business cards for non-business cardy people.

I'm going to a fairly important event this week. The kind of place where I'll meet people I respect and hopefully gain their respect... or at least they'll learn my name. When I realised I was going to be attending this event, it slowly dawned on me that I would need to succumb to the mainstay of all networking, social-climbing pros: the business card. Ugh. I have some for my job but I've never once handed one out. But I've never had personal ones. "Do people even do that?!" I asked myself. Well, yes. Yes they do. Living in London I've been given more personal business cards than ever before - even by friends in lieu of exchanging mobile numbers or texts!

But after plenty of rumination (about three months' worth) I realised I could use this as an opportunity for a fun craft project. I'm not in the corporate world where I need to have a sleek, professionally-printed card. In fact, I'm in a field that would appreciate something handmade, original, and made of completely recycled materials. So here they are, my not-so-flashy new cards, simple and easy, and best of all cheap. At about £1.80 for a set of 36, who can complain?

*****



Made with recycled card stock (170 gsm-ish), with nice textured corrugations on the back. Recycled white paper ribbon. Printed on a home printer and cut to size.

long weekend brunch.

To celebrate the early summer bounty rolling in at the farmers' market this week, I pulled together a last minute brunch for three. It was a simple affair - poached eggs, english muffins, sautéed asparagus, and lemon and crème fraîche sauce. Roasted cherry tomatoes. Coffee and orange juice. Followed by a rhubarb and cardamom tart a la Tartelette, post to follow.

It took about forty minutes to throw together and about the same amount of time to enjoy - slow, with good conversation, and lots of sunshine.



*****

Roasted Tomatoes
about a punnet of tomatoes, whatever kind you like
fresh herbs like rosemary and thyme
sea salt and pepper
olive oil

Toss together and roast at 400 degrees F (200 C) until blistered and fragrant.


Lemon and Crème Fraîche Sauce (a bit like Hollandaise)
2 egg yolks
5 Tbsp. butter
juice of half a lemon
3 Tbsp. crème fraîche
salt and pepper
chopped dill and chives

Melt the butter and lemon juice together in a saucepan. Whisk the egg yolks in a bowl, and slow begin to whisk in your melted butter mix. Season well, and then add your crème fraîche, whisking until smooth. Gently heat over a double boiler, whisking until thick. Sprinkle with dill and chives before serving alongside asparagus, eggs, or whatever you like.

croquembouche for one.

daring bakers, may.

It's been a bit of a Daring Bakers hiatus for me these past few months, but it's hard to say no in the face of a childhood favourite. My earliest memory of croquembouche is watching Martha Stewart make one on television. I immediately asked my sister to make one for me, and so started a lengthy spate of baking, filling, caramelising, and assembling. For a short while I believed that a massive croquembouche would make the best wedding cake. And then so much time passed that I became sure that a croquembouche was actually assembled with fried choux pastry.

Relief, excitement, and expectation characterised my reaction to reading this challenge. I wouldn't have to fry pastry in vats of oil, I'd get to eat something I remember as very delicious once again, and I could be as grand as I wanted to be in assembling it! In reality, I halved the recipe in order to make a very smallish tower, and even then I still couldn't eat it all. so I guess I'll have to find a volunteer to eat my baking challenges with me. Any takers?

The May 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Cat of Little Miss Cupcake. Cat challenged everyone to make a piece montée, or croquembouche, based on recipes from Peter Kump’s Baking School in Manhattan and Nick Malgieri.



*****

Piece Montée

For the Vanilla Crème Patissiere (Half Batch)
1 cup (225 ml.) whole milk
2 Tbsp. cornstarch
6 Tbsp. (100 g.) sugar
1 large egg
2 large egg yolks
2 Tbsp. (30 g.) unsalted butter
1 Tsp. Vanilla

Dissolve cornstarch in ¼ cup of milk. Combine the remaining milk with the sugar in a saucepan; bring to boil; remove from heat.

Beat the whole egg, then the yolks into the cornstarch mixture. Pour 1/3 of boiling milk into the egg mixture, whisking constantly so that the eggs do not begin to cook.

