Nougat, O! the marking, O! the cutting

Here are some pictures of me cutting and marking nougat.

Here I am, the terror of Greenville. ;-)

Notice how I use the caramel cutter to mark the nougat. You have to be careful or you will rip it. You could do this with a form. I have them and I use them sometimes. Sometimes I just use the cutter as a gig. And sometimes I cut one perfect nougat and just use that.

Here's a detail.

The hardest part of making any confection, pies, cake, you name it is the cutting. That's what I was taught and that's why I try to get Kim to cut all the pies and cake. She's a wizard. However, I have to cut my own nougat. I do all right. ;-)

Oh, the agony of the cutting.

And a detail of cutting.




And speaking of nougat, Tip Top Country Store has a great picture of me up on their website. Kim took these pictures, by the way. Nice job, honey (nougat)! ;-) I took the top picture of the nougats. Hard to do a white on white shot. Kim suggested we use a colored background for the Tower 'o Nougat you see here.

By the way, I wouldn't work like this normally. This was a little contrived for the shot for the blog. Notice the caramel cutter and other things that are taking up space and are in the way. So, don't do as i blog. I wanted to show the accoutrement as I was working.

It's all about WHERE you eat

I read this fun (and well written :) post about service and Zingerman's Guide to Great Service.

I'm not sure where Brooke has been eating other than Zingerman's, which I'll have to try next time I'm in LA, (you hear that Kim? Time for a Road trip), but the restaurants we eat at and the hotels we stay at have great, stellar, elegant service: And as you can see by my list, great food as well. Did I mention ambiance? Yup. Ambiance by the bucket full.

Now Brooke is a food writer. She also writes about Alice Waters. The last time we ate at Chez Panisse, I was not that impressed. Food was good, though. Time to go back and give it another try. I've eaten there since they first opened. Same with French Laundry. Shame I was having too much fun in High Tech to become a food writer.

The French Laundry (gold standard)
Per Se (platinum standard)
Tru Restaurant (they sweep here. Terrific.)
Perilla (seamless, homey)
Jardiniere (stylish and elegant)
Boulevard (homey and fast)
Le Bernardin (perfect!)
Elizabeth-Daniel (defunct, sadly, but they sweep.)
Rubicon (very elegant)
March (pretty much now defunct)
WD-50 (above and beyond)
DA|BA (super fun and very nice, above and beyond)
Le Ciel (Vienna) (This was beautiful and old world.)
Spago Palo Alto (now defunct but very personal service. Luke, we miss you. We'll see you in Atlantic City.)

Algonquin (The history and elegance. I love it.)
Four Seasons just about anywhere
Marriott Marquis
Grand Hotel Wien (Pure elegance.)
Simpson House (Santa Barbara) (Perfect.)
Greenville Arms 1889 Inn (homey and country, and if you are lucky enough to eat there, terrific and I hear the chocolatier there is fabulous.)
L'Orangerie (Elegant, beautiful and now defunct.)

Just to name a few off the top of my head.

Here's a story about service at Le Bernadine. I went with Kim, my wife, Joyce, my mom, and a friend, Biffy, aka Lud, aka, Ed. The service was exceptional. Every time I stood up, a waiter was there to assist with my chair and every time I sat down, a waiter was there to assist with the chair. It was like magic. The waiters were invisible but always there. Folding napkins, delivering beautiful food, whatever you needed. It was so magical I could not believe it. I said jokingly, "I bet that if I just started to sit in the middle of the room, I'd have a chair underneath me."

Biffy, to paraphrase, said, "Bet." So, in my tux, I got up, chair whisked away, walked over to an area between tables and sat down, and voilà, chair was whisked underneath me. Beautiful. And true. Perfect service.

Tru has stools for the purses. Plus they sweep. Sweeping is where all the plates are delivered at the same time by a bevy of waiters.

French Laundry and Per Se has very knowledgeable and terrific service. They whipped up service on the spot for birthdays.

