• 1/2 t coriander, ground (not cilantro)
• 1/4 t paprika
• 1/4 t cayenne
• 1/4 t ground white pepper
• 1/4 t turmeric

Finishing:

• 1 6 oz can of tomato paste
• 1 T sherry vinegar
• 3 T sauerkraut juice (substitute vinegar)
• 1 t salt 

Procedure:
Sweat (saute until translucent) the garlic and onions. Add in tomato puree, water, agave and molasses, and soy. Stir in ground spices (cumin, coriander, paprika, cayenne, white pepper, and turmeric) and add sachet of whole spices and ginger to the mix. Bring to a simmer.

Depending on how spiced you like it, either remove the spices after 15 minutes or, if you are like me, leave them in for up to an hour while you are reducing the sauce.

At the one hour mark or after you have removed the spices,  you'll want to blend up the remaining mixture - the preferred method is the food mill. If you don't have one, you can use a hand blender (buy one if you don't have one) or a blender or a food processor.  Puree until smooth. No chunks!

Check the viscosity. If it has reduced by 30%, add in 6 oz of tomato paste and simmer for another 10-15 minutes. Recheck viscosity. If sauce is thick enough to form a firm peak when a spoon is removed from the sauce, it is good. If not, let it simmer a bit more.

Once it is cooled, add in vinegar, the sauerkraut juice (if you have it - if you don't substitute more sherry vinegar), and the salt. Adjust flavors as necessary. If you like it sweeter, add another teaspoon or two of agave (remember, it is very sweet!).

Allow to sit out at room temperature for 24 hours (no higher than 68 degrees f). If you aren't loving the flavor, augment with a little tomato paste, tasting with each addition. The paste can taste metallic  and 'raw' (not literally, but it isn't a 'mellow' flavor), so you'll want to add carefully.

It will keep in refrigerator for a few weeks. You could also hot process it if you like for shelf-stability. But that's tricky and not for the faint of heart. Or for me to explain here. Or you could freeze some of it. It makes quite a bit, probably more than you'll use in a few weeks.

This morning I tried this ketchup with eggs. And it was deeelightful. I hope you'll use this recipe as a starting off point for your own ketchup. Feel free to change it up and make it your own.

 

This post was part of the Food Renegade's FIGHT BACK FRIDAY, April 10th, 2009

Kinpira - burdock and carrot, Japanese Style

Every Monday night, Nell and Doug host a movie night in the screening room of their house in Cambridge. I don't know how many years they've been doing it - I've been going off and on since the early 2000s, but I know it has been going on even longer. They take a break over the summer; the rest of the year, a rotating cast of friends, recent and historical, curate 8 week 'series' of loosely connected films. The movie night is open to all - well, at least all who know someone who knows Nell and Doug.

Before the movie, a vegan meal is served, though cheese and other non-vegan condiments are available. Doug and Nell have an uncanny memory for the dinners they serve. When I showed up at their house two weeks ago, Doug, recalling a meal I had shared with them in late spring, apologized for serving pasta again. Of course I remembered that meal (it was a very good pesto) but Doug, who has since served dozens of movie night dinners to legions, recalled it with startling acuity. 

It is hard if not impossible to attend movie night without a treat in hand. Guests' contributions vary. This past week, before a screening of the early Jack Nicholson flick Five Easy Pieces, one guest brought a just-baked chocolate and banana bundt cake, another brought candied kiwis. There were assorted small containers of wasabi peas and a few other things I didn't even see because I arrived a little late (argh! Why do the suburbs have to be so far from Cambridge? Don't answer, it is just me whining). I'm not sure how I had been wasting my day, but suddenly I looked at the clock and it was 5 pm. I had to leave by 6:30 to get there in time, and I had no time to shop or bake or do anything remotely well-planned.

I considered asparagus souffle.  But the idea of bringing not-yet-in-season produce to the dinner brought me down. Plus I would probably screw it up and end up bringing some rubbery, mockable mess. Rooting around the produce drawer (I'm trying to use up as much of the vegetables as I can before my mom gets home from Florida), I found a forgotten stash of burdock, one of my favorite crunchy vegetables. It was left over from a dinner party several weeks earlier and now was just sitting there, sad, waiting to be eaten. So I complied. Kinpira Gobo was going to be my contribution to the meal.

