The list

Pastry school has become quite the eye-opening experience. Not so much about bread and pastry; much more so about myself. Lately school has been one big butter slick, day after day, kilo upon kilo of butter. And guess who doesn't like butter. That is to say, I was under the mistaken impression that I loved butter up until about two weeks ago. However, 30 gazillion calories later I have to admit, the shine's worn off somewhat. There's nothing like being surrounded by the stuff day in and day out to make one realize the important foods in life. So, in no particular order, I present you with my post-butter avalanche enlightened list of the important foods in (my) life:

*Pickled jalapenos
*Breakfast tacos
*Tiny corn tortilla tacos filed with unidentifiable spicy things
*Avocado, sprout, mayo and whole wheat sandwiches
*Rice and beans with yogurt, avocados and pickled jalapenos
*My friend Kenny's nachos
*Chocolate chip cookies
*Fig, anise, pine nut and blue cheese sourdough

Now why, whyever did I make this list and post it here for the world to see? Well, not to besmirch my reputation as a foodie, but pastry school has brought me to the conclusion that a) the deep and abiding love I have for making bread and pastry does not translate into a deep and abiding love of eating the stuff (Except chocolate chip cookies. I love them.) and b) I am clearly a Texan.



I'm not alone in this. I've never seen a group of people tote around fruit, vegetables and tiny tacos (a class obsession) en masse in such massive proportions as my classmates and I. We're trying to master a delicate balancing act. We have to taste what we make in school. We have to know what we're making and how to improve upon it. But after a day like Friday where we made and subsequently tasted two different pannetones, pan d'oro, colomba de pasqua, sourdough croissants, and then a host of danishes, croissants and laminated brioche (oh yes, you read that right, laminated brioche) I think we all cried uncle. Or maybe we all just cried a little because the pastries were so unbelievably delicious, that was undeniable. My point is, we've become overwhelmed by the butter and now the profusion of healthy snacks (and tiny tacos) at school nearly rivals the butter content.



For my part, I'm not sure replacing butter with avocados is the right move to make, but it's the direction I seem to be heading in. Yesterday, a Saturday, I headed up to school to spend the morning playing around in the lab. I made fennel, almond taralli and fig, anise and blue cheese sourdough loaves. When I left school my clothes were inexplicably smeared with avocado, which I had been snacking on for the greater part of the morning. My clothes were not covered in flour, figs, cheese or any of the other ingredients I had been working with. Go figure.



After spending six hours at school I lugged home five loaves of bread and about 40 taralli. Clearly, I'm filling my Mexican food void with bread. I can't complain. It was some damn fine bread. Sadly, the taralli over-baked. We discovered they make better drumsticks than food when burnt to a crisp. The fig and anise bread, however, was a smashing success. It was so good that I'm tempted to make it every week until I leave school. It may not be Mexican food, but it clearly won itself a little spot of its own on the list above.



Semolina Sourdough with Figs, Anise, Pine Nuts and Blue Cheese
Adapted from Wild Yeast

660 g flour
660 g semolina
738 g water
8 g instant yeast
33 g salt
579 g ripe 100%-hydration sourdough starter
66 g olive oil
27 g anise seeds
340 g dried figs, sliced into bite-sized pieces
210 g toasted pine nuts
105 g crumbled blue cheese

Mix flour, semolina, water, salt, yeast, starter, and olive oil in the bowl of a stand mixer on low speed until just combined, about 4 – 5 minutes.



Mix on medium speed with a dough hook for about 7 -10 mins. The dough will be slightly tacky, but will clear the bowl of the mixer easily. You should be able to see a medium level of gluten formation at this point.

Add the anise, figs and pine nuts and mix in low speed until just combined.

Transfer the dough to a covered, lightly oiled container. Ferment at room temperature for 1.5 - 2 hours. It will expand slightly and hold fingerprints, while only coming back slightly when touched.

Turn the dough onto a lightly floured counter and divide it into 7 pieces of about 460 g each. Preshape each piece into a boule, sprinkle lightly with flour, cover and let them rest for 20 minutes.

Shape the dough into batards. As you press the pre-shaped boules out flat to begin to shape your batard sprinkle the center of the disk you make with 15 g of blue cheese. Continue on shaping the boule. Place them seam-side-up in a heavily floured couche.

Slip the couche into a large plastic bag and proof at room temperature until the diameter of the baguettes has increased by approximately 50%, about 1.5 - 2 hours. When touched the fingerprint will hardly spring back at all.

Meanwhile, preheat the oven, with baking stone, to 475F and prepare your preferred method of steaming.

Before baking, score each loaf with either one long slash or two short over-lapping slashes.

Once the loaves are in the oven, turn the temperature down to 450F. Bake with steam for 8 minutes, then another 17 minutes or so without steam. The loaves should be a deep golden brown. Leave the oven door cracked open a bit during the last 8 minutes of the baking time to help the loaves dry out.

Place the loaves on a wire rack to cool. Cool completely before tasting.

These breads and others can be seen at Yeastspotting.

