Culinary School

Just a little note to share with you that I've just submitted an application to start culinary school in January. I've been thinking about it as a possible first-step in this whole corporate-worker-to-bakery-owner process and have decided that it's a very reasonable next step. I'd be able to imrpove on my cooking/baking/knife skills, and doing it at a local community college would be cost-efficient.

When I brought it up to my mom, she said "but you already know how to cook!" Valid point, but it's the restaurant management, sanitation, and how to keep a stocked pantry courses that would be most useful for the future.

And starting in January? I've decided that I'd rather not wait to get started on this next phase of my career and life. My chiropractor recently had a mini-stroke, and she's making some changes in her life because she's realized that life is short and could end at any time. I need to do this for me now - so I don't get stuck in a rut just because it's comfortable.

Culinary school would be a full-time endeavor...which would mean my term at PubCo would need to end, at least on a daily basis. My dad suggested what I had already been thinking - that there may be an opportunity to freelance for PubCo, especially since everyone could use the support and I already know the systems and procedures. If I'm allowed, and management doesn't hold a grudge, I'm on board.

I'll be sure to let you know once I'm officially accepted - I submitted the application, but I also need to go through the interview process they require. When that's all done, you'll all be among the first to know!

Kaak

I'm sure you're like "What the heck is 'kaak'?" Kaak is a type of Lebanese bread, and I've been thinking about it almost non-stop for the past few days. My cousin is coming from Lebanon this week, and he asked what he could bring for us. My sister and I both responded "kaak!"

Kaak is sold on the street off of carts that have bars running across them to hold up the bread. I'm not sure if this is to keep the air circulating or if it's to showcase this delicous bread. After all, this bread does include handy cutouts that make it very easy to hang off a bar!

The bread itself is quite sweet, and the sesame seeds sprinkled on top give an extra touch of sweetness. When it's baked, the larger portion of the bread puffs out, and it makes a little pocket to stuff for a sandwich. If you plan on eating the bread right off the cart, the vendor will sprinkle a little sumac into the pocket, which is a tangy and tart spice that balances very well with the sweetness of the bread. He sprinkles in the sumac, you shake it up so that it infiltrates the bread, and start eating.

If you take the bread home, it's great with halloumi, which is a tangy and salty cheese (we call it "squeaky cheese" since it squeaks a bit when you bite into it) or with labne, the cheese yogurt that is the quintessential breakfast spread in Lebanon.

When family brings kaak from Lebanon, they bring it frozen and wrapped in multiple plastic bags to try to keep the freshness in. Anything I don't eat immediately gets put in the freezer to savor some other time. A warm-up in the microwave gets it back to it's normal texture and taste.

The photos above are from this site, where I also found a recipe for kaak. I've been thinking about this bread and trying to find a good chunk of time to focus on making it - it's the type of recipe where you have to let the bread sit for hours, punch it down, let it sit some more...so I'm waiting for an open weekend. I want to see how close I can get to the real Lebanese thing in my very American oven. And then, how cool would it be to offer Lebanese street food in my little bakery?

Breakfast? Or Dinner?

Mountain Man and I just spent 5 days in a car together, and I spent a lot of time bouncing ideas off him for the bakery and taking notes and jotting down ideas that seemed to resonate most. I got stuck on the following issue:

Would the bakery be most successful if we were open for breakfast and lunch OR lunch and dinner?

At this point, it doesn't make sense to consider being open all day. I definitely want to be open for lunch, since many of the recipes I'm working on are perfectly suited for lunch. But I'm not sure if I prefer breakfast or dinner as the other meal.

Breakfast gives the option of espresso drinks, smoothies, scones, muffins, and breakfast sandwiches and burritos. This weekend, MM had a breakfast burrito that was made out of tri-tip, salsa, cheese, potatoes, and eggs. We also had breakfast with the family, and my brother-in-law noted that the bakery needed to provide really good English muffins. Breakfast would allow for some creativity, and if it was in the right place (i.e. not close to a Starbucks or similar), it could become a go-to place for people who want something quick on the way to work. So breakfast sounds great to me.

But, dinner means not waking up at the crack of dawn, and it means that I would be making the same dishes for both lunch and dinner - I wouldn't really need to do anything different for the two mealtimes, besides making sure that there was enough for both lunch and dinner. It would be easier, but I'm not sure it would be as fun.

So, my question to you is this: Breakfast or Dinner?

Bakery Research

A couple of weekends ago, my sister and I went out to Joan's on Third for some bakery research. She had read a little story about them in Los Angeles Magazine and said that it seemed similar to what I was thinking of starting.



