Plant Murderer

I am Death. Riding on my pale horse, scythe in hand and raised to the sky, preparing to cut those down before me and scatter them like leaves in the wind.

At least, this is how plants see me.

Let me run down the toll for you:

1998: Four strawberry plants. Murdered by bugs due to my lack of attention. And my lack of giving them fertilizer, love, sunshine, and general upkeep. How these things ever lived on their own in the wild before man is beyond me.

2001: Pot of rosemary given to me as a gift. Drowned it by watering it every single day. I thought I was doing such good giving it all that attention. I will remember this when I have to take care of children in the future.

2002: Cactus. Death by thirst. Forgot to water it. For over a year. I thought these things lived through drought and whatnot? Obviously, this one was flawed.

2002: Lemon Tree. Accidentally tripped and crushed the poor thing the day after I planted it. Worst $30 ever spent.

2003: Ivy. Killed an entire yard of the stuff under my watch. I like to see it as another admirable practice of man conquering the incredible strength and apparent passivity of nature yet again. Go me!

2004: Orchid. Damn thing never had a chance. I accidentally knocked it off a second story window. It was immediately trampled by a dozen bikes. The funeral was quick and painless, though a bit smelly, but that's what I expect from a refuse bin behind the 7-11 that smells of hobo ass. Amazing how a thing of such beauty can be defiled so quickly.

2005: Mint plant, which I had kept alive for years. Okay, I planted it under a leaky hose, then neglected it. It flourished. I was happy. Then I stopped thinking one day and fixed the hose. Withered to dust.

2007: Rosemary - Part 2. You'd think it would be happy I remembered to water it every day, like it's now-dead realtive. Ungrateful bastard.

2007: Bamboo in a pot. Don't use over-calcified Sacramento tap water, apparently it can crawl up the bamboo plant and actually choke it to death. Who knew?

Now... a new pot. Rosemary: The Third. Let's hope I don't have to talk this one off the ledge.

Or drop it off one somehow.

Cheese Tasting - The Aftermath

After a long hard day, I met with Kaiti and Dan for an afternoon of catch up. And what better way is there to play but over a little Parisian-style lunch? A variety of cheeses, crusty bread, good balsamic vinegars, icy-cold cream sodas, and a fresh garden salad with pumpkin seed oil. Good friends and good food are simply made for each other.

Okay, enough waxing emotional crap. I have one more final to go and then summer vacation! I can finally read for fun again!

Cheese Profile - Redwood Hill Traditional Chèvre

Redwood Hill has been around since the late 1960's and has been happily situated in the heart of the Sonoma County. They're dairy goats are raised on mostly organic feed, raised humanely and free range, and treated with the utmost care. They make a delicious feta cheese, but personally I'm a fan of the soft creamy cheeses they produce.

Type: Goat

Taste: The goaty flavor you normally expect from a chèvre was almost absent. It's light and airy, with a nice smooth texture and almost tastes and feels like a whipped cream cheese. A lighthearted cheese that can please any palate.

Serve With: This is a cheese for smearing on bread, or maybe layered with a bit of honeydew melon a sliver of prosciutto. I also feel that smeared on a strawberry it would be a match made in heaven. The cheese is also more flavorful than cream cheese and has far less fat, making it a perfect substitute for any bagel. Incorporating it into a variety of dips and spreads could open up a wide variety of possibilities. This cheese is also idyllic for any picnic or outdoor setting. I'm told a nice Chardonnay or a Muscadet from the Loire Valley is a perfect wine pairing.

Cheese Profile - Oregonzola

Rogue Creamery up in Oregon is well known on the West Coast for their delicious, fruity, Italian style blue cheeses. Established in 1935 when Tom Vella arrived from Sonoma, California to the Rogue River Valley. The cheeses are made in a very Italian style as Vella himself learned while in Champagne and Cambalou, as such he had four limestone and cement caves built at his creamery in order to produce similar effects like classic Roquefort cheese. This has produced stunningly flavorful blue cheeses that are now known nation and world wide. Most any cheesemonger or market with a good cheese selection should carry their products.

Type: Raw, Cow

Taste: Creamy and smooth, surprisingly mild for a cheese that emulates traditional Gorgonzola. In fact we called it a brie with a hint of blue. If you're new to blue cheese, I do believe this one would be a great way to start. The texture is easy, with a slight bit of granulation to it. Appearance wise, I find this cheese visually striking, the white slowly evolves into a tinged mustard yellow color and the veins of blue and green that dot and striate it are vivid and entertaining.

