Local Harvest

I recently attended a local sustainability festival. It was an event called Sierra Green Days and it featured local vendors who apply sustainable practices to their businesses. There were farmers showcasing their organic produce and products (I highly recommend LouLou's Garden), there were recycled products like a woman who makes baby items (bibs, hats, and neckins) from recycled cotton fabrics called Grubgear, solar energy companies, holistic healers, and of course food vendors like me! I was selling among other items, pizza made from my special recipe crust and topped with simple balsamic roasted tomatoes, feta cheese, locally grown organic fava beans, and locally grown organic green garlic from Taylor Mountain Gardens.

The process of preparing for this event was very meditative. I shelled fava beans for several hours, thinking of the local farmers who grew them and sold them to me. How they had been plucked from the plant just a day before, and the unparallelled freshness. To me, favas are the condensed flavor of spring, so green and sweet. Well worth the trouble of the double shell. The scent of green garlic filled my kitchen in stages, first pungent and mouth watering as it was sliced and washed, then billows of a mellow aroma with a hint of sweetness almost similar to leeks as the prepared product cooked slowly in the pan with only olive oil, salt and pepper. I thought how just an hour before, they had been gathered in a sack, still clumped with bits of warm earth clinging to the roots. I made my best effort to honor the integrity of each ingredient as it was in it's simplest and freshest state.

At the event, the sense of community was prevalent, and bound the grower, cook and diner together by the sharing of the final product. I pointed across the lawn area to the place where the Taylor's had their booth and explained to my customers that they could meet the folks who grew the produce I was using by stepping twenty steps to the left. It was an earth to table moment that lasted all weekend long and hearkened back to my youth in the valley where we snapped beans off the stalk for our dinner, and waited for the moment before the peaches, heavy with nectar, fell off the tree to harvest. I cherished every minute of the process from prepping these high quality ingredients to the moment I handed the plate of food to friends old and new. It was a celebration of season, honest work, simplicity, sustainability, friendship, love of earth and community.

Challah at Your Girl

Once upon a time, many years ago, I cooked in a very good restaurant in Oakland called The Autumn Moon Cafe. Sadly, The Autumn Moon is no longer there, but the lessons I learned while there have really stuck with me. I worked under the great Chef Kerry Heffernan who taught me so much about both cooking and life. She was the kind of Chef who was tough and commanding in the kitchen, but would nurture ideas and experiments to help her young chefs grow and develop their style. I am forever indebted to this woman, she was instrumental in my growth as a Chef and person. But I digress, at this restaurant, we specialized in some Jewish foods as well. We made fluffy matzoh balls in clear broth with carrots, parsley, and noodles every day, prepared Passover Seder dinner annually, and always had challah bread on hand. All these things were made according to the taste buds of the co-owner Wendy Levy. The recipes were based on the flavors her mother had created for Wendy when she was growing up in New York. When I left this wonderful place with wonderful food and wonderful people, those flavors truly stuck with me. I began to search out recipes of my own for those marvelous flavors. My most desired recipe was the perfect loaf of challah bread. I love it. It is a rich, eggy bread that is wonderful with just about anything. My search for this perfect bread led me to a book called "Love and Knishes: An Irrepressible Guide to Jewish Cooking" by Sara Kasdan. This book is one of those cookbooks which comes with anecdotes and I must say that though dated, is quite charming and my copy is worn and dogeared. When I made the challah recipe listed in the book, I knew my search was over. Over the years I have made some minor adjustments to suit my tastes, but never strayed far from the original recipe. I have used this bread for the best french toast in the world, sandwiches, with poached egg, bread pudding, or just by itself with a bit of butter. No matter how I prepare it, it takes me right back to that small kitchen in Oakland and that feeling of family. I hope you try this recipe, and the book! I highly recommend both!

