dear gina,

i’m so sorry. really i am. and even worse, i am terribly ashamed. you see, about two weeks ago i ran across this beautiful recipe for your torta di mandorla and decided to bake one for my guy. it was a late sunday morning, i had all the ingredients in the house – as well as a 13 year old sous chef just itching to crack an egg.

i did everything right. or so i thought. and then when it was out of the oven, all cooled and glazed, i took one bite and i knew i’d made a mistake. a big one. it was just, well – it was off. but what could it have been? where did i go wrong? i thought i was ON IT. i mean afterall, it’s a simple recipe. and then, after about 20 minutes i realized the error i’d made. and sadly, it was an unforgiving error. i used baking soda instead of baking powder.

not much more i need to say here as i’m sure you’re quite aware of the consequences. so allow me to say again, i’m so sorry to have defiled what could have been and should have been, your wonderful cake.

respectfully yours,

claudia young
www.cookeatFRET.com

ps. my boyfriend ate the entire thing.

torta di mandorla
from gina depalma – pastry chef at babbo via serious eats

*ceFRET’s note – i’m really fond of the meyenberg goat butter and decided to use it for the glaze to lend a slightly different note. the butter is browned, so perhaps you can imagine how spectacular this was. the glaze turned out beyond stellar. but indeed, i ruined the cake itself. even if cary didn’t seem to notice…

1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup blanched or natural almond flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon kosher salt
3 large eggs
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup plus 1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon pure almond extract
grated zest of 1 medium lemon or 1/4 a medium orange
1/2 cup orange juice

for the glaze:
2 tablespoons unsalted butter (the goat butter makes for a lovely and subtle flavor)
1 cup confectioner’s sugar
3 tablespoons whole milk
a few drops of fresh lemon juice
1/2 cup sliced, blanched almonds, toasted and cooled

preheat the oven to 350°F. grease and flour a 9-inch round cake pan or springform pan and set aside.

in a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, almond flour, baking powder and salt to thoroughly combine them and set aside.

crack the eggs into a large mixing bowl and whisk them lightly to break up the yolks. add the sugar to the bowl and whisk it in thoroughly in both directions for about 30 seconds. add the olive oil and whisk until the mixture is a bit lighter in color and has thickened slightly, about 45 seconds. whisk in the extracts and zest, followed by the orange juice.

add the dry ingredients to the bowl and whisk until they are thoroughly combined; continue whisking until you have a smooth, emulsified batter, about 30 more seconds.

pour the batter into the prepared pan, and bake the cake for 30 to 45 minutes, rotating the cake pan halfway through the cooking time to ensure even browning. the cake is done when it has begun to pull away from the sides of the pan, springs back lightly when touched, and a cake tester inserted in the center comes out clean.

allow the cake to cool for ten minutes in the pan, then gently remove it from the pan and allow it cool completely on a rack.

while the cake cools, make the glaze. melt the butter over medium heat in a small, heavy saucepan. when the bubbles subside, lower the heat and watch the butter carefully, swirling it in the pan occasionally to distribute the heat. when the butter begins to turn a light tan color and smells slightly nutty, turn off the heat and let the butter sit. it will continue to darken as it sits.

while the butter cools, sift the confectioner’s sugar into a medium bowl. whisk in the milk until completely smooth but thick, then slowly whisk in the butter. taste the glaze and add a few drops of lemon juice to balance the sweetness. stir in the toasted almonds. spread the almonds and glaze onto the top and sides of the cake and let it sit until set and dry.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

the moral of this blog post is – when baking, one slight miscalculation, one small slip up – and you’re done. finished. over.

baking can be a cruel mistress.

so here’s the deal. i love calf’s liver. but i rarely get to have it because it’s seemingly not very popular here in these southern parts. up until recently, i couldn’t even procure a piece unless i committed to the entire liver. which was not going to happen – my love knows bounds…

but saturday we were at ‘whole foods’ and while perusing the meat case, i spotted some, all shimmery and liver’y. it must be a new product addition to our particular store, so as you might imagine, i was pretty excited. cary won’t touch the stuff so we bought him a dry aged ny strip and i got my calf’s liver - which, if calculating ounce for ounce is 1/3 the price. (note: they charged me for a veal rack instead of the liver – which was double the price. i noticed this when i got home and now i have to deal with it, though ‘whole foods’ is always good about this kind of thing.)