Did you miss me?

I've been awol. I didn't think it would happen, but I found myself unable to write. You wouldn't be upset about it though if you saw the circles under my eyes (cause I'm tired, yo). And you'd be even less upset about it if you lived here in San Francisco and I was bringing you cakes and pastries and breads every other day. It's made me friends. Yes, that's plural. I have bought myself more than one friend with treats and I am not ashamed to say it.

The bread portion of pastry school is over. After weeks, which were often physically and emotionally exhausting, we're done. I know this sounds dramatic, but I think it's fair to say the last four weeks kicked my butt. And not just mine. This week we were short three people almost every day of class. We're dropping like flies, getting felled by a variety of ailments from the flu, to allergies, to a tooth infection. Okay, the last two are not baking-induced, but they are afflictions nonetheless. And more importantly, they inhibit the baking process.



Fortunately though, our instructor seemed to recognize our falling apart at the seams and wanted to reward us for making it through so many grueling days. Friday he got the entire school together for a huge and fantastic party. Our class was in charge of the bread. We got full use of the wood-fired oven, which is easily as big as two-thirds of my kitchen at home. That may mean nothing to you. Let me put it this way, it may be a small kitchen, but it's a huge oven. In that magnificent beast we baked, at no less than 1000 degrees, pita bread, manoosh, na'an and pizzas. The school's faculty made the real food (for us! at home! how sweet!!). We had dhalpouri, curried cauliflower, some sort of miraculous okra something, baba ganoush, hummus, tabouli, tzaziki, ghee, caramelized onions, roasted garlic, chutneys and more chutneys and beer and wine... and of course, it being a pastry school, three massive chocolate cakes with chocolate buttercream frosting and chocolate ganache. Holy bread feast. The day ended with, and I kid you not, us sitting around one of the interns at the school playing guitar and singing, all of us together. I so wish I was kidding. But I am not. It started with Johnny Cash and ended with Bob Marley. After that I drifted off to the pastry lab and helped one of the instructors there make tiny fondant baguettes, batards and croissants. A fitting transition into pastry, I would say.

To say yesterday was necessary is perhaps the understatement of the year, or the month anyway. I don't want to get carried away with myself. I've gone from a highly functioning, relatively active and engaged member of society to an exhausted mess. This is nowhere more evident than on my train rides home from school.

Riding the train to school is always the best time to people watch, mostly because I'm strangely alert and observant at 6AM. My typical observations generally culminate in, holy crapola there are some crazy people riding this train. The usual suspects range in quirkiness quite a bit. There is the oft present friendly alcoholic. You can really smell them across a train first thing in the morning. And let me tell you, as one who is not accustomed to tipping the bottle at that early hour, the smell first burns your nose and then creeps into the pit of your stomach in the most unsettling way.



There is the talker. There are ever so many talkers. My favorite was the woman who insisted on shaking my hand the moment I grabbed the seat next to hers. She immediately launched into the story of her vacation, onto the book she's writing, and finally telling me that I have a deeply wonderful soul. I am not sure how this was evident to her as I did not say a single word to her. However, I am grateful that my soul can speak without a voice. As I got off the train she shouted to me, "Look for me on Oprah!". For real.

Oh, and what would the train be without the creepy old man? So far I've gotten off quite scott-free as far as this character is concerned (as compared with some of my classmates here), but there was one morning. I was ever so sleepy, it being 6AM. I just wanted to sit down and read my book. I grabbed my seat next to a harmless looking fellow. And that fellow, he just harmlessly put his hand on my knee. It was so friendly and innocent, honestly, it took me a moment to even register the invasion of my space. He didn't even glance at me as he made the move. I was so stunned I just looked at him and said, "No, no, please." And then he looked at me, equally stunned, as if he had no idea whatsoever that his hand was on my knee instead of his own. He removed the offending hand and then mumbled incoherently for the three minutes until his stop. Like I said, I think I got lucky with that one, all in all relatively innocent.

And finally, there is me. I never thought I was much to gawk at. I try not to be anyway. Somehow though, I seem to have forgotten myself in all of the hubbub that is baking school. The first week of school I was orderly and neat, morning through night. I packed my tidy little school bag up in the morning and I packed it neatly for the trip home, denying myself much more than a baguette a day. Over the weeks I've come home carrying increasingly more and more bread for my already over-stuffed friends and roommates. Early on I merely had flour speckling the toes of my shoes. That flour began creeping up my pants legs, onto the sleeves of my shirt, and finally this week, it was head to toe flour-flocked, a dusty, musty mess. I tumbled into the train on Wednesday, lugging a paper sack intended to hold 50 pounds of flour. It instead had 25 pounds of bread in it. My face was dusty with flour, my hair blown out by the wind. I had flour coating my paints straight to my waist. I had to shuffle my 25 pounds of bread around every stop for new passengers. It was ridiculous. And once I got home I realized I had dough stuck to my face. Perhaps you've seen me on the train? Please say hi. I'll gladly share some pastry.

