Momofuku #1: pork buns

I've had the momofuku cookbook longer than I've had ad hoc at home, but I haven't warmed to it as much, even though I like David Chang's food as much as I like Thomas Keller's, and enjoy reading Chang's writing more than Keller's. Maybe I'm just more interested in cooking European/American food than Asian food - I've already documented previously how I'm drawn to Europe so much more than to Asia - although Chinese food is deeply ingrained in me and I cook it regularly. Maybe that's the problem, that I associate it with everyday food, and not special enough to warrant following a complicated recipe.

Chang's simple recipes (i.e. pickled vegetables) are things I already do because my mom did it and taught me many of her easy recipes. The complicated recipes (i.e. chicken wings or brick chicken) seem overly complicated because I already cook pretty damn good versions of it (I make my chicken wings a version of "three cup chicken" with rice wine, sesame oil and soy sauce). Whatever the reason, even now, browsing the cookbook, I love reading it - it's a great read, I share his love of pork fat, and am inspired by his creative uses of fatty pork (aka bacon) - but I don't really want to follow any of his recipes.

Except for the pork buns. When I had them at Milk Bar in NYC, it was one of those rare moments in life when something truly lives up to its hype. And boy was this pork bun hyped up. Everything you read, heard, watched about David Chang referenced these pork buns, and just the idea of it is so genius, I can't believe no one ever thought of the exact combination before: combining fatty pork with the sweet, fluffy "mantou"-style bun usually used for Peking duck. Even more genius, he solved the crunch problem - the duck skin usually provides the crunch for Peking duck - by adding refreshing pickled cucumbers, which also balances the extra fat (yes crispy duck skin is fatty, but side pork/pork belly is even more so). This stuff was good, and I was willing to go to great lengths to eat it again.

It turns out I didn't need to ... go to great lengths, that is. While there are lots of components, and it is a multi-day process (something I'm getting used to after all those Keller recipes) the preparation of each component is surprisingly easy.

Pork

I had done the pork part of the process several times already, with varying results. I usually find 1.5-2 lb slabs of pork belly (side pork works, too), rather than the 3 lbs called for by the recipe, so I've both oversalted and overcooked the pork before. This time, I had a much better sense of how much salt-sugar rub to use, and how long to cook it. I mixed 1 tbsp each of salt and sugar together and used maybe 3/4 of it to rub down my little 1.5-lb slab of side pork. I'm always tempted to pour the rest of the salt-sugar mixture on so as not to waste it, but I resisted that temptation this time, and it paid off.

Twenty or so hours later, I pulled my side pork out of the fridge, dried it off with paper towels. I guess-timated the oven time because my slab was only about 1.5-lb and the recipe is tailored for a 3-lb slab. First on high heat (450 degrees), basting halfway as instructed, until the top is nicely browned, which took about 45 minutes. Then at 250 degrees for about the same time.

Chang claims you can decant the liquids from the bottom of the pan to get both fat and juices, but I always end up with just fat (no juices that are supposed to turn into a gelatinous layer under the fat), which I reserved for cooking. And a good thing, too, because unbeknown to me at the time, I needed that fat, and exactly that much fat, to make the mantou.

If you start cooking early in the morning, you can complete the pork, the steamed buns and the pickled cucumbers in a day (you'd still have to budget the the day before at least for grocery shopping and rubbing down the pork at least 6 hours before roasting), albeit an exhausting day if you're like me, not a professional cook and not used to slaving away in the kitchen for that long. Besides, Chang recommends chilling the pork before slicing for more even slices, so I set it aside in the fridge until the next day, and made something else for dinner that night (something simple).

Buns

The next day, I made the steamed buns, and then the quick pickled cucumbers (and sliced the scallions) right before dinner. He says you can make do with commercially-made buns from "even a well-stocked freezer section at a local Chinese grocery store," but I think he throws this in just to make the recipe seem more accessible. Don't fall for it. The ones from the freezer sections don't even come close to making it fresh from scratch at home. I can't speak to his other suggestion of buying from a Chinese bakery or restaurant, but I know first-hand that the packages from 99Ranch or Marina's freezer sections don't cut it. You're going to get the steamer out to heat those up anyway, so why not get the steamer out to make fresh buns from scratch. Your handy mixer with the dough hook makes it easy.

This was my first time using yeast, so I was nervous about somehow getting it wrong. It turns out I had no reason to be nervous. Active dry yeast does its job, without poking or prodding. All I had to do was drop it into the mixing bowl with some room temp water, and then add in the other familiar ingredients: flour, sugar ... and pork fat?!? Yes, pork fat! Thank goodness I had kept the pork fat rendered from the side pork the day before.

The dough hook does its job, too, and you get this beautiful, fragrant dough.