Serve With: This cheese best pairs with a very sweet and fruity balsamic vinegar. The slightly more than medium saltiness of it makes it an ideal choice for flavorful fruits such as citrus or figs, whereas berries and pommes might be a bit to take to really give it a proper go. The soft, natural rind has a firmness to it that would make for a tasty grilled cheese sammich if paired with a bit of radicchio and a heavy walnut or rustic multi-grain bread.

Sources:

• "Oregonzola." Cowgirl Creamery's Library of Cheese. Cowgirl Creamery. 11 May 2008 <http://www.cowgirlcreamery.com/prodinfo.asp?number=ORZOLA>.
• "Oregonzola Cheese." Rogue Creamery. 2008. 11 May 2008 <http://www.roguecreamery.com/product.asp?specific=109>.

Rhubarb Rosemary Jelly from Gourmet

I saw this recipe recently over at Gourmet.com and after looking it over it seemed like something doable during a study break. I had time and I had the ingredients on hand, so I figured why not? Recently, I had switched into my alter ego, Anxiety Man, able to jump to the worst conclusion in a single bound, and as such needed to unwind a bit.

Making jelly during finals, I find, is surprisingly fulfilling. To begin, it's always a pleasant feeling having a weighty knife in one's hand. There exists a sense of power and raw dominance that comes with it and the pleasure of slicing through the body and juices of all that rhubarb and rosemary. That bit of petit destruction gives a nice sense of relief and works as an irrefutably phenomenal stress reliever.

Honestly, my jam and jelly skills are what I would call... minimal. My luck with making them... disastrous at best. Mainly because all my past experience have had unfortunate mishaps which end with me somehow needing to be bandaged up.

Take the time I reached into a pot of scalding water for a jar lid, forgetting in fact, that the water was in indeed scalding. I didn't quite realize it somehow until I was a forearm deep. Fun trip to first aid there. Apparently I have a slow pain response to boiling water.

Then there was the time the jar exploded in my hand during the cooling process. A rousing game of "Is that blood or tomato sauce?" was enjoyed by all present.

Still, this recipe seemed so nonchalant. Relaxed. Easy. Basically it was chop shit up and boil it in a pot. Afterwards, pass it through a sieve and then jar it. It's a fridge jelly to be sure due to the use of gelatin instead of pectin, but I doubt it will last long anyways. (Update: It's gone now.)

The tickle pink, almost startlingly neon blush is stunning in itself. Really, I'm quite proud of myself just looking at it. The color is only surpassed by the flavor. Sweet, tart, and quite savory and while the jam is pink, the taste is a foresty green. While tasty by the spoonful (it's like rosemary candy for God's sake), I look forward to trying this with a bit of chicken or turkey assuming it lasts that long.

The recipe, as I have said, is easy; ridiculously so. So now I am jellied and happy, a bit less jittery, and ready to go back to the grindstone.

Toodles.

The Rockstar Ingredient Theory

I've slowly been realizing that each year the same pattern emerges. It seems to me that every single year in food is subtly defined by one specific ingredient. Somehow, someway, this possibly unheard of ingredient rises above the thicket with a tremendous rush and takes over the food world by storm. Suddenly, in a dizzying array of photography flashes, blog recipes, and magazine exposes this once underground food legend becomes a flash-in-the-pan rockstar.

For some of us it seems odd. We've been using the now ooh'ed and aah'ed ingredient for years. You haven't noticed it before? Where were you, society? Some of us were loving these guys before they were cool. I don't need the t-shirt, I was at their first concert.

It's hard to trace back, mainly because I wasn't paying too much attention for a long time. For a year or two back in the late eighties and early nineties, the coasts were abuzz with recipes and restaurants toting the use of goat cheese. And who can forget how suddenly every single thing lining the market shelves had some sort of sun-dried tomato in it. How glad,I am that that Tuscan flavored nightmare is over. (Sun-dried tomatoes make me gag.)

Last year, 2007... It was all about tea being used in food. Don't believe me? Look back. Matcha, chai, and Earl Grey. In cakes, tea cookies, for smoking meats, making preserves, and flavoring breads. It was everywhere. What food blogger didn't try using tea for something else other than a cup of hot water? I know I did. I made at least three different tea-based cupcakes using Earl Grey, matcha, and chamomile. Tea has dozens of healthy properties and flavorful opportunities to be explored, and explore we did.