Return the remaining milk to boil. Pour in the hot egg mixture in a stream, continuing whisking.

Continue whisking (this is important – you do not want the eggs to solidify/cook) until the cream thickens and comes to a boil. Remove from heat and beat in the butter and vanilla.

Pour cream into a stainless steel/ceramic bowl. Press plastic wrap firmly against the surface. Chill immediately and until ready to use.


Pate a Choux (Yield: About 28)
¾ cup (175 ml.) water
6 Tbsp. (85 g.) unsalted butter
¼ Tsp. salt
1 Tbsp. sugar
1 cup (125 g.) all-purpose flour
4 large eggs

For Egg Wash: 1 egg and pinch of salt

Pre-heat oven to 425◦F/220◦C degrees. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.

Preparing batter:
Combine water, butter, salt and sugar in a saucepan over medium heat. Bring to a boil and stir occasionally. At boil, remove from heat and sift in the flour, stirring to combine completely.

Return to heat and cook, stirring constantly until the batter dries slightly and begins to pull away from the sides of the pan.

Transfer to a bowl and stir with a wooden spoon 1 minute to cool slightly.

Add 1 egg. The batter will appear loose and shiny.

As you stir, the batter will become dry-looking like lightly buttered mashed potatoes.

It is at this point that you will add in the next egg. Repeat until you have incorporated all the eggs.

Piping:
Transfer batter to a pastry bag fitted with a large open tip (I piped directly from the bag opening without a tip). Pipe choux about 1 inch-part in the baking sheets. Choux should be about 1 inch high about 1 inch wide.

Using a clean finger dipped in hot water, gently press down on any tips that have formed on the top of choux when piping. You want them to retain their ball shape, but be smoothly curved on top.

Brush tops with egg wash (1 egg lightly beaten with pinch of salt).

Baking:
Bake the choux at 425◦F/220◦C degrees until well-puffed and turning lightly golden in color, about 10 minutes.

Lower the temperature to 350◦F/180◦C degrees and continue baking until well-colored and dry, about 20 minutes more. Remove to a rack and cool.

Can be stored in a airtight box overnight.

Filling:
When you are ready to assemble your piece montée, using a plain pastry tip, pierce the bottom of each choux. Fill the choux with pastry cream using either the same tip or a star tip, and place on a paper-lined sheet. Choux can be refrigerated briefly at this point while you make your glaze.


Hard Caramel Glaze:
1 cup (225 g.) sugar
½ teaspoon lemon juice

Combine sugar and lemon juice in a saucepan with a metal kitchen spoon stirring until the sugar resembles wet sand. Place on medium heat; heat without stirring until sugar starts to melt around the sides of the pan and the center begins to smoke. Begin to stir sugar. Continue heating, stirring occasionally until the sugar is a clear, amber color. Remove from heat immediately; place bottom of pan in ice water to stop the cooking. Use immediately.

Assembly of your Piece Montée:
You may want to lay out your unfilled, unglazed choux in a practice design to get a feel for how to assemble the final dessert. For example, if making a conical shape, trace a circle (no bigger than 8 inches) on a piece of parchment to use as a pattern. Then take some of the larger choux and assemble them in the circle for the bottom layer. Practice seeing which pieces fit together best.

Once you are ready to assemble your piece montée, dip the top of each choux in your glaze (careful it may be still hot!), and start assembling on your cake board/plate/sheet. Continue dipping and adding choux in levels using the glaze to hold them together as you build up. (You may want to use toothpicks to hold them in place – see video #4 below).

When you have finished the design of your piece montée, you may drizzle with remaining glaze or use ribbons, sugar cookie cut-outs, almonds, flowers, etc. to decorate. Have fun and enjoy! Bon appétit!

the bread dilemma.

It's a typical Saturday morning and I'm being asked by Nicky, the bread lady, who won this week. Everyone else at the bread stand looks around confused. "He did," I reply. And so she bags and hands over a large, crusty London Bloomer in exchange for my £4.

