Beer and Cupcakes

A challenge this summer. To really get a handle on the various beers out there and learn how to pair them with all of the sweet and savory delectables I plan to produce in my kitchen.

Here's a great article on beer to whet your appetite until this project really gets moving.

My Apartment Smells Edible

Yes, another post. Three in one day. This must be a record. But I woke up early. I could not fall back to sleep. There was nothing to wash. No bill to pay. No apartment to clean or tidy. My clothes were already picked out for work and the gym bag was already packed. All of this done and I still have so much time in my day. So much time before I even have to think about getting on the train to drop off some banana coconut cupcakes at work before running over to the gym. So much time left and I already have lunch and dinner taken care of.

This is what I had:
chicken
plenty o' spices
some pine nuts just sitting innocently on my shelf
garlic. hmmmm. yummy garlic
left over spinach from another few experiments (breakfast and other dinners)
spinach focaccia (purchased from the local Farmers Market and always something I seek out)
other helpings in the fridge

And what did I make? Well, I ground the pine nuts and two cloves of garlic together to make a sort of paste (I didn't think to stop pulsing). I took the piece of chicken breast I had thawed (large enough to cut in half and make two servings out of) and cut small little strips and bits and pieces and coated them lightly in the paste. Seasoned with salt, pepper, and a little thyme (obsessed with it) and put in a pan with some olive oil already heated. The other piece I butterflied and filled with more of the garlic pine nut paste and spread a good helping of spinach on top of that, rolled it up, and put that in the same pan to start to cook (I love the smell of garlic cooking in olive oil and could probably eat that completely alone). I could eat that alone. And my stomach is nodding in agreement.

For the strips of chicken breast, I sliced the focaccia in half, toasted, and set it on the counter and added a slice of gouda cheese to it. The chicken, steaming from the stove top, was placed right on top of the gouda (the best way to really get it to melt and to absorb so much of the flavor from the chicken). The second slice of focaccia placed gingerly on top and now cooling before it becomes sealed in my portable tupperware.

The butterflied and stuffed chicken breast was sliced and is now cooling so I can place it on a bed of simple greens for what I hope with be a tasty salad.

We shall see.

Best Food Writing 2008

I walked in to Borders the other day with the intent of purchasing a book on how to strengthen non-fiction, memoir, etc. writing. Instead I walked out with "Best Food Writing 2008" edited by Holly Hughes.

Tales from the kitchen, the restaurant business, traveling through Singapore or Sweden, learning how to eat locally or ethically. The book covers it all. The best of all articles you can pull from websites, blogs, magazines, news shows, an email chain (maybe not the last but it could happen).

I highly recommend you check it out if what you enjoy most about food is the journey it takes you on and through and how in reading about anothers' you could feel inspired or feel as if you were right there trying to find the best boudin in Cajun country.

At The Bakery

As if my life didn't have enough craziness in it (or enough things of interest I seek to follow and spend time on), I have been interning at a bakery for the past few months (with only a couple of more remaining ... sigh!).

Why I haven't included it in this blog or posted it in the world outside of the protective bubble of close friends and family, I don't know. But here it is.

I never know what the day will hold every time I walk into the kitchen, apron tightly tied, mess rag tucked firmly and safely in its strings. I only know when the head baker shares the pastry chef's list. I could be scooping cookies, baking macaroons, or frosting cakes. Yesterday I was set to work with another baker. A spritely little baker who flies every where and had two major cake batters working at the same time, utilizing both available industrial mixers. One whipping egg whites for the German Chocolate cake and the other already creaming the butter for the lemon cakes. I could hardly keep tabs on her. She was flitting about and I couldn't keep my eyes focused on her.

What was amazing was that she always stopped long enough to pull me away from sifting flour, or weighing egg whites to have me look at the batter in its various stages, to know when the butter was properly creamed, to know at what point you could incorporate more of the beaten eggs, to know how much of the flour and at what speed you should pour in to the batter before alternating with the liquid.

Flitting about but moving almost in slow motion when I heard "Chica, come here."

