Hard Core Chef
One of my brothers has a friend who went to cooking school. By profession she does something very impressive and her standards for cooking are equally so. (As in, she is much stricter about things like making her own stocks, which take 3 days to make, etc etc.)
Unfortunately she broke her wrist not so long ago and is still recovering from surgery. I told her I would be her sous chef since we had discussed cooking together. Somehow we were volunteered to cook Christmas dinner before we knew what had happened. You can imagine how impressed I was, and how tough she is, that she did the bulk of the cooking for Christmas dinner for...14? 16? A lot of people anyway - more than I can count on just my fingers.
I got a telephone call Monday morning - it was early for me, as I was still jet lagged and sleep deprived (I had had an argument with technology the night before, which I won but only at 4am). I wanted to go back to sleep but woke up when she said it was to discuss Christmas dinner - specifically, the size / weight of the leg of lamb and the number of people which had grown to 13 people within less than 24 hours. I think only cooking nerds may appreciate how we managed to talk about the right stock (and how we didn't have any) for the jus, before we decided on a cheat version because we were the only ones who would care. By the way, the jus turned out well.
Preparation, Preparation and Preparation - Christmas Eve Day
'Twas the day before Christmas and all through the houses, creatures were stirring to get a lot of food organized for a lot of people.
Luckily Chef DC is very organized. We got our list of who was doing what. She and I discussed what was missing / logistics / timing. It was all good and under control. Nothing too complicated - but a bit of thought required given physical constraints with respect to counter space, refrigerator space, over and stove availability and our low tolerance for crap in the kitchen.
My prep was very basic - shopping, parboiling potatoes, carrots, onions, garlic, mire poix for the sauce...some salad stuff, extra shopping for the more gourmet ingredients (thank you Williams Sonoma - no, this is not product placement, it's giving credit where credit is due - and letting you know shortcuts are not only ok, they can be really good).
Rock 'n roll
I'm not sure how or why it is a chef thing but it must be - I have heard this phrase so often and it's almost always in preparation for fun in the kitchen. Though somehow it's very different to hear it in a strong French accent than in our American one.
Chef DC also did a black rice dish, a cauliflower and chickpea curry which may sound not that good to those who don't like any of those ingredients but all I can say is, wow! (I actually hate chickpeas but I packed a whole container of this curry away for tomorrow, that's how good it was.)
Also brussels sprouts - although there are many who don't like them, these were so good my 4-year old niece not only ate them, but she told us how much she liked them as she ate them.
And Kabocha squash (Japanese green squash). And a butternut pumpkin / carrot puree. And a Caesar salad dressing. From scratch. Which was totally delicious (and I have the rest of the bottle in the fridge for tomorrow, hooray!)
and then today I just made a vinaigrette and the 2 salads. FYI, the Veal demi-glace from Williams-Sonoma made a very acceptable substitute in the absence of having a good veal stock to hand and it cut out a few steps. We had a nice sauce about 45 minutes after we started - not a bad record...
In which we have a very merry cooking party - Christmas Day
DC showed up today with a written time plan. I had one but it was all in my head and pretty easy. (As in, from time we planned to serve, onions - 1.5 hours; confit garlic - 1 hour; roasted veggies - 30 minutes.)
The lamb went into a portable convection oven which is just amazing. It came out a bit over for those who like their meat still moving but it was perfect for me. We were on time with DC's plan (we thought we were 15 minutes behind until we remembered that we had trimmed off a lot of fat and bones) and all went well.
We had an addition in the kitchen near the end of the day - a friend is the Yorkshire pudding Queen so she made a gluten-free and a regular Yorkshire pudding (yum!). They had different cooking times which was interesting for the person who made them, and we had to reshuffle our cooking timeline a bit to allow for the Yorkshire puddings to cook because they have to be last minute.
DC and I had a great old time - she actually fixed the leg of lamb because the butchery was done by machine so it didn't follow the joint (instead, the saw cut straight through the bone). She gave me the piece attached to the hip so I separated it and we had a nice little loin-ish roll. Which we forgot to cook. But it gave some really nice trimmings which made the sauce really good and one of the girls actually took home the meat and the veggies because she said it was like stew but without as much juice. She (DC, not our Yorkshire Pudding Queen) also put this really good rub on the lamb - an olive tapenade with a few other things thrown in - as you do.
Starters (aka Round 1 when I eventually got around to eating): cheeses, prosciutto, a few other things and sashimi (which we sliced at home).
Main (aka Rounds 2 and 3): Roast leg of lamb au jus and fresh mint, roasted root vegetables with rosemary and sea salt (yellow and purple carrots, fingerling potatoes, onions and garlic confit), black rice, cauliflower and lentil curry, butternut squash / carrot puree, roasted Kobacha squash and brussel sprouts with butter.
My plates: there isn't a whole lot of difference between the first and second platefuls of food but I was slowing down by the second plate of meat and veggies. There's no way to escape the day with eating only a little bit when there's so much good food and I have a bad habit of choosing "both" when presented with a choice. We also decided that food made with TLC doesn't have calories (for those who know about that sort of thing).