Challah

(Sabbath Bread)

1 pkg yeast

1/4 cup warm water

5 cups flour

2 tsp salt 1 tablespoon sugar

1 tablespoon canola oil

1 egg, beaten

warm water

Glaze: 1 egg yolk diluted with 1 teaspoon water, poppy seed or sesame seed optional

Soften yeast in 1/4 cup warm water

Sift together dry ingredients

Add oil

Add softened yeast and beaten egg

Mix thoroughly, adding just enough water for a smooth kneading. Knead well

Place in a large bowl and cover with a towel allowing to sit until air pockets form at the top

Knead again, then cover and let rise until doubled in size

Divide dough into three equal parts, and roll each part into a strip

Braid the strips together and place on a baking sheet until doubled in size

Brush with diluted egg yolk, and sprinkle with seeds

Bake at 350 degrees about 1 hour or until golden brown

Enjoy with friends!

CookieCakePie Monster

I first became aware of the cookiecakepie when my friend Jenn made a cakepie and posted pics on Facebook. I was intrigued, and of course, also hungry so I went in search of some recipes for a cakepie of my own. I Google searched Cakepie and found a couple of options which looked interesting, but then I found the stuff of legends. The cookiecakepie was hiding in one of my favorite blogs, Cakespy. Here is the link to the Cakespy post: http://www.cakespy.com/blog-old/2009/5/27/triple-threat-the-cookie-cake-pie.html I knew once I read through her recipe and the story accompanying it that I had to try this monster out for myself. I made a few modifications to fit my family's tastes, but I knew that once my kids found out about this beast of a dessert, just the novelty of eating a cookiecakepie would delight them.

First of all, I mixed up a batch of my favorite chocolate chip cookie dough. I was using a pre-made pie shell for the sake of convenience and ease because this was definitely a recipe I was making with my kids. My instinct was to pre-bake the crust, but I resisted and followed the rest of the directions as given. We pressed the cookie dough into the pie shell, topped it with some chocolate cake batter (with enough left over to bake a half dozen cupcakes...bonus!!!) and popped it in the oven. It took about 45 min at 350 degrees, and when I took it out of the oven, the kids marveled at how it baked up. It was hard to let it cool without taking a little bite, but we managed.

The final step was frosting the thing. I decided that if I frosted it with buttercream, we might all suffer from sugar shock at the table mid-bite which would not do, and at the very least, bedtime would be a challenge, so I decided on some softly whipped vanilla cream and fresh sliced strawberries. It was just right to cut the super sweet body of the cookiecakepie, and we all swooned at the first bite. It was a hit! I highly recommend making this not just for, but with your family! In fact, if you do, have a bite for me!

Baking Blitz

I have been frightfully absent from this blog, dear readers, and for that, I am so sorry. I have been buried under an avalanche of flour, sugar, eggs, and butter for the entire winter. Really. At the beginning of fall, I decided to spend my spare time this winter honing my baking and pastry skills. This objective was very well received by family and friends alike, as they knew that the spoils of my efforts would likely require some taste-testing, and consumption on their parts. Oh how right they were. I began with one baking project per week. I tested recipes for cupcakes, cakes, cookies, played with icings, molded fondant into shapes, and my kids had the best birthday cakes on the block.

As this complete envelopment wore on, I fell into a groove of baking, and my husband and children began asking, with a sugary gleam in their eyes, "What is for dessert tonight?" instead of "Are we having dessert tonight?", I was becoming known as a reliable source of sweets. I developed my recipe for vegan cupcakes which my husband declared "Better than the real thing!", and I piped buttercream until my hands cramped.

Now that Spring has sprung, and my busy season is just around the corner, when all my baking time will be reserved for clients, I am feeling somewhat changed. I think baking is a certain kind of magic. It makes life sweeter for the baker as well as those for whom the baker is baking. I learned so much more from this experiment than expected. Like to be more patient as I waited for the French macarons to form a shell prior to baking. I gained a renewed sense of the joy that sharing brings when I arrived at a friend's home with a surprise cupcake delivery. As I kneaded the fondant, I was reminded to be more pliable in life. I built trust in myself and my abilities, knowing that the buttercream would come together although it always looks like it is beginning to break at one point during mixing. I was taught that although life can become overwhelming, and unpleasant at times, a smile can nearly always be coaxed out of the worst day with the simple bit of flour, butter, and sugar.

