Pasta Revelations

At some point in the past two years of blogging, I moved away from pasta. It was easy, I had done it before, it was kind of boring to eat and to make. I was wrong. It is simple; I was right about that. When we made four pasta sauces in class on Tuesday, all the recipes involved minimal ingredients and the simplest of techniques (simmer, stir, repeat), but ended up so delectable. Chef Tim mixed together an al fredo in five minutes with like five ingredients that was oh-so creamy yet still light and which clung to the pasta like dust to a TV screen. He boasted that people would pay a lot of money for that simple pasta with sauce, and they wouldn't be disappointed.

I took care of the puttanesca and making the pasta. Our pasta ended up a bit on the dry side (first time), which made it incredibly difficult to roll out. Chef rolled his perfect ball of dough into a nearly paper-thin sheet in minutes. I stood over mine sweating some flavoring into the tagliatelle that was anything but smooth and even. But I actually turned out to love my pasta with all its flaws. Chef advised making homemade pasta that looks like homemade pasta--makes perfect sense. But because my sauce had so many flaws, the sauce clung to the ridges and bumps perfectly. Usually, I douse my pasta with chunky sauce. I had never realized this was because the pasta itself was lacking. The puttanesca turned out fine (not as good as the boys' sauce, but still good), but I didn't need or want the chunks of cubed tomato. The briny-tomato juice had all the flavor of the nicoise olives and capers and stuck sublty and kindly to the outside of the wide noodles. The homemade pasta was so good, I don't know that I'd buy dry noodles ever again.

Pasta:
1 pound flour
4 eggs
salt
a tablespoonn or so of olive oil

Make a mountain of flour in a large bowl, leaving some of the pasta to the side to be mixed in as needed. Make a well in the mountain with a fork. Crack the eggs into the well. Sprinkle with salt. Incorporate the eggs into the flour by stirring with a fork. Add olive oil once about three-fourths of the flour is wet. Turn sticky dough out on a floured surface. Work and knead the dough with your palm, incorporating more flour as needed until the doughs stays in a ball and has a smooth surface. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for one hour.

Remove dough from fridge. Turn out on floured work surface. Roll dough until it is thin enough to read a newspaper through. Cut thin strips of pasta with a pizza cutter. Cook pasta in boiling, salted water for two minutes or until cooked through.

Puttanesca:
1/3 cup olive oil
1 tablespoon garlic
4 cups canned tomatoes and their juice
12 nicoise olives, halved
2 tablespoons capers, drained
1 tablespoon fresh oregano, finely chopped
1 anchovy filet
1 tablespoon fresh basil, finely chopped
1 tablespoon fresh parsley, finely chopped

In a saute pan, heat the oil. Add the garlic and saute until fragrant. Add the tomatoes, olives, capers and oregano, bring to a boil, reduce heat so it simmers and cover for 10 minutes while simmering. Add the anchovy filet, stir to incorporate. Season to taste. Let simmer another 10 minutes. Add the cooked pasta to the sauce, season with parsley and basil. Serves four.

Thanks to Jessica who took the photos.

A Subtle Taste

I'm suddenly longing for long steamy summer evenings and popsicles that drip and run down your legs, as if that were a simpler time. But there was never a simpler time, was there? There is unknowing and knowing. Now I know a few things, and I'm trapped in this insecurity not knowing what to do next. This is a rare place for me. I'm decisive. I think about things and then I choose something. Sometimes (often) I choose wrongly. But then you get the knowing place, and it feels worth it there even if it's more painful and humbling. The paralyzing unknowing is where I stand now. There's no decision to make me feel safe; there is only               . I can't control a             .

Summer is that simple season. Same with winter. It's just hot, or it's just cold. You wear either as little or as much clothing as possible. You eat either salads or plain roasted vegetables and meats. Grilled or baked. But fall and spring, they are times of change and complexity. We go back to school (or finish out the year). There's a new bounty of produce to be made into stews or soups or braised for hours.
I'm scattered all over here today when what I should be doing is remembering and recounting a great meal I had last week. Most of the meal involved poaching, a form of cooking known for its subtlety. Subtlety, that is an art form I am decidedly not well-practiced in. Decisive, direct, to the point in my cooking and elsewhere. I lack the patience I think. My dad would tell me that the best things are the ones you wait for. He's so wise you sometimes want to punch his arm really hard.

