Mise en Place

Category: Baking

James Brock Partners With the Chantal Corporation as Brand Ambassador and Blogger

April 24, 2016 / / 0 Comments

I cook a lot, and over the years have used many products and items. Frying pans, skillets, pots and pans, grills and grill tops, kettles and spatulas and bowls and blenders. Some were good, some not so good, and a few were not worth the space they took up in my kitchen. In the past year or so I’ve been approached by a few representatives wanting me to test some of their products, knives and cookware mostly. One name, however, intrigued me more than the others.

Chantal's Copper Fusion cookware set

Chantal’s Copper Fusion cookware set

That name  is Chantal, and I am now a brand ambassador for the company and blogging about its products and the people behind them. It’s based in Houston, Texas, was founded by Heida Thurlow in 1971 (I will be writing about her, because her story is enthralling), and makes some amazing things. Most of you know its iconic tea kettle, but there is so much more, including some excellent cookware made in Germany (and elsewhere) that I am using in my home kitchen and with The Brockhaus. I look forward to introducing you to Chantal, and helping you make some great dishes with its creations.

You can find the blog here; let me know what you think.

 

 

To Julia Child: I Toast a Grande Dame on Her 102nd Birthday

August 15, 2014 / / 1 Comment
A giant in the kitchen, in more ways than one.

A giant in the kitchen, in more ways than one. (Photo courtesy estate of Julia Child)

I am celebrating her birthday in her absence. She would have turned 102 today, and she would have done it in style, sitting at a table surrounded by friends and loved ones. Paul would have been there, of course, the love of her life. Their courtship and long relationship should be the envy of us all. James Beard would be at her side, as well.

I won’t speculate about the menu, but I would not be unhappy for Julia Child if a waiter brought her sole meunière at some point during the meal. I feel a lot of passion for that dish, because it is what awakened Child’s senses and opened her mind to the wonders of good food, and the preparation of it. It was November, 1948, and she and Paul had just arrived in France. They were on their way to Paris, but needed to eat during the drive. It was Julia’s (allow me to refer to her as “Julia”) first meal in France, and she writes of it in “My Life in France” in this manner:

Rouen is famous for its duck dishes, but after consulting the waiter Paul had decided to order the sole meunière. It arrived whole: a large, flat Dover sole that was perfectly browned in a sputtering butter sauce with a sprinkling of chopped parsley on top. The waiter carefully placed the platter in front of us, stepped back, and said: “Bon appétit!”

I closed my eyes and inhaled the rising perfume. Then I lifted a forkful to my mouth, took a bite, and chewed slowly. The flesh of the sole was delicate, with a light but distinct taste of the ocean that blended marvelously with the browned butter. I chewed slowly and swallowed. It was a morsel of perfection. … At La Couronne I experienced fish, and a dining experience, of a higher order than any I’d ever had before.

As a child, I watched Julia on television. I am sure that back then I did not know what to think of her. My mother was born in Savannah, as was I, and I was very familiar with crab and shrimp and clams and pheasant and fried chicken and Cornish hen and even some less familiar sorts of seafood, but this tall woman with the funny voice … well, she had a way with those things that was different. She made me want to learn as much about them as I could. Little did I know that she would become a profound part of my life. I’m grateful she did, and I am certain many of you feel the same.

Julia Child became, and is, an international star.

Julia Child became, and is, an international star.

Every chance I get to “mingle” with Julia I take. In Napa, I visited Copia – the cultural and educational center dedicated to the discovery, understanding, and celebration of wine, food, and the arts in American culture – to see some of the pots and pans and other tools that she used in her Cambridge, Mass., kitchen. Copia, which she helped found, is now closed, but those pots and pans are in the Smithsonian, so when I was in D.C. in 2013 I visited them there.

A kitchen for the ages.

A kitchen for the ages. (Photo courtesy estate of Julia Child)

I’ve spoken with people who met her, and with a few people who cooked with her. In Houston, I ran across a letter she wrote to Robert Del Grande, which now hangs in his restaurant, RDG+Bar Annie. I talk about her with people all of the time, and when I met Mike Lata in 2007 at Blackberry Farm we talked about how she is the reason he cooks. I have many of her books, and never tire of watching her shows: her solo ventures, segments with other chefs, and the beautiful series she made with her great friend, Jacques Pépin. I never met her, but it is not because I did not try. Once, when I was in Cambridge, I went to her house and knocked on the door. No one answered … I assume she was away. I don’t know what I would have done if she had answered.

