Sometimes I get to feeling a bit guilty when I don’t post as often as other supa-bloggers. We all get busy and we all make excuses for the things that bring us away from out passions, so mine aren’t necessarily valid, but they’re actual. I’ve been getting all up in the catering world business, and I’m noticing that things I make for other people don’t entirely reflect my personality. I guess I can’t keep not posting, though, so I’m going to share a dose of what I’ve been working on lately, despite the fact that it isn’t what ended up on my dinner plate last night.  Besides, who knew I would have so much fun rolling hundreds of grissini and testing umpteen variations on gelato affogato in limoncello (lemon gelato drowned in limoncello liqueur)? Have fun I did, so I’ll share a few thoughts. When you’re piping ice cream, gelato, sorbet, or what have you into champagne flutes and you want a perfectly piped effect, get your tip down low to the bottom of the glass, pipe fast, and pull up hard. Nothing about that sentence was meant to sound sexy, but it all did somehow, didn’t it? Next up, again on the perfect piping, if you want ideal variance between the liqueur you’re using- in my case limoncello- and the gelato/ice cream, you’ll want to use less liqueur than you might think. I piped a few perfect ones, then I realized those people probably wouldn’t have very much fun, so I stopped worrying about visual glory and started worrying about getting Aunt Mabel drunk enough to give Uncle Peter’s peter a second glance after the rehearsal dinner for which I was doing all this piping.

Next, I moved on to rolling long skinny tubes between my palms in order to make them hard sticks.  Who knew the culinary world could be so dirty? Grissini are marvelous examples of breadsticks, and extremely pleasurable to make after you’ve downed a quarter litre of limoncello, to be sure. You can have great fun with the ingredients, like I did, adding exciting things like sundried tomatoes, truffle salt, and extra pinches of sarcastic wit. Grissini are great space-savers, since you can serve them vertically, bursting forth from your favorite vase as a table centerpiece. The limoncello and the grissini were the highlights of the day and they represent the last time I’ll likely be able to cook for a few days given the fact that I’ll be attending the International Food Blogger’s Conference this weekend. It’s three days of information, food, networking, and likely a time where I’ll need my drinking shoes. Although bloggers have been encouraged to document the event, I’m not sure my usual style of writing up what crazy thing I’ve concocted will make it easy to stray. I’m sure I will learn a great deal and come back to this blog with all sorts of fancy ways to R to the OI and S to the EO. Have an enchanting weekend and put something amazing in your mouth for me.

I submitted an entry into the Queen Anne Farmers Market Holy Tomato! Contest last week. The objective: showcase the glory of the tomato. The parameters? None. What would you do? What do you think I did? Apparently I’m predictable as all get out, in more ways than one, since everyone who saw my dish (who knows me or my blog) took one look at it and knew I created it. I guess that means I have a niche, but sometimes it’s a little frustrating to be pigeonholed, especially if it’s the same hole you’ve been pigeoning around in more or less your entire life. I’ve always been, how do I say this properly, fringe-y. The first award I ever won was “most shocking pumpkin” at a pumkin-carving school contest when I was seven. Apparently sticking two meat cleavers on either side of the jack-o-lantern face was shock-inducing. Imagine a kid bringing that pumpkin to school in this day and age- seems crazy now that they let me get away with it.

The next award came along in junior high (this is not counting all the statewide spelling bee’s I so nerdily won, mind you) when I was voted “snazziest dresser.” WTF did snazzy mean in the 1990’s, people? I’m sure it was for the time I made a pair of bellbottoms out of upholstery fabric I found at the Goodwill and then tied 20 bells around the cuffs of each leg. I got sent home because my outfit was “disruptive.” Then in high school I was voted “most likely to be on the cover of Rolling Stone.” I have no idea where that one came from considering I haven’t played an instrument since the cello in sixth grade, and even though I KNOW I can sing, I’ve been assured by everyone else who’s heard me that I can’t carry a tune nearly as well as I can carry a glass of vino to my lips repeatedly, which is apparently my true Olympic talent. It was around that time I realized my calling was Halloween costume contests. I’ve never met a Halloween contest I couldn’t win, and enjoyed much success in that realm, due, in large part, to the fact that I’ve never dolled myself up like a “ho” and blasphemed the holiday by using it as an excuse to look cheap and tawdry. Not that I haven’t gone nearly nude, it’s just usually in more of an intellectual, complicated sort of way, and there tends to be fire shooting out my nipples or something equally as startling.

