ding dong the wicked witch is dead...

'NUFF SAID...

*~*~* TOP CHEF TRAVESTY *~*~*

PADMA, HOW COULD YOU?!?  

Alright, j/k, I know it wasn't Padma, but it WOULD be fun to blame her...  =)

Everyone who has even one team-based reality show in their personal TV rotation knows that whomever takes the "team leader" position is the one to get auf'd when the shiz hits the fan, but COME ON!!!  Dale is amazing, creative, and consistent, not to mention the hardest working contestant on this effing season!  To those who may say "oh yeah, he's OK w/ ASIAN food, but can't cook much else" I will direct your attention to the "Wedding Wars" ep from week-before-last when he not only cooked most everything his team presented, but also pwned Nikki-the-Italian's ragu recipe.  She told him to do it a certain way and when he bucked her to do it his way, she got so pissed she almost ate something (omg) only to have it be the ONE THING that the judges really loved.  (BTW, fave moment from that episode:  Dale at the judge's table talking about Spike's sea bass.  "You SHOULD like the sea bass, it took him three hours to make!"  Spike = FACED, so funny!  And that is another reason I will miss Dale:  who knew all that spicy deliciousness could come in such a small package!)  And speaking of my girl Spike, I seriously canNOT believe that crazy lady, who can't cook her way around an Easy Bake Oven, is still there and super-talented Dale is now off the show.  Furthermore, as soon as Spike put on her suit and tie, she went over to the dark side.  Seriously, her whole demeanor changed into this caricature "Supercilious F-O-H Manager":  not a good look.  On a side note:  Spike, fedoras went out of style about four years ago, sister, and they weren't even all that cute then...  

I am so devastated...  I thought for sure that it would be Blais, Dale, and Antonia going to Puerto Rico.

Oh, and don't even get me started on that hot, grumpy mess that is Lisa...  

Don't misunderstand me:  bitch can cook when she feels like it, but she is so inconsistent not only in her food quality, but also in her level of creativity and in her cooking/knife skills (even dumbass Pad-douche noticed this week, so you know it had to be pretty bad).  Also, at her best, Lisa has zero percent quality control, and when she gets weeded she has even less than that.  Actually, I think that if she would have shut her gob and listened to Dale throughout the competition, she would have found herself a much better cook for it, and had they BOTH been able to get along, they might have made a good team.  Dale is a good cook b/c he combines the best qualities of all three types of cook:  Workhorse, Artist, and Leader.  Lisa, as a Workhorse, can learn a lot from someone like that and needs to learn to shut it and do what she's told in order to maximize her own potential.

At the end of the episode, when Dale started crying, I really could not hold my shiz together...  the producers/judges seriously damaged the show for me last night.  I love me some Anthony Bourdain, and I usually agree w/ him on everything, but this week he made me a little...  well...  not pissed, but just irritated as hell.  I mean, I know what he was saying about a Chef needing to immediately check a sassy cook, and in a regular restaurant situation his assessment would be absolutely on the money.  On the other hand, had Dale chosen to have a scream fit w/ Lisa right in the middle of service, food would have gone out cold and more importantly, he may not have been able to finish service without her at all b/c of the limited staff.  Normally, the Chef at a restaurant is expediting, so if a cook has to be put off the line, it is easy enough to jump in and take their place; however, in this case, that solution was just not an option.  And to anyone who may say Dale was acting crazy with the service staff:  that was light, bbs.  One of my good (gay) F-O-H friends watched about half the ep with me, and when he saw Dale yelling at the servers, all he said was "that homosextical (Spike) needs to stop standing around and serve the damn food," which cracked me up b/c I expected him to defend the service staff.

I think Dale is a good chef and a good leader, but (unfortunately, in this situation) his leadership style is based on macro-management and he expects his staff to not only know what to do, but also how to do it properly.  In my opinion, the team he got stuck with needs more of a micro-manager who will stay on top of them and keep them focused, and that was a big part of Dale's downfall, too.

Well, I could go on and on, but I will stop now.  The show is just so much less interesting for me now that there is only one person I am really rooting for in the line-up.  Le sigh.

Homemade Phyllo Dough...

I got a comment on my last entry about homemade phyllo and about halfway through a lengthy comment-reply, I decided to just make it a separate entry, so here goes...

