Chez Christine

French Laundry in 17 hours and counting...

On a whim, I called the French Laundry for a reservation a few months ago.  The reason?  Getting my first full-time job in 3 years, the fact that we've been married for exactly 6 months, and well, cuz I've been eying it lustfully for years.  No luck getting in, but would I want to be placed on the wait list?  But of course.

Didn't think much of it until this past Thursday, when the reservationist called and said they had an opening for Sunday at lunch.  Did I still want to go?  YES!

I'm actually glad to be going for lunch rather than dinner.  Our last big blowout meal with this many courses was 3 years ago at Guy Savoy in Paris.  We ate there for lunch and then proceeded to waddle around for the next 10 hours not wanting to see another morsel of food.  I can't imagine eating that much food for dinner and then trying to go to bed.  Plus, I always love a dining room filled with natural light, and the opportunity to get up between courses and enjoy the gardens is something you just can't do in the evening.

Tomorrow we'll be making the short drive up to Napa, having what I hope will be a revelationary meal, and then wandering around the little towns before trying to muster up the energy to make the drive back.

For some reason we've made this a celebratory weekend - we've decided to open up a Châteauneuf-du-Pape we picked up while we were students in France to have with dinner, then we'll follow up with Paulette macarons (passion fruit) that we had on our wedding cake.  We've officially started SIT (stomach-in-training), intending to fully line and stretch our stomachs in anticipation of the big meal tomorrow.  This is the best kind of training, no?

Bon Appétit!

Public Demo

Sorry for being absent, I guess that's what happens when you go back to a full-time job!  Feels good, although sometimes I miss typing away in my pajamas at the kitchen table.

It's interesting working in a test kitchen again, the smaller kitchen crew feels nice and I feel really connected to all that we're doing.  Plus, I'm learning a lot about photography, food styling, and editorial in general.

In other exciting news, I'll be doing a demo for CHOW.com at the Saturday Ferry Building Farmer's Market on December 5th at 11:45AM.  (I'm stoked, especially since I got married there just about 6 months ago!)  Still narrowing down what recipe we'll be doing, but I hope you join us for some tasty food and a fun recipe.  Mark your calendars!

Bon Appétit!

New Chapter

Although they've died down recently, I get emails asking me about various things from cuts of meat to restaurant recommendations in cities I've lived in.  The most popular themes, though, are about Le Cordon Bleu, Paris and what I've done with myself since.

A lot of people write when they have questions or doubts about going to the school, about its curriculum, about housing, about whether or not it's worth the (substantial) monetary investment.  The remaining people ask what kinds of positions are available in the food industry to graduates, with some thinking about restaurant jobs but more often than not, what else is out there.

It's been something I've struggled with for the past 3 years since graduation.  My one-week stint at a Parisian restaurant assured me that I was not cut out for restaurant work, at least behind the line.  As much as I was fascinated with the whole process and loved the adrenaline rush, the usually low pay and rough hours were discouraging.  Not to mention potentially having personal relationships suffer if you have such different work lifestyles.

So what CAN you do?  I was lucky that my timing worked well and I got into America's Test Kitchen as an intern.  The application process was not difficult, so the tougher aspect was dealing with working full-time for 3 months unpaid.  The whole experience, not to mention the notoriety that it has, was totally worth it.  I learned a ton on testing professionally, I had 8 hours a day of a wide variety of pure cooking that really honed my skills more than cooking school ever could, and I was dealing with a great group of people who taught me a lot.  It wasn't difficult decision to stay on after my internship to see if staff positions opened up, which also helped me to get asked to help with their TV show taping, valuable and rare experience.

When the stars didn't align for open positions, I was a little lost.  My whole time in Boston during the internship, I had been teaching at a children's cooking school.  I ramped up my hours, got more involved in planning menus for the school year and for summer, and threw all my energy in there.

Then I walked into Stir in Boston, fell in love with the cookbooks and what they do, and asked for a job on the spot.  It's really true that in the food industry, if you see something you want to be involved in, you just ask.  It's not as formal and you just have to be gutsy and passionate about it.  They hired me and I got experience in fine dining / guest services, a little management, and the world of cookbook buying.  More experience in things I never thought I'd be doing.