All this is to illustrate the fact that I’ve been eternally shoved into the odd box and I can’t seem to get out, no matter how hard I try to do something that might compel the masses. I’m really not counterculture- I have friends who drive Range Rovers, live in Beverly Hills and Bellevue, have fake boobs and get botox injections. I’m sure I know a Republican or two, even. I guess I just have a place in life and I might as well make myself comfortable and kick up my heels. Which is why I should have known my tomato entry would win “most creative” before I ever thought up what I was going to make. I don’t mean to sound like I’m complaining- I am thrilled to add a notch to my bedazzled, Gaga-fied, chartreuse, shiny dragonskin belt. I just sometimes wish the ideas that come into my head as perfectly normal things to do wouldn’t be met with comments like “that’s so original” or “how on earth did you ever think of that?” I don’t try to be “creative” “original” or “complex,” especially on the plate. I just try to combine classic flavors in ways that seem delicious to me.

Once again, I deconstructed the classic BLT sandwich and presented it in frozen format. I did this last fall and I was not 100% thrilled with the outcome, so I went back to the drawing board, changed the “bread” to a maple-pecan Pizzelle, tweaked the bacon ice cream (by adding lots of bourbon), substituted pea shoots instead of lettuce in the sorbet, and finally messed around with egginess and creaminess in the tomato gelato. I garnished the plate with a candied heirloom grape tomato sitting on top of a pea shoot and piece of homemade bacon. It was pretty. It was classic. It was delicious (if you don’t mind me saying so). But I guess it was also “creative.” I’m just one big self-fulfilling prophecy so I better get used to it. The thing is, who wants to eat “creative?” Wouldn’t you rather eat “fan-fucking-tastic?” It’s kind of like the adjective I use when someone asks my opinion on something and I don’t want to insult them- “that’s interesting.” Or something you’d say to a five-year-old who just made you an indiscernible fingerpainting. “Very creative, little Suzie.”

photo courtesy of Queen Anne Farmers Market

That being said, I was thrilled to have won the award, and the ultimate accolade came when the lone chef at the judges’ table took out his iPhone and snapped a few shots of my dish. I don’t know what he was thinking, exactly, but whatever it was must have been inspiring enough to want to remember, so that made me very happy. All three judges popped the candied tomatoes like crack, and luckily I had brought an extra plate of them so was able to share some candied tomatoes with the crowd. They are so easy, and make great additions to other canapés and appetizers. For example you can candy a tomato and set it on a basil leaf perched on a round of mozzarella, or if you’re feeling really decadent top a cracker with a candied tomato and a slice of seared foie gras. I will leave you with the candied tomato recipe, though if you’re really interested in one of the frozen component flavors, let me know and I’ll email you that as well.

Candied Tomatoes

Note: increase the sugar and water as necessary if you have more tomatoes, or if your pan is not a very small saucepan, as you want enough depth to the candy syrup to be able to easily dip your tomatoes and coat them.

• 1.5 c granulated sugar
• ½ c water
• 24 grape tomatoes with stems intact, washed, and thoroughly dried

1. Boil the sugar and water in a small saucepan stirring constantly until the syrup reaches 330° as measured by a candy thermometer. Remove from heat. Working quickly, use tongs to dip the tomatoes into the syrup by their stems. Place them on a parchment-lined baking sheet to harden. If you want to affix them to the surface on which they will eventually set, do so within fifteen minutes so they retain some tackiness, but not right away, as they’ll be too hot.

I’m applying for a patent on this one. It is going to be very difficult to describe the extraordinary nature of this dish without employing the use of exuberant expletives, but I will try.  It all started with a strawberry picking and tasting adventure a mere one hour from Seattle and yet worlds away.  As my city-slicking Mercedes rolled through the gentle flats of the Skagit Valley, signs encouraged drivers to “slow down and follow your nose” which I did with aplomb.  The fertile flats of Skagit produce some of the finest grown goods in Washington, and stellar strawberries are no exception. Our small group had the great pleasure to tour and visit Skagit Sun berries as well as listen to the insightful musings of Farmer Don on the history of his berries and cucumbers (that sentence was not meant to sound dirty, but upon rereading it, I suppose it could be misconstrued).

