The Sour Dough

Sorta Food Related…It’s Paris After All!

May 6th, 2008 by breadchick

I’m off to Paris again!

I found out yesterday that a project I’m working on is going to “require” (he-he) me to be in Paris from June 9 - 12; meaning I’ll be spending my 41st birthday in Paris this year. To celebrate, I’ve decided I’m flying over on Friday June 7th and spending the weekend on my own. You ask, what could be wrong with any of this? Well, I started booking my travel this morning and found that my hotel where I always stay when I’m in Paris has no rooms.

Here is my dilemma: Do I book another hotel in the area like my second choice, where I’ve had pleasant stays before or do I explore a new neighborhood? (An apartment is out of the question as part of my stay will be a business expense picked up by my client.)

The cons to exploring a new neighborhood are:

• The 15th is “my” neighbourhood when I am in Paris. It is where I know the green grocers, the bakeries, where to buy my cheese and wine and where to go to get a late night bowl of onion soup. I love this part of Paris and the thought of being in Paris and not staying in the area pains me.
• Hotels in Paris can be a nightmare. Luckily, I have only had one or two bad experiences in Paris before I found my little gem of a hotel on the border of the 15th and 6th arrondisments. But, I really don’t want to spend my special birthday weekend hassling with an awful hotel.
• See #1

The pros to exploring a new neighbourhood are:

• Paris is a city of hidden gems. I am always afraid that because I am so comfortable on the Left Bank (I’m a Rive Gauche Girl) that I am missing all the special places the Right has to offer. Yes, I’ve explored the neighborhoods of the other side but you really don’t get to know a neighborhood in Paris until you spend your nights and early mornings there. Once the sun goes down and the shops close or before the shops open, a neighborhood has such a different feel. I love walking down to a small store at 8pm to pick up one last bottle of wine to go with the half a baguette and hunk of cheese I bought earlier in the evening. I like to explore local shops and sit in the local bistro for a late supper. Perhaps I’d find that I like the 4th just as well as I like the 6th if I booked a hotel there. Maybe the 16th is every bit as friendly as the 15th. I don’t know because I’ve never been in either of those neighborhoods except to sight see and maybe have dinner with friends.
• A few people in my life know I am working to retire to Paris for at least part of the year. Not that I’m retiring any time soon but if it all goes according to plan, I will be retiring in about ten years. Everything I’ve read about retiring to Paris says to try a long term stay in as many of the neighborhoods as possible to find the one that fits you best. I could consider the week I’m going to be there trying on a new neighborhood to see if I like it any better than the 15th (which is where I was planning on living).

So, what do you think, book a hotel in my usual neighborhood or strike out and test the waters in a different part of Paris?

Where do you stay when you are in Paris? Tell me why I should try your neighborhood!

Posted in Paris | Permalink | |

Blogging By Mail: Little Things That Equal a Huge Pick-Me-Up

May 4th, 2008 by breadchick

I have been remiss of much of late but mostly I have been remiss in writing here. I wish I could tell you that has been because I’ve been off traveling to some exotic locale where I ate wonderful meals and mingled with the most interesting of people but, unfortunately, the truth is rather boring… I’m still working stupid, crazy hours at work (averaging 60+ hours for the past three weeks) and when I’m not working, I’ve had a few personal things that have kept me from The Sour Dough and the kitchen. But, with a little luck and a few more days of these hours, it looks like I may have weathered the worst of the storm.

There have been a few bright spots the past few weeks however and one of the brightest was in the form a little box that traveled all the way from Down Under and arrived on a day when I most needed a pick me up!

Even the very neglected LB enjoyed receiving the package and helped me rip open the brown paper covered box.

My surprise package was sent on its journey to me by Tara of Should You Eat That, a funny food blogger and fellow Daring Baker. Tara was my partner for this turn of Blogging By Mail, the popular package swap event hosted by Stephanie, who writes at Dispensing Happiness. This pass of BBM carried the theme of “Little Things” and we were suppose to send to our paired blogger a few of our favourite little things (I was paired with a nice girl from Germany, Lena who while not having a blog does have a Flickr page showing all the swaps she participates in, including some snap shots of the package I sent her).

Like last time when I received J’s fabulous package, it appears that Tara and I have much in common when it comes to little things. I am amazed at all the little things Tara was able to pack into such a small box! Starting with a lovely red tea towel

and ending with all manner of much appreciated food stuffs, including a tube of Vegemite and one of my all time favourite Aussie treats, Tim Tams!