It's a family run marketplace, cafe, and catering company and it's extremely popular. When we got there, there was a line of people waiting to get a table, as well as long lines inside! We wandered around the store, taking in as much as we could while not stepping on people who were actually planning on eating there.

The marketplace aspect was most interesting to my sister, who has dreams of opening her own gourmet food store one day. They had everything you would need to make a picnic, bake some cookies, or have a low-effort meal at home. There was a refrigerator case that had soups and sauces on one side and handmade appetizers on the other. You could get fancy olives, oils, and vinegars as well as four kinds of Fleur de Sel and a bunch of different peppers and spices.



There were shelves and shelves of packaged candy, cookies, pretzels, and other snacks. We checked out the labels to see where they had been packaged, and they all said "Packaged by Joan's on Third" - perhaps indicating that they had bought in bulk and then divided everything into more manageable amounts. Not a bad idea.


We ended up buying about $40 of sweets to take home to share with our husbands. We tried the Chocolate Coconut Cupcake, Rosemary Shortbread, Bacon and Gruyere (I think) Pretzel Bread, and Peanut Butter and Jelly Bar. We also tried the Bacon Truffle Caramel Popcorn and the Orange Chipotle Caramel Popcorn by Chef Cordelia, which was delicious.


Even though we both felt there was a little too much going on - on top of all of the stuff we did look at, there was also a cheese counter and prepared food counter (salads and sandwiches, and possibly some breakfast foods) that we couldn't get to because of the line - I think it was a pretty successful research trip. I certainly understand why they're so popular - I think they do everything they do at a high enough quality that people see them as a one-stop shop. They also have a very clean design that I really liked (a lot of glass and black and white, and nothing too fussy). All things to keep in mind as I continue thinking up ideas for my own place!

Pie, Chocolate Cake, and Vanilla Cookies Coming Up

All my talk of pie from Friday made me crave it, so I made a lemon pie Friday night, and we ate it for dessert Friday, and then breakfast over the weekend.

Then, because I wanted to put off cleaning the bathroom, I decided to make my first-ever layered cake. I chose the Chocolate Fudge Cake from Nigella Lawson's Nigella Bites, which is one of my favorite cookbooks from my favorite cookbook author. It was a good first-ever layered cake - not too difficult, since it was only two cakes, one layer of chocolate frosting, and the whole thing was covered in the same chocolate frosting. I finished it at 10:30 on Sunday evening, and we cut slices as soon as it was frosted so that we could go to sleep as soon as we ate it (not the best plan for our digestive systems, but so be it). The rest of it came to work today, and it's been suggested that I need to add a layer of raspberries to take it over the edge, which, along with the Cointreau I plan on drenching the cake with next time, would be perfect.

I seem to be less liberal with my frosting application than Nigella, as I have about a cup of frosting left. I was mulling over what to do with it (other than stand at the fridge and stealthily eat it out of the Tupperware container with my finger) and decided that it should be sandwiched between vanilla cookies like a backwards Oreo. So that's on the horizon for later this week.

(Yes, I know my baking has revolved around sweets lately, so I'm planning some savory items, and will post those soon.)

Pie!

Pie always comes with an exclamation mark in my book - it's just so exciting! Pie, to me, signifies slowing down and taking time to bake something with love (MAKE IT WITH LOVE!). You have to wait for pie. It's a multiple part process - first the bottom crust, then the filling, then a top crust or a crumble topping or, if you're really adventurous, a lattice top. Pies are more complicated than a cake (which just goes in a pan, bakes up, and might get a bit of frosting) or a batch of cookies (which just get plopped on a cookie sheet), or even a fruit cobbler (which, I'm sorry to say, is my go-to dessert in the summer...when I really should be making fruit pies).

Pie is difficult to make with our crazy schedules. That multiple part process is time-consuming, and rolling out a crust is daunting for a lot of people. My crusts are usually somewhat of a patchwork mess - I can never roll a perfect circle, so end up with a crust with the outline of a blob. When I move it into the pie plate, I end up playing doctor and cutting off pieces from the part of the crust that's too big for the plate and using them to cover up the spots that don't completely come together.

One of my favorite "kitch lit" (that's short for "kitchen literature") books is called American Pie: Slices of Life (and Pie) from America's Back Roads. The author, Pascale Le Draoulec, needs to travel from San Francisco to New York, and is looking for something to tie her trip to - something that would give her journey "some sort of peg, a thread" to pull her from one city to another and to show her the "real" America - not the one that shows up on the news all the time. Her trip is amazing - she drives through small towns across the country and just leans her head out the window to ask a stranger where she can get the best pie in town. Whenever possible, she gets the recipes, many of which are tabbed with little Post-Its in my copy of the book.