Photo courtesy of Luuvu Hoang

We participated in a blind tasting of eight varieties of strawberries; I had no idea there would be such a vast difference in flavor.  In the end, I preferred two varieties: Shuksan and Hood. Shuksan berries are sweet and red throughout, with uniform flesh, a short shelf-life and unbeatable versatility in terms of complementing sweet and savory dishes as well as being great fresh or cooked.  The Hoods were piquant and almost candy-like in flavor with a thorough, intense sweetness that lingered on the palate for ages.  It is the height of Shuksan season right now, so get them while you can. Farmer Don was kind enough to let us pick our own flats of Shuksans so my mental wheels got to turning whilst we were out there under the haze-laced sun plucking away.  I love jams and jellies as much as anyone, but I was not about to preserve these precious plumpies for posterity.  I decided on both a sweet and a savory application, and somehow the divine inspiration of the strawberry gods put the idea of chocolate pasta into my head (well that and a conversation with my friend Luuvu).

When I got home, I promptly made a custard of Shuksans and lavender that would become ice cream the next day.  I also whipped up a crema pasticcera (pastry cream) infused with lavender with which to fill the chocolate pasta sheets.  The next day, the real work began.  {INSERT TERRIBLE CONFESSION HERE} Regular readers of my blog will know that I’m a primadonna pasta purist. I do not crank out sheets of pasta, I gently roll them with an old wooden pin, then cut whatever pasta I’m forming using a pastry cutter.  As far as tools go, I’ve always been happy (to make pasta 3+ times a week) with my pin, cutter and a glass of wine.  Well, the universe conspired and produced a gift certificate and a HUGE sale I couldn’t refuse, so long story short, I’m now the proud recipient of a pasta attachment for the Kitchenaid.  This chocolate pasta is the second I’ve made with it, and the most unfortunate part is that I no longer seem to need the glass of wine while pasta-making. You see, the wine acts as a thirst-quencher between rolls, but when a machine takes all the work away, you no longer require parch-abatement.  I suppose the pasta machine will help cure my excessive wino-ism, but it has also taken a little piece of my soul along with it.  I’m vowing to hand-roll at least once a week- we will see how it goes.

For the pasta, I made a typical dough of flour and eggs, to which I added Dutched cocoa and a touch of sugar.  I was worried about the consistency, but it rolled out beautifully and crimped together perfectly to form round discs filled with pastry cream.  I made the pasta around noon and did not boil them until 9pm, so they sat on a parchment-lined sheetpan for many hours with no refrigeration. There were no ill-effects of this, as they boiled up nicely and the texture was perfect.  Since my pasta would not be complete without a sauce, I boiled down Shuksans into a compote with butter, sugar and Grand Marnier.  I put it through a sieve to remove the seeds, then drizzled the sauce over intermittent rounds of ravioli and scoops of ice cream.  This is the part where I would use some holy s3*TTTT expletives to describe the wow-factor of all the complementary flavors and textures in this dish, but I promised not to, so I’m going to have to go stuff my gullet full of sweet sweet bliss aka chocolate ravioli and bid my adieu to you. Until next time, keep it super real out there in the spectacular sunshine.

Ever tasted sorghum? Know what it is? It’s made from extracting syrup from stalks of sorghum grass, which incidentally is one of the five top cereal grains in the world along with wheat, oats, corn and barley.  To me, it’s kind of like a cross between molasses and something malted with maybe a tinge of maple thrown in for fun.  It’s magnificent, but a really specific sweetener. You want to know what you’re pairing it with before you go willy nilly drizzling it all over someone’s waffles.  I love to use it for bacon-curing in place of maple just to spice things up. I’ve been dreaming about it in ice cream for quite some time, but couldn’t quite come up with the right combo- until now. I was walking through the garden with my shears on the hunt for some oregano when I noticed my culinary lavender was blooming earlier than usual this year.