My point being?? We needed that sweet mother of a party Friday. We needed it hard. I'm kind of over being the dough-splattered, flour-covered exhausted mess of a thing I was last week. Not because of how I looked, but because once home, I tumbled into bed, too tired even for a decent meal. The last time I cooked dinner for myself was two and a half weeks ago. I don't remember it because it was such a big production. I definitely don't remember it for its looks. I remember it because it was so simple and delicious and fresh and I've just been too tired to cook like that since. So thanks for the memories garlic bread soup. Maybe I'll see you around the bend, because I sure wouldn't mind another taste of you. You sure did right by me.

Garlic Bread Soup
Adapted from the Martha Stewart website

1/4 cup olive oil
8 large garlic cloves, crushed
2 cups stale, toasted sourdough bread (4 ounces), torn into small chunks
5 cups vegetable stock
1 cup canned chopped tomatoes, drained of their juices
1 bay leaf
3 large eggs, beaten

Heat oil in a large saucepan over medium-low heat until hot but not smoking. Add garlic; cook, stirring occasionally, until very fragrant but not browned, about 10 minutes.

Add bread, and stir to coat and fry until crispy. Stir in stock, tomatoes and bay leaf; season with salt and pepper. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat; simmer 10 minutes.

Stir in eggs. Cook, stirring occasionally to break up eggs, about 10 minutes.

This recipe and other fantastic bread recipes can be found weekly at Yeastspotting on Wild Yeast.

Sick day

Tuesday night, at approximately 11:45pm, I scowled at my clock and made a decision. No how, no way was I going to school the following day. It was already two hours past my bedtime, I was wide awake and had no interest in dragging myself to school with no sleep the following day.

I toyed instead with the idea of an afternoon pedicure. I flirted with the thought of going to the Ferry Building and spending the day sampling every single cheese at Cowgirl Creamery. I even pondered **oh horrors** exercise. But none of it fit. Or rather, I was too tired to think what would fit.



That is until early the next morning, after brief fitful bouts of sleep. I realized it had been an entire 168 hours since my last visit to the mighty magical Meyer lemon tree. Gasping in disbelief, finding a tiny reserve of energy inside of my coffee mug, I trudged outside in my robe and began filling my pockets, yet again, with my treasures. This time though, it wasn't such a bounty. Seems I pillaged that poor tree on my last visit and the new crop is just now crossing over from green to a very pale green. It seems I was a tad overzealous.



This troubled me somewhat until I discovered most recipes only call for one or two lemons, so I was in no way hindered in my creative pursuits. In fact, it was most likely for the best as I'm not sure I can consume more than three Meyer lemon dishes in one day. Fortunately, I was only required to consume one. Fortunately, it was amazing.

Due to a severe shortage (read: lack) of tart pans in our house I opted instead for a muffin tin, hoping to create individual lemon tarts. What I didn't forsee was the boiling over of the lemon filling while baking. We can thank the gods of happy accidents for this one, because the results were nothing short of inspired.



No, I would not call these tarts. I will call these tart lemon demitasses. Each little demitasse is lined with a thick layer of lemon. The center is open and can be filled, as I did, with berries. If I were not so very very sleepy though and if there were not a severe shortage (read: lack) of ice cream makers in this house I would whip up some creme fraiche ice cream. I would pile that into each cup and sprinkle them generously with berries.



Tart Lemon Demitasses
Adapted from Dorie Greenspan’s Paris Sweets via Smitten Kitchen

1 recipe my very favorite uber-duper flakey pie crust
1 1/2 average-sized Meyer lemons (about 4 1/2 oz each), rinsed and dried
1 1/4 cups sugar
1 large egg
1 large egg yolk
1 1/2 tablespoons cornstarch
1 stick unsalted butter, melted and cooled

Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven 325°F.

Prepare pie crust. Cut into 4" x 4" squares. Line each muffin tin with the pastry squares. Set in the fridge to chill for 30 mins.

Bake the pastry shells for 15 mins with weights in the bottom to keep them from puffing up. Remove from the oven and let cool.

Slice the lemons into thin wedges, remove the seeds, and toss the lemon and sugar into the container of a blender. Blend, scraping down the sides of the container as needed, until the lemon is thoroughly pureed and blended with the sugar. Blend in the whole egg and the yolk, followed by the cornstarch and melted butter. Pour the filling into the crust shells, filling them 1/2 to 3/4 full.

Brush egg white or water around the exposed edges of the pastry. Sprinkle with turbinado, or some other large grain sugar.

Slide the baking sheet into the oven and bake the tart for 20 minutes. Increase the oven temperature to 350°F and bake for another 15 to 20 minutes, or until the filling is bubbling, lightly browned and set. Don’t take the tart out until it is clearly set, however — you’re looking for a slight jiggliness with no suggestion of liquid underneath. DO not be alarmed if it boils over. Just make sure it does not burn. Transfer the demitasses, still in the muffin tins, to a cooling rack and allow it to cool for at least 20 minutes before removing it from the pan. The demitasses are ready to be served when they reach room temperature.