Kinpira Gobo (金平牛蒡),  sauteed and simmered burdock root with, usually, carrot, is one of my favorite Japanese side dishes. First exposed to it during a homestay outside of Tokyo when I was 16, I continue to make it whenever I happen to notice burdock in the store. Which is not all that rare, as I tend to shop the Japanese grocery stores whenever I can (it is also available in Chinese markets - I haven't checked Korean markets so you'll have to tell me if it is stocked there too).

Burdock, a long, thin, bark-colored root that measures anywhere from 1 to 3 feet, is an easy-to-cultivate thistle, renowned for its 'blood purifying' and diuretic qualities when concentrated in its dry form. Its' dark, woody exterior must be peeled off before use, and the white flesh of the root oxidizes quickly (and browns) if left out. This isn't a problem - as it cooks, it browns all over and becomes a golden straw color (my friend Becky wants you to know that raw burdock can stain your hands, though I've never experienced it. Wear rubber or plastic gloves if you are concerned).

The crunch of the cooked burdock root pairs well with its mild flavor. The simmer sauce/glaze - basically a combination of soy and sake and sugar (in the ratio of 3:3:1) is finished with a bit of sesame oil and, if desired, a dash of shichimi togarashi (seven spice blend) or, if unavailable, cayenne.

"Kinpira" - the cooking technique - is a saute followed by a simmer. Kinpira is a fast cooking technique and imparts a ton of flavor in a short period of time. It is always the same regardless of the dish cooked in that manner.  I like a version with hijiki seaweek, carrot, and tofu - it may, in fact, be one of my favorite dishes of all time. In this recipe I pair carrot with the burdock - a very traditional combination. The sweet softness of the carrot is an appealing contrast to the subtle flavor and harder crunch of the burdock.

Here's the basic recipe I used:

Cake & Commerce's Kinpira Gobo

• 1-2 large carrots, Julienned
• 1 large burdock root, Julienned (you can soak in water after cutting if you don't want to watch it oxidize - remember to dry as much as possible before cooking).
• 1 t sesame seeds raw (toasted is fine too)
• 2 t sesame oil + 1 t peanut oil
• 1 T sake
• 1 T soy sauce (gluten-free for all my celiac pals)
• 1 t sugar (substitute coconut sugar or agave syrup)
• 1/4 t OR LESS cayenne or shichimi togarashi (optional, but makes for a nice kick)

Combine sake, soy sauce and sugar. Heat oil in large saute pan with lid. If using raw sesame, add to the oil and allow to cook for a couple minutes - add carrot and burdock when sesame is no longer translucent. Saute for about 2-3 minutes. Add in soy/sake/sugar combo, and simmer gently with a lid for about 10 minutes. Check from time to time to make sure liquid has not entirely evaporated and give mixture a stir. When the carrots and burdock are mostly cooked, uncover pan and allow to finish cooking - there should be no liquid left in the pan. Finish with the cayenne (or shichimi) and a touch more sesame oil if desired.

Serve at room temperature.

The forgiving crowd at movie night downed the kinpira in record time even though it clashed with the main dish of the meal - a killer vegan chili, made by Doug. Nell chastised me for not having the recipe up on the blog. So Nell, for you, the recipe. A few days late, but I hope not too late.

Tea Oil - cooking with it would be a mistake, so I'm slathering it on my face instead

Last fall I attended Expo East with my company, ostensibly to check out our competition and get a feel for the natural food industry, which I'd left in 2000 when I quit my job at Whole Foods. After a day and a half of sampling gluten-free pizzas and cookies and cakes and chatting up vendors of hemp seed (not a competitor) and chia seed (not a competitor) and salba seed (also not a competitor) I turned my attention to beauty care. Or is it skin care? I really don't know. I'm not a makeup girl, and I don't even pretend to be one.