Tara must have read about my love of little spoons, because she included just the cutest spoon with strawberries on top that now resides in my jam jar; currently filled with the last of my summer strawberry preserves.

She also included an egg separator, sure to come in handy with all the baking I have coming up very soon (and something I had on my kitchen gadget wish list). A few of the many other things in my box of joy were Cadbury chocolate bars, tea and cocoa mix, springy flower magnets for my fridge, tiny post-it notes (Tara, who did you KNOW of my post-it obsession??!), mini tubes of M&M’s, Skittles, and Nerds, some spices including something called Bush Spices which I’ve been sprinkling liberally on salads, in scrambled eggs, and roasted potatoes, teeny tiny muffin papers, a cake tester, and another item that has long been on my kitchen wish list, a honey pot. Tara was also so thoughtful to include a few recipes that she is famous for, M&M Chocolate Chip cookies and some most incredible brownies that are currently baking in my oven, Peanut Butter Chocolate Brownies.

Thanks to Tara for all the lovely gifts. I promise I will enjoy each and every one of them (including the Vegemite!) and thanks to Stephanie for all the hard work she puts in to pairing all of us who sign up for Blogging By Mail.

Posted in Blogging Events | Permalink | |

Spring Tour of the Yard and a Surpising Edible Discovery

April 24th, 2008 by breadchick

Well, I’m working those stupid hours again. Meaning there isn’t any cooking going on in my kitchen other than the kind that includes pouring milk over the cereal and fruit at 10pm when I finally walk through the front door.

Tonight though I absolutely refused to let the short New England spring pass me by. The past two days it has been in the middle 70s and not a cloud in the sky. So, at 6pm I called it a day and walked out into the sun. After feeding a surprised LB, who if this work schedule keeps up is going to have to learn to pop the cat food tin open on his own, I fixed myself a nice gin and tonic and decided to tour the yard and admire the spring flowers in all their glory.

Daffodils are my favourite flower and while they start showing up in their forced form in middle February, it isn’t until late April and early May that the bulbs in the yard show their pretty yellow

and white and orange heads.

My landlord and his wife planted quite a few daffodils and tulips while they lived in the house. They also planted lots of other flowers I can’t identify. Like these lovely little purple-blue creatures

Then there are these exploding fire cracker like blue and white flowers

They must have liked blue because these are all over the side yard

and while it is really on my Indian neighbor’s yard, who are currently cooking with the most wonderful smelling spices, I can’t help but admire this red, red bush.

Flowers aren’t the only thing my landlord and his wife left me. She had an herb garden and when they moved to their new house, she left it behind. Apparently these are some hardy herbs because the tarragon has re-emerged.

The most surprising thing I found in my tour of the yard though were the clumps and clumps of wild onions and chives.

Between the tarragon and the chives, I can’t wait to forage in my yard for the makings of an herb omelette…

when the work craziness slows down that is.

Posted in CT, Uncategorized | Permalink | |

When the Babes Bake A Pie That’s Amore!

April 19th, 2008 by breadchick

Sometimes a girl just has to have a big slice of pizza pie and wash it down with a tall glass of cold beer and sometimes a girl wants to have a bunch of her friends over, make some dough and craft her own house special.

When my crazy work schedule made it impossible for me to be Host Kitchen for the Bread Baking Babes this month, Tanna stepped right up and led us to the pizza parlor to make Maggie Glezer’s Sullivan Street Potato Pizza.

Ironically, this recipe is from the same book, Artisan Baking, that Karen selected the Royal Crown Tortano and plunged us all back in the wet end of the dough pool as well with a 109% hydration dough. The plus of this was we would get a really crisp crust, which as far as I am concerned is the way pizza should be. The only problem was I never got the dough to come together the way the recipe said it should.

After forty full minutes of kneading with Isabelle all I had was soup. I wasn’t feeling Babe-like at all. I pressed on and tried to bake it with the potatoes, onions, and rosemary and ended up with a black mess that set off the smoke detector and made LB run from the room to hide under the bed, not to be seen the rest of the night. Running out the back door into the wet Connecticut night with a smoking mass of potato pizza, I tossed it into my compost pile with plans to take funny pictures the next morning.

But when I went out the next morning to take a picture of the mess all that was left was one lone mass of potato.

I guess the neighborhood cats and squirrels must have had a pizza party in my backyard over night.

Across the country, Tanna, our queen of pushing recipes to their max, was also struggling with Maggie’s pizza dough. Actually a cry was heard from across the Atlantic as well as one of our sisters in crime, Gorel, showed us her ocean of dough running down and across her pan. I think she was contemplating getting the surf board out as it truly was soup with waves.