Which you let rise for 1-hr 15-min. Then you divide it into 50 small pieces, which he instructs you to roll into balls. It's not possible to make them into perfectly round balls because of the resistance from the dough, but it ultimately doesn't matter.

I tried both covering with a dry towel for this rise, and covering with plastic wrap and placing it in the oven (no heat, just dry, dark and a little warm). Both works just fine, although I liked having the towel for easy re-covering for the shaping step later.

They rise again for a half hour, and then they're ready to shape - flatten, roll and fold. A final half hour's rest where it just puffs up a little more, and you're ready to steam. 10 minutes per batch.

Straight out of the steamer, the taste of my homemade mantou was amazing. I'm sure I've never made anything that tasted this pure. It was like eating a warm, perfectly sweet, cloud. It was ... the single most triumphant food moment of my life thus far. My eyes popped wide open, I turned to Mark, and literally uttered the sound "nom nom" for the first time in my life.

I had prepared the accoutrements while the buns steamed: quick pickled cucumbers, hoisin sauce and scallions.

Oh yeah, and the pork. Sliced and heated for a minute or so on each side over medium-high heat.

Nom Nom!

Perfection!

I called my mom right after dinner to tell her how great they turned out. She happily designated me the family mantou maker. Triumph squared!

And guess what? The steamed buns are almost as good frozen and re-steamed days later - still so much better than store-bought frozen packages. It makes no sense to me, but it just is.

The Power of Pull by Hagel, Brown and Davidson

Imagine if someone took all of your vague and random notions about today's global connectivity and communications capabilities, and how they work to your advantage while at the same time challenging you to keep up, and gave you a vocabulary to speak coherently about it. That's essentially what The Power of Pull does. It explains why job hunting today is so much more complicated now than it was a decade ago, but also why you're able to broaden your job search geographically and otherwise without much physical effort. It explains your friend's success in the business of message board technology, and your other friend's success at promoting games like WoW and Starcraft II.

The phenomenon began all around me over a decade ago, and everyone I know, myself included, has been living it ever since. We just never formed it into a theory, with a special vocabulary. Well, now we have it. It's "push" (old institutional infrastructure) versus "pull" (flexible networks allowing individuals to find, create and share in ways and magnitudes never before envisioned). And tapping into the "knowledge flows" on the "edge," which penetrate the "core" more quickly than ever due to people that use "pull" to advantage.

The intro and first chapter of the book are slightly difficult to wade through because the jargon is new, even if the concepts are not. I had to mentally build a dictionary as I went along. But after the first chapter, I was rolling along easily.

The underlying message throughout is that change and innovation is happening at an exponentially more rapid rate that even a decade ago. Like most people, I'm resistant to change, but The Power of Pull inspires me to be excited about this rapid progress and how I can be a productive participant in it by teaching, or at least starting to teach, how harnessing "pull" is key to succeeding in today's and tomorrow's world.

The first stage of their method is termed "access," something we're all familiar with, even if we don't use it in the targeted, strategic manner suggested in the book. Using networks and putting out feelers, whether through technological means or not, to identify people useful to you to make a greater impact than you could alone or in a closed community (i.e., a company or firm). They include examples such as the tweeting campaign during the recent Iran elections that gave voice to Green protesters, and the community of big wave surfers that share videos of their latest innovative techniques online.

The second stage of their method, "attract," I think is more difficult for most of us. I find the hardest part of attracting is giving enough, providing enough value, to those I'd like to, and potentially can, attract, so as to maintain the relationship long enough to create value. The book warns that the successful use of pull requires that there is mutual benefit to be had, and that otherwise the connections you make are not bound to last.

The last stage, "achieve," is where the method starts to fall apart for me. Maybe this should not have been a "stage" so much as a goal of accessing and attracting. The book at this point begins to rehash the age old endeavor to maximize individual performance, in part by marrying your passion with your profession. It's not entirely clear how this stage naturally follows the first two.

While the concept of "pull" can be superimposed on a wide range of applications, the authors' prescribed methods of accessing, attracting and achieving, and the diagrams littered throughout the book (essentially a single diagram with slight revisions) has limited applicability. Business leaders (i.e., executives, principals, division heads) are the target audience, business leaders are their prime examples of successful case studies (with a few exceptions), and although the authors make a small effort to broaden the application of their theory, business leaders are ultimately the ones that will benefit most from implementing the strategies suggested by this book.

The last few chapters of the book are little more than a strung-together list of platitudes, such as "what is, is only a precursor of what could be" and "For the first time ever, we have the real opportunity to become who we are, and more importantly, who we were meant to be." Really? As with many books of this genre - how-to management, leadership, self-improvement - the conclusion is a bit of a let down.

However, despite a disappointing, and somewhat painful to read, ending, I still think the examples discussed in the first half of the book were interesting and helpful.