I sampled toothpaste and vitamins and colonics (not really, but I did listen to someone try to pitch me. he was so nice, I couldn't turn away). I collected samples of shampoos and moisturizer and non-alcohol-based anti-bacterial washes. I tried cough drops that were stronger than Hall's and tasted of licorice. Walking down a quiet, low-cost, small business aisle I stumbled upon a woman who was selling argan oil in small vials as a face care product. I knew that argan oil, derived from the kernels or 'nuts' from the argan tree and one of the rarest - and most expensive - nut oils in the world, was now being sold in gourmet shops as a nutritious, LDL-lowering and HDL-increasing cooking oil, that, in its raw form, was high in the various omegas, but until that time I had never seen it sold as a beauty product - not that I'm so keyed in.

Once home, I abandoned the big company moisturizer and turned entirely to the vial of sample oil. Within a few weeks it was gone, and I couldn't find it again locally.

Last week when I was shopping at a very friendly natural food store (one of the staff members came up to us as we were checking out and said, "I just wanted to tell you what a pleasure it is to see such well-informed people shopping here") I found a bottle of argan oil. It was toasted, which is not quite right for skincare. And it was 24 dollars, which was not quite right for my pocket.

On the same shelf was a bottle of Camellia tea oil, simply labeled "Tea Oil". Derived from the oleifera camellia seeds of the camellia tea plant, the oil, like argan oil, is high in Omega-9, 3 and 6, lowers LDL and raises HDL. If you are planning to eat it, you shouldn't heat it (even though it has a smoke point of 485 degrees F) but rather use it to finish dishes, make dressings, etc.

It was also a third of the price of the Argan oil.

So I took it home. And without doing my research, I pushed my ridiculously expensive moisturizer aside and started to use the tea oil. It was amazing. It is amazing. In this dry weather, the oil has kept my skin soft and smooth. According to some literature I've read, it even offers some UV protection, though I'm still trying to figure out if that's true or not.

Yep. I'm trading in my expensive moisturizers for something that also doubles as food. What could be better?

Presentation awesomeness: Farmhouse Cheese at Sanford

Flagstone + parchment + chalk = great presentation for an American farmhouse and artisan cheese plate at Sanford in Milwaukee, WI. Thank you Samara for taking me!

Gettin' Wild (Fermentation) - everyone's doin' it

I'm sure you know at least one person  who makes sauerkraut or a lacto-fermented pickle at home. If you don't, well, let me be that person for you. Or you could start being that person yourself, if you like sour vegetables. Which I do.

I'm crazy about sour flavors. I love kimchi. I love plain cultured yogurt. I dig cultured butter. And when I finally started eating sauerkraut - sometime in my 20s - I realized I really liked it. I'd even buy a jar of Bubbie's now and again, though I could never finish it.

And then Chelsey told me about Sandor Katz' Wild Fermentation, which I ordered immediately. Within 24 hours of its arrival I began making kraut. A simple one that took a couple weeks to ferment. I like it really sour - the longer the ferment, the more I savor it. I used Katz' basic recipe, which requires no lactic starter (some use whey from yogurt, some use a fresh whey made from cultured raw milk).  I ate almost all of it paired with pupsusas (which are traditionally paired with curtido, a traditional Salvadoran "sauerkraut" that is made with vinegar and given a short fermentation). 

This past fall I put by a few lacto-fermented vegetables: a celeriac kraut (pictured above), a fermented giardiniera, and a nappa sauerkraut with carrots. The giardiniera was the least successful - I didn't use enough salt and the lactobacillus really went wild and grew a redolent mold that reminded me of my time in the cheese mines. The celeriac was tasty and snappy, though I ended up giving it away to my friend Steve on the eve of my move from Chicago. I made it through most of the nappa sauerkraut before I left and still had enough for Steve. Given the freeze-thaw cycle of products transported in my car from Chicago to Boston, there was no way I could bring my pickled vegetables with me. Even a few raw potatoes I brought with me (don't ask me why) suffered through the journey.

Before I left Chicago, I bought a sauerkraut crock from a Polish hardware store on Chicago's northwest side for the bargain basement price of $49.99 (plus crazy Chicago tax). Had I thought about it, I wouldn't have packed it in my boxes for the movers to place in storage for the next few months. I'd like to get another batch going now.

In the meantime....