After much chatter on our private blog, Queen Tanna came back with another pizza dough option, Daniel Leader’s Genzano Potato Pizza. This dough promised to be a bit more solid with only 80% hydration. Taking my water wings off, I dove right in. This dough came together very nicely after about 15 minutes had it clearing the bowl. Two hour and a half rising times later I had pizza dough that was ready to go.

Because it was just me, I divided the dough into two balls and threw one into the freezer for later use. The other half I got ready to roll out

OK, confession time here. Once I got the dough rolled out I just couldn’t bring myself to put potatoes on top of pizza. I’m sorry Tanna. I don’t blame you and the girls if you run me out of town on a rail and revoke my special BBB panties for not using potatoes (hangs my head low with shame). But, every time I thought about this pizza as I was waiting for the dough to rise all I saw was the pizza I have grown to love from Amerigo Pizza, my local pizza place; a delightful combination of a crispy crust pizza topped with fresh tomato, basil, and capers.

Once I got this lovely dough rolled out I just couldn’t bring myself to top it with potatoes when I could top it with this

See! Isn’t it lovely? Doesn’t look fresh and inviting? It was like looking at spring on dough.

The Leader dough baked super crisp but had a nice chewy inside. I do admit, I left it in a bit longer than the recipe called for because I like really crisp crust. But, when the pizza came out of the oven, it was as if Amerigo had delivered a hot pie to my house.

I’ll definitely be making this crust again and I’m excited I have a ball of dough in the freezer to use very soon.

Check out all my Bread Baking Babes, A Fridge Full of Food (Glenna), Bake My Day (Karen), Cookie Baker Lynn (Lynn), I Like to Cook (Sara), Living on Bread and Water (Monique), Lucullian Delights (Ilva), My Kitchen in Half Cups (Tanna), Grain Doe (Gorel), Notitie van Lien (Lien), Thyme of Cooking (Katie), and What Did You Eat (Sher) to see how the pizza should have looked with the potato on top. Now that I’m looking at all those pizzas maybe I’ll be able to put potatoes on top.

Also, if you want to join us as a Bread Baking Buddy for this pizza party, go visit our Host Kitchen, Tanna and bake either Maggie’s or Daniel’s pizza some time this week. Send her a note with a link to your post if you have a blog or drop her an email with picture of your pizza and she’ll send you a nifty badge for your blog and include you our monthly round-up!

Posted in Bread Baking Babes | Permalink | |

A Simple Last Supper

April 16th, 2008 by breadchick

There are nights when I’m traveling for business that I just don’t feel like going out on the town and having a huge meal and lots of adult beverages with my colleagues. These nights typically follow either a hedonistic dinner the night before or are the last meal I have before boarding an airplane for a really long flight.

If it is the last night on a long trip, quite often I’ll order a simple salad and a bowl of fruit from room service and spend the evening in my pjs packing to navigate airport security the next day. But if I’m in a city I particularly love, like London or Paris, I will pack and then venture out to a small restaurant off the tourist path to enjoy one last meal with the locals. This last meal on this particular trip was no exception especially now that I’ve added Moscow to one of my favourite cities to visit.

On this night, I didn’t need to venture far to find a good light meal containing all the local delicacies. All I had to do is push down on the elevator and wander to the Diamond Bar for a light supper that included a plate of smoked fish, a small lobster, and caviar

and some fresh from the griddle bread.

To finish my meal I had a piece of hazelnut mousse cake and washed it all down with a glass of Russian champagne (OK, maybe there were two or three of these!).

Since you can’t take Russian rubles with you when you leave and the exchange rate back to US dollars is awful, it is best to try and spend as many of them as you can before you leave. Luckily, I had just a little more than needed to pay my bill in cash and leave just enough for a Russian Kit Kat bar at the airport.

I somehow don’t think this is the type of light meal I’m having tomorrow night…

Posted in Food Travel | Permalink | |

Why I Love Breakfast in Europe

April 16th, 2008 by breadchick

For those of you that know me, you know that breakfast is my favourite meal. It doesn’t matter whether it is a bowl of cold cereal with morning sun warmed strawberries and cream or a big plate of eggs benedict from my local breakfast joint on a Sunday. Sometimes I even eat breakfast for dinner.

