Real Men Don't Eat Quiche, but We Make It.

Since I no longer have a real job (other than baking for Firefly), I’m working a bit more at my Mom’s inn. Since all I really want to do is cook I’ve decided that I’m going to go through some of my cookbooks, and attempt some recipes that I’ve always wanted to try. The first on my list was the Quiche recipe from Thomas Keller’s Bouchon cookbook, mostly because I could justify the time, if I served it for breakfast.

Now I hate rolling dough…that is to say, I totally suck at it. That’s why I served Apple cake at Firefly rather that apple pie, and why if I do make a pie, it usually has a crust I can just press into the pan (like the Bouchon nut crusts, which are insanely good). The crust for the quiche though was incredibly easy to make and even easier to roll, so it was no problem making two of them. That’s when things started to go wrong

My mother didn’t have enough beans to fill both pans for the blind baking, and I didn’t have a lot of rice on hand, so instead of baking them one at a time I split them among the two pans, and wished for the best. Well both kind of puffed on the sides creating some cracks. No problem I thought I’ll just use some of the extra dough to patch it up. Then I realized that in my over-zealous cleaning, I had thrown all of I away. The way Keller does Quiche, and apparently how quiche should be done, is making the quiche in a two inch high pan, so it’s quite thick. With this being the case any cracks could cause a large amount of filling to leak out. And that’s exactly what happened with one of them. Filling all over the place. Luckily I had put both pans on a larger sheet pan just in case, so it was more a pain to clean then anything. So one worked out well, and the other was about half the volume it should have been. Everything else though went pretty well, although cleaning cutting and sautéing 4lbs of mushrooms was a bit of a pain.

The taste though made it all worth it, and changed the very idea of a quiche for me. The filling was like a custard and cooked slowly to keep it some and silky. The crust was also pretty thick, so the egg didn’t soak through and turn it soggy. The guests seemed to rave about it as well, and my Mother said it was the best quiche she ever had. So over all I think it went quite well, and definitely something I would do again (and better). So far every recipe I make from this cookbook turns out incredibly. The recipes are finiky, but the extra steps really do make a difference in the refinement of the dish and really elevates the dishes to a different level.

Take This Job and Shove it...

So my hours at Firefly are nearly non existent, so it was time to find another kitchen job. After visiting a few to some local restaurants, as well as some not so local, I realized that finding a new job isn’t so easy when it’s winter in the Berkshires, and the tourists are few and far between. I had a cook friend that worked at a local ski resort though, so I phoned him up and tried to see if they were hiring. He wasn’t there, but they did say they were hiring, so one Monday I had an interview, and I started on Tuesday. Wednesday I quit.

The place just wasn’t for me. I knew the tavern would be serving simple food, but I figured it would be at least a good place to get some basic cooking skills. Boy was I wrong. All they served was pre-packed frozen SYSCO food (purveyors of fine cafeterias everywhere). All I did was reach into a freezer pull out some food, and throw it into the three huge deep fryers we had. The fries were frozen, the fish was frozen, the chicken was that preformed patty crap with the grill marks already there, and the burgers were those burgers you buy for huge BBQ. I just couldn’t cook that stuff. It’s just everything I find wrong about restaurants. You could do almost every single dish on that menu, abut make it fresh, and it would be great. I’m not trying to be a food snob, I mean I love that type of food, but come on….make something! That combined with the fact that I had to wear gloves all the time, I just knew it wasn’t for me.

The place wasn’t actually a bad place to work. The people were nice, and it was well run, but it just wasn’t for me. Not the type of food I want to make. The entire time I was there I was trying to figure out when to quit. I even left the place on Wednesday night thinking of quitting the next day, but when I got to my car I found my car had been broken in to, and my iPod was stolen (although the robbers in return left me their huge flashlight). This pissed me off enough that I walked back to the restaurant and quit.

Live from New York it’s…The Daily Show

After an unsuccessful attempt to get tickets to The View (I know). Ayla’s Mother got us tickets to see the Daily Show instead (WOOOOOO!!!). So a few weeks ago we headed down to NYC for a few fun filled days hanging out in the big city. The train ride went a lot better then my previous week’s trip to TARCon, where I missed the train by minutes (it literally pulled away, as I was running towards it). After trying to meet up with Ayla’s friend Hilary at Grand Central, while Hilary was trying to meet up with us at Penn Station, we eventually met up and went out for sushi with Ayla’s father. The dinner can be summed up in one word…Awkward.