One of my favorite lacto-fermented products is Zukay's tomato salsa. All the good bacteria you want packed into a very tasty condiment that upwards of 63% of your friends and family will love. Apparently they have some lacto-fermented dressings in the hopper. Can't wait. I'm not much of a dressing gal, but I'll try anything sour. At least once.

Gemelli Bakers: Going Slow in State College, PA

For years the goal of my drives from Chicago to Boston was to make the fastest time possible with the fewest stops, usually at a dingy gas station on the side of the highway, nose held, senses on high alert. Unless stopped by a zealous and bored Ohio highway patrol, I could make it in 14 hours, 3.5 tanks of gas, innumerable snacks, and a guilty fast food stop, which I then promptly struck from the official record of the trip. The Indiana and Ohio portions were particularly onerous - long, flat and dull with costly tolls;  corn fields cut with industrial parks. Pennsylvania was the home stretch, curves and straightaways, mountains and valleys for hundreds of miles.

When Sarah (a high school friend) and Ben (her academic husband) moved their family (Ava and Ruben) to State College this past summer, I finally had a sensible stopping place where I could break up my trip. The first couple visits were brief and vaguely alarming; I wasn't used to a college town and the welter of students following a Penn State victory, the nocturnal calls of drunken students making their way past the house to fraternity row, and the warm beacon of Hooter's welcoming me when I reached town center.

This week, as I made my way from Chicago to Boston for perhaps the last time, I stopped in State College for a four day sojourn - I needed to decompress from my move and spend some quality time with my friends. I was sleepy and unmotivated - I found myself sleeping late and napping at random intervals. I busied myself by washing dishes, watching videos I'd downloaded and walking the dog. Sarah and I met for lunch during the weekdays - she works from home and would take a break to hang out without the kids.

The first full day I was there Sarah took me to one of State College's treasures - a tiny artisan bakery called Gemelli Bakers.

It was, improbably, located up the street from an alley lined with state college flags. I felt a bit like Dorothy upon stepping out of her house and finding herself in Oz.

Once I stepped in to Gemelli Bakery, I was immediately at ease - the warmth of the oven coupled with the smell of fresh baked bread were familiar and comforting. It was the smallest bakery I'd ever set foot in - the oven was about 10 feet from the door and all of the fixtures were on wheels so that they could be moved during production. The space was both claustrophobic and open - big picture windows brought plenty of light into the space. I've heard many spaces described as jewel boxes. Gemelli truly is one.

The owner, Tony Sapia, is a State College legend. He owns several restaurants and bars and is as much a craftsman as he is a mini-mogul. He opened up the bakery late summer 2007 after running a successful wholesale business out of his restaurant next door. The shop, which used to be a bottle shop, was used for storage for several years before Tony turned it into Gemelli, named for his twin sons.

I visited twice, and each time he was there, waiting on customers, chatting up the regulars, and patiently answering questions from obtrusive bloggers (cough).

When we stopped in on Thursday night, just before close, Tony was tending the ovens as the last loaves of Challah were baking (he's the only certified Kosher baker in PA, and does a brisk sabbath and holiday business). Furniture was rolled to the side of the shop to allow for easier cleaning.

The next time we stopped in, on Friday morning, the shelves were stacked with fresh bread and as I took pictures a continuous stream of customers kept Tony busy, moving from shelf to shelf to cash register.

The old school cash register:

And the breads:

The bread is as good as it looks - rich tasting, great crumb, wonderful texture, terrific crust. We gobbled up both loaves we purchased in record time. And the challah was still toothsome and tender two days after we bought it.

For the curious, Tony makes his list of ingredients available. Predictably, he pulls no punches - the breads are natural and made with minimal ingredients.

Gemelli also sells a small selection of pastries, cupcakes and cookies - baked in the restaurant's ovens rather than in Gemelli's certified kosher deck ovens. We purchased a few cookies - delicious. The apple galette looked great.

And the cookies, oh the cookies:

Gemelli Bakers also sells their bread year-round at the farmers' market.

Gemelli Bakers
129 S Pugh St
State College, PA 16801
(814) 234-8946

They keep slightly odd hours, so call ahead.

