Best Day Ever!

This monday i had the best day ever. I woke up because my grandpa was calling me on the phone. I had sent him an article about our culinary team winning our state competition and he was very enthusiastic about what Walter said he called the picture paper. I went downstairs to look at all the snow all over the place and went out and shoveled for about twenty minutes which was the best way to start the day out. I made eggwhite, spinach and tomato fritatas in muffin tins and a batch of Linda's best ever brownies. Then i read the book the hunger games from start to finish all the while munching on brownies and having a ball.

When the sun went down I went over to my friend Nora's house, ate pizza, drank wine, put some lights up, played pictionary and watched betty boop cartoons. It was so choice.

I think it's very important to aknowledge when you have a great day because they don't come along very often. I'm going to savor this one for a while.

Valentine's Menus

We went to Sea Change at the Guthrie last night and it was wonderful. We shared a dozen oysters, had langostines with chile oil and each got a fish entree; me haddock and Walt salmon. What we ate was absolutely delicious but it seemed like everyone else at the restaurant was creeped out by seafood. The valentine's menu had scrambled eggs with lox as the app and some sort of stuffed fried fish roll as the entree that seemed too 'down home' for a dish at Tim McKee's restaurant. I do understand that Upper-Midwesterners are more conservative with their approach to seafood-and for good reason when you think about how far away the ocean is. And I do believe that the entree had snails in it. I was surprised by how accesible that meal seemed. By 'accesible' I felt like it was safe and uninspired. I didn't eat it so I am basing this review on what I saw...and also on the faces of our neighboring valentines couple when our oysters came out. They looked like they were going to toss their cookies.
What does this all amount to? As an aspiring chef who hopes to work in the Twin Cities my immediate assumption is that I am going to have to cater to the masses. In my ideal scenario I would be able to be as daring and uncontrained as possible. When I think about it, though, my role is to create amazing, memorable food. I would rather my food be remembered by how great it tasted than by how strange its ingredients were. So I have realized a) no matter where in the States you have a restaurant the ceasar salad is always going to be the number one seller and b) maybe raw oysters are a stretch here. Why not game, an ingredient that is amply available in Minnesota and part of the culture? Cooking locally is wonderful and we do have worldclass ingredients from within the 100-mile range that are exciting and innovative. Moral of my blog:
one stellar seafood restaurant is enough for Minneapolis and I think Sea Change is it!

Silver Linings of the Doldrums

After having a long conversation with my mother this morning where she said that I was being cranky without any instigation from me... I think... I have decided to publicly try to figure out how to scoff at the S.A.D. syndrome and try to act all sunshine and rainbows.

Here are some reasons why I am acting like an eft;

1. I'm at school too much (upwards of 60 hours a week)

2. Because I'm at school I have neglected all household responsibilities and we live in various levels of decrepitude.

3. Also, I end up letting off some steam by drinking, eating take-out and not exercising at all, under any circumstances. Walt and I decided to go to the gym at 6 in the morning every day so when we're not up at 5:30 (the sun doesn't come up until 7:15 here) we are completely discouraged and don't go at all. We haven't been snowshoeing or sledding in over a month either.

Those are my reasons for being a jerk recently. Nonetheless, I hate it when people around me do not take accountability for their own issues. All of these things are mendable, I just need to stop being a nay-sayer for a minute. Here's how;

1. I will be at school every week for 60 hours regardless but there is lots of light at all ends of the tunnel. I get to go to New Orleans in April for the Regional ACF championship competition which is a huge honor. Also, when that competition happens either I will have no idea what to do with the massive influx of time on my hands or I'll be headed to the National ACF championships which would be crazy!

2. I need to stop being lazy and dirty and leaving clothes, food, etc. all over my house. I also need to create a chore wheel (whee!) so that I remember to do things and quit putting them off!

3. I need to quit drinking and eating all the time and also start to get outside. This a beautiful time of year for stargazing (again, it's pitch black out by 7:30 PM,) I can start planting my seedlings for the spring and walk and I can compromise our gym time and be a little more flexible so we don't get dissuaded so easily.

And spring is close enough that I can imagine that it'll be coming soon, even if it's not just around the corner.

Cold Herbed Sweet Potato Gnocchi with Poblano Chiles and Mushrooms

Ingredients:

Gnocchi-

2 medium sweet potatoes, baked and peeled, still warm

2 teaspoons kosher salt

1 tablespoon fresh sage

1 teaspoon each fresh thyme and oregano

1 teaspoon butter

1 egg, slightly beaten

1 1/2 cups all purpose flour

1 tablespoon of either canola or olive oil

Sauce-

1 tablespoon butter

1/2 onion, finely chopped

1/4 cup sherry

1/2 poblano, julienned

1/2 lb shittake mushrooms, julienned

3 cloves garlic, minced

1 teaspoon canola oil

Mise en Place:

cutting board and knife

saucepan

pastry bag and tip

scissors

large pot of boiling, salted water

slotted spoon

colander over an empty bowl or pot

Method:

Finely chop herbs. Melt butter in saucepan over medium heat and add herbs to pot. Cook until herbs are just fragrant, about 1-2 minutes. Remove from pot to stop cooking and set aside in a small bowl.