Troublesome Young Men by Lynne Olson

Did you know that Winston Churchill's political ambition, along with that of other members of the British parliament in the 1920s and 1930s, nearly cost the allies all of Europe in World War II (WWII)? Did you know that despite Churchill's ambitions to become prime minister one day, he sacrificed his personal moral views against appeasing Hitler, voting against the rebellion that ultimately made him prime minister, because he was afraid to lose his political standing? Did you know that the British parliament was dominated by gutless appeasers? Did you know that their leader, Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, was the ultimate gutless appeaser and gave up the only independent democratic country in Eastern Europe at the time, Czechoslovakia, to Hitler for an unrealistic chance at avoiding war with him? Did you know that Britain was woefully and deliberately unprepared to engage in WWII, ensuring their failure to make good on their empty promise to defend Poland against a German invasion?

I learned none of this in my high school history textbooks, but according to Lynne Olson's account of the happenings in Britain's parliament in the years leading up to WWII, these are all truths. The history books I read were all U.S.-centric, focusing more on D-Day and the plight of the Jews. The details about Britain's and France's failed negotiations with Hitler prior to his occupation of Czechoslovakia and Poland, and the numerous bluffs they could have called that would have stopped Hitler in his tracks, were glossed over, and all we knew was that Churchill, one of Britain's great orators, was named prime minister at the war's outset and successfully led Britain through the war, which are also true.

If, like me, you have a fascination with British history (which the success of movies like Braveheart and Elizabeth, not to mention the numerous movies and TV series about Henry VIII, indicate is true of many Americans), then you'll love reading Olson's accounts of the rebellion that put Churchill in power, the nature of the government toppled by this rebellion, and her mini-biographies of the rebellion's cast of characters. It will shock and frustrate you to learn how long it took for Britain and the world to wake up to the horror that was Hitler, and how many lives were lost because of the cowardice and political ambitions of the world's leaders, but at least we all know that the story ends well on the whole.

Peet's vs. Philz

Before I delve into my comparison of Peet's versus Philz, let me first disclaim any presumption the reader may have that I am one of those multiple cups-a-day coffee drinkers. I'm a lightweight. I really can't drink more than one average to large mug per day, my average being closer to one every 2-3 days. I usually order the small size at the coffee shop, and when I brew at home, I usually have one large mug. I've tried making more at home, but I just don't enjoy it past the first large mug. And I easily go weeks, even months (i.e., when studying for the California bar exam), without it.

Oh, but I do love the taste of good coffee. Indeed, I argue I may be even more impartial because I don't drink it out of habit or addiction, but purely out of taste enjoyment. I prefer brewed coffee and Italian caffe to American espresso drinks; and I love coffee in all it's forms - the first cup in the early morning, the afternoon pick-me-up, after dinner with and without dessert, and so on (just not all in one day). I also like a variety of flavors, from the sweet, nutty flavors to the dark, round, freshly bitter ones.

The first time I drank Peet's Major Dickason's was a revelation. Up until that point I had been an indiscriminate coffee drinker - I enjoyed Starbucks lattes, IHOP, General Foods International coffees all pretty much the same. Somehow that day, however, I knew I loved the taste of that bean, remembered its name and began to compare all subsequent coffee that I drank to it.

Quite frankly, the Peet's versus Philz list is not useful in determining which one is better. As with most coffee drinking (not all, since there is such a thing as bad coffee), it's a matter of taste and preference. Here are the pros (+) and cons (-):

Peet's:
+they know how to brew, and they brew it strong
+/-they leave it to you to custom-corrupt your cup however you want (cream, milk, sugar, honey, simple syrup, cinnamon, chocolate powder, etc.)
+Major Dickason's is a much better flagship blend than Tesora (Philz flagship) IMO
+great decaf options
+offers espresso and other drinks as well
-less choice on any given visit, since they only brew one flavor per day (or two if you count the decaf flavor) unless you buy multiple types of beans and brew it yourself (could be a + for those indecisive types, but generally in my book, less choice is a -)
-less choice in bean flavors overall, at least as far as I've tried, not in terms of number, but in range of flavor

Philz:
+they custom brew for you any of the bean flavors they sell by the cup, and will even mix multiple flavors in one cup
+their bean varieties cover a broader spectrum of taste, including light, sweet, nutty flavors
+they offer both a written description of their more popular flavors, as well as servers knowledgeable about their flavors, to help you decide on which flavor(s) to choose
+/-although you can determine weak, medium or strong for both the cream and the sugar, they do the mixing - it goes along with their high level of service, but also takes away from the control you otherwise have at Peet's to add whatever type of sweetener or creamer
+great decaf options
-no espresso or other specialty drink offerings

My favorite flavors from Peet's are Major Dickason's and Decaf Mocha Java. My favorite flavors from Philz are Tantalizing Turkish, Jacob's Wonderbar, and Decaf Ethiopian.