as a kid, my mom would make this on occasion and i’d be lying if i told you that i was happy about it at the time. but in those days we ate what was served and grimaced through the dinner. there was no feeding it to the dog we didn’t have. there was no hiding chewed up and spit out mouthfuls in my napkin and dumping the contents into houseplants or behind the drapes. i ate it. it wasn’t my favorite, but i lived to tell the tale and learned to not only appreciate calf’s liver, but to actually love it. especially when i first had it served with apples and bacon. total wow…

this past july when i was in nyc i had a great lunch at felidia’s, with my secundo being an amazing calf’s liver dish. it was served with a mix of farro and polenta and the meat was finished with sautéed shallots and a reduction of balsamic vinegar. it was definitely one of the better things that i had eaten that trip – hands down. so this was an opportunity to recreate it. and i love a challenge, minor as this one might have been.

so i grabbed my molto italiano book and with mario’s help (on page 405), he once again showed me the way, the light and the truth. for the polenta, i kept it pretty light and simple and just added some grated parmigiano at the end.

fegato alla veneziano
inspired by lidia bastianich from felidia restaurant in nyc
adapted from molte italiano by mario batali

flour seasoned with salt and pepper to dredge the liver
2 T olive oil
1 T butter
1/2 lb. calf’s liver cut into 1/4" slices
1 cup sliced shallots
1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
2 T chopped parsley

heat the olive oil in a 10" sauté pan until very hot but not smoking and add the butter. when the foam subsides, dredge the liver in the seasoned flour and cook until brown on one side, about 4 minutes. transfer the liver to a warm plate.

add the shallots to the pan and cook until very soft, about 6 minutes. add the vinegar and season with salt and pepper. place the liver on top of the onions, uncooked side down, reduce heat to medium and cook until just cooked through - about 5 minutes.

so i got it all together, plated it as nicely as i was willing, snapped a few photos, poured myself a glass of a surprisingly good argentinean malbec (terrazas reserva 2004) and took a bite…

really bad. like, really really b.a.d.

it was the liver. something was off. not rotten, more like, well, shitty. as in shit tasting. as in if i had ever eaten shit, which although proverbially, i may have – in reality i have not – but had i, i would imagine this would be close to what it would be like.

and i’m trying to figure out where i went wrong. or was it just the meat? did i dredge it too early? did i undercook it for fear of overcooking it? i can’t figure it out… the buttery shallots with balsamic were truly wonderful and the polenta was just right for the dish. as i gingerly ate the end pieces of the liver which were seemingly the least offensive, i sadly realized, i had to let it go.

but i have cats! and so i cut it all up into little pieces and gave it to my little guy merle. and he scarfed it down like there’d be no tomorrow. he’s almost 15 and weighs less than 7 lbs and he likes to eat animals. preferably dead and cooked as his hunting days are now behind him.

then the little guy went to sleep.

an hour later i heard it.

he puked it all up.

              

my rss feeder broke.  and i didn’t realize it for 3 months.  mostly because i (still) don’t even understand what exactly an rss feeder is, or what it does – talk about being oh so techno savvy… but my stat’s were dropping off and well, try as i might to just ignore the cold hard numbers, i started to take it personally.  was it something i said?  something i cooked?  where did so many of my bleaders go and why would they leave me after all we have meant to each other? 

but before i called my therapist, i called mark from simpler computing! and he quickly came to my rescue – again.  thank you mark.  you solved the mystery and now once again you are so totally my blero. 

so listen up – all you techno losers out there that just like to cook and write and take a little photo here and there, but do not want to bother your pretty little heads with html and templates and embedding and wordpress editors that suck and the like, call mark.  today.  he can tweak your blog into submission.  AND he likes to cook… (btw – ceF is still under construction as i type so please bear with…)

speaking of liking to cook… here’s the deal.  i cook a lot.  but sometimes it’s just dinner.  and sometimes it’s not my idea of a blog worthy post.  and usually it’s just that i’m too lazy to write.  but it’s totally me, not you.  you, i adore.  you make my life better, adding an entirely new fangled dimension that did not exist just 16 months ago. but still, i am often unmotivated, or perhaps even more often than that, i’m just reading OPB’s…

