Counting the Beans and Cooking the Books

I have arrived!  After three flights, (and almost missing a 35 minute connection in Las Vegas that had us running/shuttling to the international terminal) I am safe and sound in Vancouver and loving the clean air, the friendly Canucks, and the oh-so-easy and efficient public transportation that has gotten me everywhere for the past 5 days.  With our Olympic credentials, we ride everything for free–buses, skytrains, ferries, you name it.

We’re staying in a hotel in Richmond, which boasts an incredibly diverse (well, not really diverse, seeing as how it’s more than 50% Asian) population.  You know what that means…tons of great restaurants with cheap, delicious eats!  The commute to work is about 45 minutes total, with some healthy walking and a 25 minute train ride in between.  It’s been really great to see familiar faces from Beijing, be it fellow catering employees or USOC members.

We worked the first day after we arrived, but had Saturday off to explore.  We wandered out to Granville Island, where I had the world’s most wonderful almond croissant.

The market on Granville Island is just incredible, with fresh produce, local treats, seafood markets, live music, and loads of delicious eateries.

What does one make with smoked dino bones?  Dino stock, perhaps?

We somehow got reeled into the most hilarious street performance featuring Byron from England, a crazy man who tied himself up in chains and had us in stitches.

Nothing poor about my oyster poor boy!  I’ve never had bigger or meatier oysters in my life.

After lunch, we ferried across the bay and walked up the beautiful Seawall to Stanley Park.  Vancouver residents are incredibly fit and outdoorsy and with the gorgeous weather we’re having, everyone was out and about picnicking, riding bikes, rollerblading, or just strolling along.

It is beautiful here!  We’re gearing up to get busier at work as more people come into the city, but I’ve really enjoyed the past few days.  I’m a happy camper!

Yes, I realize it’s been 3 months since my last post.  But it’s 2010 and we’re all allowed a new start, right?  I don’t know yet if I’ll resolve to post more often in the new year, but I can promise some fun recipes, TV appearances, another trip to the Olympics, and some wedding-related posts.

Yup, this little cook is getting hitched!  Perhaps I’ll post good little housewife recipes like meatloaf or fruitcake.  Or perhaps I’ll post “Brigitte & Michael attempt to get skinny for their wedding” recipes.  Or maybe, just maybe I’ll try my hand at recreating some traditional wedding foods in the process of writing my wedding menu.  We’ll see…

To make up for my sad absence, I’m posting some pictures of things I’ve either made or happily eaten (or made, then happily eaten) in the past few months.  Here goes!

Oh hello burger, mahi mahi fish & chips, onion rings, and shake from Taylor’s Refresher.  We had a fantastic trip to San Francisco to attend the wedding of one of my besties!  Thanks, Kris, for getting married in Michael’s favorite city.  We celebrated by eating.  A lot.

Happy Halloween!  Um, maybe you can file this away for next year?  My famous nutella-filled sugar cookies, recreated with a pumpkin cutter and a little round biscuit cutter for the inside frame.

Baggies of homemade caramel corn for our trick-or-treaters.  I know this makes you wish you lived in our neighborhood.  And that you were a kid.  In a costume.  On Halloween night.  Or you can just be my friend.  Friends get caramel corn too.

I became a little obsessed with Libby’s Pumpkin Roll around Thanksgiving time.  You can thank my friend Beth for that.

I think I made 3 in one day.  Then I made 2 more for turkey day, including one for my next door neighbor, Joe, who lets us drop a turkey in his fryer every year.  Hurray for deep fried turkey!  Despite the deep frying, Joe is trying to cut back on his sugar & fat intake.  The cake portion of this pumpkin roll has no oil or butter, so I felt quite victorious.  I even bought fat free cream cheese (a first) and some of that Smart Balance spread (unchartered territory) to make a lowfat filling.

Heed my warning: do not attempt to do this.  The whole thing liquified once I started beating it, so I added extra powdered sugar in a pathetic attempt to rescue it.  It did not work.  And it did not taste good.  Joe got full fat cream cheese and butter instead.  Sorry to Joe’s wife, Barb.  I tried!

Since I’d already surrendered to the full fat version, I went ahead and drizzled it with some homemade caramel sauce and toasted almonds.  Joe ate 2 pieces for breakfast that day.

And because it’s Michael’s favorite, I made a pecan pie.  The crust recipe is from Cook’s Illustrated and uses vodka to add moisture, but inhibit gluten formation.  HELLO, this is the best crust I’ve ever made.  Crumbly, buttery, tender, and flaky.  It is crust perfection.  Seeing as how I do not drink, I now have a reason to collect those tiny vodka bottles from airplanes.  PIE CRUST!

Since this pecan pie was so easy, I decided to make it laborious and make pretty crust.  The family has become difficult to impress, so I have to go the extra mile if I want them to oooh and ahhh.  Sigh…

This brings us to Michael’s birthday cupcakes.  Our neighborhood Christmas party was the night of his birthday, so I made his favorite cuppy cakes to share with everyone.

Happy Birthday, Prather!  Three years ago, I bought M some birthday candles for our first birthday celebration together.  To my dismay, when I went to put them on his cake (red velvet, of course), I realized I’d erroneously purchased “Happy Retirement” candles, which have been sitting in our pantry ever since.  I brilliantly figured I could play Scrabble with the letters and spell out his last name.  Wanna know what I did with the rest of the candles?  Stay tuned…

Merry Christmas!  Buche de noel, anyone?  I made this when my amazing, beautiful, loving, kind mother came to see me in Kentucky for the first time!  Growing up, we ALWAYS had a buche for Christmas.  I can’t remember a year when there wasn’t a buche, complete with meringue mushrooms for all us kids to fight over.  It was usually from a Vietnamese bakery and it had the most lovely mocha icing and light sponge base.  I tried Martha’s recipe and thought it was quite tasty.  Most importantly, my mum was proud and liked it so much she ate two pieces.