So that brings us to the salmon poached in water infused with lemon and peppercorns. I say infused because it smelled like tea just before the salmon went in. And the salmon was just ever so lightly flavored with lemon that you couldn't much taste it once it was covered in the horseradish dressing. If I draw a silly metaphor, which I now will, my dad is the subtle quiet salmon who says the most important things at just the right moment. And the horseradish dressing, all zing and creamy spice, is my mom (and me), she keeps things interesting.

The poached apples were a bit of a showstopper, at least for me. A knife sliced through the apples cleanly, but they were cooked through--maybe you could call it al dente because it still had some bite. Incredibly, after an hour of soaking in hot apple cider, the fruit I had plucked from some trees last weekend actually tasted more like apples than when I had munched on some in the orchard. The candied almonds and amaretto whipped cream didn't hurt. And neither did the company. I called up a bit of a random group of friends to help me with my homework (eating the food, that is). I love to surround myself with people. And I always think the louder the more rambunctous the better. But maybe I'm wrong about that.

Poached Salmon Salad: from What Katy Ate
2 8-ounce filets of salmon
3 cups water
juice from one lemon
1 teaspoon black peppercorns

Salad:
2 or 3 large handfuls of mixed salad greens
1 15-ounce can garbanzo beans (rinsed and drained)
1 teaspoon capers, sauteed to cripsy in olive oil
salt and pepper
feta cheese

Dressing:
1 tablespoon minced horseradish
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
1/4 cup cream
1/4 cup milk

Pour the water, lemon juice and peppercorns into a saute pan, turn on medium-high heat and bring to a boil. Let boil for five minutes so the flavors meld together. Remove from heat, add the salmon and cover, cooking for 15 minutes. Or until salmon is firm to the touch and light pink and flaky. Set aside to let cool and flake apart.

Arrange the lettuce on a serving platter. Toss on the garbanzo beans, capers, salmon and feta. I left the dressing on the side because I know not everyone is fond of horseradish.

Poached Apples with whipped cream and almonds: from Gourmet
6 apples
1/2 lemon
1/2 gallon apple cider
1/2 cup brown sugar

For whipped cream:
1/2 cup chilled whipping cream
1 1/2 tablespoon granulated sugar
1 tablespoon amaretto liqueur
1/4 teaspoon vanilla

Candied almonds:
1 cup slivered almonds
2 tablespoons granulated sugar
1 tablespoon butter
1 egg white

Apples: Peel top two-thirds of apples and rub outside with lemon to prevent discoloration. Bring the cider to a boil. Once it's boiling, add the apples and brown sugar. Remove from heat and let sit for one hour. Remove apples and let cool or chill. This can be done several days ahead of time.

For the whipping cream, combine all the ingredients in the bowl of an electric mixer. Mix on high speed until it forms soft peaks.

Preheat the oven to 450 for the almonds. In a small bowl, combine all ingredient and stir together. Lay out on a piece of parchment paper and bake for five minutes. Let cool and break apart to garnish the dessert. Combine all the parts for one apple drizzled with leftover cider served with almonds and a dollop of whipped cream.

Chicken Salad

Pulverizing vegetables will always be gratifying.

Chicken Salad:
1 carrot
1 stalk celery
1/4 medium onion
1/2 pound cooked chicken
Landry's seasoned salt
mayonnaise

Put the carrot, celery, chicken and onion in a food processor. Pulverize. Stir in mayo with a spoon until it comes to the desired consistency and season to taste.

Apple Church

Amy called it "apple church." On Sunday morning, two cars of friends headed to Nebraska City to appreciate the glorious outdoors for what has become an annual quest for apples by the peck. We rounded up pinova, golden delicious, gala, fuji, braeburn and cameos whilst avoiding the bees also feasting on the fruit. It's quiet work, at least if you get there right as the orchard opens.

Nebraska City is famous for the inception of Arbor Day. Once, long long ago, the state of Nebraska was completely devoid of trees, but this Morton guy (of Morton salt) moved here and planted saplings to make it a happier place for everyone.

Now his palacial home is a historical site, and a half dozen orchards and wineries are clustered in the town. My family used to visit when I was younger, and I just loved that old house. My imagination would go wild with picturing what my life would have been like if I had lived in that old house. Even at home when I played American Girl dolls with my sister, that house came to life. This year we had enough time to visit the site, which was the center of a meager reenactment. All the reenactment amounted to was a costumed guide through the house, a blacksmith and some ladies who were cooking cakes over coals in a Dutch oven--obviously this was the highlight and definitely something I need to bring to a high-maintenance camping trip (one involving a camper or at least a van). They had combined a cherry pie filling with a box of cake mix (because that was available for the pioneers in the 1860s) and sodas such as Dr Pepper or 7UP. I even scored a "Dutch Oven Cooking" cookbook from the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission's Becoming an Outdoors-woman Workshop. How could I have missed that workshop?! The cookbook includes recipes for cowboy potatoes, meat loaf, Dutch oven steak dinner and Dismal River Cow Camp coffee cake (among others).

