Top Chef All-Stars, Finale: Last Post for Moleskine

Fractured Amy is pleased to grant Moleskine II

the last word on Top Chef All-Stars

I'm back, fans! I am so happy to be able write about the season finale of Top Chef All-Stars!  It is my FAVORITE show and I am sorry it is over, except it isn't really because Top Chef Masters starts next week, which is also an AWESOME show even though Wylie Dufresne never EVER wins. But he keeps trying to win and maybe this year he will, which would be GREAT because he is my FAVORITE chef. I bet he uses a Moleskine notebook because awesome chefs always do because we are so COOL and HELPFUL for people who have lots of good ideas.

That is why I wanted to Blais to win more than ANYTHING. He has Moleskine notebooks that he writes EVERYTHING in. But I was so scared he might lose to nasty horrible Mike Isabella, who once STOLE one of Blais' recipes RIGHT OUT OF HIS NOTEBOOK, that I almost didn't want to watch TV this morning. Only Fractured Amy said I HAD to if I wanted to find out who won. I didn't think that was FAIR but she said that if SHE had to get up an hour early to find out what happened then I did too because SHE wasn't going to tell ME who won if I didn't keep her company. But then I was glad I watched it because it was really really really good and the food looked AWESOME even though I couldn't taste it because it was on TV and I don't have any tastebuds.

So COOL Blais and UGLY Mike had to cook a meal with four courses and they each had help from three others chefs who already lost. And I was worried because Blais got Spike who wanted to be jet skiing instead of cooking because they were in the Bahamas and I hate Spike almost as much as I hate mean horrible Mike. And then I was extra worried because Mike got Carla who is AWESOME and is always very very HELPFUL and probably wouldn't like jet skiing anyway so she was happy to be cooking instead of doing that. So I was scared that Mike would win and that wouldn't have been fair because it wasn't Blais' fault that he got Spike who always looks STUPID in his dumb HATS.

And when Spike was in charge of the dining room at Blais' restaurant he was very MESSY looking and I thought maybe he had gone to sleep in a GUTTER but Fractured Amy says he always looks like that, even when he is cooking cheeseburgers for the PRESIDENT probably!

And then the chefs started to cook and I got REALLY worried because Mike looked like he knew what he was doing and he didn't act like a JERK like he always does. And he seemed to be nice to his cooks and he didn't use so many bad words or GIGGLE too much and I got really SCARED he would win. And Blais seemed worried that Mike would win, too, and I wanted to shout at the television for him not to be so upset and to have some CONFIDENCE but he wouldn't have heard me because he was on TV and anyway we were only watching a recording, so he REALLY would not have heard me. Also I don't have any vocal chords.

So then they started bringing out the food and one of the judges was Lidia Bastianich who knows EVERYTHING and another judge was Hubert Keller who I think looks very nice with his crinkly eyes and friendly smile. I think he must have Moleskine notebooks too because he is another AWESOME chef.

I never heard of the other judges so I didn't care about them.

And then the judges started to taste the food and I stopped being scared and started being confused because the judges liked EVERYTHING and didn't say anything BAD except when they ate Blais' ice cream that was made of foie gras and Mike's custard that had bubbles in it. But all of the food looked good to me, including the things that I didn't know what they were, like hamachi and sweetbreads, which Fractured Amy told me were some kind of GLANDS. And I would have liked to have eaten some of it except I don't have a stomach.

But when they got to judge's table it was still very very HARD to tell who had won and Hubert Keller said it was TOUGH to decide and Padma looked like she wanted to CRY. And I wanted to cry too because it was so TENSE but I don't have any tear ducts.

And then HOO-RAAAYYY! Blais won he won he won he WON! And I stopped being worried and scared and started being happy and excited because BLAIS is the coolest CHEF and I wanted him to win for forever! And all the other chefs started to cry and even Mike Isabella started to cry but not for the same reason and for a minute I forgot I hated him and started to feel sorry for him. And then he said that he didn't really lose because he's better than Blais and I started to hate him ALL OVER AGAIN.

Blais won $200,000 and that is a very lot of money but he deserves it. And so it was worth it to get up early to see him win but I wish I had $200,000 which I need because I am going on VACATION! My pages are all full up and it puts me in a bad mood when I must get up an hour early to see Top Chef so now there is a new notebook who I already DO NOT LIKE. But I am going on vacation soon so it doesn't bother me too much that the new notebook is STUPID and a GIRL.

So good-bye everybody! It has been FUN to be a gluten-free Moleskine notebook! Since the first day of the year I got to watch the MUPPETS and I learned to make cheese and I saw JAM-making except there is another notebook for that so I wouldn't get my pages in a mess and first that bothered me but then I was GLAD not to be so sticky. It has been GREAT and FUN to see Fractured Amy having conniption fits in the kitchen, which happens a lot when she is making DESSERTS and pasta and trying terrible gluten-free things in PACKAGES! And I would have enjoyed drinking a cocktail except I don't have a mouth.

Now I have a fancy new cover to wear on vacation which the Field Correspondent in the Twin Cities (FCitTC) sent and which I LOVE so I would like to show you my picture before I go.

I don't look FAT, do I?

What I'm Up Against

Moleskine II, filled with my scribblings to the point where he is in danger of irreversible spinal injury, has announced he will be taking some much-needed convalescent leave after tonight's Top Chef All-Stars finale.

Resultingly, I was obliged to visit my local outpost of Barnes and Noble yesterday to pick up a new notebook. While I was there, I decided to pay a call at Starbucks for an invigorating tall soy latte.

Whoever decided to put cappuccino counters in bookstores anyway? They're my Achilles' heel. In the gluten-filled good old days, I could rarely resist a sweet companion to my java - a packet of madeleines, maybe, or a slice of pumpkin loaf. If I was feeling wicked or gossiping with a companion, it was not unknown for me to indulge in a great slab of cheesecake or one of those vanilla cupcakes with buttercream swirled a mile high (I know I am on record as saying that I think cupcakes are silly - but the Starbucks' ones grabbed me right in the ol' sweet tooth).

Sadly, the pickings in the pastry case (sorry, vitrine) are pretty slim for a gluten freedom fighter such as myself. More correctly, they are nonexistent. A Kind cranberry and almond bar (all natural! certified gluten free! dairy free! loaded with anti-oxidants! doesn't taste like packing material!) or some milk chocolate, perhaps, but nothing squidgy, squishy, creamy, and sweet sweet sweet to satisfy the soul.