And I just want to make a note of Elizabeth-Daniel's Sweet Bread Raviolo with black truffle foam. Kim's favorite dish ever. She LOVED it. If anyone knows where to go to get it again, please email me. Thanks.

The reason I say Homey and Fast for Boulevard was because Kim and I used to eat there before going to the opera. So, we would only have time for an appetizer and a main course. Then the Boulevard shuttle would take us to the San Francisco opera. After the opera, it would take us back to Boulevard where I would eat the largest and most perfect crème brûlé ever made by man. I have a great, sad story about going to the opera and the Boulevard shuttle. However, it isn't about food. It's more directly about life and death, so I'll skip it here.

I'd also like to take this opportunity to thank WD-50 for sending me my hat. I left it there. It's still at DA|BA. I'll get in when I eat there again. And a thanks Momofuku for trying. I'd also like to thank one of the assistant pastry chefs and the manager at Tru, for suggesting Le Sanctuaire. So many stories, so little time to blog.

The list goes on and on. I would have put Park Avenue Café on this list but I recently had a bad experience there.

By the way, L'Orangerie in LA (West Hollywood) was great. Fantastic service and great food. Elegant. Too bad it is closed. I can't think of too many great restaurants in LA or West Hollywood for that matter, though I do like Shutters a Santa Monica Hotel and they have Krug. Yum. I like the place on the Sunset Boulevard (Strip) that has the mechanical bull. Food is so-so, service is questionable but, ah, the memories. :-) Saddle Ranch Chop House. The steaks were not that good. But a fun place. So, thanks Brooke, for reviewing a LA restaurants on your blog.

For more of my reviews, click on this link. For even more restaurant reviews, please go to Innsane. I originally published many reviews there before I started Life by Chocolate.

Foodbuzz bag pictures

No, wait. I don't HAVE a Foodbuzz bag and me a preferred publisher. How did I miss out on a Foodbuzz bag? It seems everyone else has them. How did I miss that memo? Sigh.

Bread Recipes

Here are two of my favorite bread recipes. I use these all the time at the restaurant. My customers love them. The first one is a simple sweet buttermilk bread.

Sweet Buttermilk Bread

6 cups flour
2 cups buttermilk heated. I usually heat in the microwave for 2 minutes. Hot but not too hot.
2 eggs
1 t sea salt
1/8 cup sugar
2 T olive oil

I have very large industrial mixers. For this bread, I just combine all the ingredients and kneed with the dough hook for 8. Then I let rise for 1 hour. I punch the dough down and let it rise for another 45 minutes. You can put this in the refrigerator overnight in a tupperware if you would like instead of the first rising.

Then I put this into a large bread form, pan, after spraying it with canola oil, of course and let rise again for 30 minutes or until the bread is at the top of the pan.

Blush with cream and sprinkle with coarsely ground smoked sea salt. Yum.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees (turn this down to 350 after the first 20 minutes) and bake until internal temperature is 205F. About 35-40 minutes.

Then with few changes, this becomes my garlic bread.

6 cups flour
1 cups buttermilk heated. I usually heat in the microwave for 1 minute. Hot but not too hot.
1 cup water
1/8 cup garlic
2 eggs
1 t seasalt
1 T sugar
2 T olive oil

Combine all the ingredients and kneed with the dough hook for 8 mins. Then I let rise for 1 hour. I punch the dough down and let it rise for another 45 mins. You can put this in the refrigerator overnight in a tupperware if you would like instead of the first rising.

Then I put this into a large bread form, pan, after spraying it with canola oil, of course and let rise again for 30 mins or until the bread is at the top of the pan.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees (turn this down to 350 after the first 20 mins) and bake until internal temperature is 205F. About 35-40 minutes. For this bread, you need to put in a pan of water for the steam 5 minutes before baking.

BTW, if you have a small kitchen oven rather than big honkin' industrial strength ovens, like mine, or a deck oven, then you might have to bake this a little longer.