Fast forward to last year, and I moved back to San Francisco with a vague idea that I would consult with menu and recipe planning, hoping that I'd find more to do.  The work was there, but not in the volume I had hoped for.  Another chapter in 3 years of no to low pay, and sometimes no clear career path.

But the persistence has finally paid off.  I cold-called for food positions out here, including for catering companies and a school lunch program, but nothing hit.  I almost decided to see if I could find something back in advertising, what I did before picking up the knife kit. 

Then it happened - a position that I'm ecstatic about: full-time, with benefits, normal hours - there are so few of these in the food industry!  I'm joining the test kitchen at Chow.com next week, cooking with their small group, doing some editorial work, and basically combining a lot of skills I've picked up over the years into one job, plus picking up a few new ones like food styling and prop/grocery shopping.  I'm thrilled that I'm not leaving the kitchen.

It feels great and exciting - the team seems vibrant, interesting, and passionate.  Looking back, all the jobs I've chosen helped me be the candidate they were seeking.  It was a hard and bumpy road, and not everyone has the patience or support from family and friends that I had.  But there is hope!  Big lesson I learned: take jobs you really are interested in. Only then can you learn and grow, hopefully taking you along a path that ends in where you want to be.

Bon Appétit!

Soft-Shell Crabs

While my favorite crabs are definitely Dungeness, soft-shell crabs come in a close second.  In fact, I believe I had a small addiction when living in Boston.  Unfortunately, they are more of an East Coast delicacy and I didn't expect to see them much here.   But as luck would have it, the Berkeley Bowl had them a few weeks ago, and live!

They were on the smallish side, so we bought 4, two for the each of us.  Here they are all lined up to be cleaned.  It's always best to get them live and to clean them yourself for freshness, but if you are using them immediately, sometimes your fishmonger will do it for you.

To clean them, first you flip them over and pull the tab at the bottom (called the apron) out.  Cut off with a pair of scissors.

Then you flip them back over and cut off the face.  While it sounds gruesome, it needs to be done.  Then gently lift up one side of the shell and you'll see the lungs, which are long and stringy.  Cut off and repeat on the other side of the shell. 

Rinse and dry thoroughly with paper towels, and your crabs are ready to be cooked!

My favorite cooking method is to fry them until crispy, served on a soft bun with tartar sauce and juicy ripe summer tomato slices.  However, a salad is also a great accompaniment, as the crab is rich and juicy but begging for some acidity.

Soak in milk, then dredge them in a mixture of flour and cornmeal (for crunch). Fry in a nonstick pan - easy cleanup and less likelihood of the flour coming off and burning on the bottom of the pan.  You can't be stingy with the oil here or your crab won't be crisp!

That night, we served our crabs with a green salad and fresh corn pancakes.  Summer on a plate!

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Crispy Soft-Shell Crabs
Serves 2

2 - 4 soft-shell crabs (depending on size), cleaned
1/2 cup milk
2/3 cup all-purpose flour
1/3 cornmeal
Salt & pepper to taste
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1 Tablespoon unsalted butter

1. Place milk in a shallow bowl and place crabs in the milk while you prepare the rest of the ingredients.
2. Combine flour and cornmeal in another shallow bowl.  Season heavily with salt and pepper.
3. Heat vegetable oil and butter in a nonstick saucepan over medium-high heat until shimmering.  Dip one crab in flour mixture and coat on both sides, pressing to make a thick crust.  Immediately place in hot oil and repeat with other crabs.
4. Cook 2 - 3 minutes on each side until crispy and golden brown.  Place crabs on paper-towel lined dish to drain.  Serve immediately

Bon Appétit!

Brown Butter Blueberry Streusel Cake

More sweet than tart, covered in a beautiful blue skin, blueberries are packed full of antioxidants. Fortunately, they are addictingly tasty too!  Blueberries have started appearing at the farmer's markets here in San Francisco within the last month and are plump and juicy.  It's been a lot of fun to snack on them or to figure out what recipes they can go into.