After love fades, Parmigiano-Reggiano still lingers

Mark Bittman's January 6th article in the New York Times, "Fresh Start for the New Year? Let's Begin in the Kitchen,  about the essentials of a great, cook-ready pantry, is a must-read for anyone who fancies him or herself a kitchen whiz. For me and my other ex-pro pals (and, of course, passionate home cooks) most of his wisdom is a given - we were beaten into acquiescence by culinary school and later by food movements and food evangelists we've worshipped, adopted and, sometime later, abandoned.

Much has already been said about Bittman's list* -- bloggers have remarked on their own pantries (for the record, mine does not exist - all of it is packed in boxes, discarded, or passed on to appreciative friends. In packing up the pantry, I found at least four different versions of pimenton - hot, sweet, regional, bulk, tinned and jarred. Slightly excessive, no?) and taken pictures to share with the rest of the foodie blogosphere. I'd like to add a couple more pantry staples - European cultured butter (Plugra will do in a flash), chicken fat, which I keep in the freezer, and coconut fat. All are delightfully saturated and, according to conventional wisdom, will lead to a life of angioplasties if you make it past menopause (I'm with the Weston A Price folks on this one, though I'm very moderate in my use. I've never met a naturally saturated fat I didn't like and they most certainly did not shorten the lives of the women in my family, all of whom lived past 90. But anyway).

What excited me the most about Bittman's list was his outright rejection of canned, grated "Parmesan" - the fat vehicle for salt that is but the faintest shadow of its inspiration, Parmigiano-Reggiano, the Italian "king" of cheese.

Even in my darkest days, when money was in short supply and I had to trim the extras from my life, I could always find enough change to purchase a wedge of Parm. Though I could no longer afford the trendy Vacche Rosse or the four year old Guffanti-selected mountain-pastured Parmigiano-Reggiano I favored when I was still in the cheese biz, I could still scrape together enough change to buy the just-cut-from-the-wheel wedges at the local specialty markets. The $9 I spent was a worthwhile investment: I could stretch a wedge for months, and every single shaving was a savory gift that enhanced so much of what it touched. I kept the rinds around to season stock, or, when my dog was especially good, as a treat for her (they're chewy and don't cause her indigestion).  There was no way I'd consider trading down; I'd even convinced my mother to abandon the green shaker of shame after I'd introduced her to the simple joys of the real thing.

Later on, when I was internet dating, I'd routinely list Parmigiano-Reggiano as one of the things I could not live without. I made it clear to prospective paramours that the green can was verboten in my life, much as drug use and children are for some internet match seekers. I thought it would be an effective filter.

Imagine how thrilled I was when, via the same website, I found a foodie who seemed to share my passion for things edible. As I dug deeper, I found a few surprises:  rarely patronized farmers' markets because of high prices, yet always dined out at lunch time, spending about the same amount; he could be indiscriminate in his appetites; and, hardest for me to reconcile, he still purchased and enjoyed "Parmesan", the shelf-stable and pre-grated scourge.

I found this out quite accidentally. During a trip to Target to pick up something that must have seemed very important at the time - and of which I have no recollection now - he casually reached over to a display of green cheese and tried to add a cylinder to the cart. I grabbed it out of his hands (thinking he was joking) and put it back on the shelf. Much acrimony ensued. The more  I pleaded with him to give up the can and turn to the wedge, the more he dug in his heels.  We reached an impasse: I was hopelessly controlling and a snob, he was relentlessly, proudly pedestrian.

Our relationship soon faltered. Perhaps because of the cheese, perhaps because the row over cheese highlighted something more fundamentally incompatible between us. No mind - Parmigiano-Reggiano is still in my life, adding flavor and texture and joy nearly every day.

*(I do have to take issue with Bittman's assesment that dried parsley and basil are useless: in the cuisine of the early 20th century Italian immigrant - 'red sauce Italian', they play a huge role and lend a certain flavor you cannot achieve with fresh herbs)

Coconut "Sugar" - a traditional sugar that's new to me

Made from the boiled sap of coconut palms, coconut sugar is a Southeast Asian specialty that has been slowly finding an audience in the US thanks to its low GI index - approximately half that of sucrose, conventional table sugar. For diabetics, it is a tasty (indeed!) alternative to stevia and the artificial sweeteners that make baked goods and jams taste nothing short of terrible.