We made it home by mid-afternoon, which gave me enough time to make another gallette with homemade whipped cream before watching Juno. Nothing like a movie about teenage pregnancy to remind you how insignificant your problems are.

Emerging Terrain

My friend Sarah and I got the chance to cover this event called Stored Potential for The Reader, she as the art critic and I as the food person. The event brought together some of Nebraska's best chefs to serve 500 people family-style at the opening of a larger-than-life art installation. Thirteen of 300 submission were chosen to be printed on a large scale and hung from the side of some grain elevators in Omaha. The murals were chosen for how they addressed issues of feeding people and land use. The organization Emerging Terrain put on the installation and you can find better information about the art on their Web site or by reading the part of the article that Sarah wrote when it comes out next week. I was only there for the food.

When we got there, I was immediatley filled with energy. I think everyone was. There was a table that stretched nearly the entire length of the silos (which are owned by some friends who are converting it in a rock climbing area called SILO extreme outdoor adventure). I got to meet everyone I've written about and interviewed on the phone--all in one place. I even got to meet Jeanne of Jeanne Eats World, who was there as a volunteer server.

The story Sarah and I wrote covers a lot of the ins and outs of the installation including what messages they're trying to send to morning commuters who see the silos as they drive downtown on Interstate 80. But, as always happens with something worthy of a great story, the story doesn't quite capture the enormousness of what it was. Even now I'm having a difficult time translating the events that transpired into something more than two dimensional.

The dinner brought the meat, poultry and produce of local farmers into the skills hands of local chefs who made this spectacular meal out of a bison, two whole pigs, 50 chickens and countless vegetables. The story describes the meal in a little more depth but doesn't go into the energy of the event. Everyone there was so excited about what was going on. The silos, which have been something of a horizon eyesore in the past, now have this art meant to emphasize the importance of knowing about our food. The area where the tables were arranged is on the city's plan for an extension of the Field Club bicycle trail. And the chef's and students were so excited to be sharing this phenomenal local food to 500 eager eaters.

I had so much fun running around interviewing attendees, chefs, farmers and organizers, getting everyone's story on why they were there and why they cared. I interviewed Chef Brian O'Malley who is the chef in charge of the culinary program at Metro, where I'm attended. He is such a magnetic force. He's got this great booming voice and when he talks to you no one else is there but you and him. I got to interupt Chefs Matthew Taylor and Paul Kulik who were in this heated post-dinner discussion of the process and how amazed they were with the quality of food they were given to work with. They were going on and on about how great each course was. Chef Taylor was raving about this vinegar. The entire day just made me so excited to be around such outstanding lovers of food and especially to get the chance to hear their stories. This blog post seems more scattered than what came out splitting the story. It's like I couldn't even wrap my mind around what was going on.

The site was so poetic in its past of feeding people mass quantities of food juxtaposed against a 500-something foot long table of people eating organic and ethically grown and raise cuisine. For a moment, I could even faintly smell the sweet odor let off by a nearby rendering plant. I wanted to put it in the story because I thought it was a little ironic to be celebrating local food while the remains of sick and abused animals were being made into commercial products nearby, but Sarah hadn't smelled it and thought it was a little dramatic--it's true, for a reporter, I definitely err way too much on the meladramatic side. The truth should be strong enough.

Daily Grub's Chef Elle Lien's vegetable plate of roasted vegetables. (That sage just melted in my mouth.)

Roasted apples from Chef Kevin Shinn's (bread&cup) and Paul Kulik's (The Boiler Room) pork seven ways.

Chef Tim Shew of La Buvette and culinary students from Metro serving up the pork with fruit and vegetables. (I was dying over those pickled radishes, dying.)

From left, Clayton Chapman of Grey Plume, Mattew Taylor and Paul Kulik with culinary students.

I love this picture because you can tell the woman in the middle is a little nonplussed to be eating an entire pig but the lady on the left is loving it.

Tim Shew plating the bison with green cabbage choucroute.

Chef Brian O'Malley showing a server how to get the champagne glaze all over the bison.

Apple crisp, honey ice cream and carrot cake for dessert.