But that's OK. Like Job, I have become accustomed to my lot in life.

Today, for some reason, I noticed an additional comestible possibility next to the cash register: packs of gluten-free chocolate chip cookies. To protect the innocent, I shall give them a rhyming pseudonym: We'll See's, as in we'll see if they're any improvement on the usual gluten-free calamities on offer at other retailers.  The founder of the brand, Doctor 'We'll See' herself, has composed a little blurb for the back of the bag where she claims to care about us and be our friend.

Right away, that made me suspicious. Who wants to eat a cookie that's been prescribed by some sort of nutty medical zealot? Not me, that's for sure.

Naturally, I bought a bag.

Why do I do this to myself? Well, for one thing I feel it's my duty as a public figure to sample these products so readers may benefit from my experience. Failing that, I am painfully aware that a certain schadenfreude has the capacity to amuse Others Who Read About My Misfortunes. No sacrifice is too great in the service of truth or entertainment.

Also, I was hungry.

A quick perusal of the label while my soy milk was being steamed to frothy goodness revealed that Dr. 'We'll See' was attempting to mimic a real cookie through the use of a fairly typical g/f flour blend (oat flour, chickpea flour, potato starch, sorghum and fava flours); together with the unnecessarily earnest additions of soy milk, non-dairy lactic acid (huh?) and vegan chocolate chips. For crying out loud, isn't the fact that it's gluten-free sufficient? Is it necessary that we also flog the organic horse to death? I snarled to nobody in particular as I considered the inability of baked goods lacking in eggs, sugar, and butter to be worthy of my time or the effort it takes to digest them. In addition, I was a bit nonplussed to see that even without these worthy components, the itty-bitty bites contained something like fifty calories each!

I decided to postpone sampling my new purchase until I got home, as the convening of tasting panels gives a certain purpose to my gluten-free existence. Since it was curry night, I figured that even if the treats were a total disaster, the let-down might be leavened somewhat by the satisfaction of the preliminary feast and another exciting episode of Lost (we're at the one where John Locke utters the immortal line, 'This is not a democracy!' and the identity of Kate's baby is revealed: all gripping stuff, I'm sure you'll agree).

After the thrilling denouement I proffered my offering to the boys who, in a spirit of willingness, if not eagerness (at this point, they have even less hope than I that anything good can come of these sessions), agreed to tell me what they thought.

We each chose a cookie and did our best to be objective.

The Kid Squid's verdict was the first in. He declared his judgement after just one bite and subsequently begged to be excused from the exercise (the poor thing really has been worn down by months of my foolishness). The Squid likes his cookies on the soft and gooey side and was repulsed by the way his specimen 'instantly disintegrated'. 'It tastes strange to me,' he opined, before refusing to speak further on the subject and dashing to the kitchen for a piece of fudge, better known as 'a proper dessert.'

Sir was somewhat more detailed in his reporting, although his ruling was essentially the same. He thought the cookie was 'all right, but unsatisfying' and found 'no joy' in its consumption. The texture and flavor reminded him of an English digestive biscuit, which he attributed to the presence of oats in the batter. In my memory, digestive biscuits are things of great subtlety and beauty. These sadly, were not.

My own tasting notes recorded that the cookies were crisp and crumbly rather than chewy - in my opinion, a fatal flaw. The chocolate chips, such as they were, tasted of nothing at all. Additionally, the cookies did that g/f thing of sticking in my back teeth for all eternity - or at least, until I brushed my teeth later a few minutes later. The usual unwelcome aftertaste also lingered. I imagine that if one were to be so incautious as to eat an entire cookie, one's gastro-intestinal tract would be clogged with cement-like g/f flour for 36 hours, at least - but since I had only a small taste, I'll never know for sure.

That was one sacrifice that even I - servant of the gluten-free gods and an enquiring public - was unwilling to make.

Why Do We Eat?

What would you choose for your last meal?

This question is, in my opinion, a culinary Rorschach test of the most fiendish complexity. The answer reveals as much about a person's views on food as any I can think of (with the possible exception of 'White rice or brown?').

Pondering a response gets us thinking about what we value when we eat. Flavor? Technical skill on the part of the cook? Ambience? Company?

What responses do we expect in ourselves when we have a a good meal? A flood of emotion? The spark of memory? Do we want to be dazzled and impressed? Would we rather be comforted and coddled?

The question has been popping up a lot lately. First, there was the awesome Last Supper challenge on Top Chef last week. Then, there was a discussion in the New Yorker review of Modernist Cuisine, where John Lanchester wrote,

There is no taste inherently better than another ... tastes are not innate but learned and the acquisition of taste is a kind of dance between the person at the stove and the person at the table. The dance between the cook and the eater goes on longest at home, which is why we grow up loving a food from our first and most sustained encounter with it.

This view was echoed in a recent interview in which Grant Achatz (talking with Terry Gross) described how his signature dish of pheasant, shallots, cider and burning oak has been known to move customers to tears. Because it is mind-bendingly delicious? Because the artistry is so exquisite? No. It is because the aroma of wood-burning sometimes takes diners back to their childhoods, when they played in piles of crisp autumn leaves. To me, that's about as profound as food can be. I get it.

But I don't share it. I'm afraid none of this rhapsodic navel-gazing explains why I eat - or what I find worthy in food. Call me shallow if you like, but I do not eat to have a transcendent metaphysical experience. I eat because I'm hungry and because food tastes good. Sure, it can provide insight into an unfamiliar culture or another person's way of thinking. Yes, it can be eye-opening if the ingredients or techniques are unfamiliar. But ultimately for me it's about the functionality of food, all the way. Pillows full of cinnamon smoke? I understand the thinking, but I think I'd rather have a nourishing bowl of really good soup that tastes fantastic and fills me up, thank you.

I'm totally with Michelle Bernstein on this one. Nostalgic daydreams won't provide much comfort as I prepare for the hereafter, but let me relive my first exposure to revelatory restaurant dishes (and by that I do not necessarily mean expensive or elaborate) and I'll go quietly into the night.

After Bravo's Last Supper episode, Sir and I discussed at some length which meals we would choose to experience again. Astonishingly, it transpired that we agree on the time and place of our individual choice for The-Best-Meal-of-All-Time Blue Ribbon (although not the course; a mere detail in the grander scheme of things).