Dessert (aka Round 4): pumpkin pie, sweet potato and haupia pie, dried fruits, cookies and ice cream.
So until next time - merry Christmas (#or insert your holiday of choice here) - happy, safe and joyous holidays to all.
Raindrops and Rainbows
One of the disadvantages of living so far away from home (or calling more than one place home) is that there is always something to miss about the other place/s. Of course, the bright side is that there is always something to love about where you are. If you think about it, there is no down-side to having something to miss - you can't have rainbows without a few raindrops, after all. My first rainbow came out about an hour and fifteen minutes after I left the airport. The scents of the flowers were lightly carried on the morning breeze, letting me know as nothing else that I was back in the Islands, beloved (the Islands) and beloved (me - by my loved ones).
(Apologies if this post looks odd - I don't know what's wrong with it and I'm not tech savvy enough to be able to fix it. Hopefully whatever the bug is will have been worked out by the next post.)
Neither Pavlov nor his dogs...
Friends and family have held me responsible for their increased appetites and, occasionally, increased waists. Far be it from me to shirk my responsibility for serving the same purpose as Pavlov's bell to his dogs (yes, it is an unfortunate analogy but one which was suggested by one of my friends). I have been known to say that the most dangerous place is between a hungry Cooke and her food. There are variations on this theme but the result is that you can replace "Cooke" by practically anything or anyone and it is still accurate.
Food is a huge part of our social scene here - I'm not sure if it's the Asian influence or if it's just because people come home for the holidays.
It is a truth universally acknowledged that an Island girl/boy returning from time spent elsewhere is in want of local food to curb the cravings they have been experiencing, be it poke, sashimi, Zippy's (chili / saimin / insert your choice of food here), plate lunch, etc. etc. and a trip to a favorite local eatery tends to follow either immediately after leaving the airport or immediately after the shower immediately after leaving the airport.
My mission, which I had chosen to accept, is to eat everything while I am home. (Of course, the everything only includes the things I want to eat. You may not suggest snails or offal or anything else that might make you go "ew".)
As today had some patches of pouring rain (it is winter, after all) those of us who are temporarily between jobs (one of the girls and the boy at lunch - they start their new jobs next week and right after the New Year, respectively), having a day off (one of the other girls) and on vacation (that would be the girl pictured above) went for Vietnamese food. We got food envy from the table next to us - so three of us ordered the enormous noodle salad. And because I'm me, I ordered the Vietnamese coffee - chicory, bitter, sweetened by condensed milk in the cup before you pour the brew into the glass of ice.
Yes, the bowl was big. Yes, it was delicious. No, I did not manage to finish it all - I am out of shape, obviously - but the goal is to change that by the end of this trip.
Christmas Dinner - A preview of sorts...
Christmas will be a team effort - one of my brothers has a friend who was trained (very well trained) as a chef. She is currently injured so we have divvied up duties for Christmas dinner which somehow grew from the 7 originally envisaged to about 13 people. We'll see how it goes but the current menu has poke, sashimi, roast lamb (with jus), rosemary and sea salt potatoes, roasted vegetables, roasted garlic, chickpea and cauliflower curry (hey, don't knock it till you've tried it!), a big salad with home made vinaigrette and home made Caesar dressing, candied almonds (if I can be bothered to make them), a pumpkin and something-else puree...and people will bring starters and desserts. Something tells me there will be lots of food so we have requested that people bring their own containers to take it home. Tomorrow will be the test as we prep as much as possible before hand so that we don't spend all Christmas cooking. After all, I have a visit to pay to little children who will be eager to rip open their presents...
So until next time, merry Christmas and if you must have rain, I wish you lots of rainbows.
(Punk) Rock 'n Roll and more eating
I went to my first (and only?) rock concert / band thing...one of my brothers was touring with a band, "Bad Astronaut" through Australia - a tour called "Hits and Pits".
It was a very cold Sunday night in November when I met my Mom outside a venue whose name I have now forgotten. We were the most unlikely duo there and if you did the old "one of these things isn't like the others" game from Sesame Street, just by looking, we would have been those people.
Anyway - my Mom is a very good mom: she knew most of the songs (not all the newer ones), she knew the words and she bopped along to them. Having your mom bop along to punk songs...I never thought that combination of words would ever be written, much less that I would be the one writing them.
Backstage - yes, we got to go backstage - very exciting (though you still needed earplugs) and Mom did what moms do - she mothered people a bit. I was just taking it all in except I couldn't remember faces and/or names unless I wrote things down later. (One of my brother's friends was a guy who had known us for probably 20+ years. I asked him what band he was in. Luckily he took it in good spirit and at least I remembered him when he joined us for dinner a few nights later.) So AC is talking shop with Dave, a guy from a band which my Mom knew about, called Black Flag (?) - ugh, I've forgotten again. Anyway - they're talking about amplifiers and a few other esoteric things which were incomprehensible to the uninitiated so I took the opportunity to play fan / not-groupie and got a candid shot.
In which I actually use some of the stuff I learned in cooking school...
Funny enough, most of my family seem to be foodie types. AC is a really good cook so when I offered a home cooked meal, his eyes lit up. Of course he pooh-poohed the chili which everyone else requests (my sister having done so only last night or so) since he can make his own. The result: a menu we cobbled together backstage.