But no place do I love breakfast more than when I’m in Europe. I’m in love with the buffet breakfasts served at the hotels I stay at when I’m on business. The variety of foods served range from cold cuts, cheese, and pickles to petit fours. The only constant for me no matter London, Milan, Moscow, Paris or Rome is I always have a pot tea with milk and one lump for breakfast. I love the little pots of tea made with loose tea. Even the bags of tea taste better when I’m sipping a cup in Europe.

In London, the K&K George serves breakfast in a lovely sun filled room and the scrambled eggs, broiled mushrooms and tomatoes, rasher bacon and scones are to die for. In Moscow, it is the smoked fish and caviar at the Golden Ring and the pots of dark Russian tea. In Rome, it is the fruit and meats served with crusty bread at the Hotel Delle Nazioni.

The only place I don’t partake of the hotel breakfast is in Paris. I always stay at the same hotel, Ville Des Artistes. It is located about 2o steps from the Metro stop, Vavin and the famed Le Dome and La Coupole restaurant. But for me, these restaurants don’t hold a candle to the pot of tea and croissant I get for petit dejeuner at the bakery on the corner.

I sit at a stool facing the street the school kids walk down on their way to morning classes, read Le Monde and sip my tea while planning my day.

Posted in Food Travel, Paris | Permalink | |

Back From the Dead…

April 12th, 2008 by breadchick

Did you miss me?!

Bet you have been wondering where in the world I’ve been!! Well, that is a story for another morning when I have a bit more time than right now. Suffice it to say that The Sour Dough has been on an unplanned hiatus due to technical difficulties.

You see last week Earthlink telepathically determined that we wanted to terminate our high speed internet service and authorized Comcast, who provides the actual Earthlink cable internet service in Cambridge, MA where the server The Sour Dough is hosted on is located, to turn off our internet…at the pole. Yup, sometime on Wednesday a guy drove up to the house in Cambridge, climbed up the pole and pulled the plug.

The thing is neither W nor I authorized either Earthlink or Comcast to disconnect us.

This was a snafu on Earthlink’s part followed by a tragedy of errors on Comcast’s part. The first person we both spoke to was very apologetic but because they had disconnected us at the pole, something we found out was unusual and had everyone we talked to at Comcast scratching their head, there was nothing she could do to restore our service on Wednesday night and the soonest anyone could come back was on Friday sometime between 7am and 7pm.

So, why weren’t we back up last night? Apparently, the tech decided going to the pub instead of up the pole was more important. The tech that came to the house today was flabbergasted. Anyways, we are back and I’m so glad.

OK, it is early here and I’m off for a day of travel and fun but next week we’ll be back with bread, a few photos, and recipes for sure.

Posted in Life, Blogging | Permalink | |

I Know Where I’m Going for My Last Meal on Earth

April 4th, 2008 by breadchick

Last night, I had a meal that well frankly will go down as probably the best meal I have ever had in my life. Period. In fact, I’m pretty sure I will never eat as well as I ate last night ever again. Because last night, I took my mom here

Yup, that would be the hallowed ground of Babbo, Mario Batali’s flagship restaurant.

We started with Armamdino’s Salumi and ended with an assortment of gelati and sorbetti and a selection of five cheeses. They were all excellent, especially the fresh taste of the Salumi. If you have never had salumi made the old fashioned way, then you have no idea what you are missing! Go, immediately and find a place to get slow cured salumi. NOW! As good as both the beginning and the end of the meal was, the plates in between were where the magic was.

My mom had a simple pasta dish with mussels and Porcini mushrooms. The pasta was the most perfectly made pasta I have ever tasted. It was al dente and infused with the garlic and citrus broth from the mussels. I had a porcine wonderment of smoked jowl with pancetta and fennel served with gnocchi. To say this was good would be a shameful lie. It was more than good. In fact, according to the thesaurus I just consulted there are no appropriate adjectives to describe how fabulous this dish was. It was that good.

Again, after last night, I have decided that there is no finer animal on four legs to eat than the pig. I have always loved the pig for both its bacon and chops and frankly, I just like pigs. They are cool and interesting animals at all levels. But after last night, I believe that when the “higher power” decided to endow one animal with the best possibilities for exceptional food, he/she chose the pig. A more perfect meal has never trod upon four legs.

When I die, I want someone to wrap me in bacon and shove a huge smoked ham hock under my arm and if both come from Babbo, then I will know I’ve made it to the promised land….

Posted in Restaurant Review | Permalink | |

The Starter That Wouldn’t Die!

April 1st, 2008 by breadchick

Oh drat, that work thing again. No, I’m not dead, yet. But if I keep having to work thirteen plus hour days the way I have the past three weeks, including all the weekends, I may be soon!