The time: July 1991. The place: Voros Kaviar (Red Caviar), a Russian bar on Ostrom Utka in Budapest. For the first time in our lives we ate borleves (a spiced wine soup); blinis with caviar and sour cream; fogash paprikash; and orange souffle with apricot sauce. 

The joint was on an unremarkable back street and hard to find; not elegant but not a dive, either. There weren't very many customers. I don't remember the decor, or the service, or the music playing in the background (although I know it was not gypsy violins, thankfully). Certainly none of the food prompted philosophical reveries or, indeed, striking emotions of any kind. But something about it was really, really good.  Up to that point in my life, that wine soup was the best thing I'd ever eaten; an epiphany about the possibility of flavor.

Would it taste as good again, if I had exactly the same soup in my own kitchen now? It's not an hypothetical question: the first thing I did the morning after my culinary awakening was drag Sir all over town so I could find a cookbook with the recipe in English. I was successful and have made wine soup many times since. It is always delicious. But is it the same? Not quite. It probably wouldn't be as good if I went back to Voros Kaviar and ordered the identical meal tomorrow. Food is never the same twice, no matter what Michelin-starred chefs claim. At any rate, a quick bit of online research has revealed that the bar no long exists as it once did: after the end of Communist rule it became Arany Kaviar (Gold Caviar) - and I can only imagine what it has become.

And that is why for my last meal I will need a time machine and a teleportation device. That will enable me to enjoy the shock of the new (as, ironically enough, it once was) all over again.

Fractured Amy's Last Meal

First course:

Borleves. Voros Kaviar, Budapest, Hung. (circa 1991).

Main course

Grilled loin of gemsbok. Arnold's restaurant, Cape Town, SA (present)

Sauteed spinach. Ristorante Tinelli, Edinburgh, UK (circa 1998)

Zafrani pulao kashmiri. Spice India, Allentown, PA (present)

Dessert

Pistachio macarons. Dalloyau, Paris (Bois de Boulogne) (circa 1988)

Can you believe it? Could it be true? Even though it would hardly matter at that stage in the proceedings, my entire meal would be unexpectedly, coincidentally, and gloriously gluten-free.

My conscience will be clear when I meet my maker.

Borleves (wine soup)
This recipe is word-for-word as it appears in Elek Magyar's classic text on Hungarian cooking, Az Inyesmester Szakacskonyve (The Gourmet's Cookbook), published in English by Corvina. The recipe appears on p. 61 between those for vajleves (butter soup) and zabpehelyleves (rolled oat soup). I guess leves means soup. The destructions don't specify red or white wine: at Voros Kaviar they made it with some sort of chardonnay-ish number and that is how I always do it.

• 1.5 pints good table wine (see above)
• 1 lemon
• 3 inches of cinnamon
• 2 cloves
• 8 egg yolks
• 8 tablespoons of sugar

Bring the wine to the boil, add the juice and chopped peel of the lemon and the spices. Beat the egg yolks and the sugar until fluffy, then strain the boiling soup onto them. Put back on the heat and beat with a whisk until thick. Strain and serve.

Molecules, Shmolecules

Did you know that molecular gastronomy is out? Neither did I.

Of course, in my neck of the woods it was never really in: this little pastoral corner of Pennsylvania has yet to experience so much as a glass of bubble tea, much less foams, airs, gelees, and other examples of alimentary arcana. That is why the gods invented spherification kits, the Port Authority Bus Terminal, and Boeing commercial jets. Between the three, I have been able to keep up with cutting edge culinary trends to some degree.

Still, it comes as a bit of a shock to hear that yet another foodie fad has come and gone without so much as a ripple caused in the Valley's lakes of ketchup and barbecue sauce.

According to John Lanchester and The New Yorker, it is now passe to use the term 'molecular gastronomy' when describing the sort of cooking pioneered by Nicholas Kurti back in the 60s and since taken up enthusiastically by such luminaries as Sts. Ferran Adria, Heston Blumenthal, Grant Achatz, and Wylie Dufresne. Not to mention *shudder* Marcel Vigneron on his new Syfy series, Marcel's Quantum Kitchen (DVRd but as yet unseen by me).  

I do understand the reasons why the descriptor has fallen into disfavor. All cooking is molecular, whether you are boiling rice or baking a gluten-free cake. The benefits of, say, copper bowls for whipping egg whites have been known (if not properly understood) since time immemorial. You can't cook without a certain appreciation of the chemical arts.

So 'molecular gastronomy' is now 'modernist cuisine'. The new designation may be more strictly accurate but it is also less self-explanatory. It emphasizes inaccessibility and mystique, to be sure, a break from locavore enthusiasts and ingredients mavens who value the simple (albeit flawless) presentation of fresh proteins and veg. Like many modernist movements, it widens the gulf between the steely-eyed professional and the wide-eyed amateur by stressing the sad truth that it is no longer possible for home cooks to emulate a fine restaurant meal at home, if the restaurant in question happens to have anti-griddles, rotary evaporators, and centrifuges.

All of which philosophizing brings me round to my current conundrum: how badly do I require a copy of the latest herniating foodie folio, Modernist Cuisine, by Nathan Myrhvold and his team?

When I last looked, this definitive account of the very latest developments in kitchen tech was unavailable for Kindle, which is too bad because the dead tree version weighs in at 46 pounds and 2,438 pages. Amazon is hawking it (or them, really, since the work is contained in five volumes) for the super-low discounted price of $461. There are currently no copies available to purchase online, so somebody must be buying. 

I would have to sell my first-born to be able to afford it, but that might be a reasonable sacrifice considering the riches contained within. Exquisite photographic cutaways of pot roast set-ups and cross sections of woks in action! Exhaustive explanations of low-acyl gellan and carboxymethyl cellulose! Why, I bet in the index one can even find Gluten (why it is evil) under G and Lactose (friend or foe?) under L.

Even without buying the book, I have uncovered in its reviews a most valuable piece of validating information. Remember January's caramelized white chocolate panna cotta episode? Of course you do. Turns out, I was not imagining that the choice of roasting vessel could double, or even triple, a recipe's estimated cooking time. According to Myrhvold et al (in their discussion of wet bulb temperatures) the choice of bakeware can cause variations up to thirty-six degrees. And don't forget humidity! At the time of my crisis I didn't even consider that as an operational nonconformance factor, but it can cause an additional variation of up to eighteen degrees. By my calculations, that's a possible error of fifty-four degrees, even without relocating oneself to a higher altitude!