After dinner we headed over to Queen’s and went for some drinks at Hilary’s neighborhood bar. The night started innocently enough, as we sat there chatting, while some regulars played some darts, but as the evening wore on, the locals took an interest in us, and we ended up drinking the rest of the night with them, and it was a blast. They were an unusual group of characters, but it was a great time (although my liver might disagree). The next night was even weirder as we ended up spending the evening drinking with this Icelandic guy we met on the Lower East side. Always a weird time in NYC.

Now it wouldn’t be a trip to NYC if I didn’t eat as much as I could. We got the standard awesomely crappy hotdogs as well as a street pretzel, but it doesn’t stop there. Now I would love to say that I got to eat at Per Se (Thomas Keller’s NYC version of The French Laundry, who is a personal idol), but that place is a bit out of my price range, I did get to see it though. Looks nice. They were featuring a truffle tasting menu that looked incredible. In the same building however, Keller did open a Bouchon Bakery which was more in our price range. I love the Bouchon cookbook, and cook from it quite a bit (the macaroons from ‘The Most Expensive Cookies Ever’ post were from there), so it was exciting to get to see even just a few things from the book, and I did get to try the macaroons.

On Tuesday we headed off to see the Daily Show, and the taping was awesome. The set looks a lot more bleak and small in person, but just seeing Jon Stewart up close was pretty amazing. The show was a good one, and it was interesting to see all the stuff he said which wasn’t written on the teleprompter. I wish I could show some photo’s from the taping, but we weren’t able to shoot in the studio, so oh well. The one thing I was amazed at was the fact that there were no screw ups; I figured there would be at least one. I guess at this point they’ve all pretty much gotten it down.

After the taping we headed back to our hotel room to rest up, but around 10pm we were feeling hungry again, so set out to look for some sushi. Now in Lenox, good luck trying to find a restaurant in Lenox that serves after 9 pm, so even having the option was a fun experience. We wandered around the Time Square area, and finally found a sushi place called Kodama sushi, which turned out to be amazing. It was pretty cheap by NY standards, but the fish was incredibly fresh and tasty. Highly recommended. They even had cool T-shirts.

The best meal we had though (at least for me), was at Momofuku, a noodle joint in the Lower East side. The place was incredible, and really elevated what a noodle shop could be. The steamed pork buns were tasty, and the pork was incredibly moist and tender. It has an open kitchen so it was fun to just saddle up to the bar and watch the whole process. The owner David Chang was voted one of the best new chefs of 2006 by Food and Wine Magazine, and he recently opened a new place on 2^nd Ave, which I’m going to have to try next time.

How I Spent My Summer Vacation

Working 65 hours a week that’s how. So sorry I haven’t updated lately (Ok, in like forever!), but the summer was pretty crazy, and then I just got lazy. But I swear I’ll be better from now on.

So I spent the summer working my ass off at Firefly Restaurant, working my ass off on the cold side (or as Garde Manger, if it was a fancier restaurant). This basically involved making all the salads as well as a few of the hot appetizers. I don’t think I’ve ever worked so hard in my life, essentially I was on my feet for 7-12 hours a day, but it was also the best job I’ve ever had. Sure I’ve worked 12 hours in the lab (or 36 hours that one time), but with all the coffee and internet breaks, that number drops considerably. But now it’s the winter, and we’ve done from doing 200-300 covers a day to somewhere in the 20-50 range (or less some nights). I guess that’s the fun of living in a seasonal area. I have gotten to work the line some nights, which is pretty fun. My hands have huge cuts and burns on them from grabbing hot sauté pans, but it’s still pretty fun. I’ve also been made the pastry cook, which means that I’m responsible for coming up with and making the dessert menu. Laura’s been pretty good about letting me have the freedom to do what I want, so it’s been pretty fun. Sure, she nixed my crème brulee napoleon since it was a little outside the norm, but over all it’s been good. The weird thing is, is that I’ve always considered baking to be my weakest cooking skill. Luckily my Mom is an insane baker so any questions usually go through her. I even stole her Apple Cake recipe, which was one of our best selling desserts (and according to one her guests, mine was a bit better).

Now that winter is here though, my hours are drying up, and it’s time to find another job. Unfortunately most of the restaurants here (or at least the ones that I would want to work at), aren’t hiring. I’m thinking of going to culinary school in the fall, but I think I need to get a bit more experience before I can seriously consider it. Stay tuned and we’ll see how it works out.