Unknown

Most profoundly, I cook with her. Not a day goes by that I don’t see her, in my mind’s eye, standing at a stove or counter, chopping an onion or pounding a piece of veal or hoisting a pot. She, in ways that I have yet to fully realize, taught me how to cook, taught me how to see the wisdom and grace that food possesses. And that is much more of a gift than that little boy watching her on television all those years ago could have ever expected.

Thank you, Julia, and Happy Birthday. I love and miss you.

Young palates, full of taste

June 30, 2013 / / 2 Comments

When I eat food that I really love I am transported back to happy days of my childhood. Biscuits, good biscuits, take me to Holly Pond, Alabama, and my Aunt Shelby’s table, for she made the best biscuits I have ever tasted. She also introduced me to Golden Eagle table syrup, and taught me how to mix it with the proper amount of butter to create a spread that made her biscuits even better. Fried chicken finds me in Savannah, where my grandmother Ida is cooking, for 15 people, some of the best fowl to be found in the Deep South. Cornish hens belong in my memory to my mother, who is also a fine baker. My passion for food began at an early age, and I thank those three women on a regular basis.

After a hunt in Georgia

After a hunt in Georgia

Ice fishing in Alaska

Ice fishing in Alaska

I have been spending some time with my sister Julie and her family, and cooking with them. She has two children. Ian is 8 and Anna is 3, and they both love to eat. And, more importantly to me, they are adventurous eaters. Their parents have never told them “You won’t like this” or “That’s too hot for you” or “That doesn’t taste good,” things I’ve too often heard other people tell their children.

A family tours Brooklyn: my parents, James and Sandra, and my sister Julie, her son, Ian, and husband Mark

A family tours Brooklyn: my parents, James and Sandra, and my sister Julie, her son, Ian, and her husband, Mark

Ian tastes his first NYC hotdog

Ian tastes his first NYC hotdog

Julie and Mark and Ian, along with my parents, visited me in New York in 2007, when Ian was 2, and I recall a meal at Applewood in Brooklyn, one of my favorite restaurants in that borough. The owners are friends, and we were treated to a round of small plates from the kitchen by Lauren, including some house-made fromage de tête, which Ian loved. My father, who as a child was told too many times “you won’t like that,” left his share of the fromage de tête for Ian.

Fish tacos; a dish for all ages

Fish tacos, a dish for all ages

Ian's pasta

Ian’s pasta

Ian's pasta, with cheese and basil and tomatoes

Ian’s pasta plated, with cheese and basil and tomatoes

Anna with what is left of a plate of tiramisu

Anna with what is left of a plate of tiramisu

I’ve cooked scallops for Ian and Anna, and Mahi-mahi tacos. Ian and I make fresh pasta together – he has developed a great sense of proportion when it comes to flour and water. They both love my spicy shrimp and pasta, and devour the tiramisu I make. I love cooking for them and teaching them about the ingredients and methods.

I trust that when they are adults, on a culinary tour of France (with or without me), they will be sitting at a table in that fine place run by familie Bras and taste something – perhaps a small piece of venison, or a sublime La Croisicaise – that draws their minds and palates back to another table, one in Florida, one around which they gathered with adults who knew that a love of good, honest food was necessary to a life lived well, and that a childhood without taste was a poor one indeed.

Ian and I with a red

Ian and uncle with a Syrah

The food is Hot and Hot in Birmingham

June 13, 2013 / / 2 Comments

Whenever I am in Birmingham, Alabama, Highlands Bar and Grill is on my agenda. And my most recent visit to “The Magic City” was no exception. In fact, I dined at Highlands twice in May, and, as always, loved it.

Setting the stage (Photo courtesy of Hot and Hot Fish Club)

Setting the stage (Photo courtesy of Hot and Hot Fish Club)

But this time I added another restaurant to the schedule, a place I have had on my list for years but for whatever reason – and the main reason is Highlands Bar and Grill – never entered: Hot and Hot Fish Club. (Chris Hastings, the restaurant’s chef and co-owner, was named best chef in the South in 2012 by the James Beard Foundation, and I’ve long admired his support of Alabama agriculture.)

My decision to visit Hot and Hot was made at the last minute, and it was a Saturday, and I was arriving around 8:30, but I was dining solo and scored a seat at the end of the bar, near the kitchen door. Which was fine with me, because I like to see how people move in a restaurant, how the food flows. The bartender set my place and I looked at the cocktail list and the wine board, settling on a glass of Riesling.