so what happens is that some of these dishes fall by the blogosphere’s wayside.  but i thought since we were dealing with feeds and feeding, i’d show you what gets fed around here to my immediate world.  so i’m going to hit you with a fair few of what i’ve not bothered to bother you with until now, along with some pictures. take a deep breath – here goes…

look familiar?  this one was made with the half and half, as per ripert’s recipe.  was it better?  yes.  did i LOVE it?  not so much.  it’s ok.  kinda brunchy, not desserty.  i like custard.  life is good.  and eric, you’re totally cool and sexy and hot and all those things.  but my tony still has you beat, big time. i hope you can understand…

ok so i realize i am blogger #4721 to make jim lahey’s no knead bread.  but i did it.  quietly.  and it was a good and crusty loaf of bread that if nothing else looked very, very impressive. 

i baked it in my romertopf that i dug out and dusted off.  although it stays unused and because it looks so beautiful – i keep it.  i’m sure you understand such things.  so, i soaked the terracotta in water and then baked the bread as per the direction for a dutch oven.  i felt my dutch oven was too big and i didn’t want a 2" high bread.  somehow, this worked out quite nicely.  so take a chance, dear readers – bake no knead bread.  oh, and have i made this again since?  nope.  will i?  maybe, probably not.

this was made quite awhile ago.  it was panko encrusted chicken livers served over what i think was swiss chard and finely sliced ‘delightful tiny purple potatoes’ and shallots sautéed with pimm’s and port.  what?  you think they may not have been tiny and delightful?  you are sooooo wrong….

i present to you… delightful. tiny. purple. potatoes.  i only wish i could have been in the room when the marketing team thought of that.  can you imagine what the discussion would have sounded like?  i only know they were republicans with bad haircuts.  after that, i know nothing.

so now you ask, what the hell is that?  that, my dear readers is a watermelon salad with mint leaves, chili oil and feta – topped with a very anti-locavore piece of barramundi from costco via australia.  in a previous life i lived down under (husband #1) and ate this fish regularly.  perhaps i didn’t need to sit the barramundi on top of the watermelon, but it seemed like a good idea at the time… and it was our dinner that night and we were happy enough.  so stop smirking.  thank you.

i made this last weekend and it was good and rich and saucy and chicken thighey – all that with trofie pasta thrown in for very good measure.  it’s what patricia wells eats when she’s at home in provence, a recipe that i picked up from feeding groom.  oh and it’s got sherry vinegar and garlic cloves and dijon mustard and lots of tarragon and minced sundried tomatoes… it’s more wintry than it is septembery in nashville, but i had 4 chicken thighs in the freezer and suddenly this just happened…

ok are you ready to hear what this was supposed to be?  what it almost was… what i wished it might have been and what it could be if i ever decide to take it on again?  salted butterscotch pudding with chocolate covered bacon.  thank you and goodnight.  the end.  by claudia. 

except it never really thickened properly.  and benton’s bacon is crazy salty.  so salty that i forgot just how salty it was therefore making it an out and out wrong bacon choice.  because it seems that is actually possible.  to make a wrong bacon choice.  you’d think not, but what this dessert needed was a thin cut good bacon that crisps up in a curly, artsy strip, and only then could it be dipped into lindt chocolate and put into a pudding recipe that WORKS.  because this recipe did not.  and another blogger tried it and it didn’t work for her either.  so. oh well,  we all drank our pudding and chucked the wayyy too salty pork.  seemed sinful but we got over it.  we lived and learned, moving onwards and upwards – with the comforting knowledge that bacon rarely ever lets you down…

so not even a little pretty.  AND the wrong color bowl.  but it was just a simple dinner of fresh crowder peas with bacon.  the bacon did just as it should, redeeming itself from the previous mishap.  there was something else served with this but really, i have no idea… i think it was grilled tilapia.  unexciting, quick and easy and not exactly memorable – but hey, not every night can be foie gras…

OK – EVERYBODY STAND UP AND STRETCH.  NO REALLY.  BECAUSE I AM NOT DONE.  BATHROOM BREAK?  GO ON.  I’LL WAIT….

oh, hi, you’re back.  wonderful, because i was worried… ok, just a few more…

this was lazzaroli’s sweet potato and ricotta ravioli.  i dressed it up with a side of kale, done in a sauce of olive oil, cream, honey and sage, and then dusted the pasta with nutmeg and parmegiano.  again – super fast and easy.  (tommy noodles, you are a nashville godsend… thank you for giving me an option that is first rate and still allows me to get creative.)