Sweet Tooth

No one can deny I have a sweet tooth. A horrible one at that. She screams at me all night long with sighs for the vanilla bean ice cream seated all alone in the freezer. She punches at my abdomen in the morning and won't stop the abuse until I quiet her with whole wheat waffles topped with maple syrup and some sort of berry preserve. After a late lunch I can only get her sobbing to stop when I dunk a chocolate biscotti in a cup of coffee (iced now that the weather has finally turned).

But she shocked me the other day with nary a peep in the early hours of the morning. I went to the kitchen and tried to entice her to some semblance of existence with a vanilla almond granola topped with cinnamon and ginger. No biting. I went for the flax seed cereal swimming in soy milk instead. Catatonic I swear she was. No matter what I attempted to do to bring her back to life, she was gone.

And so I listened. And that day I gave myself nothing but savory. The next morning I was anxious to try a savory breakfast. I had left over spinach from the lunch the day prior. I had eggs. I had fresh goat cheese. And I wanted to combine the three (with some other spices) in my cute little white ramekin and put it in the oven to cook oh so slowly and carefully to leave that "it's oh so yellow it is almost orange" yolk just slightly running to spoon over the slice of whole wheat toast I had laying beside it in the oven. But, no. The next morning I instead listened to the desires of a stronger stomach who wanted my infamous waffles. I relented. And skipped the berry preserves and most of the maple syrup.

The next time I could attempt the egg spinach piece of delectableness, the other stomach ordered me out of the kitchen, into the living room, to check on the latest news, while it cooked me a breakfast of pancakes (the stomach's first attempt at pancakes sans the assistance of Bisquick). Don't get me wrong. I scooped up every piece of pancake and am desperately looking forward to indulging in the remaining cakes with some grated apples and a strong cup of coffee tomorrow morning.

What was I to do? Now the sweet tooth was yelling at me. But not in any attempt to entice me to satiate her unending desire but to get me to put the sugar away and pour salt straight into my body. Did I listen? No. I had a cupcake and told her to quit her complaining.

And then I came home. And I was hungry. And I had an egg. And I
had spinach. And some fresh goat cheese. And a slice of whole wheat toast nestled softly beside it in the toasting oven. And she sighed. And she ooohed. And she ahhhhed. And she slept.

But then a crucial error was made. As I walked out of the kitchen my eye caught the ripening bananas on my pantry shelves. And the sweet tooth reached her arms out, grabbed hold of the walls of the archway leading out of the tempting area and refused to let go. There were bananas that were going to go bad. Sweet, beautiful bananas that needed attention. She would not let me leave. She went through my brain: bread pudding, cupcakes, wait until tomorrow and eat with the left over pancakes, cupcakes, cupcakes, cupcakes.

I could not not listen. The cupcakes are now cooling. Not just banana. But banana coconut. And there might even be a banana rum coconut frosting in the fridge waiting for application. But even she thinks that might be a little too sweet and might be best with waiting for another banana to be procured, mashed, and added.

Lemon Cupcakes

I really need to catch up with pictures. Definitely not as interesting to look around when I have nothing pretty to remind me of that beautifully tasty and fantastically cake-y lemon cupcake.

I digress (as always). Perhaps a blog should be started on all of the digressions and the lives that exist in my parenthetical notes. Perhaps I already do have one.

I digress again. Where was I? Ah, cupcakes. Yes, cupcakes.

My best friend purchased a book devoted solely to cupcakes and she posted a Facebook status update about her adventures into honey and chai cupcakes (there was both in the actual cake and the whipped cream "frosting"). I was intrigued. And I waited for her to send me the recipe. And waited. But inspiration was there. And an uncontrollable need to bake something. Anything.

So I found a simple cupcake recipe. One for a lime cupcake with a lime glaze. I had no limes. Well, I had half of a lime leftover from the last couple of bottles of Corona Keith and I drank. But not enough to make even a glaze. But I had lemon juice and I had lemon curd. And I'm the bigger fan of lemon to begin with anyway.

So I followed the recipe and substituted lemon for lime. I added some shredded coconut flakes to the cupcake batter (it seemed too "boring" without). And while they were baking (too much batter in the cups and the cupcakes looked more like cakes) I went ahead making the glaze (confectioner's sugar, lemon juice, and a splash of rum -- I figured that was one part of the recipe I really loved).