The bottom line is that there is no bottom line. Peet's and Philz each provide a uniquely different experience, and to love one does not preclude one from loving the other as well.

ad hoc at home #9: chocolate chip cookies

In his cookbook, Mr. Keller hails chocolate chip cookies as his favorite cookie in the world. I don't recall seeing chocolate chip cookies at Bouchon Bakery, nor ever having them in any form at French Laundry or Bouchon, so I didn't know expect.

As far as I can tell, his cookies are not that much different from other recipes I've seen. The main difference is that he requires that you buy good bars of chocolate, in a combination of semi-sweet and bittersweet, and chop them into "chip-sized pieces," and not surprisingly given his sensitivity to aesthetics, shake in a fine-mesh basket strainer to "remove any chocolate 'dust' (small fragments)." The other variation is his relatively high brown (1 cup packed) to granulated (3/4 cup) sugar ratio.

These two factors create a flat, relatively chewy cookie, with chocolate striations. Maybe Keller is more precise in cutting his chocolate than I am, sifts out more of that chocolate dust than I did, and forms more perfect balls with his dough before baking, but I always imagined his cookies, especially his favorite cookie, to look better than this:

It isn't the prettiest cookie I've ever made, but it did the trick taste-wise. The cookies were a big hit at my summer party, so much so that my mom wants me to make some for her to bring back to LA to share with family!

I made them again a few weeks later for a friend's housewarming party, and had more success making it look as good as it tasted ... at least with a few specimens.

ad hoc at home #7 and #8: duck

I don't think I'm alone in finding duck an intimidating poultry to cook at home, although really for no good reason. I blame the markets, for not carrying more duck meat, and then charging an arm and a leg for it. This means that if you are to try it, you mustn't go wrong, or else you'll have wasted quite an expensive piece of meat. This is where Thomas Keller comes in. His cookbook ad hoc at home has proven so far that I can't go wrong with his recipes.

Before shopping, I studied the recipes for both the duck confit and the pan-roasted duck breasts. I noticed two things: first, the duck confit required lots of duck fat, and second, the pan-roasted duck breasts produce lots of duck fat that is then discarded. Ding! went the light bulb in my head. I'll make the duck breast first, strain and save the fat, and then use it in my duck confit. Since duck fat keeps and duck confit is a two-day process (in fact, it can be stored for even longer), I didn't have to worry about being all duck'd out. It was a brilliant plan.

First, the duck breast recipe. It introduced me to the concept of cooking almost entirely skin-side down, something I've since executed on salmon (per America's Test Kitchen recipe) and chicken thighs (Jacques Pepin recipe) as well, for a perfectly crisp skin. Every instruction in the book is helpful and accurate, down to the removal of the "small white tendon that runs through each tenderloin" of your duck breast and setting "a metal bowl or other container near the stove" for use later. Don't question it, just do it, and everything will turn out right.

As with so many of his recipes, the cooling rack is key. Nearly everything is better after having been cooled on a rack.

The duck breasts came out beautifully.

I served it on a bed of simply sauteed green cabbage, sort of a la Keller's recipe, using, what else, duck fat, but without all of the trimmings (no red cabbage or pistachios).


Now for the duck confit. Keller's recipe makes 8 duck legs, and after trying to do it for 2 duck legs only, I can see why. Duck fat isn't easy to come by for most of us, and it's a bit of a waste of the duck fat if you're not lining at least the entire bottom of your Dutch oven with duck. It would be less of a problem if I had a smaller Dutch oven, but for the size I had, I probably could have fit 4-6 duck legs in one layer.

My thoughts on the duck fat: You can always buy it directly from a good butcher, but why pay separately when you already have to pay for a good amount of it when you buy your breasts and legs. From the duck breast, I had rendered off maybe one-third of the fat called for by the recipe for the duck confit. The recipe also calls for trimming and discarding the excess skin and fat from the duck legs, so I rendered that off, too, yielding almost the same amount as I already had from the duck breasts. In total, I had enough fat to immerse about 2/3 of the duck legs in the fat, but not all of it, as prescribed. Here's where my cooking sense and willingness to edit came in handy. I felt it was enough, and guess what? It was enough.

The duck went into the oven before I went to bed, and came out of the oven in the morning, about 8 hours later. Keller says 8-10 hours, but I opted for 8 since I only had 2 legs. It came out just a little more "meltingly tender" than I think he is aiming for, since one of the legs did fall apart a little when I sauteed them later. I think 8 hours would have been perfect for 4-6 legs. It was delicious, nonetheless.

Even though duck confit is meant to be salty, and I for one love salt, I would heed his warning about over-salting. It came out a bit on the salty side, which I was able to balance out with tomatoes and roasted potatoes, but had I indulged my penchant for salt by adding just a little more than the recipe prescribes, which I often do, I could have easily ruined these beautiful duck legs.

ad hoc at home #6: shortbread cookies

Pure joy can be created from 4 simple ingredients: butter, sugar, vanilla and flour.