yes, i too jumped on the bandwagon thanks to michelle from thursday night smackdown and all the rest of you that grilled the hell outa a bunch of pizzas…  except michelle was the one who took my call on a saturday night so i could get very specific information about the whole pizza grilling process.  this particular pizza was taken from her post and it was damn fine.  i cooked down some swiss chard in a bit of olive oil, salt and pepper, and used copious amounts of minced garlic and ricotta.  i also sliced up a big ripe yellow tomato with red stripes running through it (we will miss you beautiful heirloom tomatoes),

awesomeness, no?  well yes – but… from here on in i’ll stick to the pizza stone with my oven set to broil and 550f… because grilled pizza is too damn white on top.  and flipping it before the toppings go on doesn’t allow the cheese and sauce to bake into the dough and well, my grill runs hot (it’s infrared) so even on the lowest setting it never got the top brown and i kept having to turn the flame on and off so as not to scorch the bottom and was nervously moving it to the top rack and well, i like my pizza stone in my oven.  so if i had a real charcoal grill which i don’t and do not plan on getting because it’s too much work and i am not willing (go on – think of me what you will but there are extenuating circumstances… like a boyfriend who is also happy with oven baked pizza’s), maybe that would be better.  but as it stands, and i repeat – i am a pizza in the oven kinda gal – set to broil on super high heat with the stone on the very bottom rack.  but i made the obligatory grilled pizza.  yes i did.

i present to you… voodoo mac and cheese

do you read gild the (voodoo)lily?  if not, you need to read gild the (voodoo)lily…  heather is very smart and very funny and this bitch can cook.  and i mean that in a good way.  heather is another one of those foodcentric people that seriously knows how to put ingredients together.  like if you turned your pantry over to her, she’d blow your mind.  and you’d be thinking all, why didn’t i think of that?… and the answer is because she KNOWS MORE THAN YOU DO.  plus she’s a botanist.  a freakin’ botanist... so she’s always growing and foraging and well, it’s a little bit intimidating.  heather could totally kick your ass and never even touch you…

anyway, back in july she made something called garden mac.  for her it was merely a ‘clean your fridge out’ kinda dinner, and i’m thinking – mac and cheese with roasted tomatoes in a bechamel base?  sign me the hell up. 

the ingredients i used were as follows; mostaccioli pasta, the 4 cheeses were – asiago, parmigiano reggiano, st jerome and fontal.  and for the garden part – fresh thyme and heirloom tomatoes, kale, onion, squash and zucchini.  i drove all the ingredients about an hour south, down to my friend shannon’s house and we spent the day cooking and drinking wine and talking and laughing and then we sat out on the porch overlooking her farm and had a late lunch…

and for the grand finale i give to you an extremely abbreviated version of my veal stock mission…

bones arrive from snook’s.  i tried for weeks to find a local source.  nada.

20 lbs.

because i am awesome…

i made brown and white stock.  i followed the ruhlman way.  it is the only way. (great version here)

otherwise when you die, you go to culinary hell where you are forced to live on nothing but shoney’s buffets. (please click on the shoney’s link.  there are no words…)

and hey, thanks so much for reading.  i realize this post was a commitment. 

you can go now…

a clafouti as deflated as my ego…

dear mr. ripert,

i am a long time fan of le bernardin and an avid reader of your new blog, avec eric. i eagerly await the new book being released this autumn and may i also take this opportunity to tell you that i absolutely adore ‘a return to cooking’ and would have to say that it is without a doubt the most beautiful cook book that i own. 

i think you’d be pleased to know that because of you i purchased the cuisinart brick oven, if only to cook along, through a simple but perfect array of dishes that you yourself appear to thoroughly enjoy.  of course watching you cook while listening to your ever so incredibly sexy french accent…  well, all i can say is that the people at cuisinart are marketing genuises.

so i grill my tomatoes, bake and broil my fish – among many other things, and tonight i decided to finally make the clafouti as i had just bought a batch of tart blackberries at the farmers market this past weekend.  the thing is, i only had 2% milk.  eric (may i call you eric?), i drink my coffee black and well, i just didn’t want to head out to the store for a pint of 1/2 and 1/2 that would most likely turn bad after i used my 6 tablespoons.  big, big miscalculation on my part. 