He likes duck. So does my Mom. I do not like duck because...it took a while to nail down what the smell reminded me of, but I finally got it: wet dog. So here is the prep two nights before AC was due for a home cooked meal. Duck: bought and butchered and I took my time removing all the shafts from the feathers (yech!) because I do not have a blow torch. So - duck confit done, duck breast separated, bones ready for stock, everything in the fridge ready to be schlepped up the hill for dinner.
Dinner
Dinner was set for after work. Australia has influenced me in several ways - shopping (I can no longer say that I don't care what my bags and shoes look like, though I can say I don't care much about the label) and food - beetroot no longer appears to be the root of all evil but I will never come around to lamingtons or vegemite. Anyway - the starter (left? it shows as "above" as I write the post) is 3 layers of crispy biscuit type things (1 plate is gluten-free), 3 layers of goats cheese, baby heirloom tomatoes and peeled grapes.
The main: duck confit with jus, pan roasted duck breast with orange reduction, rice (as a nod to the Hawaiian part of the meal, and to go with the Hawaiian Seasonings salt which I used as part of the marinade for the confit) and steamed vegetables. You can't see the sauces very well and the jus was over reduced - but luckily most of those little details were only things I noticed.
Mixed salad and dessert, but I don't remember what we had - obviously not very memorable!
I give thanks for everything...
And for Thanksgiving - we went for Indian food down the street.
Do what you're afraid to do
I've always hated snakes. We do not get along, but when you go to a function where an opportunity presents itself, you have to grab it with both hands. Or in this case, touch it very gently with one hand. In this case, there was an exhibit opening at the Taronga Zoo so my Mom and I went on behalf of someone else so that they could give us (and about 100 other people) a little preview. We did not know that the preview would include live animals, including this spotted python, Sputnik. Sputnik was very happy and relaxed, according to his handler. He was warm and he felt very odd as I touched him. The baby lemur was much less intriguing after touching the snake and he (the lemur, not the snake) was asleep so I thought I wouldn't disturb him.
Blast from the Past
And then there was a flying visit from a friend from Le Cordon Bleu days - I got a surprise message on Facebook from WP who said she would be in town for certain days. We ended up having sushi at Hemmesphere after work one night and chatting away until we were both yawning more than the occasion warranted.
It was so nice to have a visit from what seems to be a lifetime ago. We caught up on what each had been up to since graduation - I think we learned more about each other over those few hours than we had in the 9 months in London. Then it was time to say goodbye and despite best intentions and endeavours, I had to get ready to go home for the holidays and she had the rest of her travels to complete.
I am now home for the holidays and ready to have some fun with cooking parties. Christmas plans are in full swing so more later - so until next time, happy and safe holidays to all!
In which not all attempts at adapting recipes are successful
I didn't want to have to convert ratios from my lemon and white chocolate mousse recipe so after some consultation with a few friends, I used a white chocolate ganache recipe...
The result: Disaster! The ganache was fine but not enough lemon (so it was sickly sweet).
Trying to make it not look boring by adding cocoa powder to the short crust pastry - which looked ok, but placing the lined tart mould on a tray to bake instead of directly on the wires resulted in an undercooked pastry shell - just on the very bottom. I didn't realize what had happened until after I had filled the tarte and the tartelettes. And sticking it in an over for an extra 5 minutes? Well, no - the chocolate boiled (which isn't good) and the shells still weren't cooked. So tick that off the list of potential fixes. The thing with pastry is, after a certain point, you can't fix it unless it is a cosmetic error.
Making raspberry coulis from frozen berries? Bad idea. 4 layers of muslin and a super-fine sieve only took out most of the seeds. The seeds left over seemed fine - but trying to pipe it when the seeds clog up the tiny little hole in your piping bag, then all burst out in a big clump, ends up looking something like this (see right). Trying to disguise the disaster didn't work so well either and everything ended up in the kitchen rubbish. Lesson learned: don't put your tarte cases on a tray to bake if you don't have to! (Yes, I can see there's shrinkage in the tarte cases...)
Travels with friends
There was also a trip to Adelaide, South Australia. Overnight trip and one of the weirdest time zone changes ever (30 minutes). I happened to love it but what's not to love when you're partying with friends? And eating. Lots and lots of eating. Exemplar of a typical dish at any cafe / restaurant - trio of dips (beetroot, hummus and baba ganoush for this one) - suitable for the vegetarians. The others ordered drinks and I ordered...this.
Also - glow chairs! Fun party and we were all in our pretty clothes in a pretty city - uncrowded, unpolluted...
They call Adelaide the City of Churches - I was only there overnight the sound of church bells each time they rang didn't get old.
I've been told there isn't much in Adelaide and perhaps there's more to be seen (certainly surrounding regions are well known for wine and good food) - well, there's always next time!
Starters (aka Round 1 when I eventually got around to eating): cheeses, prosciutto, a few other things and sashimi (which we sliced at home). 
Dessert (aka Round 4): pumpkin pie, sweet potato and haupia pie, dried fruits, cookies and ice cream.