Who knew?

If you've ever eaten at French Laundry, you've walked away with some of those light golden buttery crumbly cookies cut into perfect little rectangles. Well, with a stand mixer and some parchment paper, it's easier than pie to make (I know the saying is easy as pie, but pie is not this easy to make).

The ingredients: 1.75 sticks (or 14 tbs) unsalted butter; 0.5 cup granulated sugar + extra to sprinkle over cookies; 1 tsp vanilla paste or extract; 2 cups AP flour.

The dough: Using the paddle mixer, mix butter and sugar on low to combine, and then beat at medium speed for ~3 minutes until creamy. Add vanilla, and then on add flour on lowest speed. Once all the flour is in, beat on medium until dough begins to cling to the paddle and no longer looks dry, but before it forms a solid mass. Transfer dough to a board and bring it together with your hands. Form the dough into a roughly rectangle shape, wrap it in plastic and refrigerate it for at least 30 minutes, and up to several days.

Forming the cookie: Roll the refrigerated dough between two pieces of parchment paper until it's 0.25-inches thin. Set aside the top parchment, and cut the dough into 2-inch squares. Cover again with the top parchment and refrigerate again for ~15 minutes until cookies are firm enough to remove from the parchment.

Baking: Position oven racks in lower and upper thirds of the oven, and preheat oven to 350 degrees. Remove top sheet of parchment, and arrange cookies 1-inch apart on two cookie sheets lined with parchment paper or Silpats. Sprinkle cookies with sugar, and bake for 11-12 minutes, until their edges are just starting to turn golden brown. Allow cookies to cool a few minutes on the baking sheet before transferring onto a rack to cool completely.
After making the cookies a few times, I decided to take the cookie one step farther: dipped in chocolate.

Technically, to create a shiny, hard chocolate coating for the cookies, you have to "temper" it. Well, tempering technically requires bringing chocolate to a certain temperature, then cooling to a certain temperature, etc., and I don't cook with thermometers, not yet anyway. So I looked for shortcuts, and this is what I came up with:

For a single batch of cookies, you just need 5-6 ounces of good quality semisweet chocolate (you can use bittersweet chocolate, too, but for me, it wasn't sweet enough to stand up to the cookie's flavor). I chopped the chocolate into large pieces, and transferred approximately 2/3 of it to a medium-sized glass bowl. The glass bowl went over a small pot of simmering water. I added a teaspoon of shortening (I read somewhere that shortening added to melting chocolate stabilizes the end product and lends a sheen, although I haven't yet tested what happens if you don't add it), and stirred the chocolate around slowly until melted. I then added the rest of the chocolate, which I think achieves the cooling part of the tempering process, and continued stirring until it was all melted.

Then I removed the bowl of chocolate, and started dipping. I placed the dipped cookies on parchment paper to cool.

This yields enough melted chocolate to allow easy dipping in a bowl, but this means you have plenty to spare. You could theoretically use even less chocolate, but then the chocolate coats the bowl and will be quite shallow making it difficult to dip the cookie.

Allow the chocolate dipped cookies to cool in the refrigerator until the chocolate hardens, which I found takes at least 45 minutes.

Needless to say, these chocolate-dipped versions were very well received.

ad hoc at home #1 revisited: buttermilk fried chicken

Since I was too stressed and eager to eat the first time to take any pictures of the finished product, I made the buttermilk fried chicken again. Since this is probably the quintessential ad hoc recipe, this time I invited the friends that gifted me the cookbook to try it and compare it with the fried chicken they had the week before at TK's ad hoc restaurant. This time, I was much more relaxed, and Mark was around to snap a few more pictures of the process and the finished product.

We were much less messy this time.
And now that we were more aware of the actual cooking time (2-3 minutes more than indicated in the cookbook per batch), our timing was much better. And since we were working in batches - first the thighs, then drumsticks, then breasts, and finally wings - we kept the first batches in a warm oven until the guests arrived.
And voila! Beautiful fried chicken.
Before frying, Mark and I prepared a couple of side dishes.
He made mashed potatoes. I made coleslaw.
The colors were gorgeous on the plate.

ad hoc at home #5: beef stroganoff

As I indicated in my last post, the ad hoc at home braised beef short ribs are a precursor to two other recipes in the cookbook, and the second time I made them, I made extra to use a second day in one of these other recipes. I chose to make the Beef Stroganoff. And it was rich, well-balanced, full of beef and mushroom flavor, and totally yummy despite (1) the fact that I used store-bought pappardelle instead of making my own, (2) I used a hand blender (instead of an actual blender or fine-mesh strainer, can't remember which he called for) so my mushroom cream sauce still had small bits of mushroom, which is totally fine by me, and (3) it turned out looking like this:


Believe you me the pictures do not do it justice. I knew that the mushroom flavor would be the key to this dish, but boy did I underestimate it's power. The rich, beefy goodness of the short ribs combined with the deep, creamy, mushroom flavors rendered my three-day process (day 1: beef stock, day 2: braised short ribs, day 3: beef stroganoff) totally worth it. Needless to say, after hours of cooking, Mark and I devoured it.

ad hoc at home #4: braised short ribs

Who can resist braised short ribs on any five-star menu? Not only was I sure that the braised short ribs recipe in Thomas Keller's ad hoc at home would be oh-so-good in and of itself, these short ribs were the precursor to two other delicious-sounding recipes. The only problem was that making just the braised short ribs themselves was a two-day process, presuming you make your beef stock from scratch as prescribed.

It was daunting, but it proved a great excuse to invest in the Le Creuset Dutch oven, and I had just spotted one in Cassis (a Sur La Table exclusive rich, purple color) that I just had to have.

Before we get to the Dutch oven, though, day one starts with making the beef stock. Making beef stock Keller-style starts with roasting "meaty" beef bones on high heat for 45 minutes to develop color and flavor. Then there is 6 more hours of simmering and continuous skimming (off fat and impurities for a clear broth), adding charred onion early on, then adding roasted vegetables and herbs for the last hour. Finally, a little rest, twice straining (second time through cheesecloth), and voila, I have a deep, rich beef broth that turns into gelatinous goodness when refrigerated. Phew! Day one was a long, exhausting day on my feet. I need to get a lighter ladle if I'm going to do more marathon skimming.

Now back to the beautiful, brand new Dutch oven. Day two starts with many of the same vegetables and herbs that finished off the beef stock - leeks, carrots, onions, thyme, bay leaves - to flavor the wine sauce, as well as shallots, smashed garlic cloves and mushrooms. It was quite a colorful and fragrant combination:

Per instruction, I added a full bottle of very drinkable red wine, and let it simmer for half an hour while I seasoned, dredged in flour and seared off the short ribs. I added more vegetables, built a cheesecloth nest, laid the short ribs in the nest, topped it off with the beef stock, covered it with a parchment lid, and popped it into the preheated oven.

Two hours later, I strained and simmered the sauce while the beef rested, and then served the braised short rib with a simple salad and plain rice. I, my husband, and a few of our closest friends, were rewarded for my two-day effort with undoubtedly the best short ribs we had ever tasted.

That is correct, they were better than any restaurant short ribs we had before. They were so good, I exerted the effort again a couple weeks later, making sure to braise extra short ribs to use a second day. If I was going to put in two days, I was going to get two dinners out of it!

ad hoc at home #2 and #3: crispy braised chicken thighs and creamed baby spinach

What better day to put in some effort in the kitchen than Valentine's Day. On the other hand, you want to enjoy the day with your special someone, preferably with a delicious dinner to share. Mark and I have long since stopped going to restaurants on this day for overpriced, mass produced food. Usually one or the other of us cooks, and then is too exhausted to do much apart from watching TV as the other one cleans. As a testament to the evolution of our relationship to the point where we can share the kitchen (which was not always the case), we decided to cook together. It was brilliant, and I wish we could have come up with the idea years ago.

Mark and I decided to each tackle a single recipe from ad hoc at home. I chose a relatively uncomplicated main course, and he chose an uncharacteristically complicated side dish ... so we were even.

I made crispy braised chicken thighs with lemon and fennel. It was supposed to include olives, but I don't like how olives overpower other flavors I love, so I left them out. You'll find me taking just such artistic license with recipes often because if there's something Mark and I know well, it is what we like to eat.

For this recipe, I learned how to cut fennel into "batons" (I normally slice the bulb into uneven, unmanageable open rings). I also learned that by browning the chicken skin side down to a crisp, and then braising it skin side up, you can achieve braised chicken with a crispy skin.

Like I said, it was a pretty straightforward recipe considering its source.

Mark took on the creamed baby spinach, which seems like it should be simple enough ... not. Like many of his recipes, it was two recipes in one. He had to first learn to make a Mornay Sauce, one of Keller's "basic" sauces involving five herbs and spices, diced onions, butter, flour, milk and heavy cream, some cheese we don't normally keep in the house (Comte or Emmentaler), and 35-40 minutes of stirring. This is all before you cook and strain the spinach, mix it in with the Mornay Sauce, bake it, and then broil it.

To be fair, we left out the cheese because we didn't feel like combing the extensive cheese counter for these specific cheeses. Still it took Mark about the same amount of time to make the spinach as I did to make the braised chicken, so at least the timing turned out nicely. It really was the best creamed spinach we've ever had, but I'm not sure I could get Mark to make it again.

We washed it all down with one of our favorite Rieslings.