The cupcakes out of the oven. Gently cooling on my counter. I grabbed the lemon curd, used my reclaimed pastry bag (long story for another blog), inserted said curd into the center of each cupcake, topped with the lemon glaze, and then topped with even more shredded coconut.

Heaven. Delightfully tart, yet sweet, heaven. Twelve trips to heaven.

No, I didn't eat them all myself (I did skip the gym twice this week afterall). But the heaven came in the multiple cupcakes my brother grabbed, the text message I received from Keith after sharing them with his colleagues.

All in all, I only had three trips to heaven. But I'm planning a return trip. At least a return to the lemon. Let's see where she takes me next.

An introduction

Allow me to introduce myself. Food has been the center of my life. Food is the center of my life.

My earliest memories spent tiptoeing on a worn wooden dining room chair peering into the boiling pot of water where Mom had just poured in the evening's serving of rice; hair tussled and arms deep into the plastic container of cheese doodles, my fingertips and mouth stained an unnatural orange; standing in a park in front of a homemade chocolate cake complete with sprinkles and multicolored candles.

I grew up in a kitchen.

Not in the way you might think. Sure, there was always me elbow deep in something my parents were cooking for dinner. Watching as my dad would pull simple things from the pantry to make great little empanadas full of bacalao; never sure what he was ever putting together (sometimes not wanting to know when my mental pickiness overtook my palate) but always surprised and enticed. But that's not what I mean when I write that I grew up in a kitchen.

Life, love, death, happiness, sorrow, anger, and secrets were some of the first ingredients I was taught to put together. Life began and ended in the kitchen. Storied shared. Gossiped. I remember the phone placed on the wall directly outside the entry archway to our First Avenue kitchen. The cord long enough to allow my mother to maneuver around the tiny L-shaped room.

The dining room where I sat and filled out almost all of my college applications while Mom or Dad happily worked away. The almost empty living room on Saturday afternoons and evenings because every family member crowded in the kitchen to catch up, spill secrets, and dice the actions and choices of our extended clan.

The kitchen years later where I told my parents I wanted to go to pastry school. And then sobbed when my father was not supportive.

The kitchen where I made flan for my grandfather before he returned to Puerto Rico. Only the second attempt at the flan (using the same melted spoon that had been born out of the first attempt at the caramel sauce) but the desire so strong to be perfect, to deliver something worthy of a man who left his mark on each and every of the 86 years and counting of his life.

My life is food. In its creation. In its sharing. In the stories tied to every meal.

My life is in the nook and cranny of every kitchen counter I ever leaned against in teenage sigh.

My life is now in every counter space I leave my mark. In every instance I etch my own nook and cranny. Through recipes and ingredients explored and shared. Through books I flag and stain. Through every restaurant and store I walk into and sample.

My life is in the counter space.

Bland

No photographs to show for this undertaking. Easter Sunday and a combination "Congratulations" party for Crystal completing her Bachelors. A red velvet cake with cream cheese frosting. A Devil's Food Cake with a rich chocolate buttercream frosting. Extra chocolate cupcakes and said chocolate frosting made specifically for the celebratory gal who adores chocolate.

Bland. Bland is what she tells me the chocolate cake tastes like. I ask what one means by bland. The response, well, it does not taste like a Hostess Cupcake. Ah. Of course.

I can appreciate criticism in any form. I crave it. Because I learn from it. You think something too sweet (my third flan), you think something too dry (my carrot apple muffins), you think something lacking (a protein in my butternut squash and goat cheese pasta). Great. Please let me know. I'll know what to add, change, remove, the next time around. And it will make me a better cook and baker.

But, and don't think me a snob for this, I don't think I can learn how to improve a chocolate cake when the only criticism one can add is that it doesn't taste like an overly-processed and heavily sugared confection wrapped in plastic and injected with enough preservatives to make it edible until April 12 2015.

On the positive side, I did finally bake two different batches of cookies (chocolate chip pecan and double chocolate with white chocolate chunk) that met with her particular palate. For that, in all honesty, I truly am grateful. It has taken years to make a cookie she can appreciate. Years.

My toughest critic. But still a best friend.