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Man, I'm sorry I missed most of this football season. I'm totally going to this bonfire! (For those non-Princetonians - there's a bonfire if we beat both Harvard and Yale. It happened this year for the first time in I think something like 14 years. Bonfire!!!!)
Meanwhile, we had the Firehazards reunion this weekend. There was singing and food and fun stuff.
Hit the chocolate show today. It wasn't as impressive as last year, actually - almost all bar chocolate this year. Last year there were two or three wineries - this year just one. A lot fewer truffles. And no confectioners. Chuckro was disappointed - he was really looking forward to getting a box of raspberry creams.
But we did get to two interesting cooking demos - one for a pumpkin chocolate gateau with sage oil and sea salt (which sounds a little odd, but was delicious), the other for a flourless chocolate cake with a white chocolate cheesecake mousse and a cranberry chutney. We got recipes for both. It was kind of an interesting contrast. The first was totally the guy showing off. He melted white and dark chocolate and dyed the white stuff orange, and then spray painted the cake with the two different chocolates. It was this incredibly overly elaborate presentation that was completely unnecessary. The recipe specifies a certain percentage of cocoa mass and calls for a sugar I've never even heard of. And where are you supposed to get grape seed oil? The lady who did the second was extremely practical, with a attitude of "here's something that's elaborate, but you can totally do with stuff in your house". She specified her favorite brands of organic Nantucket cranberries (because she's from Nantucket), but said Ocean Spray frozen berries work just as well. She gave suggestions on chocolate brands, but said to use whatever your supermarket has. She specifically said that she never uses a double-boiler to melt chocolate (just pop it in the microwave) because he kitchen is usually too humid anyway and she doesn't want to add steam that'll keep chocolate from tempering. Most fancy cooks seem to treat the idea of nuking chocolate instead of using a microwave as heresy. Anyway, both desserts were amazingly good (although the second was a little more mainstream - I think only a certain subset of our friends would enjoy pumpkin, sage, and salt in their dessert). And I think the recipes can be modified so they're elaborate but possible.
Meanwhile, we had the Firehazards reunion this weekend. There was singing and food and fun stuff.
Hit the chocolate show today. It wasn't as impressive as last year, actually - almost all bar chocolate this year. Last year there were two or three wineries - this year just one. A lot fewer truffles. And no confectioners. Chuckro was disappointed - he was really looking forward to getting a box of raspberry creams.
But we did get to two interesting cooking demos - one for a pumpkin chocolate gateau with sage oil and sea salt (which sounds a little odd, but was delicious), the other for a flourless chocolate cake with a white chocolate cheesecake mousse and a cranberry chutney. We got recipes for both. It was kind of an interesting contrast. The first was totally the guy showing off. He melted white and dark chocolate and dyed the white stuff orange, and then spray painted the cake with the two different chocolates. It was this incredibly overly elaborate presentation that was completely unnecessary. The recipe specifies a certain percentage of cocoa mass and calls for a sugar I've never even heard of. And where are you supposed to get grape seed oil? The lady who did the second was extremely practical, with a attitude of "here's something that's elaborate, but you can totally do with stuff in your house". She specified her favorite brands of organic Nantucket cranberries (because she's from Nantucket), but said Ocean Spray frozen berries work just as well. She gave suggestions on chocolate brands, but said to use whatever your supermarket has. She specifically said that she never uses a double-boiler to melt chocolate (just pop it in the microwave) because he kitchen is usually too humid anyway and she doesn't want to add steam that'll keep chocolate from tempering. Most fancy cooks seem to treat the idea of nuking chocolate instead of using a microwave as heresy. Anyway, both desserts were amazingly good (although the second was a little more mainstream - I think only a certain subset of our friends would enjoy pumpkin, sage, and salt in their dessert). And I think the recipes can be modified so they're elaborate but possible.