And Bob isn’t dead either. With the the crazy work schedule, something happened that hasn’t happened ever…I forgot to feed Bob! Bob hasn’t had food since Sunday.

No, please don’t call the Starter Abuse Hotline!!! Bob is perfectly fine. In fact, this is a good example of how forgiving this starter is.

If you forget to feed your starter don’t sweat it! Just stir all the hooch back in. You should have big layer of hooch if you miss a feeding.

After you stir your starter up and get that hooch incorporated, you should notice it gets foamy. That is good.

And then give your starter its normal feeding.

Notice how bubbly Bob got after his feeding tonight?

I’ll probably give him two feedings tomorrow just get him back to strength and then I’m going to prep him for some baking.

A couple days ago, I also promised you a little tip to bring your starter out of the moodies if by Day 10, he/she was still feeling sluggish and not getting perky after the switch to an all AP diet.

First, how do you know your starter isn’t fully adjusted? Basically you will only have little bubbles and a sour smell and taste but not the happy bubbly and foamy starter like below.

If this happens, it is time to entice your starter to come out and see the sunshine!

Here is how you do this:

Give it a feeding using 1/8 cup rye flour, 3/8 cup AP flour and a pinch of sugar and just a little less than 1/2 cup of water. The reason for a little more flour vs water is to give it lots of food to get all excited over. Give it this feeding 2X in a 24 hour period. You should see life come back into your starter. Then go back to the normal AP flour feeding.

If you don’t see life come back into the starter, give it another day of the 2X “booster shot” above and see what happens.

If after all that all you have is still sludge well… time to give your starter a goldfish funeral and start afresh. But before you do that, email me and we’ll do a starter diagnosis.

My mom flies into NYC tomorrow night to spend a long weekend with me. I’m probably not going to be blogging much while she is here and I’m definitely NOT working while she is here. But, I can guarantee I’m baking while she’s here because we love to be in the kitchen together.

It’s going to be a good time!

Posted in Sourdough, Ask Breadchick | Permalink | |

Daring Bakers Party with Dorie

March 30th, 2008 by breadchick

This month’s Daring Bakers Challenge is brought to us by one of my favourite Daring Baker sisters Morven of Food Art and Random Thoughts!

To boot, Morven picked a recipe from one of my all time favourite baking cookbooks, Baking: From My Home to Yours by the esteemed Dorie Greenspan, The Perfect Party Cake.

I’ve been baking out of this book since I was given the opportunity to review this wonderful book in November 2006. Even back then, this cake recipe caught my eye. I’ve just not had a chance to make it for anyone until now. When Morven announced this was the recipe, I decided I’d be making it for a good friend at work, Courtney.

I would like to say that I loved this cake. I really and truly would because I haven’t had one recipe of Dorie’s that I didn’t like and I own three of her cookbooks! But like all of us, even one of my favourite cookbook authors can have an off day. Unfortunately, this cake just didn’t work out the way the recipe described that it would.

The day before I baked the cake, I read on our Daring Baker private blog that Dorie had found out that we were doing this cake and sent Brilynn of Jumbo Empanadas giving us all some tips as others had reported to her similar problems with the cake in the past. She cautioned us to make sure we weren’t using self rising cake flour (I wasn’t) and Dorie even gave us the secret to her success, Swan Down Cake Flour (My preferred and the flour I used). How cool that Dorie would want to make sure we all had success!

Despite using Dorie’s suggested flour and the called for buttermilk, another rising agent in cake, the thing just didn’t rise to the levels that were expected, especially since we were instructed to divide the two cakes into half to make a four layer cake. I ended up only making two layers from it because I was fearful for that if I tried to cut the two cakes in half I would end up with nothing but crumbs.

Other than that I had no other issues with the cake. It just wasn’t….well spectacular the way the other recipes I’ve made from Baking From My Home to Yours have been. In the end, it was just nice white cake with coconut and raspberries. I think I’ll stick to my tried and true recipe for birthday and special occassion cakes in Baking Illustrated: A Best Recipe Classic from the folks at America’s Test Kitchen.

And Dorie, I still love your cookbooks, despite my cake failure here and everyone in the office loved the cake and Courtney thought that it was grand that I would bake her cake.

And in the end, isn’t that what a party cake is all about?

To join the party going on in the food blogosphere, go check out the hundreds and hundreds of Perfect Party Cakes out there on my fellow Daring Bakers blogs.

Posted in Daring Bakers | Permalink | |