The restaurant was buzzing, full, loud. People were waiting near the front door for a table, and the tables on the patio were full. After a first taste of my wine I walked through the main dining room, where one is treated to a view of an open kitchen. Men and women and a few teen-agers were talking and drinking and eating at their tables, and all of the places at the chef’s counter were occupied. A warm room, inviting.

Ravioli and cheese and chicken ... and corn

Ravioli and cheese and chicken … and corn

Back at the bar, I enjoyed my wine and the bartender handed me the menu. I quickly homed in on the ravioli as my first course. Good choice. The pasta was filled with farmer’s cheese and chicken, and the plate was completed with summer squash (including a blossom), English peas, and spring onions. And, in what would be a welcome and delicious leitmotif that evening, the ravioli was bathed in a sweet corn broth. (Corn is what I am talking about when I write “leitmotif”. Early corn, sweet, amazingly flavorful. It featured in every plate.) This first course was perfect. Vegetables cooked to point, or the point I like: right below crisp, giving a sublime mouthfeel. The ravioli was as thin as paper. The cheese, firm and mild, crossed the membrane in a delicate manner. Ideal opening.

Duck, two ways. And, more corn.

Duck, two ways. And, more corn.

Next: Pan-seared Duck Breast and Crispy Confit. (I love duck; in fact, one of my favorite breakfasts in memory is the morning I cooked two breasts for breakfast. Duck, with Champagne. It was a Sunday, and the day began well.)

The duck at Hot and Hot was as it should be: the breast pink, the confit crisp and dense. The plate contained, continuing the theme, corn, Anson Mills grits, Alabama strawberries, pecans and arugula. (I don’t know where Chris Hastings got that corn, because I failed to ask, but I hope many more people have the chance to eat it. It is the best corn I have had in about five years.) Plates such as this one sing, all of the flavors and textures communicating, harmonizing, and for a little while on that stool at the bar I was completely happy.

I often decline to order dessert. I consider wine to be my dessert. Or I have cheese. But this time I was intrigued by something on the menu: Sweet Corn and Lemon Bread Pudding with Benne Seed Brittle, Corn Cream, and Lemon Ice Cream. Put simply, it was the highlight of the evening. And that’s saying a lot.

A bread pudding for the ages.

A bread pudding for the ages.

Think moist and dense bread pudding. And, once again, think corn. Sweet corn. The corn cream I slathered on the bread pudding, and I made sure to slide a few of the kernels on each spoonful of bread pudding, because that corn was amazing. And the bread pudding … I once had a superb bread pudding in Portland that featured pigeon. I remember thinking during that meal that this was “the” bread pudding. But at Hot and Hot Fish Club I had another great one. Warm, not too sweet, slightly crisp exterior. Eating two portions would not have been out of the question. I could have done without the ice cream and the brittle; to my palate they were too sweet. But I think I am being too harsh. I imagine most people would not have a problem with the sweetness.

Jason's Corn 'n Oil

Jason’s Corn ‘n Oil

Speaking of the bar, the man working behind it and bringing me my food and drink that night is an exemplar of his profession. His name is William Hamrick, and he mixes and pours with grace and care. He answered my questions forthrightly, and when I ordered the bread pudding for dessert he made me the best libation I have had in a long while, saying they would pair perfectly. He called it Jason’s Corn n’ Oil, and it was made with John D. Taylor Velvet Falernum. You take 2 ounces of the Falernum, ¾ ounces of Gosling’s Black Seal Rum, and ¾ ounces of fresh lemon juice. Shake. Serve over crushed ice and garnish with a lemon peel. It was delicious. It seemed to me that the dessert and drink were created together one night in a divine session of inspiration. Mr. Hamrick wrote the recipe down for me. You can see it below. And you should make this drink tonight.

One for the books

One for the books, courtesy of William Hamrick

After a bit of conversation with a couple from Atlanta sitting next to me, and a few more words with Mr. Hamrick, I left Hot and Hot Fish Club and headed up the road. I shall return, though, and if a table isn’t available I’ll be more than happy at that bar.

A cake with a fine and beloved pedigree
A cake with a fine and beloved pedigree

Very Good Chocolate Cake (Thank you, Ms. Lewis)

June 2, 2013 / / 2 Comments

Whenever I make “the cake” I am invariably met with something along the lines of what Angela uttered on first tasting a piece of it: That’s the best cake I have ever had.

Well, I will say it is among the five best cakes I have ever had, and it very well could, on any given day, indeed be the best.