Mom and I stumbled upon coconut sugar when we visited a local health food store looking for some multivitamins. As we looked through the gluten-free flours, I saw a bulk-packed bag of coconut sugar, something I'd never seen before. It was from Indonesia where it has been a staple ingredient in local dishes, though in recent years has fallen out of favor and is at risk of disappearing. This form of coconut sugar - in small granules - is different in taste and easier to use than cake palm sugar, which has to be broken apart before it can be used. It is a little more earthy and has a slightly stronger caramel flavor.

I used it in applesauce, where it added a hint of caramel color and slight sweetness. The cashier at the health food store told us that in baked goods it produces a moister product and that they've been using it in some of the prepared foods they sell out of their kitchen.

I was not able to find any at Whole Foods, though it can be mail-ordered or found at some health food stores. Conventional cake palm sugar is available at South Asian and Southeast Asian grocers.

The Wild Turkeys of Chestnut Hill

Roaming the posh backroads of Chestnut Hill, MA, the wild turkey is no longer front page-making news in the Boston area. Once a rarity in Massachusetts, the wild turkey is now a fixture amongst the woods and stately homes in the towns ringing Boston.

Driving down the street during a visit to Boston during Christmas, we happened upon a rafter of turkeys that seemed not at all unused to having a camera shoved in front of their turkey faces. I had been expecting a more aggressive reaction following some tv coverage of some unusually vicious turkeys that had chased and attacked pedestrians in not-so-distant Brookline.

But they just posed and mugged for the camera.

Four Scones and Several Hours: A gluten-free scone experiment that actually worked

Well hello, sexy! How did you get here?

Its not such a long and complicated story, actually, but it is a story. I work (or, until December 31st, I worked) for a company that manufactured gluten-free and allergy-friendly foods. Several employees have celiac disease or gluten itolerance, and I've tested recipes on them. Patricia, the Director of Sales, has celiac and doesn't like sweets, except for scones. Which she craves.

I recently bought a scone at a gluten-free bakery in the 'burbs and was pretty unimpressed with it. It was sandy and grainy - one of the hallmarks of baking with too much rice flour. Patricia also tried them the last time she visited (she lives in Dallas) and didn't think much of them either. So when I asked her if she had a request for a recipe, she answered, plainly, "scones".

So I assembled my ingredients, found a basic scone recipe (thank you Joy of Cooking) and proceeded to mangle it, four times over. I had a number of flours at my disposal, including Sorghum, which I abandoned after remembering that two proteins in it cause everyone quite a bit of gastrointestinal distress.

I'm not the most organized recipe developer. I write down recipes on the back of anything I can find - usually envelopes. The first version is always the most simple - I don't diverge much from the original recipe (though in this case I reduced the eggs, and increased the cream and butter) and use the results to guide my next version.

In this case, the first version had a fairly large percentage of rice flour and a low percentage of everything else. I kept the baking powder at the same level, didn't use any gums and kept the butter low. The dough ended up being a little dry. The result? A too-tender, too-sandy scone with less-than-adequate rise. The next version included less brown rice, some xanthan gum, and the same amount of fat. Better, but not ideal. The third version included no rice flour, xanthan gum, and more fat. It was great. The fourth version had more liquid, less fat, and some amaranth. The flavor was good but it wasn't quite right.

I invited over my friend Drex, who is a gluten aficionado (he bakes bread for fun) to help me test out the finished product. As he went through each one, he gave me feedback around mouthfeel, texture, bite, and flavor. Flavor wasn't quite as important, as I was trying for a master recipe that I could change by adding more flavor - lemon, ginger, orange, maple etc.

He agreed with me that the third version was the best - it had a good texture, kept its integrity when chewed, and tasted good. He did like the nuttiness that the amaranth added in the third version, and I felt that those scones were actually quite tasty, too.

I ended up making some lemon curd (you can find a basic recipe in the Joy of Cooking) to eat with the scones, and I found the whole thing to be quite delicious and - happily - very sconey!

I still need to develop more 'contemporary' scones - these are very much in the mold of classic scones, very tender and delicate and a little dry but full of butter and cream.