Coincidentally, I’ve been dreaming of lavender ice cream all winter long, so I trained my shears on the lavender and promptly forgot the oregano I was originally after.  I brought in the lavender and laboriously snipped up the buds- I think a mere quarter cup took me ten minutes! Then I steeped it in warmed milk for an hour while I consulted David Lebovitz’ Perfect Scoop for an idea springboard.

I changed things up quite a bit from his suggested lavender recipe, not because he isn’t the master, I love his original but wanted to add a new dimension. I also never think he adds enough eggs. I like my custard so creamy and thick it holds up even when it melts a little, so I adjust accordingly.  Once I had swirled in lavender-laced sorghum and set my custard to chill, I dreamed up a shortbread peppered with lavender and mint with which to lap up the ice cream.  The shortbreads came out tasting surprisingly similar to Mexican wedding cookies, an observation I’ve never made in such a biscuit.

I served the finished dessert just as the clouds broke and the sun who has been mighty elusive this spring graced us with a few moments of his body heat.  It was perfect timing, having a little bit of pretend summer by which to eat real, really good ice cream.  I’ve made a little pact with myself that I won’t make any more ice cream until summer officially rears her hot head, so if anyone has any clout with the weather gods, please make it happen- I’m already jonesing for gelato.

I’ve been on a frozen, sweet kick lately in my posts, but then, that’s what springtime is all about. Don’t worry, I’m sure we’ll see the return of pasta and duck eggs very soon.  I am a lucky girl. Imagine stumbling upon a ripe, succulent basket of rambutans in Seattle in May. It happened to me a few days back and for that I am grateful. What, say you, is a rambutan? It’s a tropical fruit like a lychee that is all things gorgeous wrapped into one spherical, brilliant package.  I imagine you can guess what I did with said fruits if you know me at all by now. Yes, I made gelato. And it tasted like a little scoop of tropical paradise. As it should. 

I probably sing the praises of Uwajimaya market in Seattle entirely too much on this blog, but I can’t help it. It’s like a giant cornucopia of amazing ingredients with which to endlessly experiment.  I don’t often have the chance to bite into the spiky splendoriffic rambutans, so when I do I really maximize my mouthful, if you know what I mean. 

Uwajimaya gets little shipments of precious produce in frequently. You never know what you will find.  More often than not you find something utterly addictive, yet upon returning to the store, alas, it is no more.  Ah well, the name of the culinary game is versatility, and this rambutan gelato speaks volumes to that. 

It almost tastes grape-like, if the grapes were in their especially succulent, very raw state. No amount of fermenting or cooking would benefit the rambutans in gelato, so I made sure to keep them in merely a cold yet pureed form.  Texture is everything when it comes to frozen custard, and this fairly safe rendition of a classic custard ratio does not disappoint.  In the words of Yo Gabba Gabba (you will get this reference if you are the parent of a small child) “Try it. You’ll like it.” 

Rambutan Gelato

• 16 rambutans,  shelled and pitted
• 2 c milk
• 3 egg yolks
• ½ c sugar
• Salt- pinch
• 1 tsp vanilla

 Blend rambutan’s with ¾ c milk.  Place blended mixture in a mixing bowl with a fine mesh strainer set over the top.  In a medium saucepan warm the remaining milk with the sugar and salt. Once it’s nearly boiling, quickly whisk it into the waiting egg yolks and transfer the mixture back into the saucepan, whisking all the while. 

Stir constantly until the custard thickens enough to coat the back of your spoon. Pour through the strainer into the rambutan mixture, add vanilla, and chill over an ice bath stirring occasionally. 

 Chill custard in the refrigerator thoroughly before churning into ice cream/gelato following your ice cream maker’s instructions.

Wow- over two weeks without a post. Boy did I ever miss you lovely people? I was off on a crazy top-secret adventure that will reveal itself very soon. I hate secrets, so I should probably just stop talking about it and get to the meat of this post, I just wanted to share exactly how much I wanted to be here blogging, and to let you know in no uncertain terms that my absence was in no way self-imposed.  When I first started blogging and I would read other bloggers’ posts about how supportive and amazing the blogging community was I thought it was a bunch of cheesy drivel.  Now, after two weeks away, I realize just how much I depend on this strange connection to people I’ve never met, but seemingly I have more in common with than folks I’ve known since infancy.  I’m happy to be back and I hope you enjoy the Tim Tam Slam as much as I did. 