You see, the most frequent disagreement in my house (I'm lucky to say!) is over bread type. White or wholegrain is a constant dilemma in which I often find myself ceding my beloved wholemeal to the fluffier white variety. Both make good toast, I'll admit, but there's something about a nice wheatgerm levain that makes me feel better about myself. Yet M, who barely eats bread anyway, will always decide to make a sandwich and complain on the day I buy brown bread. "Why did you buy this?" he asks me, pointing out how quickly it goes stale (just as quickly as the white, I'll point out) and commenting on how much less indulgent healthy bread is. So you see how Nicky, the bread lady, has come to know all about our bread dilemma.

This week, though, I thought I'd try something entirely new; perhaps I could break the cycle, throw a proverbial stone into the wheel of our bread consumption. The Bread Factory launched its new quinoa sourdough last week, and this week I bought it.

So here I am on a Sunday morning, nutty, crisp toast in hand. Do I think it solved the problem? Well, the protein-rich loaf might just be making a frequent appearance on my breakfast table.

It's filled with warm flavour and, due to its quinoa-packed composition, kept me full until well into the afternoon. Not bad for a slice of toast, eh?

late may farmers' market bounty.

Today was surely the most fruitful day of the year so far. I apologise for the bad pun, but I've got to say, I'm thrilled with everything on the stalls today. New carrots, new potatoes, spring greens, skinny English asparagus, rhubarb, mushrooms, and glass house tomatoes and strawberries. And (drumroll please...) my long awaited courgette flowers. Which means courgettes are on their way at last.

This'll be a good food week.

new season beetroot, carrot, and dill salad.

This salad caused controversy at my dinner table. I decided to throw in a bit of Wensleydale cheese, since it was on hand, knowing that the salad would be quite nice with a sharp goat's cheese. But M not only disagreed with my choice of cheese, but with the presence of any cheese altogether. I guess you can decide for yourself. The salad is sweet, tangy, and crunchy with springtime roots. And dead easy.

2 beetroots, sliced thinly
4 small carrots, tops trimmed, left whole or halved
1 tbsp. chopped parsley
1/2 tbsp. chopped dill
some crumbled goats' cheese (at your discretion)
3 tbsp. olive oil
1 tbsp. balsamic vinegar
1 tbsp. umeboshi
salt and pepper to taste

Wrap your beets, drizzled with olive oil, in some tinfoil. Drizzle your carrots with oil too, and pop both in the oven at about 400 for 20 minutes, or until tender. Let cool.
Whisk together your olive oil, vinegar, umeboshi, and then toss with your vegetables. Season to taste, and toss with your chopped herbs and cheese.

unphotogenic food part one.

herb, parmesan, and tomato stuffed bread

This bread is everything it says it is: almost floral with rosemary, sage, and basil. Stuffed with salty and sweet parmesan and tomato. It'd be great to mop up some olive oil, but is flavourful enough to stand alone next to a salad or soup. And supremely easy as well.



500 grams white bread flour
7 grams active dry yeast
1/2 tbsp. salt
1 tbsp. butter
1/2 tsp. honey
300 ml. warm water
2 tbsp. chopped rosemary, sage, and basil
3 tbsp. parmesan, grated
2 small tomatoes, chopped

Mix your flour, yeast, herbs, and salt in a bowl. In a measuring cup, mix your honey and warm water, and then add to your flour. Mix with your hands until it comes to a shaggy mass, and then work in the butter. Knead for about ten minutes, until smooth. Leave in a warm place in an oiled bowl, covered with a tea-towel, for about an hour or until doubled in size.

Preheat the oven to 430 F (220 C). Punch down the dough to a disc shape, and then spread your parmesan and tomatoes along the middle. Fold into a loaf shape, gathering the ends so that the filling stays inside. Lay 'seam' side down on a floured baking sheet, and gently slash the top with a knife. Cover for about half an hour, until it puffs up again. Bake for 35 minutes, or until the loaf makes a hollow sound when tapped. Let cool a bit before enjoying, best warm.

things which aren't readily available and which I miss terribly.

