A blog about food, thought, travel, and life.

When Manly Men Love Men…

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Here’s a delicious, quick and easy summer tomato sauce.
Goes great with freshly made fettuccine.
Serves 2-3 with garlic bread for a complete meal.

Ingredients:
12 ounces heirloom cherry tomatoes, halved.
2 cloves of garlic, minced.
1/2 medium shallot, minced
2 Tablespoons Extra Virgin Olive Oil
1 Tablespoon unsalted butter
2 to 2 1/2 ounces grated Parmesan or Romano cheese, (I used both).
1 good handful of Italian parsley, medium fine chop.
2 pinches red chili flakes
1/2 tsp salt.

Method:
Prep all of your ingredients first, this goes very quickly. Make the pasta first, drain it and set it aside.

Get a 10inch saute pan hot, add the oil, lower the heat.
Add the shallot and saute over medium heat for two to three minutes until translucent, and not browned.
Add the garlic and sautee for 30 seconds.
Add the tomatoes, salt, chili flakes at once and saute for two minutes over medium high heat.
Lower heat to medium and add half the parsley and half the cheese, stir to blend.
Add the pasta, slowly stir to blend, trying not to break down the tomatoes.

Serve immediately, topping the pasta with the remaining parsley and cheese, add another pinch of chili flake as serving.

Enjoy!
Chaz

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So a week ago I decided to make a chocolate sorbet from my Ultimate Ice Cream cookbook, while it was being made I decide to add a significant amount of heavy cream, and the result was what I can only call “Chocolate Perfection” I need to make it again to write everything down so I can post it. Same with what happened last night…

I wanted dessert, and I didn’t really have anything ready to eat, so I figured I’d do something with puff pastry, and remembered I had passion fruit pulp in the freezer… I figured I’d make a jam to go with the pastry and some whipped cream I’d made the day before… Well as I was cooking the pulp, I realized I needed to add some sugar to thicken it into a jam, then as it was reducing I decided to add pinches of salt, cardamom, and ginger. Things were coming along nicely, but it was clear that without pectin this wouldn’t be a jam, so my brain firing at high speed decided “Grab some heavy cream.” I added a few ounces of cream to the mix and continued to cook it down, and I ended up with the most amazing Passion Fruit Caramel. I cooked it beyond the ‘caramel sauce’ point and went to the soft candy stage. It was so fucking amazing that it blew my socks off, and that takes a lot.

So Tomorrow’s plan is to remake the caramel, and find a store that sells Ghiradelli unsweetened cocoa powder so I can redo the ice cream.

In the non-dessert arena, I made an amazing quick summer tomato ’sauce’ with heirloom cherry tomatoes, lightly sauteed with in olive oil with garlic and shallots. It was heavenly over fresh beet fettuccine, I’m making that again for dinner, and will post pics along with instructions.

I fucking love summer’s bounty!

Chaz

Stay tuned

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From 2003-2005  I worked at a large corporate insurance broker, the kind of place that slowly kills your soul if you don’t have something else to focus on.  My focus was on cooking (big surprise), I cooked and watched FoodTV at night, read every online food article I could, and eventually, started hosting a weekly recipe thread over at TotalFark.com (I no longer host the TFKitchen).  This was the time when going to culinary school became the itch I couldn’t quite scratch.

This job and the office were abysmal, a group of 10 of use were stacked in a room no more than 10×18 feet, no personal space, no privacy, and you’d better find a way to get along…

Eric who sat about 2 feet to my right was  a late 20’s black ‘dude’ his focus was comic books, and being a stoner.  For the first 9 months that I worked there, Eric had never known a gay person, and since he seemed hostile towards gays in the beginning, I went with  The Gay Agenda – Article 1, Paragraph 1.  “If they seem anti-gay, don’t come out until they get to know you. -  (it’s really hard to hate someone you already know and like).”¹   So after 9 months he’d kinda figured it out, and asked, and we were cool.  (And man was he full of questions about ‘The Gay”).

We became ‘work friends’ who occasionally hung out after, going out for drinks, or food, a celebration here and there when someone, anyone would escape that job.

Five years ago today; August 13, 2004 Julia Child passed at the age of 92.  When the news broke, Eric became the kindest person, almost soft, gentle, he knew what Julia meant to me; not as a celebrity, not even necessarily as a cook, he knew that to me she was an inspiration, an ideal, a goal, a don’t you ever give up attitude, and a perseverance.  Julia was and still is a Hero of mine.  Eric got this, and he got it really well, but I didn’t fully understand how he got it until a few months later, when Christopher Reeve passed.  And then it dawned on me, when I found myself consoling Eric.  He understood because he had a hero who persevered too….

Here’s to our Heroes, may they live forever in our memories.

Chaz

¹ Actually, to the best of my knowledge, that is the entirety of “The Gay Agenda”.  Subtle, isn’t it?

Photographs are © Time Magazine.

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Today I got my 2nd tattoo, I wanted a simple black band, no adornment, nothing tribal, or from another culture…
I wanted something simple and plain.  Turns out simple isn’t easy, or cheap…

When it was finished, I loved it immediately, and as I was going home I thought about what more I could do with it.  So, the plan now is more bands in different widths above and below the current band.  When those are done, I’ll consider adding something else in-between the bands.