Australians have damn good taste in cookies! Or do they call them biscuits down under? Maybe they have some hybrid word for it I haven’t yet heard, like biscookies or cookscuits.  I’m going to go with biscookies. I like the ring to it.  Plus it doesn’t sound so fattening that way. How could something that sounds so cute be fattening? Yup, going with biscookies. That way I can eat like 20 and not worry about the excessive indulgence- yes! Well anyway, this post is all about the best little biscookies to come out of Australia, swim across several seas and land in my lap.

 I discovered Tim Tams completely serendipitously, which is how I can really tell we are meant to be together for life.  I was in the grocery store the other day talking to one of my best friend’s on the phone while I shopped for a gift. What was I doing shopping for a gift in the supermarket, you ask? Well it was a gift for some foodie friends of mine, one of whom lives in Canada and has the lovely blog www.eatlivetravelwrite.com while the other lives in Australia and can be found at http://jeroxie.com/addiction/We were participating in an exchange, basically mailing off food items that would be incredibly common where we lived, but not so common where we were shipping them off to.

 I was on the phone with Lily because she had just gotten back from Australia the week before and I wanted to run my selections by her to ensure that they would indeed be unavailable in Oz.  Well truth be told she wasn’t much help because she just kept raving on and on about how great everything is in Australia and how they have this and that and all these glorious things we doltish Americans blindly go without.  She focused especially on these nuggets of caramelly-chocolately goodness called Tim Tams.  I happened to be walking down the cookie aisle and I thought I would take a quick peek to see if perhaps they had actually made it here without her knowledge.  You see she lives in the backwoods middle of nowhere and doesn’t get out much, so I figured cosmopolitan Seattle (ha!) might have a leg up on tree-ville snowland. Sure enough, staring back at me from a tucked away corner of the cookie aisle was a gleaming box of Tim Tams.  Lily was outraged that I had direct access to such lovely biscookies, but I offered to mail her some so I think she’ll be alright. 

I took them home and managed to leave them in the cupboard and forget about them for roughly one week.  I had a glut of homemade ice cream to get through, plus early spring is more of a savory time for me and I don’t crave a ton of sweets. That all changed when I opened the damned package of Tim Tams.  I typically hate pre-packaged snacks, but these little monsters are “open the package and eat the whole thing in one sitting” good!  I had picked up two packages thinking I’d mail one to Lily, but alas, that never happened since they all ended up in my tummy.  It’s quite sad, really, I’m training for a half marathon so I go out and run five miles most days, but I come home and undo all that hard work with one whiff of Tim Tams.  If you have never tried them, I caution you not to, or at least if you do, don’t hold me responsible.  This is not the attitude I’m adopting toward my immediate friends.  I’m trying to infect Seattle at-large with a Tim Tam addiction as big as my own, so whenever a new person walks through my front door, I practically shove a Tim Tam straight down their throat.  I’ve made converts by the dozen- it’s getting dangerous. 

Lily told me about this amazing thing called a Tim Tam Slam.  Basically you bite off each end of the Tim Tam then use it as a straw to ingest a shot of espresso. Or maybe coffee, but I steadfastly refuse to believe people drink that watered-down drivel, so espresso it is in my mind.  I’m not much for coffee beans in any form factor, truth be told, but I have been meaning to get around to espresso ice cream, and the Tim Tam Slam gave me a way to make it all the more palatable.  I made my espresso ice cream which definitely passed the paddle-licking good test all on its own according to all three members of my household.  Then I made it even better by churning in a bunch of Tim Tams a la frozen Tim Tam Slam.  I had eight people for dinner that night and they all went back for seconds on the Tim Tam Slam! This from a group of gay men who rarely eat and tend to watch their figures more than I do.  “Oh I don’t eat dessert” quickly gave way to moans of pleasure as we all savored the genius of those clever Australians.   Well, and the genius of me too, since I came up with the whole frozen twist, not to toot my own horn or anything since I’m sure it’s been done before, though pretty good for an American, right? Ok, I’m going to sneak downstairs and steal a Tim Tam from the locked away secret stash before dinner.  Please don’t tell anyone, ok?