A cake with a fine and beloved pedigree

A cake with a fine and beloved pedigree

Coffee and chocolate

Coffee and chocolate

I made one last night, my mother assisting (she had never made this one, and wanted to learn the recipe). I call it “the cake” for two reason. One, because it is my favorite cake to make. It is delicious. And because the recipe comes to us from one of my favorite cooks and chefs of all time: Edna Lewis.

A Grande Dame of American Cooking

A Grande Dame (Estate of Edna Lewis)

Ms. Lewis was born in Virginia and left this life in Georgia, in 2006, at 89, after spending years in New York (where in 1949 she helped found Café Nicholson, which for a time was “the” place to eat, according to frequent diners Truman Capote, Tennessee Williams, Gore Vidal, Marlene Dietrich, and Richard Avedon, among many others, famous and not so famous).

After New York, Ms. Lewis headed back home, to the South, making stops to cook in, to name but two locales, Charleston and Chapel Hill.

She was quoted in a 1989 interview with The New York Times thusly: “As a child in Virginia I thought all food tasted delicious. After growing up, I didn’t think food tasted the same, so it has been my lifelong effort to try and recapture those good flavors of the past.”

She made people very happy (Estate of Edna Lewis)

She made people very happy (Estate of Edna Lewis)

Here is her recipe for a cake with so much more than merely good flavors. It is found in The Gift of Southern Cooking (Knopf, 2003), which Ms. Lewis co-authored with Chef Scott Peacock. You should make this cake, and you should learn as much about Edna Lewis as you can.

Sitting pretty

Sitting pretty

Very Good Chocolate Cake

Ingredients

THE CAKE

2 cups granulated sugar; 
1 1/2 cups cake flour; 
1/2 teaspoon salt
; 3/4 teaspoon baking soda
; 1 cup double-strength brewed coffee
; 4 ounces unsweetened chocolate, finely chopped; 
2 eggs, at room temperature; 
1/2 cup vegetable oil; 
1/2 cup sour cream, at room temperature; 
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract

THE FROSTING

1 cup heavy cream
; 8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter cut into 1/2-inch pieces; 
1/3 cup granulated sugar; 
1/4 teaspoon salt; 
1 pound semisweet chocolate, finely chopped; 
1/4 cup hot double-strength brewed coffee; 
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preparation

Preheat oven to 325 degrees Fahrenheit.

To make the cake: Sift together sugar, flour, salt, and baking soda in a bowl. Pour the hot coffee over the finely chopped chocolate, and allow chocolate to melt completely.

In a separate bowl, whisk together until well blended eggs and vegetable oil, followed by the sour cream, vanilla, and coffee-chocolate mixture. Stir this liquid mixture into the dry ingredients by thirds, stirring well after each addition until completely blended. Divide the batter evenly between two buttered and floured parchment-lined 9-inch cake pans. Drop each cake pan once onto the counter from a height of 3 inches, to remove any large air pockets, which could cause holes or tunnels in the baked cake layers. Bake in the preheated oven for 30-40 minutes, until the cake springs back slightly when gently tapped in the center or a cake tester inserted in the center comes out clean. Remove immediately to cooling racks, and allow to rest for 5 minutes before turning out of the pans.

To make the frosting: Heat the cream, butter, sugar, and salt in a heavy saucepan until the butter is melted. Add the chocolate and cook over very low heat, stirring constantly, just until the chocolate is melted and the mixture is smooth. Remove from heat and blend in coffee and vanilla. Transfer frosting to a bowl to cool, stirring occasionally, until it is of a spreading consistency – about 1 hour, depending on the temperature of the kitchen. (If your kitchen is very warm, move the frosting to a cooler area to cool and thicken, but do not refrigerate or chill over ice water. Chocolate and butter solidify at different temperatures, and harsh chilling could cause the frosting to separate and turn grainy.)

To assemble the cake: When the frosting is of a spreading consistency and the cake layers are completely cooled, put one cake layer on a serving platter, bottom side up, and frost the surface thickly. Top with the other layer, bottom side down, and frost the top and sides. For best results, allow the cake to sit for 2 or more hours before slicing. Store, covered, at room temperature.

NOTE: For the richest, darkest frosting possible, resist the urge to whisk or beat to cool faster. Excessive stirring incorporates air, which will cool and set the frosting more quickly, but will also dilute its dark color and flavor. And because it takes a little while to cool to the proper consistency, have all of the ingredients ready and make the frosting as soon as the cake layers are in the oven to bake.

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