Last Day

This is my last day at Le Bernardin and I am sorry to see it come to an end. I am very grateful that chef Laiskonis has allowed me to spend this time in his kitchen. I also need to thank all of his staff for letting me help with their production tasks and showing me how to make the recipes. It has been a fantastic learning experience.

Here is a list of a few things that I found especially interesting –

• Sweet Potato Pearls - a flavored puree of roasted sweet potato that includes LBG and agar. It is put into a squeeze bottle and then dropped into a chilled oil bath. As the little drops of puree sink to the bottom of the chilled oil bath they cool and the gums are set. The pearls are strained and rinsed before being served. Very cool technique.
• Chocolate Biscuit (pronounced bis-kwee; as in a cake, not a cookie) - he has several different biscuit recipes that include chocolate as a fat (along with butter). I’ve never seen this before. I like the end result, which is more moist and slightly denser than a normal biscuit.
• Saucing Stencil- okay, this one might not be as exciting to you, but I think it’s a great idea and had never seen it before. Basically, he uses this flexible stencil material that has been cut out to a rectangular shape and spreads the sauce on the plate with it. The stencil is lifted away and you have a perfect rectangle of sauce on the plate.
• Organization - I love organization and this is a kitchen that has it in spades. Lists abound and things run smoothly.

This is my last stage in NYC. In a little over a week my wife and I hit the road for our cross-country move back home to Seattle. If you know of anyone in Seattle looking for a pastry cook…

A Tale of Two Ice Creams

So, you’ve heard me talk about my iced milk idea and some of the samples I’ve received to help me in that quest. Well, I am happy to report that I have successfully formulated a recipe for it. The result is a smooth Philadelphia-style ice cream that has almost no discernible sweetness, disappears on the palate, and tastes like milk. Danisco’s litesse and lactitol are the big winners here. The litesse does a great job of providing the dissolved solids content that the ice cream needs and the lactitol depresses the freezing point, and neither contribute very much sweetness. I say “very much” sweetness because there is a slight amount that can be detected in the mix before it is frozen. However, at lower temperatures our tongues ability to detect sweet flavors is diminished, resulting here in an iced milk that doesn’t taste sweet.

Back in the kitchen

I admit that I have been remiss in keeping this blog up to date. This past month has kept me quite busy. I wish I could say I was busy in the kitchen, but that’s not the case. I finished up my stage at Gilt and ended up having to take a short break from my staging (the reasons behind that can be found on my personal blog). However, I am happy to report that I am finally getting back in the kitchen. Later today I am going in to do a trail at Le Bernardin. I am very, very excited about this. I have heard nothing but good things about the pastry chef, Michael Laiskonis. I have also been an avid reader of his blog that he recently started. Hopefully, my trail goes well and I will be able to setup a stage for the next month. This will be my last stage in NYC before we move back to Seattle.

I haven’t really had time to play around in the kitchen either. My two works in progress, the freestanding creme brulee and the iced milk, have been on hold. I promise I will try to put some more time into them and report back. Especially since I received another product sample that I think will help with my iced milk concept. It is the new Activa YG formulation from Ajinomoto. It is specifically formulated for dairy products. Through enzymatic action it cross-links the dairy proteins to yield a thicker product. They have only tested it on yogurt applications so far, so I am interested to see how it works with my iced milk concept.

A New Blog is Found

I found a great new blog called Playing with Fire and Water. I’m not sure who the blogger is since her about page doesn’t actually say anything about her. No matter. She has been doing some interesting things with methylcellulose and posted a great summary on its uses and properties –

playing with fire and water: methylcellulose primer

Something I have been wanting to try with methocel is making a foam and freezing it. About a year ago when I was graduating from ICE and looking for my externship, I trailed a couple nights with Jordan Kahn when he was at the short-lived restaurant, Varietal. I remember him making a foam, I’m pretty sure he used methocel, and then trying to freeze it. The foam didn’t hold up to freezing and easily collapsed. He was undeterred though and tried adding white chocolate and cocoa butter (either or both, I can’t exactly remember). The addition of this made a foam that was stable upon freezing thanks to the rigidity of the cocoa butter. I haven’t purchased any methocel yet to give this a try myself, though it is definitely on my list.

I Love Samples

It is amazing what you can get just by asking nicely.