My favorite recipe is for an apple-blueberry pie, which I make more often than any other pie. The combination of the tart green apples and the even more tart blueberries is perfect to me. Mountain Man prefers the lemon pie my mom has made since I was a kid - she would make it on the weekend and we'd eat it for breakfast with a cold glass of milk before school. Those were my favorite breakfasts, and Mountain Man and I do the same now, swapping the milk for a cup of coffee. My grandmother makes a flat apple pie in a large metal cake pan that is just amazing - when we visit her in Lebanon, she makes it for us, and when she was here last year, my brothers asked her for pie almost as soon as she arrived. I think everyone has a favorite pie. We just have to slow down long enough to enjoy it.

My favorite food podcast is hosting a pie contest here in LA in September and I'm considering entering it. See the entry form here.. I'm not sure what I would make, but it would be great to be a part of a community of pie-makers (and pie-eaters) for a day. I'll let you know if I do it - it would be great to share it with you!

Pizza

This past Saturday, Mountain Man and I had our families over for dinner - one aunt's birthday and an early 4th of July celebration. We had 16 people in our little house, and everyone was talking over everyone else and having a grand old time.

We made:

• Pizza (recipe below)
• Ribs (with our favorite Santa Maria dry rub)
• Steak (with our own sweet and spicy dry rub. Let me know if you want some - I have a ton in little bags to share and it works on all meat!)
• Chicken, marinated in a mixture of lemon juice, olive oil, garlic, and paprika
• Pasta salad
• Green salad
• Peach cobbler

People brought:

• Beans in root beer and molasses (thanks to my sister)
• Potato salad with goat cheese, shallots, and parsley (thanks to my mom)
• Chicken salad with celery, pecans, and raisins (thanks to MM's mom)
• Sauteed dandelion greens (thanks to my aunt)
• A ton of delicious fruit (thanks to my other aunt)

My mom and my two aunts are the traditional party-throwers in our family, but my sister and I have been doing our share since we are now married, home-owning women. All of us pitch in at everyone else's parties, but the woman throwing the party is always the one who gets asked what goes where and which platter is for which dish and which glasses go in the dishwasher and which don't. The woman throwing the party, as my aunt noted, never gets to sit down! At the end of a party, I always feel like I've run a mile - the exhaustion, of course, but also, that feeling of accomplishment that you've thrown a good party.

The great thing about these parties is that everyone brings something, and it gives people a chance to try out new recipes and new ideas. My sister and mom both found the recipes for the dishes they made in magazines. They both enjoy trying new recipes - whereas I find recipes I love and make them again and again. I beg my sister to make the mac-n-cheese she made for a party 3 years ago, but she's moved on to other dishes. Whereas I make the same pizza and peach cobbler twice in one weekend for two separate parties. Which, when you're providing food for two parties, and the first party is exhausting and requires a long soak in the hot tub afterwards, isn't such a bad idea.


Spinach and Artichoke Pizza


First, a couple of notes: My aunt raved about a new pizza at CPK that had spinach, artichokes, 5 different kinds of cheeses, and a garlic creme fraiche sauce. I thought it sounded great, but wasn't about to invest in 5 different kinds of cheeses for one (or rather two) pizzas. So I pared down the ingredients and still got rave reviews.

Also, I used Trader Joe's pizza dough, since I didn't have the time to make my own. It worked out quite well, which is why I've indicated that you could do the same to get this on the table quickly. However, if you have the time, I strongly suggest making your own pizza dough, which isn't difficult and makes your kitchen smell like delicious bready goodness.

And finally, many thanks to Mona and Dan for the great pizza stone - amazing results both times!

Ingredients:

• One package Trader Joe's pizza dough
• 4-5 artichoke hearts, cut into big chunks
• 8 oz (about one bag or one bunch) baby spinach
• One ball mozzarella cheese, sliced
• 3/4 cup parmesan cheese

Instructions:

Preheat the oven to 400.

Follow the directions on the bag for the pizza dough, letting it rest for about 20 minutes on a lightly floured surface.

While you're waiting on the dough, wilt the spinach in a lightly oiled saute pan. You'll want to see it starting to turn darker and shrink a bit, but turn off the heat before it's completely mushy.

Once the dough has "rested", move it to a lightly oiled pizza stone or baking sheet, and stretch it out to about a 12-inch diameter using your hands (TJ's recommends a rolling pin, but I found it got sticky quickly).

Top the dough with the artichoke hearts, spinach, mozzarella, and parmesan.

Bake the pizza for about 20 minutes, until the crust begins to brown and the cheese has melted.

Eat and enjoy!