We spent an entire day cooking together, which warrants a whole other post.  It was the first time we’d really cooked together, despite the fact that we’re both avid cooks and that she is solely responsible for my love of food.  We cooked up a big Vietnamese feast that night and had Michael’s entire family over to meet mom and to celebrate his dad’s birthday.  Here’s where the rest of those candles come into play…

It’s a wee hard to make out, but it reads “Pity men, ee!”  M and I Scrabbled for days with these letters…”piety meen, minty peee, tip my neee, yip mentee” and so on.  Hey, if you can come up with any better, I’m all ears.

And that concludes the highlight portion of this post.  I’m still cooking every Tuesday on LEX18 and we’re ironing out the kinks with the uploading of recipes and videos for your cooking and viewing pleasure.

Is there a recipe I can whip up on TV for you this year?  Something you’d like to lighten up or just recreate?  I often draw a blank when figuring out what to make each week and I love to know what everyone’s eating, cooking, or craving.  Leave me a comment and I will happily tackle it.   Thanks in advance for the idea!

I finally saw Julie & Julia a couple weekends ago and walked out of the theatre longing for a slice of chocolate cake.  The almond chocolate cake showcased in the movie is Julia Child’s Reine de Saba, but it immediately made me think of her Boca Negra, which I’ve been dying to make at home.

It is a nearly flourless chocolate cake with the addition of bourbon.  My favorite part of this recipe is the way in which the batter is prepared.  It is incredibly quick and easy if you have a food processor.  Rather than having to melt the chocolate in a double boiler as a separate step, the way you would for brownies, you can simply boil the bourbon and sugar and drizzle it over the chopped chocolate with the food processor running.  The boiled syrup melts the chocolate and ta-dah, you’re all set to go!

I was also skeptical about inverting the cake onto a plate so soon after it emerges from the oven.  At work, we make a similar recipe, but with a different method.  It’s baked at a lower temperature until the top is glossy and just barely set.  Not only do we chill the cake, but we also bake it in a springform pan, making it quite easy to unmold.

I followed Julia’s directions exactly–lined my pan with parchment, baked it in a water bath, looked for the thin, dry crust, covered it in plastic wrap, took a deep breath, and inverted it…and it came out perfectly!

a dry and crackly top....

fudgy interior...

It’s perfect on it’s own or with the white chocolate bourbon cream recommended by Julia…but I dressed mine up with some fresh raspberries and a dusting of powdered sugar.

Warning: this is incredibly rich.  And delicious.  You’ll want coffee.  Or milk.  And you’ll fight over the leftovers because…

It freezes SO well!!!!  I wrapped and froze a quarter of my Boca Negra just to see how it would hold up and I have found myself sneaking slivers of it straight from the freezer.  It keeps phenomenally well in the freezer and could either be brought to room temperature on the countertop or eaten in its cold, dense, fudgy, frozen state.

Last fall, I went to New York for the first time.  EVER.  Shocking, I know.  When I entered the food world three years ago, I set a personal goal for myself: the first time I set foot in New York City, it would be for the Food Network.  And ta dah!  I reached that goal and was flown to the Big Apple to film the Ultimate Recipe Showdown.

Before the much anticipated trip, I made a NY hit list of things I wanted to do and places I wanted to visit.  Or more accurately, things I wanted to eat and restaurants I wanted to visit.  Sadly, I never made it to Levain Bakery, home of the colossal cookie that kicked Bobby Flay’s cookie in the butt on his chocolate chip cookie throwdown.

A year later, I’m still remorseful about missing my chance at the ultimate chocolate chip cookie, so imagine my surprise last night when my neighbor Meredith showed up on my back porch with a delightfully greasy bakery box from…LEVAIN!

I screamed, I shrieked, and I tore into that box faster than a kid on Christmas morning.

I coddled each cookie, unwrapping them carefully and examining every nook and cranny.  And get this–I refrained from taking a bite, in the name of capturing a photo for my blog.  Yes folks, my priorities are all whacked.  I had to photograph the darn things before I could even taste them.

These things are no joke…Levain weighs out 6 ounces of cookie batter, (more than twice the size of my chocolate chip cookies) resulting in a confection the size of a hockey puck.

I’ve tried, in vain, to make copycat recipes of Levain’s original chocolate chip walnut cookie and their chocolate peanut butter chip cookie, below.  Results were lukewarm, resulting in overly floury cookies that weren’t very spectacular.

Here’s the cross-section…yup, I even paused to take a cross section for you.  And then I took a bite.

They’re dense, almost an inch thick, and unlike any chocolate chip cookie I’ve had.  They weren’t at all like a typical Tollhouse cookie, which is chewy, crisp, and buttery.  Rather, they were rich, moist, and doughy in the best way possible.  Each cookie is packed chock FULL of high quality nuts and chocolate.

It’s no wonder these were created by Levain’s owners as high-carb treats to fuel up before triathlons.  Whoever heard of a baker who runs Iron Man triathlons?  I am not that kind of baker.

Mere, I will gladly water your flowers in exchange for Levain cookies, anytime you have to jet off to New York