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The best use of four and a half days.

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via thisiscolossal.com

by Olga Ziemska

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Pea purée, orzo, ramps, favas, watermelon radish, poached egg, mint.

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Don't think I've ever posted any pictures of my dog here, which is a shame, because he's a handsome dude. More polaroids from the 195.

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Went to a park downtown to take some pictures with Brian and Mark. Yes, the lens cap is on.

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via npr.org

This is a hell of a photograph.

"A fisherman pulls shad from the Potomac River in the early 1900s"

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These are a few of the photos from my quick road trip to St. Louis last week. Cleaned scan dust better on some than others. The cat isn't from the trip, but I like her. Shot with a Mamiya 645.

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via kitchenknifeforums.com

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Finally decided to buy a whole fish. Tongue kissed before he had to get got.

Broiled Spanish mackerel, verde sauce, seared radish, fried tarragon.

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Rainbow trout, frisée with toasted sesame vinaigrette, quick pickled hon shimeji, radish and apple slaw, juniper aka miso broth, castelvetrano olive, miso butter toast.  

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I've always loved flight. The science, the aesthetics of birds and airplanes, getting on an early-morning flight to go somewhere far away...all of it. And ornithopters are particularly enchanting.

I came across some works of an artist named Dukno Yook and they reminded me how mesmerizing a mechanical bird can be. Elegant and fun stuff.

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via izakoo.blogspot.com

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Jay-Z_–_Can't_Knock_the_Hustle_ft._Mary_J._Blige_(Unplugged).mp3 Listen on Posterous

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Lately, all I do is cook. Cook at work then leave and cook at home. Cook on my day off. Cook at school (sort of). 

There have been times in my life when I've uttered the words, "All I want is to have more time to make food." Well, right now at least, all my time is time to make food. And I'm good with that. Maybe I'll be living on a steady stream of fast food and meal replacement bars in a month, but for the time being, the kitchen is probably where you'll find me.

A few weeks ago, I made a carrot purée that I thought turned out pretty well. Since then, I've been playing with turning it into a foam to use as a light sauce. I used the foam (along with a base of a thicker carrot purée) with a makeshift sous vide chicken roulade and thought it turned out well:

Here's what I did for the most recent, most successful version:

Ingredients:

• 5g butter
• 450g carrot, peeled and roughly chopped
• 1 clove garlic, half-way crushed
• 4-8 fl.oz. stock 
• .5 tsp ground fenugreek
• .25 tsp ground cardamom 
• white pepper
• skim milk
• 6-7g sheet gelatin
• blender
• cheese cloth
• stick blender

Method:

Melt the butter in a small sauce pan over low heat. Add carrots, garlic clove, and a large pinch of salt and stir it all up a little. Put the lid on the pan and let everything steam in the butter and the juices that start to come out of the carrots. Let it go for 5-10 minutes...shake the pan a few times to make sure nothing is sticking/browning on the bottom. I wanted to keep the whole joint as orange as possible, so didn't want the carrots to pick up any color.

Add 2oz of stock and the spices to the pan, stir everything, then put the lid back on. Simmer/steam everything until the carrots are really tender. Stir occasionally. Tried to not let the carrots go pale, but still wanted them pretty soft (my current blender is a piece of shit).

When the carrots are where you want them, get rid of the garlic clove and transfer the rest of the stuff to a blender and do some work. Add stock as needed to make a nice loose purée. I probably used about 3 or 4 more ounces. 

Scoop half the purée out of the blender and into a fine mesh strainer lined with three layers of damp cheese cloth. Don't be stingy with the size of your cheese cloth sheets because the next step is bringing the corners together and squeezing/wringing the orange goop through all three sheets and into a clean container. When you've got all you can out of the first batch, open the cloth, scrape out the pulp as best you can, and repeat with the second half of the purée.

You should be left with a mix of carrot juice and super-smooth purée (I had about 12 fl.oz. of this stuff). Wash your first pan and put this stuff back in it over very low heat. Add 6 oz, or roughly half your volume of purée's worth, of skim milk. Stir.

While everything warms up in the pan, bloom your sheet gelatin in some cold water for a few minutes. Then wring it out and add it to the pan. Stir well to make sure it dissolves completely.

Turn off the heat and let everything cool down to closer to room temp. The gelatin won't do it's job stabilizing the foam if it's hot (though agar agar will, so I may try that next time). Hit the stuff with an immersion blender until you have a nice frothy layer on top.

That's your foam. Sauce away.

Results:

I was pretty pleased with it. It is intensely carroty and tastes very nice. I love cardamom with carrots, and even though I only used a little bit, it was a good addition.

I took a few pictures to show how the foam held up at different times:

Immediately after spooning onto an empty plate:

About 4 minutes later, there are still some fairly large bubbles:

After almost 15 minutes, most of the big bubbles are gone, but it's still extremely aerated and light. It's viscous enough to keep shape when I drag a spoon through it, but still soft and not too sticky (see bottom right): 

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I wrote a post that made it sound like I knew what I wanted to do with my life.

If you happened to read that and didn't knowingly chuckle, you should have.
One forward, two back.

Cooking for now and staying open to everything. Even advertising.

Trying to push myself.

Advice, suggestions welcome.

Things are good, though. I'm lucky enough to feel a little bad about it.
I think I need a camping trip to clear/cloud my head.

(another B. LoPiccolo joint)

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• listen to some new music 
• set up cloud 
• read non-food books 
• draw 
• learn javascript 
• organize my bookmarks 
• keep my apps updated 
• stop using safari
• clean my desk 
• get rid of shit 
• make some chicken stock 
• get back in shape 
• keep my friends who are far away as close as I can 
• chill with my dog more 
• spend more time with my sister 
• try to be content but not too content 
• in other words, see what happens and try not to fuck up good things but don't hesitate to fuck up not good things 
• learn CoD maps 
• cook better 
• run without screwing up my knee 
• send people things that might make them happy 
• eat at Campo 
• drink the big ass bottle of bourbon my mom bought me 
• don't be such a jerk 
• dance like nobody's watching

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