I wouldn't have been so nonplussed and demoralized during my sea-level snafu if I'd had the wisdom of Modernist Cuisine by my side.

The Kid Squid had better beware.

Top Chef All-Stars, Episode 15: The Last Hurrah

I love the 'Last Supper' challenge on Top Chef.

The conceit is a simple one: our brave cheftestants must each cook a judge's choice for his final blowout.

The last time they did this challenge a couple of seasons ago, several of the cheftestants, presented with simple favorites like roast chicken, shrimp scampi, and tomatoes Provencal, misunderstood the brief. When one is tasked with cooking an individual's last request, one should not 'dig deep', add one's 'own spin', or decide to 'improve' a dish that has stood the test of generations. The judges want what they want for their last meals, and the chef who improvises does so at his peril.

If Marcus Samuelsson tells you to cook him salmon, spinach and potatoes you ought to know it's because that's what he grew up with, what reminds him of home and maybe even makes him feel loved. You do not then proceed to gild the lily with spinach three different ways and cream with everything. That misses the point. You do not suddenly decide to re-invent Eggs Benedict (Wylie Dufresne's selection that time around) with challah bread and your own version of hollandaise (there's a reason it's a classic, after all). When Jacques Pepin says he wants his squab with peas, dammit, that's what you give him. Carla's risky but oh-so-canny offering -  an utterly plain dish of fresh, simple, buttery baby peas - caused, I fancy, her subject to wipe a tear of joy away.

But if it's not the dish you remember, despondency is bound to follow.

Bravo's producers must have realized their error, because last night they didn't allow such room for misunderstanding. Instead of being presented with the name of the judge's terminal dish and then told to go for it, our challengers were able to talk at length to their Chosen Ones and find out the reasons their dishes were so beloved or (in Blais' words) 'get a good read on their soul'.

Why did Wolfgang Puck want goulash, spaetzle, and apple strudel? Because that was his favorite dish from a humble childhood, the one the family ate on special occasions. When describing his memories of this meal, the Austrian artiste's nostalgia was palpable: I imagined this was his birthday treat.

Morimoto's choice of miso soup, rice, pickles and sashimi? It's what his mother used to have ready for him when he got home after baseball practice. Antonia was right when she said this humanized the Great Man in a way that nothing else could. Soup? Pickles? How unexpected - and yet, what else could it have been?

Michelle Bernstein and her fried chicken with dumplings? This one was particularly interesting, I thought. Not because this American standby was reminiscent of her Jewish-Latin upbringing: quite the opposite, in fact. The dish was the centerpiece of one of her earliest restaurant memories: a time her father took her out for something new and gave her a glimpse of a wider world.

Poor Antonia, tasked with Morimoto's boyhood favorite, didn't stand a chance. Would it have been possible, even for the best chef on the planet, to steam rice just like his mother did? Or duplicate her miso soup? What an unattainable goal! With such simple choices (and culturally unfamiliar ones, too) there was little room for error and no room to hide. Chef's disappointment in Antonia's offering was evidenced by his quivering lower lip and downcast eyes: the soup suffered from excessive salt and the delicate raw tuna was too heavily spiced. Even had these been perfection, she made a fatal error by - horrors! - seasoning the rice. I imagine the Iron Chef wanted an utterly plain bowl of superbly-cooked gohan (his mother used to pick over every grain, apparently) - and it's difficult to see how any of our competitors could have pulled it off.

Goulash? Fried chicken? Apple strudel?

Child's play compared to a perfect bowl of rice. Or a bowl of rice prepared by your Okaa-san, which is - of course - the same thing.

Coming soon: I consider what makes food good and, with great angst and introspection, decide that I need a teleporter and a time machine if am to miracle up my last supper.

Exasper-jam

Those of you who know about the strong feelings I have for my precious Kindle will appreciate that it was a momentous occasion when I broke down and bought my first dead tree book in ages and ages. Yes, Campers, I am now the proud owner of a shiny new copy of Christine Ferber's Mes Confitures, full of famously imaginative (and dare I say it? terribly French) recipes and food porn of the very highest caliber. Hankering after some Strawberry with Pinot Noir; Fig and Gewurtztraminer with Pine Nuts; or White Peaches with Saffron? This is the book for you. It's definitely not your grandmother's jam, unless your grandmother was a boo-teek preserver of unusual refinement and sensibility.

Mes Confitures is also the most maddening cookbook I have ever used and only its great expense has kept me from flinging it against the wall in frustration (which is French for 'frustration').

Take Praline Milk Jam, a kitchen escapade from two weekends ago, before lactose was so rudely taken off the menu. Seven hours of my life were devoted to this crazy project and I still have no idea whether or not it was successful. Oh sure, I have delectable, creamy, hazelnut-scented confiture that reminds me heart-tuggingly of chilly afternoons in Montmartre, where on the pavements they sell candied nuts from giant copper kettles. But is the ambrosia filling my jars what Madame intended? C'est un mystere, vraiment.

Everything about this recipe was problematic, starting with the ingredients list.

Four and half cups of whole milk? Check. 

Six cups of sugar? Shocking, but check.

Nine ounces of ground almonds? Check.

Nine ounces of praline powder? Excuse me!?

A helpful footnote suggests that I might get some at my local bakery. Well, since I do not live in La France, local bakeries are not only rather thin on the ground, but I would bet my last euro not one of these hypothetical establishments would offer praline powder for sale, or even know what it was for that matter.

When I came to think about it, I realized I didn't even know what it was.

So I improvised. I roasted 2 cups of hazelnuts at 350 deg until they were toasty and delicious.

I whipped up a quick caramel by dissolving one and one-half cups of sugar in a few tablespoons of water and then cooking it until it was brown and bubbly.

I dumped in the hazelnuts and spread them out on an oiled baking sheet to cool.

I weighed out nine ounces of the praline lumps and whizzed them in my food processor until they were crushed to smithereens. Was praline powder the result? You be the judge - but it seemed likely.

Praline powder, check.

Madame then told me to put my milk and sugar into a double boiler.

I was instructed to cook it slowly over 'moderate heat' (in a double boiler, is there any other kind?), stirring occasionally. I was assured that after just four hours (!) the milk jam would develop the texture of thick honey and take on a lovely caramel blond color. Well, it wasn't thick as honey, but in my opinion the requisite hue had been achieved.