And finished the dinner with my first ever chocolate souffles, from a recipe I saw on Gordon Ramsay's The f Word (the "f" stands for food). For this triumph, I had to do a lot of metric to U.S. customary conversions, and learn to make corn flour from corn starch and flour. The corn flour thickens the milk to a "yogurty" texture, the result being a "creme patissiere" (yes, lots of learning happened that day). After 3-4 minutes of stirring, I wasn't sure "yogurty" was an accurate description, and just when I was about ready to give up on achieving the desired texture, it happened. It really took on the texture of yogurt.

Then came the chopped chocolate, egg yolks, whip the egg whites with the superfine (=caster) sugar, load the batter into buttered ramekins pre-sprinkled with grated chocolate, and tada!

Okay, after the prescribed 6-8 minutes, it wasn't quite ready. But given 5 more minutes, tada!

There may have been a more impressive rise had I not disturbed them when they were not ready, but they were deliciously decadent with a very gooey center, and Mark said this was how he wished all restaurants served their chocolate souffles, so I declare victory.

ad hoc at home #1: buttermilk fried chicken

Eating at French Laundry is a "once-in-a-lifetime" experience, which Mark and I experienced twice last year. After years of skepticism, I chanced upon a reservation (cute story for later), and after the first meal, I easily became one of their biggest fans (so much so that we went back 6 months later and brought a larger party with us). So it was only fitting that one of my foodie friends gave me Thomas Keller's new cookbook, ad hoc at home, as a holiday gift.

Keller waxes poetic about how this book is about home cooking and "family meals," even signing our copy to "Alice & Mark, It's all about family, Thomas Keller." So I decided to embark on a modified Julie Powell-esque journey to try as many recipes as I can and blog about them. But I'm doing it without a deadline or a promise to make every recipe, because I am fully aware of the challenge.

If you know anything about Thomas Keller, you can imagine his idea of home cooking is not anyone else's idea of home cooking. Unlike Julia Child, Ina Garten, Martha Stewart, Nigella Lawson, or the slew of other celebrity chefs that attempt to make their recipes accessible to the average American cook, Keller is unapologetically uncompromising about the techniques, the number of steps (lots of cross-referencing to brines, stocks and other base components you need to prepare prior to carrying out the recipe you intend), and particularly the time, necessary to create the desired flavors. The only area he seems relaxed about is presentation.

So I'm taking it slow, one week at a time - only wise considering most of the recipes are two-day affairs. Yet I think if I am as meticulous as I can be in following the instructions, it will all work out.

For the buttermilk fried chicken, it did all work out, in the end. Becoming all-consumed and pressed for time the day of cooking and eating, I wound up with only one picture of the chicken - raw, after being cut into pieces, but before going into the brine.

In the picture there are only eight pieces when there are supposed to be ten. We realized right after snapping this picture that we were also supposed to separate the drumstick from the thigh (no, this is not even Keller's eight-piece cut, which has separated drumstick and thigh, but without the breast cut in half). So we promptly separated the drumstick and thigh. We took this picture because it was an ordeal just to get this far, a process which taught us that regular kitchen shears are not poultry shears, and that we really should get a pair of poultry shears before we try this recipe again.

My chicken was too big (I used 1 5-lb chicken instead of 2 3-lb chickens as recommended because that is what they had at the farmers market that week), and so I brined for just a bit longer than the prescribed 12 hours, and fried for a minute or two longer than suggested for each piece. Luckily Mark was able to find the temperature-controlled deep fryer from our college days, so I didn't have to bother with maintaining temperature with a pot, flame, and thermometer. Even so, at least half the flour mixture and a good amount of canola oil ended up on the floor and my apron before all was fried and done. Just as well since the use of 1 bigger chicken instead of 2 smaller ones meant I had less surface area to coat anyway.

The result was VERY tasty fried chicken that is definitely worth making again. Crispy and flavorful on the outside; juicy, perfectly seasoned, and lemony (which was unusual, but refreshing) on the inside. I wish I had a picture to show, but it was so delicious we couldn't help but dig in even before the last pieces were fried.

Greene's Quiet American

The Quiet American is my introduction to Graham Greene, and methinks it was not the best choice for me. My only compass in choosing this book, instead of other Graham Greene novels, was my enjoyment of Henry James' The American, and all other Henry James novels about American ex-patriates (or ex-patriots, as it were, since James and many of his characters were both). In hindsight, maybe I would have been better off looking up some commentary on Greene's novels or a syllabus, although I don't recall Greene being taught in any of the English classes of interest to me (which in and of itself puzzles me since many of the authors that are taught were admirers of Greene's work).

It's quite a short novel, and yet took me a while to read because I began to lose interest as soon as Greene got into the war imagery. I suppose at the time, imagery of warfare in Vietnam was quite a novelty. However, I have an innate aversion to war imagery in general, and more specifically I've had my fill of descriptions of the American war in Vietnam years later, so when he started in on those details, my eyes began to glaze over.