And so I begin…

Chaz

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So, earlier in the week I saw these posts in my google reader.

Of course, I had to give it a try.  If for no other reason than to gross out Steve & Leigh.

I’m not going to post photos of the baking process, the ‘wet’ ingredients look kinda nasty when you’re putting this together.

But here’s the final product.

The recipe is available over at Joy The Baker and you should give it a try, it’s good to flex one’s baking muscles and try something new now and then.

A few notes if you’re going to try this.
Cake Batter: Even though I had run my avocado through the food processor and thought I had it smooth when I added it to the wet ingredients chunks started floating to the top, I ended up scooping them out and pressing them through a seive.  In my oven one cake was done a few minutes before the other.
Avocado “Buttercream” I ended up using a tablespoon of lemon juice, plus a little that I rubbed on the chopped avocado meat while I finished chopping the 2nd.

Also though the recipe says that it’s ‘Vegan’ it will only be truly vegan if you use  vegan sugar.  Most commercially available sugar is filtered through “bone char” and that makes it very much not-vegan.

Final note, go easy on the frosting, it can overpower the cake.  And while I will most definitely make the cake recipe again, I doubt I’ll make the ‘Avocado Buttercream’ again.

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No, really, it’s happening.  After wanting this for so long, and been working at trying to make it happen,  I’m still having trouble wrapping my brain around this.  I keep feeling like some shoe is going to drop, some landmine go off, get hit by a bus, train or insane bicycle messenger, (that last one actually happened to me once).

I’d been trying to keep this a secret, but as each step came closer to reality I’ve let more close friends in on this.  Tonight I found out the money has come through, so barring some bizarre turn of events, this is really, truly, a go this time.

Starting in September I’ll be attending the Natural Gourmet Institute in NYC.

Some of my friends may wonder why I’d choose this school, and it’s easy, this is the future of food, slow, natural, whole, local, sustainable, preferably organic, and yes, less meat based.  I want to be a part of that food future.

I’ll be sharing more in the near future, and laying out some plans for things here.

Hang on folks, it’s gonna be a wild ride.

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Look, I’m no fashion icon, maven, clotheshorse (or clotheswhore) but I try to make sure I look decent when I leave the house, and it just boggles my brain when people leave their homes looking like well, this.

Now, we’re not even going to talk about the tackiness of the bra strap showing like that, this one is all about that color.   Seriously WTF!  Now, I can see how something like that might be useful when running at night on a dark country road, it certainly has its place, a very limited one.  But this was broad daylight.  That is not fashion, it is not proper attire for wearing in public, and she should be sent to a correctional fashion institution.

Up Next…

This one is hard to see on the cellphone camera.  But here we go.  He’s wearing dark striped pants, with one of those already hideous blue and white stripe jackets, his tie is a third different stripe, and even his socks are striped.    You aren’t dapper buddy, you’re a disaster.

Thus ends today’s fashion ramblings.

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I came across this recipe for Raspberry Buttermilk Cake in Gourmet Magazine, and not having any 9″ round pans I decided to see if I could use another pan and get good results, so off to the Google I went, where I found the ever helpful Old Farmer’s Almanac and their handy Pan Sizes and Equivilents, and found that a 9×13x2″ cake pan was equal to two 9″ round cake pans, so all I needed to do was double the recipe.  I made only a minor addition to the recipe using some almond extract in addition to the vanilla extract.

Here’s how the first one looked pre and post baking.

I served it with freshly made vanilla whipped cream, and more fresh raspberries, alas, the picture seems to have gone missing.

The next time I made it I swapped out the raspberries for strawberries and banana.

So here’s my larger versions of the Gourmet Magazine recipe

Ingredients:
2 cups AP flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 stick of butter, softened
1 1/3 cup sugar plus 3 tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon good vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon almond extract (no more)
2 large eggs
1 cup of buttermilk – shake well
1 pint fresh raspberries (half for the cake, half for topping the whipped cream)

Directions:
Butter and flour a 9×13x2″ cake pan
Preheat oven to 400F
Whisk flour, baking soda, salt and baking powder in a medium bowl.
Using a stand mixer with paddle attachment (or large bowl and hand mixer)  beat the butter with 1 1/3 cups sugar at med-high speed until fluffy and pale, then add the vanilla and almond extracts, once they are incorporated add the eggs and beat well.
Lower the speed of the mixer to slow (or 2) add 1/3 of the flour mixture, beat, add 1/2 of the buttermilk, beat, repeat flour/beat/milk/beat/flour, mix until just combined (DO NOT OVER MIX)

Spread batter into the cake pan, place 1/2 the raspberries over the top of the batter and press in slightly, take the remaining 3 tablespoons of sugar and sprinkle over the top of the cake.

Bake 25-30 minutes, cake should be golden brown on top and a toothpick inserted into the center should come out clean.

When you remove the cake from the oven place the pan on a cooling rack and allow to cool uncovered.  Serve with fresh whipped cream, and additional berries or fruit.  My good friends over at the Culinary Media Network also make a version of this cake, and they serve it with a Blueberry Lavender Syrup, you should try this cake in all of its forms, the next time I make it I’ll be skipping the fruit and using a traditional cinnamon coffee cake crumb topping.

Enjoy!

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