Check. Ish.

I added the praline powder to the jam and cooked it for another hour. At this point, I was sure I had gone wrong and didn't bother to take a picture of the resulting gloop, which consisted of a layer of hazelnuts stubbornly floating on top of the caramelized milk. It refused to emulsify no matter how energetically I stirred it. I feared that my entire Saturday had been spent in vain, but pressed on uwilling, as always, to admit defeat.

After the hour was up, I added the ground almonds (actually, almond flour I found in the freezer, no doubt a remnant of previous macaron and frangipane fabrication).

Miraculously, the mixture came together into thick delightfulness. I poured it into my favorite round-bottomed saucier and brought it to a boil.

At this point, I was told to decant the jam into jars. How many? Who knows? When one is being Ferberized, one is left in the dark about these crucial details. I estimated that it would be about four 8 oz. jars' worth, got it wrong, and had to prepare two more at the last second.

Check. But it was painful.

The final product tasted utterly delicious: nutty, not to sweet, and exceedingly complex. I discovered that if it's kept in the fridge, it gets a bit stiff (should it be kept in the fridge? who can tell!) but zapped in the microwave for 10 seconds, stirred, and zapped again, it turns creamy and spreadable - like a very adult, extremely sophisticated chocolate-free Nutella with bits in. Madame offers no description or photo of the final result, so I am providing one below:

Check.

But is it Praline Milk Jam? I guess we'll never know.

Addendum. Since I had more than the nine ounces of hazelnut praline lumps required for powderization, we snacked on handfuls of the unCuisinarted leftovers during movie night whilst enjoying Eric Bana chew the scenery as an evil Romulan. Both the praline and the scenery were way, way better than popcorn.

Bleeding Heart

Campers, today I have distressing news about quinoa, one of the few gluten-free grains remaining on my ever-diminishing roster of allowable foods.

But first, a few titillating factoids that I failed to uncover during my initial web research so very long ago:

• quinoa was initially popularized in the USA by NASA scientists (they really get around, those guys), impressed by its unparalleled combination of amino acids and other life-enhancing nutrients
• quinoa prices have tripled in the last five years (darn - I should have bought those futures when I had the chance)
• quinoa is, strictly speaking, a chenopod - and a close relative of beets and spinach (a chenopod, as we all know, is distinguished by its petal-less flowers)
• quinoa grows best on salt flats

Now to my latest crisis. Buried in this morning's New York Times, barely noticeable amidst headlines about Libya, Japan, Yemen, and other hotbeds of international intrigue and hullabaloo, was a story about a place not generally on my current events radar: Bolivia.

I hereby admit that I know next to nothing about Bolivia. My most recent exposure to this rather underappreciated (by me, anyway) plurinational state was during a family movie-marathon session with Stephen Soderbergh's political epic Che, the subject of which is one of the Kid Squid's most esteemed heroes. Believe me - despite the delicious presence of Benicio del Toro, only a mother's love could have kept me sitting there for the four and one-half hours required to chart the great revolutionary's rise and fall.

Che would no doubt be discomposed by the circumstances surrounding capitalism's most recent South American casualties. It turns out that while quinoa prices have been climbing and Bolivia's export of the grain (sorry, chenopod) has been burgeoning, home consumption of the miracle food has plummeted by 34%. This is because rich American folks like me, who eat quinoa because it's cool and groovy and gluten free, have driven the price of quinoa beyond the reach of those who previously relied upon it as a staple. The foreign aid outfits who first organized quinoa growers to export their crops are now wringing their hands over the unforeseen consequences: higher profits for producers, to be sure, but at the cost of increased childhood malnutrition in quinoa-growing areas.

Oh, the guilt! In January I suffered torments over my failure to support organic beef producers in Paraguay - but that culpability was as nothing compared to being a prime cause of hunger in Salinas de Garci Mendoza.

I guess quinoa's another item that's off my dietary docket. Whatever is a politically conscious, hand-wringing, card-carrying gluten-freedom fighter to do?

Falernum Frenzy

DMR, currently gallivanting around on the high seas, has promised to purchase for me a bottle of falernum upon landfall in Curacao or Oranjestad. Since she won't return Stateside for some time yet, and the Diva and I required this Caribbean nectar for our Cheese and Cocktails carnival yesterday, I was obliged to make my own. After all, you can't make a Rum Swizzle without falernum, can you?

I followed the procedure laid out when first researching the ingredients required for our island drinks: my initial concern that the recipe's stipulation of forty cloves was a typo diminished when I discovered that, when you come to pile 'em up, forty isn't all that many.

First, I combined the lime zest (from four limes rather than the called-for nine: clearly, Paul Clarke is an eccentric gazillionaire for whom money is no object); toasted slivered almonds; julienned fresh ginger; and toasted cloves in a bowl.

I added white rum to cover and let it sit over night. The next day, the aromas wafting from the bowl were staggering:

I shook superfine sugar and water in a big Ball jar (everybody should have several of these around the house whether they are jam-makers or not - they are unbelievably useful for a whole host of sins); added the strained rum mixture; almond extract; and some lime juice.

The final result was not to be believed. Aromatic, spicy, slightly sweet (but not too much) - we all agreed it was delicious straight off a spoon. I felt like a bootlegger when I decanted the hooch into my Mason jar -  an added frisson courtesy of the estimable Jarden Corporation.

Combined with dark rum, amber rum, orange juice, pineapple juice, and a splash of Angostura bitters, I had heaven in a glass.

The Diva and I pondered other uses to which the magical potion might be put. Heated and reduced slightly, it would be an excellent poaching liquid for pears or tropical fruit such as pineapple. Add some heat (cayenne, perhaps), and it would make a mysterious deglazing liquid for pork. It might serve as a useful thinning agent (and added kick) for banana jam. Plus, I suppose, you could use it for any number of Tiki cocktails if such things are your style: I think I would prefer the traditional nineteenth-century garnish of wormwood bitters rather than umbrellas and coconut shells, but that's just me.