Mash potatoes completely or pass through a food mill. Add herbs and salt to the potatoes and taste. You may want to add more salt or herbs, be creative! Add the flour 1/3 at a time and incorporate. My batter ended up being much wetter than normal gnocchi batter. It was sticky but not loose. One surefire way to check is to drop a little bit of the batter into the boiling water. If the noodle disintegrates, it does not have enough flour in it. Add more flour in slowly since if you add too much flour it will make the gnocchi tough and unpalatable.

Once your batter is at the right consistency place it into your pastry bag. Make sure your stove is set up with the boiling water and the colander and slated spoon near by. Squeeze and snip off with scissors bite sized pieces of the dough. I did about 1/5 of the bag at a time. When the gnocchi start to float, pull them out with the spoon and let them rest in the colander. Repeat this until all of the gnocchi are cooked.

Toss the gnocchi with the oil. If you are doing this ahead of time, they can be covered with plastic wrap and set in the refrigerator and reheated for dinner in a non-stick pan or a buttered pan.

Melt butter in a non-reactive saucepan. Sweat onions until opaque. Add sherry and reduce to 1/2 the amount.

Over medium high heat, cook poblanos until they are limp and have a little bit of a burn on them. Reduce heat and add the shittakes. Cook until they are limp and browned.

Toss all the components together, refrigerate and serve cold.

.

.

When I made these it was 85 degrees and 80% humidity. It was the hottest I've been since northern Colombia. Instead of serving them in a red sauce that I had made, I ended up making this other sauce which would translate better if served cold. Walt really liked this dish a lot but he thought that the gnocchi looked a little weird. I'm sure they would taste nice with the salty puttenesca-esque tomato sauce I had made but I'm glad I got to see the versatility of these gnocchis.

I forgot to take a picture but will have some in the future. Let me know if you have any suggestions/ideas?

Feeling Groovy

Hello world!

It has been a while, hasn't it? The past months have been pretty full up for me, so I guess my life in cyber space took a hit, but I'm back. And feeling awesome.

Walt and I had our 4 year anniversary on July 4th and I quit smoking for him. It's been almost 2 weeks now and can already tell that it's benefiting me. First, it's nice because I know he really appreciates it and is grossed out when I'm smoking. Second, it's nice loose dependency on anything. It certainly makes me feel more in control.

I started up school on Sunday and have a very vigorous schedule right now but really think that I am getting the most out of this school that I can. I joined the ACF (American Culinary Foundation) Jr. team at my school which is a competitive cooking and knife skills team. I'm not guaranteed a position on it yet since there are only 4 places available and about 10 people trying out, but it has gotten me to concentrate on attention to detail, organization and communication in school and life- three things that I would argue make everything move a lot smoother when you're paying attention to them.

I've also been reading tons of cookbooks from Escoffier's "La Cuisine" to random books on squid cookery and the application of fruit to savory food. This is what I love to do, I'm very content to be doing it right now.

So, the moral of this post is if you need a pep talk, I'm in a place where the silver lining is shining in. If you can't deal with my saccharin positivity, let's talk soon!

I am also going to start posting some recipes I've been tinkering with, get some feedback and see what you all think!

Gearing up for planting! Yay!

(A view from our seats at the new Twins stadium!)
I am confessedly premature in my desire to begin planting, but it's hard for a Minnesotan to not start raising her beds when it's been super mild (between 30 and 60) for almost two weeks! What's going on?!?

I just biked down to my local nursery and told them about my excitement about planting my first item outdoors- sugar anne sugar snap peas- and asked them to show me where the inoculant was to help with germination. Although they were very much excited themselves I think the ladies at Mother Earth Gardens are a little more seasoned then myself and a little more aware of the tease that Minnesota weather can be. I would not be surprised if it got super cold and none of my peas germinated and the sadness of a blustery winter returned! But I refuse to think of that, I only inoculant-ed half of my peas so if the Northern Star state decides to be the ruin of my early spring optimism, so be it. I will plant again!

Walt and I have also got Twins fever. I have never been a baseball fan in my life but the new stadium, complete with all sorts of state fair snacks, as well as season tickets have gotten me so psyched for the upcoming home games that we've been to Target Field two times in as many weekends. Crazy? Maybe, but give me a break. I have to embrace summer as fully as possible in order to prepare myself for winter. I must keep this mindset for as long as I live in Minnesota so I might as well get used to it now and become a baseball fan.

Other than this stuff, I am going to be traveling during my spring break to Chicago to visit my friend Jen and to Philadelphia to visit my uncle/aunt and grandparents! Woot!

Spring Spranging!

Aha, it's finally coming. This photo was taken on Valentines day at 7 in the morning when THE SUN WAS RISING (ERRG) and now the sun is coming up earlier and earlier and the snow you can see here is almost half way gone and I even kept my back door open to get some fresh air this afternoon. Anywhere else 38 degrees would not feel all that great but I found it refreshingly mild. Keep in mind that I have my house at 55 most of the winter, a nice frugal habit I picked up from my mom, so 38 isn't really all that much colder.

Another way I can tell that spring is within arm's reach is that I planted my first seeds of the season; 2 types of eggplant called 'Hansel' and 'Fairy Tale' and some oregano and thyme.

ight now these seeds are living in my bathtub trying to be safe from the evil villain I like to call my cat who thrives on killing things smaller and cuter than herself. She has reason to be jealous because seeds are amazing and I can spend hours looking at them and just being baffled by the power that these tiny things have packed up inside of them. I will keep everyone posted on the growth of my plants, probably more than you want to know but oh well. It's 3:30 and that means bath time on my day off, much more later-