WD-50 Scores Three Stars

Frank Bruni reviewed WD-50 in the NY Times today. The last review from the Times was by William Grimes in 2003, shortly after WD-50 opened. Grimes gave the restaurant two stars, so the three awarded today by Bruni is certainly a cause for celebration.

The New York Times > WD-50 Restaurant Review

Desserts are covered in the second page of the review. One thing that I found amusing was a mention of a cherry-covered chocolate dessert. When I was doing my externship at WD-50, we were standing around brainstorming dessert ideas and, among the many ideas that I posited, I suggested the concept of banana-covered chocolate. You know, instead of the frozen banana on a stick that is dipped in chocolate, reverse it and offer chocolate that’s covered in banana. It was one of the few ideas that I threw out there that Alex seemed to like. Well, it looks like he ran with it but replaced the banana with cherry, which I think is even better. I haven’t been back to the restaurant in quite a while, but I definitely have to go back now and talk to Alex to see how he accomplished this.

Congratulations to Wylie, Alex, and everyone at WD-50!

Iced Milk

What does “Iced Milk” make you think of? Does it conjure images of waxed cardboard cartons of cheap off-brand ice cream? What if it was on the menu like this –

Cookies and (iced) Milk
Warm Chocolate Chip, Peanut Butter, and Oatmeal Cookies with Frozen Milk

This is a dessert concept that I’ve been kicking around for probably 6 months now. It started with the idea of finding a way to present milk in a frozen form but to have a smooth and creamy consistency like ice cream. That simple idea spawned an extensive research project for me that includes learning how ice creams are formulated and how each ingredient affects the outcome. In school, all they taught us about ice cream was 1) here’s an ice cream recipe, 2) here’s how you make the ice cream base and 3) here’s how you spin the ice cream in a machine. Nothing about how to develop your own ice cream recipes. Armed with a web browser and some shear determination, I managed to find lots of great information and have taught myself how to create balanced ice cream formulas.

Gilt

I did a trail yesterday at Gilt with their pastry chef, David Carmichael.  David has been doing pastry work since he graduated from the CIA in 1990.  He has a lot of experience and is doing some interesting desserts.  I’m looking forward to spending some more time in his kitchen.

Milk Chocolate is Growing Up

This is an interesting article from the NY Times. My Seattle hometown favorite, Theo Chocolate, is quoted for the piece.

Dark May Be King, but Milk Chocolate Makes a Move

My favorite milk chocolate is from Michel Cluizel, the Grand Lait. It has a delicious creaminess that finishes with a well-rounded caramel undertone. I bet it would make a great chocolate pudding!

James Beard to NYC Pastry Chefs: “Screw You!”

The nominations for this year’s James Beard awards have been released. You can see the complete list here. Scanning the list of names for Best Pastry Chef, there are only two NYC nominations - Pichet Ong (P*Ong) and Gina DePalma (Babbo). Granted, this city has had a three year run for Best Pastry Chef, and winners from the past five years are not eligible for nomination. Here are the past winners who are not eligible –

2003 - Karen Barker (Magnolia Grill)
2004 - Emily Luchetti (Farallon)
2005 - Karen DeMasco (Craft)
2006 - Johnny Iuzzini (Jean-Georges)
2007 - Michael Laiskonis (Le Bernardin)

So that eliminates three of the cities’ best pastry chefs. Of course, congratulations are certainly due to chefs Ong and DePalma for receiving the nomination this year. However, I feel there are several more pastry chefs here that deserve to be on that list. Granted, I may be biased having spent time in their kitchens, but I think both Alex Stupak (WD-50) and Deborah Racicot (Gotham Bar & Grill) deserve to be nominated.

As for Seattle, we have one of our pastry chefs on the list - James Miller (Cafe Besalu). Leslie Mackie (Macrina) was nominated last year and, I feel, should be on the list again this year. A newcomer to Seattle, William Leaman (Bakery Nouveau) should be on the list for his baguettes alone, which are the best I’ve ever had.  The bakery is a newcomer, not William, as he was previously at Essential Baking.

Oh well, award lists like this are never quite what you think they should be, right?

I do want to give a shout-out to a former mentor of mine, William Belickis (Mistral), who is nominated again this year for Best Chef: Northwest. Good luck, William!