Of course, cocktail contemplation was only half our purpose and we did indeed produce two pounds of very fine mozzarella di Jersey mucca. We did some experimentation and learned some new tricks, but I believe the most salutary lesson involved sobriety and the importance of labelling one's ingredients. It transpires that citric acid dissolved in water; lipase dissolved in water; and rennet dissolved in water are indistinguishable from one another, especially when the casarae have foolishly employed three identical bowls. Astonishingly enough, after a round of Bermudian coolers it can be a tad challenging to keep one's mis en place organized, and we're pretty sure we got the rennet and citric acid mixed up. Never mind: the snafu turned out to have made no discernable difference to the quality of the final formaggio, despite some visually worrying developments along the way.

After all, how can you go wrong with cheese and cocktails?

Tonight: I cook dinner for a refugee from the Fukushima nuclear crisis and find out for myself just how close the planet came to going *phoom*

Cheese and Cocktails

Everything is in readiness for my gala Caribbean Cocktail and Cheesemaking Convention. I have on the premises:

• 1 fresh bottle of Galliano
• 1 bottle of Gosling's Black Seal rum
• 1 bottle of Bacardi  Gold
• 1 bottle of common garden Bacardi Superior
• 1 bottle of Bermuda Banana Liqueur
• a few cartons of fresh orange and pineapple juice
• 1 jar of house-produced falernum: heady, spiced, and indescribable 
• 3 gallons of raw milk from contented Jersey cows
• various cheesemaking accoutrements, including lipase, rennet, and citric acid

It seems only fitting that I should celebrate my new quack-mandated lactose-free condition with some home-made ricotta and mozzarella, the most lactose-rich products imaginable. After all, what's life without a little danger thrown into the mix?

Gotta go - I think I hear the Diva now!

Squash in Space

Campers, I have only just arisen from the Second Empire fainting couch upon which I have lain, suffering palpitations, ever since Mike Isabella won the Conch Challenge on Top Chef All-Stars. Even a constant supply of cold compresses for my temples, ferried to and fro by the ever-loyal Moleskine, was insufficient to calm the nerves set a-jangle by the catastrophe. I cannot bring myself to write further of this distressing matter except to say that next week he better be gone, gone, gone. My mental composure depends upon it.

Fortunately, I now have joyful news to impart.

One of my jars of Very Bitter Lime and Meyer Lemon Marmalade recently fetched up in sunny Alabama, where it was gratefully received by My Contact at NASA, better known as The Muscles. Gratefully received, that is, until he let me know in no uncertain terms that the vacuum seal on the jar was defeating his extensor carpi ulnaris, extensor digitorum and considerable engineering know-how.

His disappointment was my delight, however, as I had been uncertain how well my seals would hold up to the inevitable bouncing and jostling experienced during a week in the back of a UPS truck. How pleased I was to discover that the marmalade did not leak out all over the bubble wrap and packing peanuts!

The Muscles was silent on the torquage eventually required to pop the vacuum on his jar. I assume he used a Class 1 lever to prise open the seal (I personally swear by my priceless Japanese paring knife with the watered steel blade) and Archimedes provided us with the handy equation M=Fd long ago - but there are still too many unknowns to calculate my marmalade moment.

I  may research this matter in due course. In the meanwhile, I am gratified that my vacuums have been endorsed by NASA and look forward to the day when I am invited by the Administration's food scientists to provide jam for spaceflight breakfasts. Having pondered which variety to submit for Mars mission approval, I have decided upon butternut squash, one of my most recent creations. Winter squash is as American as, well, pumpkin pie - and so evocative of burning leaves in the Fall, harvest feasts, snowy sleigh rides, and cosy nights by the fire: all things, I assume, that will be in short supply in outer space. I think my butternut jam will be just the thing for astronauts far from home.

Space Jam (after Christine Ferber)

• two and one-quarter pounds (net) peeled and julienned butternut squash. I needed an hour and fifteen minutes to accomplish this.
• the juice of four big oranges
• the juice of one lemon
• four and one-half cups of sugar
• two vanilla beans. I re-used the same organic $3 ones that have flavoured my preserves for weeks now, and they are still going strong.
• 4 fl oz water

The first day, put the julienned squash and the water in a big bowl and let it sit overnight.

The second day, decant the lot into a big pan and add all the other ingredients. Slowly bring to a simmer, making sure the sugar melts. Do not let it boil before this happens!

Cover with plastic wrap and let it sit overnight again.

On the third and last day, bring the mixture to a boil and cook to 220 deg F or until it passes the gel test.

Pour into warm jars and process for 10 minutes. The yield is something like four eight-ounce jars, which by my calculations will feed two hungry astronauts for only a few weeks.

Better make extra.

All is Not Lost

Having calmed down a bit after yesterday's lack-of-lactose conniption fit, I made myself a calming cup of Earl Grey and added a splash of almond milk. It isn't too terrible a combination, actually: the mild almond flavor complements the bergamot in a not displeasing way. Thus fortified, I decided to do a little research to see if I could find any loopholes in the quacks' latest pronouncement regarding the extirpation of dairy products from my already rather restricted diet.

Suspicious of internet resources as I am these days, I decided to bypass the computer and go straight to the oracle - Harold McGee and his encyclopedic red-covered reference, On Food and Cooking. And boy-oh-boy, am I glad I did! It took only a few minutes' concentrated reading to discover that I can totally get around the medicos' latest craziness without compromising the letter of their law or my own longevity.

I decided to go back to first principles to find out what lactose actually is. I have been so preoccupied by gluten protein chains these days I have given hardly any thought to other edible molecules - an oversight I sought to rectify at once. Turns out, lactose is a disaccharide (composed of the two simple sugars glucose and galactose) that accounts for about 5% of cow's milk, by weight. Our favorite milk these days, which comes to us raw courtesy of a local Jersey herd, is about 4.9% lactose. If I could get my hands on some reindeer milk or fin whale milk, I'd be laughing at only 2.8% or 1.3%, respectively. (Note to self: must lobby Wegmans' influential buyers ASAP for these necessary additions to the dairy case). But it's all academic, really, since drinking milk straight makes me gag and that is something I choose to do as rarely as possible. A splash of moo in coffee or tea is about as close as I get to the unadulterated article and I suppose that's why the good lord invented soy and almond substitutes.

But as I have repeated, vociferously, to anyone within earshot, there are other dairy-derived products without which my life will be diminished to pointlessness. Brie! Milkshakes! Organic super-yogurt! Butter! Anything with cream in it! These are all things that make a gluten-free existence worth tolerating.