I've never been a fruit person. Those close to me can easily list at least ten fruits which I simply will not eat: strawberries, bananas, and melons among them. But what I lack in interest for such fruits, I make up for in passion for others: plums, peaches, cherries, especially.

I grew up in southwestern Ontario, not far from some of the best Niagara peaches which we used to pick every summer with my grandparents. Pick-your-own peach farms were as common as PYO apples, and we'd go home with baskets full of them. When I got a little older, my mom would take us up to the annual peach festival at Niagara-on-the-Lake, where we'd eat peach pie, peach cobbler, drink peach juice, and fawn over things we couldn't afford in the town's tiny shops.

A few years ago, I made a peach pie for a friend's midsummer garden party. I can't seem to remember exactly what recipe I used (or if I used one at all) but came across this along the way. Peach and Creme Fraiche Pie. I won't be able to make this for a while, if at all, because peaches don't seem to appear so much around here. But I dream of the day when I can.

best korma and best ice cream.

Bank holidays are the best kind of days around here. The city seems to empty and the houses remain quiet. There isn't much to do and there aren't many buses running if you do come up with something. It's the time for walks on the Heath, curling up with a book, getting some sewing done, and making a nice slow dinner. All of which were on the agenda for today.

This korma is among the best I've had - rich and mildly sweet, but not too filling and not at all oily. By all means you can use up whatever is in season, but be patient - it takes time for everything to come together. Grinding the spices fills your kitchen with warm aromas, and slowly frying onions whets the appetite.

Finish the meal off with a cooling bowl of homemade vanilla ice cream drizzled with honey and chopped pistachios. A total treat.



*****

Vegetable Korma
3-4 small waxy potatoes, peeled and chopped
1 carrot, chopped
1 cup savoy or green cabbage, chopped
1 onion, chopped
1/2 cup green peas
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 inches of ginger, grated
1 tbsp. tomato paste
3 tbsp. ground almonds
2 tbsp. agave nectar
1 tbsp. dessicated coconut
100 ml cream
1 tbsp. coriander seed
1 tbsp. cumin seed
a small chunk of star anise
2 cloves
1 tbsp. turmeric
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
3 tbsp. olive oil, butter, or ghee

Toast and grind your spices, either by hand or in a spice grinder. Heat a large casserole over medium heat, and add the oil. Slowly fry the onions until golden, about twenty minutes, and then add the garlic and ginger. Toss in the spices and the tomato paste, along with a splash of water to blend the mixture to a paste. Toss in your potatoes and carrots and mix well. Add 1/2 cup water and bring to a simmer, seasoning to taste.

After about 8 minutes, add the cabbage, and continue to simmer until fully cooked. Stir in your agave at this point (check for seasoning!) and then mix in your almonds and peas. Turn to low heat, before adding your cream and coconut. Allow to warm on low for about ten minutes, until the sauce is thick. Serve with some basmati rice and naan bread, sprinkled with a bit of chopped coriander.


Vanilla Ice Cream (made with maple syrup or agave)
1 cup milk
2 cups cream
1 vanilla bean, split and scraped
6 egg yolks
2/3 cup maple syrup or agave nectar

1. Heat the milk, cream, and vanilla in a saucepan over medium heat until hot but not boiling. Remove from heat and set aside.
2. Place egg yolks and syrup in a bowl and whisk until light and thick. Remove vanilla bean from milk mixture and slowly pour over the egg mixture, whisking well.
3. Pour the mixture back into the saucepan and heat over low heat, stirring, until thick and coats the back of a spoon. Set aside and cool before putting into an ice cream maker or:
4. Put it into a bowl and cover. Freeze for three to four hours, removing the bowl every hour to mix or whisk it into a smooth creamy texture. Allow to set but soften a bit before serving.

views of the kitchen.

My kitchen corner, an expression of love and attachment - I'm a total pack-rat and have decreed this corner my special corner for expressing that quality.

Postcards from friends, collected over the years. Birds from Rachel. Teapot from M. Old photos taken by photographer friends, and old craft projects from days in college. Growing up, we never stuck things to the fridge. I long harboured a desire to do so, and indulge myself completely with pretty magnets.