March 7, 2010
This post is an installment from the ongoing Dessert FourPlay project, in which I prepare and write about all of the desserts in Dessert FourPlay: Sweet Quartets from a Four-Star Pastry Chef
by Johnny Iuzzini. For more on this project, click here.
Oh. My. God. I just loved making this so much. First off, there is the doughnut component. As in, the dessert item that brings my two favorite culinary worlds together – bread and pastry, and throws in my favorite guilty pleasure – fried dough rolled in some sort of sweet granulated substance, just for good measure. Then there’s the subtle, mellow, slightly sweet and oh, so creamy cheese filling. And, the bright flavor from confit of meyer lemon. Yes, this is sunshine and light and guilt and cheese (!) all on one plate.
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March 1, 2010
We’re in the home stretch of winter, but it sure doesn’t feel like that here in New York, with another foot of snow getting dumped down just before the weekend. And while I can debate forever with the snow lovers, weighing the virtues and the pitfalls of having such a large amount of snow around, setting aside the tiny window of city beautification, no one can argue that it sucks when the sewers get clogged, causing mass confusion for each street crossing on every corner. Bah! humbug! to that. Even folks rocking those country-chic Hunters I’m seeing everywhere can’t escape from the lakes of slush unsplashed.
Why do I rant on about this? Well, in spite of the slushy walking conditions, I had promises to keep and dinner to make for two semi-celebrity guests: Paul, the incredibly gifted designer who is responsible for giving this site its face, and his lovely wife Jen. When selecting the menu, this recipe spoke to my favorite fun fact about the couple – they met, unbelievably, on spring break in Cancun, and ten years later, they’re one of the happiest couples you’re ever likely to meet. Rum and coke ice cream? Tropical caramelized bananas? Perfect, no? But back to the slush – this recipe had some doozies on the shopping list, so there I was, running around from store to store, covered in slush.
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February 24, 2010
Since I love the whole concept of soup for dessert, I was looking forward to trying out this concoction. The creamy, dark chocolate soup (not to be confused with the much-coveted cartons of sweet chocolate-y bliss that we remember from grade school) topped with a foam made from Devonshire (Devon) cream, and whimsical cocoa puffs enrobed in milk chocolate did not disappoint. So let’s get down to it, shall we?
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February 15, 2010
So yesterday was Valentine’s Day. Was it just me, or did it seem like people made more of a fuss about it than usual this year? My feelings on this Hallmark holiday can best be described as love/hate. One the one hand, all that pink and red crap, the blatant consumerism masquerading as love, and the starry-eyed, cooing couples who seem to think that grotesque displays of PDA are suddenly acceptable… all of that is completely off-putting. On the other hand, I have some great memories of nights inspired by Valentine’s Day backlash; wine-fueled all-girls dinner parties, slasher movie marathons, defiant nights out in the Village with every unattached friend I’d ever had. This year, the fact that Brian and I cooked a decadent dinner of caviar potatoes and cracked a bottle of amarone had nothing to do with the fact that it happened to be Valentine’s Day, and everything to do with us seizing the opportunity to spend a nice night at home together – something our schedules haven’t permitted us to do since New Year’s Day.
When I selected two chocolate desserts (this, and also, the Chocolate Soup – post coming soon) for the Dessert FourPlay project this week, it much less a coincidence: I did it, unabashedly, as a tribute to the holiday that I so love to hate. When I set out to blog the whole book, I knew that I would eventually have to make this, the most “conventional” dessert, at some point. What I hadn’t anticipated, however, was how much I would enjoy doing it. But enough of my blathering.
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February 9, 2010
I am so excited to be posting installment #1 of the Dessert FourPlay project! It took me a while to decide which recipe would make the best opener, but after narrowing it down by season and deciding that I wanted to save chocolate for next week’s valentine’s day post, I decided to focus on the light and bright flavors of the citrus salad. It seemed like an appropriate starter.
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January 29, 2010
So I scored that internship at the fancy Manhattan restaurant (thank you to readers for your kind words via comments and email), and tomorrow I’ll be working my last shift in the Brooklyn kitchen where I’ve come to feel at home. The next three months will be filled with some very serious schooling that I hope will help me take my cooking to another level and expose me to techniques that I’ll never learn in school. As excited as I am about all of this, lately I’ve been feeling a bit glum about leaving Brooklyn behind, for two reasons: I’m going to miss the company of the chefs and cooks who gently mentored me and made work fun, and, most of all, I’ll miss the satisfaction that comes from creating something from start to finish. You see, for a pastry cook (or intern), the biggest difference between working at a high-quality, rustic style restaurant and working in high pressure, fine dining is that at the former you are involved in the entire plate – the cake, the ganache, the swoop of sauce, and the candied garnish that goes on top. In fine dining, where one plate may have 20 components, multiplied by the number of items on the menu, I may have my hands in a few tiny pieces of the finished product, but I’ll never be able to look at something and say “yeah, I made that.”
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