A Bird's Habit

I'm sure other people get overwhelmed with the life that is swirling around them just like me. This past month has been a doozy. There has been so much new stuff to digest. I consciously gave away the comfort of knowing exactly what to expect at my old job. I could sit in cubicle, edit things when I felt like it, I knew where everything was, I knew everybody (and I liked them), I could listen to music all day long, I went on my walks around the industrial business park and that was good enough to get me through most days. Now I have this job at a pastry shop and cafe where there's something new I haven't been told every single time I go in. Not to mention the humilty of serving people their food and cleaning up after their mess. And that doesn't even touch on school. Culinary school is completely new. I'm used to reading and regurgitating. When it comes to academia, I can be a star. This is not so in Culinary Foundations. Typically, I can run or do yoga or bicycle or go climbing at the gym to burn off some stress, but not so when you have a lung that doesn't quite expand all the way. Simple things like sleeping have even been a physical challenge in the past couple weeks. As my friend Alexis says, "I've got a gypsy's heart with a bird's habit."

I've thrown out my old familiar ways for an exciting new path, but I'm grappling to find a routine that sets my racing mind at ease.

Thursday night I was pleasantly suprised that I could still come back to my own kitchen and lose myself in the preparation for a meal of roast chicken with vegetable risotto. The world was quiet while I rubbed salt and pepper all over the skin of young hen. I rhythmically diced carrots, peppers, mushrooms, (my favorite) onion and garlic into haphazard squares that flavored a creamy rice risotto. I could think of nothing but the moment--the smells, the sights, the sounds, the taste--which is the way I wish I could live always.

Lemon and Herb Roasted Chicken:
1 whole chicken
1 lemon, halved
1 head garlic, halved
1 sprig rosemary
2 sprigs thyme
salt and pepper
parsley

Preheat oven to 425. Sprinkle the inside and outside of the chicken with salt and pepper. Stuff with lemon, garlic, rosemary, thyme and parsley. Bake on roasting tray for 1 to 1 1/2 hours until juices run clear. Let sit for 10 minutes before carving.

Fry Day

You'll have to excuse the quality of these photos; I found myself with only a camera phone in class on "fry day," and I just had to take an image to remember this smorgasbord of Southern- and deep-fried cuisine. From left to right we've got fried okra, French fries, hushpuppies, Southern-fried chicken and Southern-fried catfish. Just like last week, class went smoothly. It was fun for the second week in a row, and now I think I can relax and enjoy things without the anxiety that I may start the culinary school building on fire--although maybe I'm getting a little ahead of myself.

Frying suprised me. There was a little more intuition than I had originally thought, subtle things like not letting the oil get so hot it burns the outside of the chicken before the inside cooks and that the quality of the oil counts. We used butter and lard (something I would never ever ever use on my own, but as Chef said "It's all oil, every oil is just as bad as every other oil, more or less."). The chicken and the fries were the best parts of the day's production. The skin was cripsy and seasoned while the inside was tender and flavorful--nothing too greasy. The fries, who doesn't love fries, were done by the two-fry method, which meant we partially fried the potatoes in oil, let them rest and finished them off at a higher temp. The outside was again crisp while the inside held together with potato goodness.

Chopping and dicing is going better as well, but I still didn't really see the point of chopping things to complete uniformity that is until Tuesday night when I was eating at Mother India, which is this great Indian restaurant but also a total dive. Someone had diced the carrots macedoine (which is fancy for small dice), a one-fourth-inch cube. I couldn't believe it and was incredibly impressed that someone had taken the time. The presentation was nice as the carrots and the peas were about the same size. Who knew that an ethnic eatery would convert me to a firm believer in classical knife skills?

Risotto!

After several failures in the kitchen (including continuous failure with trying to flip eggs), I think I was due for some sort of marginal success. Let it be known that I can make risotto.

True, I already knew I could make risotto, but this was a win I needed desperately. I was self-conscious and defeated in that commercial kitchen and running low on pep elsewhere. Wild mushroom risotto was a nice confidence booster. I've made risotto many times, so I get the basic premise of feeding the oiled rice aromatic stock periodically and massaging it with a spatula into creaminess. This by no means meant that I had the risotto in the bag. In my group of three, I was solely responsible for the risotto, which included simmering stock, roasting garlic and making parmesan crisps all in less than three hours. The list of ingredients was extensive and involved three different kinds of mushrooms (dried morels, porcini and buttons). But I did it. The rice was creamy and flavorful. The mushrooms added just the faintest sweetness, which I learned to enhance by adding lemon juice. The steamed soy beans and the mushrooms gave the dish an Asian depth to a traditionally Italian item. There was so much I learned: like how easy it is to make parmesan crisps (bake a pile of parmesan cheese until it melts together), about homemade stock (it doesn't take as long as I thought), and the incredible importance of mise en place (another extra fancy French word that basically means preparation and which I basically suck at as a general rule). Maybe, just maybe I can do this.