2006? Pomegranate molasses. I grant this one to it being used suddenly on quite a few Food Network shows. That and the ever growing influence of Moroccan and Indian food. I think part of it traces back to the strengthening bonds and seemingly inevitable addition of Morocco to the European Union. With the country being accepted by most first world countries as "one of us" people were more willing to give it a try. Soon we were infatuated with that amazingly powerful fruity and acidic flavor.

I think 2005 was the chipotle pepper. Smokey heat that could give authentic Mexican/Tex-Mex/Creole/South of the Border flavor. We were adding it to BBQ, chocolate (best idea ever), salads, and breads. It flavored our junk food and perked the senses.

This year, 2008? RHUBARB.

Why you say? Look around. Check out any of your favorite food blogs. I bet you dollars to rhubarb jelly stuffed doughnuts you'll find a rhubarb recipe.

But why? Surely it's been around forever? People have been making rhubarb pies since time began. But it's suddenly that people are starting to push it outside the pie. Finding new and creative uses to apply this partly poisonous plant.

My friend Elise thinks it's a slow move from West to East. We on the West Coast have greater access to... well, most all produce. It's California. We just do. The rest of the nation seems to finally be catching up to the same kind of access we have to this veritable ruby-red boon. It's a good theory that seems to make sense, or at least it does to me.

I have no real proof or evidence to back up my claims. Just observations from reading over many, many food blogs and other food websites. It's my Rockstar Ingredient Theory, but if anyone else has any other insights or observations, please, I'd love to hear them.

That's the sound of me slamming my head on the wall.

(Finals time at grad school, so another post from the archives!)

I actually had this conversation lesson about the human race the other day.

"How do you get the papers to stick to the cupcakes?"

"I'm sorry?"

"The paper part. How did you make them stick to the cupcakes so you can hold them without getting all gunky?"

"Um, they're baked in the papers."

"The paper doesn't catch fire in the oven?"

"No. How did you think it was done?"

"I though you just made a really big cake and then used a cookie cutter to make them, then wrapped them up."

*blank stare* "No."

"Wow, must be one fancy oven you have!"

I didn't talk to anyone else that day, out of raw fear that there might be more of them out there.

Five Spice Chocolate Krinkle Cookies

I've been playing with more of Pichet Ong's recipes from his book. With each recipe, I'm learning something new about pastry and desserts and get a delicious tasty morsel as well. Today I approached the Spiced Chocolate Krinkle cookie.

I admit I doubted the recipe at first. When making it, it feels like everything you're doing is wrong. From forming the disk out of a still-liquid dough to rolling out the cookies into balls only 1/2 inch big, I kept second guessing myself. Still, the recipe worked like a charm just like all the others. Overall, it's a cookbook I highly recommend.

I did rework it a bit, I had no fresh ginger as called for, so instead I just went and used Chinese Five Spice. It was a subtle taste that gave paired well with the chocolate. I brought them in to my graduate class on Postmodern Fiction and they were happily devoured by everyone with a few asking for the recipe, so here it is...5 Spiced Chocolate Krinkles
Makes about 45
Adapted from The Sweet Spot, by Pichet Ong

What You'll Need,,,
2 tablespoons of vegetable oil
1 ounce of bittersweet chocolate, chopped
1 teaspoon of Chinese 5 spice powder
pinch of salt
2 tablespoons of almond flour
2 tablespoons of unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 teaspoon of baking powder
1/3 cup of flour
1 large egg
1/2 cup of sugar
1/2 teaspoon of vanilla extract
confectioner's sugar

What You'll Do...
1) Place the oil, chocolate, salt and spices in a double boiler and melt. Allow to cool.

2) Combine the flour, almond flour, baking powder, and cocoa powder together in a bowl as the chocolate mixture cools.

3) Once cool, mix in the egg, sugar, and vanilla extract and whisk together.

4) Fold in the dry ingredients. Afterwards pour out into plastic wrap and shape into a disk. Wrap tightly in plastic wrap. Chill until hard, at least 2 hours or up to 5 days.

5) When ready to bake, preheat oven to 375F and line baking sheets with parchment paper.

6) Put confectioner's sugar in a bowl. Take pieces of the dough and roll into balls about 1/2 inch wide, about the size of a marble. Roll in the powdered sugar until totally coated.

7) Place coated dough balls onto the baking sheets one inch apart. bake for about 10 minutes or until dry to the touch. Transfer cookies to a wire rack to cool completely. Store in an airtight container for two days, assuming you don't eat them all yourself.