Cake and Commerce's Gluten-Free Classic-Style Scones

• 1/2 C Certified Gluten-Free Oat Flour
• 1/4 C Tapioca Flour
• 1 C LIGHT Buckwheat Flour (dark or regular will give you very dark scones)
• 1 T Amaranth Flour (you can leave this out - it won't impact the recipe. Take out 1 T Oat if you use this)
• 1/4 t Xanthan Gum
• 1 T Baking powder
• 1/2 t Salt
• 1 T Sugar (you can add up to 4 T if you want a sweeter scone)
• 6 T (3 oz) Butter, unsalted and COLD
• 2/3 C Heavy Cream
• 1 ea Egg
• 1/2 t vanilla

Procedure:

Preheat oven to 450 F.

Combine all dry ingredients in bowl. Mix thoroughly. Break up butter into small pieces and work into flours until butter is evenly dispersed throughout. It should look like cornmeal. 

Combine wet ingredients. 

Make a well in the middle of the dry ingredients. Add the liquid to the dry ingredients in the well. With your hands, combine the dry and wet ingredients. Your hands will get sticky, make sure you work all the batter on your hands into the dough. Dough will be sticky - you do not want a dry dough.

Collect dough in a ball. Flatten and then roll out to approximately 3/4 inch thick.  At this point I chill the dough for about 10 minutes in the refrigerator, covered. You can refrigerate the dough up to one day or freeze it until you need it. You don't need to, but it does give the dough some time to absorb the liquid.

Remove the dough and using a biscuit cutter or a round cutter or a glass, cut into scones. You could also cut into wedges if you like that. You don't need to worry about gluten forming, so rework all the dough - there should be no leftovers!

Brush a little cream on top of the scone and sprinkle it with granulated sugar. You can also use water or egg wash.

Place in center rack of oven and bake for approximately 15 minutes. It may be done in 13 minutes, so check for color. If the top is golden brown, it is done.

Allow to cool. Serve with clotted cream, jam and lemon curd. If you aren't going to eat them right away, freeze after cooling or place in an airtight container. Makes approximately 15 each 1.5 inch scones OR about 8 regular-sized scones.

Variation: To make lemon scones, include the zest of one lemon in the dough and increase sugar to 3T, and combine the juice of one lemon with 1 C confectioner's sugar to make an icing. Ice scones when cool.

Enjoy!

Toasted Almond Daifuku - sweet rice and red bean cakes Western Style

For two years I've (unintentionally) kept three packages from Mitsuwa, the Japanese supermarket, in my cupboard: a rice flour mix for mochi (glutinous rice cakes), tsubu an (mashed red bean paste) and toasted soybean flour. The idea was that one day I'd make some daifuku, a very simple Japanese sweet made with all three ingredients. And, of course, I forgot about it.

Until yesterday.

I 'rediscovered' the flours and sweet bean as I was cleaning my cupboards in preparation for my move out of Chicago. Since I have plenty of free time between packing boxes and cleaning my refrigerator, I thought a simple cooking project might be fun. My friend Drex was over at the house and together we set out to make a few daifuku. Drex isn't a fan of most sweets, but he makes an exception for mochi and other rice and bean-based desserts.

I used the recipe from the back of the mochi flour package: 1 packet of pounded rice flour (200g), 240 cc water (I happen to own a Japanese measuring cup), 4 teaspoons of sugar, 1 package of anko or tsubu an (pre-sweetened mashed red bean paste). I cooked the water, sugar, and mochiko in a saucepan, stirring constantly, until it was translucent. While it was still hot, we formed the mochi into flat pancakes, stuffed them with balls of sweet bean, and sealed them up.

When we went to dust them with the toasted soybean flour, I realized the package had turned in storage and was rancid and unuseable. We panicked. I didn't want to roll my mochi in starch (though I have plenty on hand, I've never liked plain daifuku). So I pulled some almond flour from the freezer, toasted it in a pan, and rolled the finished daifuku in the almond flour. It was nutty and tasty, and seemed just as delicious as the toasted soybean flour, though not exactly traditional.

It took us 30 minutes start to finish. Very easy. Very tasty. Gluten-free. And just as good as any I've bought at Mitsuwa.