On Fancy French Words Like Julienne and Gallette

Before this week's Culinary Foundations class, we were all tasked with slicing one entire pound of planks for making julienned carrots. Never before did I know that to julienne doesn't just mean to cut something into thin square-ish slices, it means to cut something into a thin square slice that measures one-eighth inch by one-eighth inch by two inches. What I want still don't know is when it is absolutely necessary for vegetables to look like they've been squared off by a planer.

My pound received a C. I blame the carrots. They were thin and bendy even before they were julienned, which means they were even worse once they had been sliced. Needless to say, I am getting better at chopping, even though I did slice my finger a little bit today (it had to happen). I got pretty winded in the hour-plus time I stood going to town on the carrots, and I didn't stop then. Taking advantage of inspiration to cook, I made two apple gallettes. There I was at the kitchen table wheezing and kneading flour and water into tart dough. It just seemed appropriate. The leaves are just beginning to change, only on the outer layers of trees, and it's time for baked apples and soup.

Gallettes are so pretty, even the name is so French and quaint. Beauty is one of the main reasons I'm drawn to pastries and desserts--this girl will not be making sloppy rice pudding. The dough turned into a nice crisp crust on the edges but soaked up the syrupy juice from the apples on the bottom. The tart apples gave way to sweetness with a little help, and all this is missing is a little ice cream.

Apple Gallette: from Martha Stewart's Baking Handbook

Pate Brisee Crust:

2 1/2 cups flour

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon sugar

2 stick cold butter

1/2 cup cold water

Apple filling for two small gallettes or one large:

3 apples, thinly sliced (one-eighth inch)

juice from 1/2 lemon

1/4 cup sugar

1 tablespoon cornstarch

pinch of salt

1 egg, beaten

sanding sugar (optional)

Blend the flour, salt and sugar in a large bowl. Slice the butter into 1-inch tablets. Incorporate the butter into the flour using a pastry blender, mixing until the product is crumbly. Slowly pour in the cold water a little at a time, stirring and lightly kneading to incorporate. Add water until the dough holds together.

Divide the dough in quarters (or halves). Flatten into a round disk. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for a least an hour.

Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 375 and put sliced apples in a medium bowl. Pour lemon juice over the apples. Toss apples with sugar, cornstarch and salt.

Take out your dough. Turn out on a floured surface and roll into a 8-inch round (or 14-inch for a larger gallette) that is about one-eighth-inch thick. Place on a piece of parchment paper and on a baking sheet. Arrange the apples in the center of the dough leaving a two-inch border. Fold over the border, overlapping when needed, pinching the overlapped portions together so the juice doesn't leak out onto your parchment like mine did. Paint the edge of the crust with egg. Sprinkle with sanding sugar and bake for one hour or until the crust is golden brown and the juice is bubbling.

An Homage to a Pneumothorax

Life has been going pretty fast for me without much time to think. I used to stare up at the ceiling tiles at my old job, I don't have time for that or the daily walks through the (ugly) industrial park. It's all work and school, and it's a bit overwhelming all without a moment to catch ones breath.

Well, life has the good humor to take that away from you in a moment. I hate to be melodramatic when I write because it comes out so cheesy, but what happened on Friday afternoon was my left lung collapsed just walking around at work. The funny thing about breathing is that you rarely think about it except when it doesn't come easy. I suppose it was a good weekend for sitting and doing absolutely nothing. It was rainy and cloudy and fall just rolled into town with a thunderstorm. It's my favorite time of year, and I'd hate to miss it being in a rush. At this point, it's guaranteed that I won't be going anywhere fast for the next couple weeks.

Early to bed on a Saturday, early up on Sunday. I spent the afternoon reading for class and sipping tea with some candles illuminating the coffee table--it seemed only appropriate. Right now, some of my tomatoes are slow-roasting with garlic and time in the oven. The apartment smells divine. The tomatoes will be plump with syrupy juice ready to burst. And I've got a moment to sit. To sit and think about things like breathing even when it hurts. And cooking even when things don't turn out right. And loving when it's scary and finite. And starting things you may not be able to finish. But this time I don't think I can breathe/cook/love/start.