I delved further into McGee's herniating tome and hit upon my first piece of really exceptional news on page 44. There is hardly any lactose in live cultured yogurt! This is because the sugars have already been handily digested by wee microbes who break them down into lactic acid, hooray. As long as one eats natural yogurt (that is, yogurt that has not been re-injected with milk-stuff to make it thick and creamy) lactose is not a problem. Hooray again - I can still eat breakfast in the morning. Do I see yogurt-making in my future now? I may have just discovered a whole new line of enquiry - additional note to self.

I soon found another fact to cheer me: cheese (especially the sorts of cheeses we have in our fridge and that I will soon learn to make during my fact-finding tour of sunny Shelburne Falls, MA) also has so little lactose as to make no difference. This is because most of the lactose is to be found in the whey, which is drained off during manufacturing - and because more industrious wee microbes feast on the remaining sugars as the cheese sits percolating over the months and years. Third hooray of the day. My aged cheddar and triple-cremes are safe for consumption after all. Fresh cheeses such as mozzarella and ricotta are more problematic, but since I've already established my willingness to be a good girl in other respects, I think we can let that slide.

Butter. See cheese, above. Most of the lactose disappears during production. Cream. See butter. In fact, somewhat counterintuitively in my opinion, the higher the fat content of a milk product (full fat milk vs. 2% milk, for example), the lower the lactose level. Was there ever more felicitous dietary news in the annals of culinary history?

This is just about the happiest outcome I could have expected and renews the sparkle on my alimentary future.

And the praline milk jam I tended patiently for the better part of seven hours on Saturday, too. 

Coming soon: I discover that my home-made preserves are suitable for travel into outer space.

Insult Added to Injury

A few days ago I went for coffee with the Cycling Scientist and we had a good old-fashioned two-hour chin-wag.

This event was notable due to two unrelated factors:

1. The work ethic for which I am justifiably famous generally precludes my taking time off (playing hooky is another way of looking at it) during business hours.
2. I had soy milk in my tall latte.

The first gave rise to a mild taste of guilt that was soon assuaged by the accompanying delicious gossip. The second one, however, has far graver implications for my lifestyle at present - and has me beating my forehead against the keyboard in dismay while threatening wholesale my rather tenuous grip on culinary contentment.

Yes, Campers, the quacks have declared I must now be lactose free.

Taken together with my weekend pasta setback, this latest bolt from the blue is almost too much to bear. I am seriously thinking of emigrating to - oh, I don't know - the South Pole, where there are no doctors to boss me around and interfere with my few remaining reasons to live.

Almost exactly six months to the day since my anti-grain grief got going, I have the basic principles of this gluten-freedom fighting thing pretty much conquered - a bold statement, granted, but one to which I trust these scribblings will attest. I admit freely that one of the great saving graces of all this wheatless brouhaha has been the comfort and succour of dairy goods, luscious gifts from our noble bovine friends. No cake allowed? Fine. I'll eat panna cotta and creme brulee and macarons with buttercream instead. No pasta? I can still enjoy creamy sauces folded into risotto. No bread for my preserves? That's OK: cheese alone makes an excellent foil for chutneys and tangy marmalades.

But now ... well, now it's getting just plain silly. I have decided to stage a mutiny and mount a campaign of passive non-compliance - after all, a girl can only be pushed so far.

Soy milk in my latte? OK, I can just about manage that. Almond milk in my tea? I guess that's not too big a problem.

But breakfast without yogurt? There would be no point in getting out of bed in the morning. Cancellation of my gala Caribbean Cocktail and Cheese-Making Convention and trip to the Cheese Queen's lair next month? I'd rather be dipped in camembert and buried in an anthill. Forced to forswear cream fillings in meringues and gluten-free profiteroles? You might as well take a whirring Cuisinart blade straight to my vitals. These sacrifices are too dear a price to pay in order to [in medical parlance] 'see what happens'.

I'm putting my foot down and drawing a line in the sand. The fates and medicine men can do as they will: I'm damned if I'll go dairy-free.

Back to Work

Today I have been checking the NYTimes and BBC websites rather more often than is good for me, eager as I am for news of the unfolding crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. Pressure vessel steel is a material that comes into my place of work from time to time, and I know something of the dedication and seriousness with which nuclear engineers and technicians pursue their vocations. As one who doesn't even like to share the same laboratory space with a tank of liquid nitrogen when it starts a-hissing, I have great respect for the heroic efforts of those Tokyo Electric Power employees going about their dangerous and vital work. I offer them a hearty Ganbatte, kudasai! and implore them to harden their navels as they carry out their onerous responsibilities.

It is in no way meant to trivialize the risk to them (and to all of us, frankly), when I tell you that I suffered a small meltdown of my own recently in the relative safety of my own domestic kitchen. More precisely, I experienced a meltdown in my own feverish brain.

I am speaking, of course, of my latest wheatless pasta debacle.

Campers, you are all aware that before the onset of my gluten-freedom fighting, pasta was the go-to carb of choice chez Fractured Amy. Some of my earliest experiments involved ersatz noodle substitutes, with predictably disastrous results. Anything that could go wrong with pasta pretty much did. Some of it turned to glue. Some of it turned to mush. Some of it disappeared out the ventilation fan and some down the kitchen sink. I have not tasted one piece of toothsome al dente deliciousness in almost six months.

But I had come to understand that there are many ways to enjoy flavorsome sauces and chewy textures without resorting to boxes of Barilla. Brown rice! Risotto! Polenta! Potatoes! I accepted my lot and reached - if not a state of contentment - at least a state of mental and emotional equilibrium where I no longer felt that a life without pasta was a life not worth living.

It was somewhat reluctantly, therefore, that I was sucked back into the melee by one of my mysterious gratis issues of Bon Appetit magazine. In a special supplement on gluten-free diets (they're all the rage, apparently - I am nothing if not a trendsetter) I came across a blurb shilling for Bionaturae pasta, which comes from Italy (where they know a thing or two about pasta) and not Canada (where, I'm sorry to say, they clearly don't). I decided I needed to get some post haste. Since Bionaturae products are not available locally, I had to wait for one of my infrequent expeditions to Whole Foods to secure a few crinkly fresh sacci. I had to wait even longer before trying the noodles, since the exigencies of cheese-making and jam fabrication precluded all other gluten-free experimentation for several weeks.