For pancakes and during the winter, we prefer the little ones from Maine - no bigger than a small pea but with little bursts of flavor and sweetness.  For snacking out of hand, the bigger the better!  When challenged to come up with a recipe featuring blueberries for the U.S. Highbush Blueberry Council, I had a lot of fun (as did my impromptu tasters) coming up with a recipe that was just as delicious for breakfast as it is for tea or for dessert.  Best of all, it combines two great ingredients: blueberries and brown butter.

Brown butter is one of those fun mysteries because of the transformation in flavor that it goes through.  I've only started to play around with brown butter in my baking; previously, I mainly used it in French recipes like sole meunière.

For my cake, you start with browning 10 Tablespoons of butter.  Some things learned along the way: brown the butter in a regular skillet, as you can see the browning action and know when to stop much easier than in a dark nonstick pan.  Another is to brown slowly and gently while keeping a close eye on it, as you have to remember that it continues to brown even after you take it off the heat.  Lastly, immediately scrape the brown butter into another container, or else the solids which contain all the flavor stick to the bottom of the pan and don't end up in your cake batter!  (Don't listen to the people who tell you to strain it!)

Next up was a streusel topping.  As much as I love a thick, crumbly layer of streusel on top of a cake, I kept it to a thin layer so that it didn't overwhelm the blueberries in the cake.

This is one of the cakes that has multiple parts but only takes a few minutes to actually mix together.  It's quite a thick batter, so you don't really have to worry about the blueberries sinking.  You can just fold them in gently at the end and they distribute themselves quite nicely.  I like the tiny Maine blueberries in this cake, but of course, go with what's fresh and what you like.  If you can't get fresh ones, don't be afraid of frozen ones, as they work just as well and are just as nutritious.  You don't even have to defrost them, just fold them right in.

And the delicious result?  You decide:

A crisp, crackly top covers a thick, moist cake studded with blueberries.  The brown butter adds a subtle nutty accent and more depth of flavor, the milk keeps the cake tender, and you get hits of sweetness from the swirls of blueberries.  Trust me, it's hard to wait until this cake has cooled before diving in.  We've had it for breakfast, for dessert, and even by stolen forkfuls throughout the day when we thought no one was looking.  I hope you enjoy it as much as I do!

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Brown Butter Blueberry Streusel Cake
Makes one 9" cake

Streusel Topping:
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
2 Tablespoons granulated sugar
2 Tablespoons firmly packed dark brown sugar
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
Pinch salt
2 Tablespoons cold unsalted butter, cut into 4 pieces

Cake:
5 ounces (10 Tbsp) unsalted butter
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 large eggs
1/4 cup milk
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/4 cups fresh or frozen blueberries (I prefer the little Maine ones)

1. Preheat the oven to 350°F. Butter a 9-inch cake pan or springform pan and dust with flour, set aside.
2.  Brown the butter: melt in a medium skillet over medium heat and cook it until the butter browns and smells nutty (about 5 - 7 minutes). Swirl the pan occasionally to move the solids around, and you are looking for the solids at the bottom of the pan to turn a golden brown color.  Remove from the flame, scrape into a heatproof bowl and let cool.
3. Combine flour, brown sugar, cinnamon and salt for streusel topping in a medium bowl.  Add butter pieces and rub butter pieces between fingers until topping pieces are about the size of large peas (or you can use a pastry cutter).  Set aside.
4. For cake, whisk together the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt in bowl of standing mixer fitted with the paddle attachment.  In a separate bowl, whisk together eggs, milk, and vanilla extract.
5. Turn mixer on to low.  Slowly pour in egg mixture and mix until all dry ingredients are just moistened.
6. Slowly pour in cooled browned butter and beat over medium speed until smooth.  Remove bowl from mixer and gently fold in blueberries by hand with a plastic spatula.
7. Pour into prepared pan. Sprinkle with streusel topping and bake until the cake is golden brown and springs back to the touch, about 35 – 40 minutes, or a tester comes out clean.  Let cool at least 20 minutes before serving.

Bon Appétit