What was not apparent to me until the last quarter of the novel, and maybe this would have helped keep my interest, was that Greene was building up to a reveal of the circumstances surrounding the death of the American, Alden Pyle, the fact of which opens the book. I flew quickly through this last part of the novel, as soon as it became clear to me what I was after in reading it.

As with all good writers, Greene has a gift for description, such that you understand the exact nature of the pain each character feels or the landscape they see.

On my mind

The questions plaguing me at the moment:

(1) How do you get onto the White House speech writing staff, and how much does it pay?

(2) How do you ride the trolley in San Francisco ... not the cable car or Muni or Caltrain, but the pretty classic trolley cars I see crossing in front of the Ferry Building? Where do you get on, where can you go, how do you pay and how much does it cost?

(3) How much is a 120-acre parcel of land in an undeveloped, agricultural-zoned Eastern part of Lancaster, located ten miles South of a U.S. Air Force base, worth?

(4) What happened to Sam Seaborn on the West Wing?

So "plaguing" is a strong word. To put these queries to rest, here are my responses:

(1) The time and effort required to get a full answer to this question far exceeds my actual interest. As such, I'm letting this one go.

(2) It turns out they're not trolleys, they're the Muni F-line, otherwise known as "historic streetcars." They run up and down Market Street from the Castro to the Embarcadero (technically stops at Steuart), and along the Embarcadero from Market (Ferry Building) to Jones (Fisherman's Wharf). Since it is the Muni F-line, fares are normal Muni fares, and Muni Fastpasses, passports and transfers are accepted.

(3) Don't know yet, but apparently I have an uncle that owns some acreage out there that I should talk to if I'm interested.

(4) Who knows?!? He falls off the face of the Earth! At least that's what it seems like after it is heavily implied he will lose the California 47th Congressional race. But according to Wikipedia, and my glimpses at the last few episodes of West Wing's final season, it appears he does lose the California 47th Congressional race, but remains out in California, declining the White House promotion and returning to law firm life, only to return for the last couple of episodes to serve as Deputy to Josh Lyman, who is the White House Chief of Staff for the new President.

Now I can go back to sleep.

FB Acct Disabled Day 4: Status Updates

10:45am All participants agreed that Sook's Dailey Method class was particularly challenging this morning. Thank goodness there's noticeable sizing down happening, or I might just give up!

10:59am Trying out Barefoot Coffee Works' El Salvador Malacara (Thanks Anthony!) with my post-workout brunch of eggs, granola and pop chips (they were giving the pop chips out for free)

11:58am Excited to researching Alaska cruises!

3:43pm Got Facebook account back, and have mixed feelings about that.

1:54pm Can't believe the big controversial sports news is STILL Kiffin leaving Tennessee for USC.

9:52pm Thank goodness I have good friends (Thanks John!) willing to help me navigate the sea of information about Alaskan cruises. Whew!

Hangin' with the Wong-Changs on Saturday

This past Saturday, we played bridge with Wendy and Anthony. It was not all senior citizen night, though; we also played some 13-card poker and Omaha. Of course, the highlights of the evening came compliments of Kaiya at the beginning of the evening:


and of Cooper at the end of the evening:

FB Acct Disabled Day 3: Status Updates

Facebook still hasn't responded to my request to reinstate my account. Bastards. It's beginning to dawn on me that this may be permanent. Oh well, I'll cope.

January 12, 2010:

9:00am Yay, rain!

10:00am Coffee first, before heading to Ifshin to get violin checkup and supplies.

10:20am Quick stop at Moe's as I leave Peet's; reminder to check out Theory of Light and Matter by Porter and Paris Review Interviews IV and Kingsolver fiction

11:10am Having her bow rehaired, her violin sound post adjusted and strings replaced. Felt such joy when Jay Ifshin commented "beautiful violin!" and kept referring to a violin "of this caliber."

11:30pm Extra 40% off outlet prices @ Northface Outlet! Score!

12:45pm Lunch @ Chick-o-Pea. They have delicious falafel, pickled veggies and fries:

1:55pm Showed up at Girls Inc. to volunteer, but thanks to over-volunteering, they could only give me a tiny bit to do

3:00pm Checking out the Alameda "free" library since volunteering took less time than expected
3:30pm Read the first few chapters of Kingsolvers Poisonwood Bible at the library

4:00pm Heading back to Girls Inc. in Alameda to see if I can help teach some young girls how to use chopsticks

7:00pm Traffic is conspiring to make us late for dinner with Ching, Wilson and Ethan

7:30pm Hot pot with good friends and a patient, smiley baby!

10:30pm My new black Gap pants are here and they fit GREAT! Thanks for the free shipping Wendy!

11:25pm Yay, more rain!