Although I have not made phyllo since culinary school, I remember a couple of things absolutely:

1)  if you don't have a pasta machine (hand-crank or auto), it is going to be an arduous journey.  The equivalent is making pasta dough and rolling it out to the appropriate, paper-thin noodle thickness by hand.  Also, when it comes to phyllo, hand-rolling really is for the expert b/c like all other gluten-rich products (bread, pasta) it is uber-sensitive to its surroundings and will eff up with too much or too little flour, kneading, etc.

2)  99.9% of all kitchens, professional or otherwise, use pre-made.  But phyllo is also a serious culinary adventure, so I am hoping someone gives it a shot and sends me pics!

3)  whatever recipe you use, regardless of what the instructions say, the water must be H-O-T hot.

Alright, now that I have exhausted my personal knowledge, I am gonna totally rip from my fave pastry tome, "The Professional Pastry Chef" by Bo Friburg...  ...Oh, well, maybe not, b/c his ass is only talking about pre-made sheets...  let me hunt a little more.

(later)

After combing my complete collection, including books in which I didn't expect to find it (such as "Lidia's Italian Table", "Joy of Cooking" circa 1962, and "Pots Pans & Pioneers" a Louisiana Lady's Club cookbook) just to be sure, I have come up with exactly...  ...bupkis.  So I am going to comb the magazines now, and if I still find nothing, then I will have to resort to Googling.

(much later)

I realized pretty quickly that whatever phyllo recipes Gourmet, Food & Wine, Food Arts, and Bon Appetit had utilized the pre-made stuff, but I still soldiered through two cardboard IKEA magazine holders worth of issues before accepting defeat...  ah well, a-Googling I go.

(5 seconds later)

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know I should have gone to google first, but as a hardcore bibliophile, it was against my basic nature to just disregard my books and mags like that.  Here is what I found...  There is a website that has a good, basic recipe for phyllo (which I will give below) with either pasta machine or by-hand methodology.  I do want to let any bravehearts out there who will try this know up front:  the dough has to rest just like fresh pasta dough, and this particular recipe calls for 24 hours.  So I guess all I have left to say now is "good night, and good luck"!

http://greekfood.about.com/od/greekbreadspitas/r/phyllo.htm

Post entitled What Pastry Chefs & Carpenters Have in Common, OR alternatively, God-Cursing

Fricking IKEA...  I love a lot of their stuff and I don't even really MIND putting it together, but at the same time, I know it will cause me a mountain of frustration...  =)  Anyway, while I was sweating and cursing over the above desk I was pondering a pretty common phenomenon:  pastry chefs who are carpenters or woodcrafters in their spare time.  The similarities began to occur to me (based on my uber-limited, D-I-Y furniture skillz and my medium-to-good pastry knowledge) and I am glad they did b/c now I get to blog about my desk-building experience, which is what I really wanted in the first place...

OK, so here are some things that both pastry chefs and professional carpenters have in common as I see it.  First, mise en place is everything.  If one vital ingredient or tool is missing, everything else will be off.  Second, there are a lot of hard and fast rules that must be followed regardless of whether what you're building is a cake or a cabinet.  Another commonality is that certain materials are better left to the professionals...  in my opinion, that includes the making and molding of fondant (pastry) and my new inanimate nemesis, camlocks (carpentry).  (BTW, for a picture of a camlock, see the jpeg @ the end of my post...  I think most everyone will recognize the face of evil immediately, LOL.)  I was stuck on the first set of camlocks (third step of my 14-step process:  insert gales of laughter here) for quite a little while only to find out that it was partly my fault and partly IKEA's.  For my part, I didn't screw in the connecting part far enough, and also I made the (wrong) assumption that all pieces of the puzzle should fit snugly against one another, but the only way I could get those first 4 camlocks to attach properly was to put about a 1/4 inch of space between the legs of the desk and the brace between them.  I think this would fall into the category of manufacturing/design flaw (though I certainly could be wrong), lucky for me, though, I don't think that space will affect the overall sturdiness of my desk.  