So it was with nerves tingling with anticipation (and not a little dread) that I finally addressed my last chance of happiness. During the elapsed time between discovery (some time in January, I think) and tasting I had somehow worked myself up into the belief that peerless pasta would soon be part of my life again. Visions of thick ragu, carbonara, puttanesca, and gremolata danced before me - a possible future tantalizingly within reach now that there was Bionaturae (recommended by the editors of Bon Appetit!)  in the house. My state of serene philosophical acceptance evaporated like so much super-heated cooling water.

Upon initial examination of Bionaturae's offering, I was not totally discouraged by what I found. The noodles were a reassuring wheat color - not the bright yellow of corn pasta or the muddy tones of brown rice and multi-grain varieties. Perusal of the ingredients list did less to reassure me, however: rice flour, rice starch, potato starch, and soy flour are all common in the brands I have learned to loathe. The fact that the product was billed as being free of genetically-engineered substances cheered me not at all.

I boiled up some water and cooked the recommended two ounces (Sir and the Kid Squid, having lost patience with my pasta preoccupation long ago, chose Barilla instead - and I can't really blame them, I suppose).

Do I need to tell you what happened next? Can you not guess?

Despite my watching the bubbling pot like a hawk and testing the rigatoni for doneness, like, every thirty seconds, I missed its window of al dente exquisiteness (if it ever achieved such a state, which I doubt). The final dish, dressed simply in tomato sauce with some freshly-grated parmigiano reggiano, was somehow soggy, spongy and powdery all at the same time: sort of like licking a damp plaster wall, I would imagine. I ate two bites, sighed deeply, and consigned the rest to the bin under the sink.

Serves me right for tempting fate, I suppose. But now it's a long road back to tranquility.

Looks like pasta.
Tastes like library paste laced with rice flour.
Thank you, Bon Appetit,
for another stunning recommendation.

Hearth and Home

I am struggling with this post.

I did a fair amount of bloggable cooking this weekend (bloggable by my own humble estimation, that is), but now that it comes to time to record my adventures for posterity I find I am having trouble with tone. I want to write about two new jam sessions and a fraught encounter with an heretofore unfamiliar brand of gluten-free rigatoni, but I feel that, on this occasion, the irreverence with which I usually approach such subjects is all wrong. Tonight I am not experiencing any of the emotions that typically accompany gluten-free experimentation. I do not feel humorous, indignant, belligerent, or even out-right annoyed. I feel neither triumphant jubilation nor disheartened defeat. Rather, I am feeling thoughtful and quiet and have an overwhelming wish to leave my preserving and pasta posts for another day.

I suppose this is because of what I was thinking about - and what was happening around me - while I worked in my kitchen on Saturday. As I stirred and tended my preserving pan, Sir was trying to find out news of friends and colleagues in Tokyo. How were they? Were they safe? Were they with their families? As accounts came in of unfolding events and Sir forwarded scraps of news from the next room where he sat glued to his laptop, it seemed banal - trivial, even - in the face of others' overwhelming hardship to be spending time attempting a new recipe (even a recipe for preserves as splendid as the praline milk jam to which I was devoting the better part of the day).

But what else was there to do? I am not so self-aggrandizing that I thought for one moment events in Japan had anything to do with me in a personal way. But Sir and I feel a deep connection to this proud and puzzling country. We were in Tokyo for both the Kobe earthquake and the Aum Shinrikyo sarin gas attacks (the Kid Squid was only tiny then), and felt the same anxiety over those events that all parents of small children do. We couldn't help but suppose what it must be like there now.

This latest catastrophe, of course, is whole orders of magnitude worse. Unimaginably worse. As Sir waited to hear from a friend who had left work to attempt the hour's train journey home to his small daughter (he arrived safely, eventually), we naturally discussed our times in Tokyo and how they had been among the happiest of our lives. We pictured (as far as our feeble imaginations would allow) what was happening to people we knew and considered, selfishly, how fortunate we were not to be there now. We thought about the dangers our friends were facing (and face still) and felt safe, tucked away in our very benign corner of the world. We were worried, of course: but it was the sort of worry that is characterized by great distance and a complete inability to do or contribute anything even remotely helpful.

Is it such a bad thing to tend to one's pots and pans at such times? I concluded that it is not. What celebrates more completely the security and comfort of being surrounded by family and those we love than cooking for them - especially when we are cooking (just as those who came before us cooked) things that take time and care and long hours of attention at the stove?

And I guess that is why I am not feeling choleric, or irascible, or even virtuous and self-satisfied - the way I usually do after a day or two spent in the kitchen.

I feel reflective and thankful.

And mournful - but hopeful, too - for a country that feels a little like home to me.

Two Degrees of Separation

I have written previously how Carla Hall, of winning pot pie and lettuce wrap fame, and I are the best of friends. I mean this, of course, in the sense that I know somebody who met her once. I am reliably informed that she is every bit as classy and terrific as she appears (well, appeared, sadly) on Top Chef.

Handkerchief clutched in my trembling hand, I was perusing what the Bravo blogs had to say about her untimely departure from the Bahamas when I discovered from The Heimlich Maneuver that Carla's Alchemy catering company in Silver Springs, MD is currently being rebranded.

Intrigued, I clicked on the link thoughtfully provided and discovered, to my dismay, that Alchemy by Carla Hall is now a cookie-making business! What an insult! What an outrage! I found this commercial decision depressing for many, many reasons, not least of which is the tragic fact that I haven't eaten a cookie worth the name in five months. I felt the betrayal deeply and was forced to eat a KIND cranberry/almond bar (all natural! certified gluten-free! dairy-free! loaded with anti-oxidants! doesn't taste like packing material!) to restore my equilibrium.

Naturally, the news wounded me to the core. But ever curious - like a moth approaching one of those horrific electric zappers - and in a mood of desperate self-punishment more usually associated with Dostoevsky or Ingmar Bergman, I clicked on Cookie Collection to read Carla's tantalizing descriptions of little bundles of love made with organic sugar, European-style butter, couverture chocolate, artisanal cheeses, seasonal fruits, and gluten-laden flour. Sniffling softly, I prepared to tap on the little x and close the window forever when something drew my attention to the how-to-order section at the bottom of the page.

What did I spy with my little eye?

Pecan shortbread with vanilla salt; Hawaiian wedding cookies; and oatmeal, cranberry, and white chocolate creations are available gluten-free upon request!

How could I have doubted her? My heroine proves her worth once again.