Gratitude Pie

Today I am grateful for my Father in law. He is a traditional man of strong values, is soft spoken, entirely loving and unconditionally supportive. I am so lucky to have him in my life, and so I bake him pies. As I mix up my special supremely buttery pie crust, I think of him. I am pouring all of my gratitude into this pie. I want it to be chock full of sweet, juicy thanks. I want it to radiate from his plate as I serve his slice. Nothing pleases me more than to bake and cook the special treats my loved ones enjoy. For Dick it is always pie. Tomorrow it will be blackberry, which I understand is a pie from his childhood days in Indiana. I hope it brings him happy memories of carefree days playing in cornfields. I hope it makes him think of his youth with his many siblings, teeth stained purple from ripe berries. I hope he remembers his mother and the pies she made for him. I hope he knows that the pie means "I love you".

The Fruit of Love

For me, figs are the fruit of love. When I was little, my Mom encouraged my love for the short-seasoned fruit. She fed them to me when she was able to forage for them, barter for them, and occasionally find them at the fruit stands in our small valley town until we planted our own tree. She taught me how to identify the large dark leaves and spot the small velvety purple fruit hidden behind them. She taught me to pick them when supple, but not yet wrinkled. We ate them in the deepest heat of September, their honey-molasses sweetness was cloying on our tongues, the pop of the tiny seeds gave a satisfying crunch. Figs remind me of the richness in life.

Much later in life, I knew my husband was the man for me when he began courting me with figs. One day, after dating for several months, he showed up with a shy grin, and a small rumpled paper bag in his hand. Without ceremony, he set it before me, said he loved me, and left me to my surprise. I opened the bag and found my favorite Black Mission Figs. They were warm from the sun, and perfectly ripe. I inhaled their lightly sweet aroma, cracked one open and marveled at the beauty of the color palette, deep purple, to chartreuse, merlot flecked with pale yellow seeds, breathtaking. I ate that fig slowly, savoring the flood of memory, the delightful tickle of simple pleasure, the sensual texture on my tongue. I was head over heels.

Over the years, his gift of figs have come in green plastic baskets, recycled plastic bags, bare handfuls, small cardboard boxes, and on fine china. They have come in various stages of ripeness, and varieties like brown turkey and kodota. But for me, the best ones come in a rumpled brown paper bag, accompanied by a shy smile and they are the intense Black Mission variety. He brings them to me from all over, wherever he finds them, but my favorite are warm from the sun, and soft to the touch.

Salt to Taste

At a recent dinner party I hosted, a friend asked if she could provide the appetizer course. I of course, gladly obliged her this and checked it off my "to do" list. When the night of the event arrived, and so did my friend, she brought with her such an array of edibles, I was at once surprised and delighted. What she brought was something new and exciting to me!

My friend, who is a photographer, had recently done some work for our local spice haven, The Spice Tin ( www.thespicetin.com ) and had a wide variety of salts left. Now, I am a drawn to their smoked red chili bacon salt like an addict is drawn to crack, and have been known to carry a small bag of it in my purse, so this "salt tasting" thrilled me!

Laura laid out small dishes of salts ranging from habanero salt, to truffle salt, vanilla salt, and the natural salts like Himalayan pink salt, and a very fine gray salt from the middle east. She brought us vehicles such as jicama, pear, caramels, potatoes, sausage, and steak, so many I cannot even remember them all. We dipped and delighted at the interesting and delicious combinations we could create with the simple changing of salts. The powdery gray salt was light in flavor, and almost floral. The spicy and smoked salts added complexity to dark chocolate, and the citron salt made raw pears really pop. The entire experience was so social, experimental, and fun, the main course was nearly an afterthought. We grudgingly put the salts away at the end of the night, shaking them into their tiny Ziploc bags, maybe putting a pinch or two of our favorites in our pockets (was that just me?). A new dimension had been added to our dinner which prompted conversation of food (naturally), but of also geography and world politics, of religion(normally taboo), and of warm friendship. It was a night to remember, and for that span of time, we friends were bound together by such a common ingredient as salt.

If you are interested in spices, or salts, please do visit The Spice Tin in Murphys CA or online at www.thespicetin.com