i suppose i don’t have to tell you what my clafouti tasted like because naturally, if you are reading this you are making the same face that i did upon taking my first bite.  it was that nearly inedible low fat version of what might have been a wonderful dessert if i’d so much as followed your directions.  i say nearly because as a woman in my 40′s i am guilty of eating substandard foods on occasion in the name of vanity and valiant attempts at zipping my jeans – but this was no place to skimp on a few fat grams.  so my clafouti was permeated by ‘that taste’ that is devoid of all that it could have and should have been. 

so eric, when you wrote "its consistency will lie somewhere between a custard and a cake. smooth, moist, silky with a slight crisp of the crust."  mine was kind of rubbery, devoid of anything that could ever be construed as silky.  and for this i am sorry because i should have just listened to you.  afterall it’s not like you even asked us to use heavy cream.  you were being moderate, just like a true frenchman would.

i knew better, eric.  i really did.
but mostly, i believe that i have learned from the error of my ways… 

sincerely,

claudia of ceF

here it is…the epitome of springtime…  could this not be a more restaurant worthy presentation?  i mean, if this was put down in front of you, wouldn’t you have high expectations?  a yolky fettuccine dressed with creme fraiche… the waft of truffle hitting your nose… yes, this is going to be just incredibly….

awful

dear readers, let’s just make this clear… it pretty much sucked.  it just did.  and it was altogether my own fault.  because each ingredient on it’s own was perfectly lovely.  i just didn’t know when to leave well enough alone…  and my pasta – as you might imagine – was freshly homemade, making it sting just a touch more. ..

pretty pasta (that you should never make)
anonymous

a container of creme fraiche
2 entire ounces of very expensive white truffle oil
fresh chives
fresh parsley
black pepper

ok, had i stopped here, i’d have had my usual winner of a simple pasta dish…
but nooooo..

toasted pine nuts (borderline error)
about a solid cup of grated parmigiano (first major mistake)
very young broccolini, chopped and left raw (second major mistake)
lemon infused olive oil (i must have been on crack – seriously)
broccolini flowers to garnish (whateva)

toss, eat, gag, toss
mourn over your beautiful wasted fettuccine, truffle oil and creme fraiche  

so like, this is me failing miserably. 
i am humbled in the face of fine cuisine.
i repent to the god of all things culinary.

final note: i served this to 4 people at a business meeting. 

one was a chef.

hee.

so what was your biggest flop?
 

but not on purpose.

you see, i followed the rick bayless recipe word for word, but i used my tan colored organic all natural sugar – and well, i’m pretty certain that may have been the problem.  the small saucepan of simple caramelized syrup felt wrong from the get go.  it never did what it was supposed to do – as in truly caramelize – and then it was really thick and even at a dangerously hot temperature the stuff wouldn’t swirl much.  so i now had a glug of it stuck on the bottom of each small white dish.  then i made a second batch that was marginally better – and put that on top of the darker ‘glug of sugar’ and coated the sides… but this was just not right – and i knew it. 

but hey, no prob.  because after ignoring my intuition, i  went on to rationalize that when i place the 6 little ramekins in their hot water bath and then bake the custards in the oven – it’ll all melt and get liquidity, right?  nope.  when it was time to ‘unmold the suckers – they were not budging.  so out came the big guns – meaning the handy dandy kitchen blow torch.

and do you know what happens when you flip a ramekin upside down and hold a blow torch to it for say 2 minutes?

i wish i’d taken a picture.  i almost did.  but i was so disappointed in my lack of culinary acumen, that i just let it all go, deciding against the photo op – my final bad call in the saga of ‘the flan gone wrong’.. 

i gotta say that the explosion truly was a bit unsettling and although my ego was ever so slightly bruised, luckily we all escaped unscathed from the flying shrapnel.

i’m over it now.

so here’s a fact.  when a dish calls for white wine and you’re too lazy to go and get a bottle, especially when you’ve just uncorked a nice red… don’t think you can substitute one for the other.  because you can’t.

it pretty much blew it for me.  the carbonara was a straight forward version.  onion, pancetta, a mix of parmegiano and pecorino and of course eggs.  i wish i’d had a bunch of parsley but i was out and as an afterthought we used some basil which was a good addition to a not so good dish.  so you may not see any red, but i did – after i took a bite.

edible?  yes.  repeatable?  no…