OK, moving on...  another thing I think pastry chefs and builders have in common is that although you have to know the hard-and-fast rules, like the temperature at which creme anglaise curdles or sugar burns, you also have to have enough real-time experience to know when you can say "FTW".  For instance, I know I am not SUPPOSED to strip screws while screwing them in, but even my limited experience tells me that I will never, ever, EVER take this damn desk apart just to put it together again, so I lean in and make that shiz work whatever way I can.  The same goes for a lot of pastry techniques, which is why that whole genre of cooking is more challenging than hot food:  you have to walk the line between science and creativity and know when to break rules and when to follow them.  I swear, sometimes my "chef training" helps me in ways I can't foresee, mainly mental/physical organization, but I also think that having baking/pastry/food science as my "professional hobbies" teaches me a whole host of skills that translate outside the kitchen.  Lastly, I think that anyone who is either a pastry chef or a carpenter has to be more of a mechanical learner, and b/c both professions have that in common, one is a natural progression of the other, kinda like the way being good at math usually means you will probably be good at music/languages, too.  I would love to know if it goes both ways though...  like whenever PBS or Food Network profiles a pastry chef and they talk about how they love to build furniture in their spare time, I am not surprised.  But I WOULD be surprised if the guys from "This Old House" up and confessed to having a serious meringue habit, LMAO...  oh, I thought of one last thing before I go:  the tools!  SO MANY of the tools pastry chefs and carpenters use are the same or similarly designed, ESPECIALLY pastry chefs who specialize in those huge cakes for weddings, etc., for instance, I know on Ace of Cakes his kitchen looks more like a really clean workshop than culinary facility.  That's all for now...  ^_^

WHOEVER CREATED FREE COFFEE DAY IS A FRICKIN' GENIUS

Any day that includes free coffee is a damn good day...

I chose cinnamon hazelnut, milk no sugar.

What flavor will you choose?

Rando Post (please stand by)

I am warning everyone now that this post will be completely out of left field, but I felt the need to write about this, and so I will, LOL.  There is a person who lives on my floor, I do not know if it is a man or a woman, but I am totally jealous of them b/c whoever they are, they're constantly experimenting in their kitchen.  Now I definitely get in the kitchen and put in work, but Neighbor seems to be in there everyday and not only that, but b/c I have no idea who they are or what apartment they live in, I cannot even talk to them for live updates:  so I rely on my nose.  I am proud to say that my nose does, in fact, know and so does my palate; my Exec Chef used to compliment my senses all the time, though not much anymore, LOL.  Anyway, using my keen sense of smell and my not-so-keen sense of deduction, I have journeyed w/ Neighbor through all their triumphs and failures.  For instance, a couple of weeks ago, I came home to a hella-fied stench in the hallway...  you know what scorched milk smells like?  Yeah, like that.  I think that Neighbor was trying to make homemade tuna casserole and scorched the bechemel.  But then, two days ago, all I could smell in the hallway was the most amazing roasted chicken and although there was a slightly-burned smell, I could tell it was only from the juices on the bottom of the pan...  Anyway, I wish I had the time/inclination to cook more often then I do.  I would love to experiment more, but when I DO cook at home during the week, it is usually a rotating menu of three or four things.  So I guess what I really envy is the creative excitement and the wonder that comes a long with figuring a dish out.  Hm.  I think I am going to have to make a trip to the store tomorrow...  =)

My First Trip to Atlanta's Green Market @ Piedmont Park

Although I would like to imagine myself a cynic, at heart I am not only a cautious optimist, but also a hopeless romantic. As much as I try to convince myself otherwise (and succeed in doing so more often than not), I always get a cold dose of reality when I imagine an ideal place/event/person that in reality is 180 degrees different that what I created. On that note, had I not had such high hopes for The Green Market, I may have enjoyed the experience but, through no fault but my own, I have to admit that I was disappointed. I had hoped for an outside market of the New York or Seattle kind where local farmers brought their goods to the community which in turn supported them by showing up and buying them out. A place where chefs, foodies, and neighbors met to enjoy the best Atlanta had to offer and at a really good price. Ideally, what I really wanted was earthy, heavily-perfumed chaos, but got instead cold, sanitized trendiness. A quick summary for those in the know: DeKalb Market (my ideal) versus Whole Foods (the reality).

Today was cloudy, which eventually turned to rainy, and I am sure this partly accounts for the poor vendor and customer turnout, but I have a feeling that The Green Market is normally pretty small; this, too, would not have necessarily been a flaw, had half the vendors not been artists or craftspeople. And not that I have anything against supporting my local artists, but when Spring hits in Atlanta, that kind of vendor is everywhere on the weekends: Atlantic Station, L5P, etc. I yearned for something different and I was excited to go to The Market to experience Atlanta's food culture at it's most basic; however, I was let mightily down.

That said, anyone without my idealized standards may have thoroughly enjoyed the experience and taken the opportunity to revel in a bit of culture. As a whole, yes, I was disappointed, but there were individual vendors that I am glad to have been introduced to. All in all, I will probably never go to The Green Market again; however, I am glad I to have gone once and if any of you have a free Saturday morning between now and December, I suggest you do the same. Open May 3 - December 19 (Saturdays only) from 9am to 1pm.