Our Daily Whenver I Get Around To It Bread

Last November I was reading Michael Ruhlman's Ratio,  I never got past the bread/pasta chapter. Michael lays out a nice simple ratio for bread making, tells the reader that the practice has been shrouded in unnecessary mystery and complication and that quality homemade loaves can be turned out with relative ease by anyone with a kitchen scale.

Fucking rad, I think. Immediately I set out on my path to becoming an expert baker and sticking it to the commercial bakeries that have kept me under their thumb for decades. Those sick bastards, they took the universal symbol of sustenance right out of our proletariat hands and sold it back to us as indecipherable magic.

Le First Attempt

Initial Reaction:  I AM A GOD! LOOK AT THIS BEAUTIFUL FUCKING THING. FIRST TIME OUT OF THE GATE, HOME RUN SUCKERS. EAT A DICK BAKERS OF THE WORLD, COLLIN HAS YOUR NUMBER DUDES.

After Eating and Contemplation: Well, this isn't very good. It sure as shit looked fabulous, but the crumb was dense, overly chewy and the flavor profile was as flat as the Midwestern states. Besides the salt, there's nothing that the palate attaches to. Also the crust is thick, tough and while browned nicely it has no crackling quality. 

I made this first loaf nearly a year ago. The rabbit hole has no bottom. That's the thing with bread, it's not easy and it's not quick. The notion that you can make it in a few hours and have something to be proud of is total and complete bullshit. 

Subsequent Shots In The Dark

 

This was the last loaf of bread I made using only commercial yeast. It came out OK, I let it proof longer than the first attempt and I baked it in a cast iron dutch oven. Note the crackling blisters on the crust, looks pretty on point yeah? It was, but it still wasn't there, the crumb was still too dense, the flavor still lacked any bite. It became clear to me that I was actually looking for a sourdough bread, and not this pansy shit.

Getting a sourdough starter going took a few weeks. The first batch was overrun by some incredibly active bacteria that caused it to quadruple in size and burst out of it's mason jar container. I tried to salvage it using the regular, dump all but 100g, feed, wait, method. But it was a loss, so I fired it up again. Eventually I got something like a stable colony, I could add flour and water and get a doubling in size quickly. The whole thing had a pungent smell to it that bit the nostrils and if left for too long without attending it would produce a nice layer of alcoholic liquid atop it, but the yeast would spring right back upon feeding. 

Time heals all wounds and makes better bread. This was the first loaf I ever made with my sourdough starter and handled this dough with kid gloves from start to finish. I made the starter for this 2 days in advance, let it rise in the fridge for nearly 24 hours, made the dough, let it proof in the fridge for 24 hours, then shaped it that morning, let it sit out for 5 or so hours, reshaped, and baked. That's like 3 days of thinking about bread to make two loaves of edible sourdough. Edible, not great. That's a far-fucking-cry from a few hours. 

The Best Yet

 

I'll level with you, I don't remember what the hell I did special to make this bread, other than give it plenty of retarded proofing time in the fridge. It was easily the best sourdough I've made to-date. It had all the rustic appeal of a log cabin and if someone with any photographic ability had shot the thing it could have graced the cover of cookbook. It tasted good to boot! Though my starter still didn't have that bite associated with San Francisco sourdough, but it had nuance and depth that none of the other loaves had yet managed.

That brings us to present day. I've made loaves since the God-loaf, but I never took as much time and care in doing so, and the results have suffered greatly. 

Really, after a year of bread making I've only learned one important thing. Give it time. Yeast is the single best thing in the world, it gives us both booze and bread, so pay it the respect it deserves and let it work. Don't trust anyone who says you can make great bread in an afternoon, the proofing time is what gives a depth of flavor and gasses out the dough to have that wonderful look and texture. Also, once you've gotten dough proofed and smelling/feeling sexy, don't fuck with it too much. Be gentle when shaping so you don't loose all that you've waited so long to obtain. 

Bread is such a simple thing on the surface, but that simplicity is only perceived. Once you go beyond putting water, flour, salt and yeast together in the right ratio you're immediatley in a more complex space. But it's a fun space, if not a bit maddening

A Return to Normalcy

It's been 912 days since I last recorded anything about my food life here. In that time a few babies could have been fully gestated, but a good balsamic vinegar, single malt scotch or a nice wine are only just getting their aging underway. So really, it's only been a blink of an eye. 

That said, a shit-load has happened. In that time I've cooked, eaten, drank and puked many truly awesome things. Yeast cultivated from thin air, cucumbers turned into mighty fermented joy logs, barbecued meats and pizzas fell before be, ad hoc kitchen experiments succeeded more than failed as the breadth of my food experiences widened at an exponential rate! By all accounts things were very, very good.

But ultimately, I lost my way. Worry took hold of me, in the kitchen, the restaurant and the rest of life. This year especially, the weight of work, increased (wholly perceived) responsibility and a blanket feeling of anxiousness about things yet to be done all served to darken my epicurean pursuits. 

Which is really fucking dumb. 

So enough of this wretched malaise bullshit. It's time to get back to enjoying food for food's sake, to remembering that death is just around the corner and that a good meal can slow down time enough for us to forget about it.

Hollandaise are drifting away...

In recent months the venerable Eggs Benedict has become my single favorite thing in the universe to eat before noon. It's the perfect combination of runny eggy, porky, buttery and avocado-y (this is California we do things right) sexiness. It cures hangovers, brightens gloomy days and is a powerful aphrodisiac to boot (maybe).

Alas my Benedict enjoyment was relegated to restaurant offerings, poaching eggs and hollandaise creation were, I'm ashamed to admit, challenges I felt unequipped to meet. As a result the king of breakfast remained a distant treat, only obtained on fairly irregular pre-lunch-dinning-outings (PLDOs, if you will).

UNTIL NOW. I'm not going to lie, I botched the first go around. While making the hollandaise I didn't do enough to regulate the heat, the water in my double boiler was probably touching the sauce pan I was emulsifying in. The result was scrambled chunky strangeness, awful, regrettable, nearly turned me off to the whole endeavor for good. However it was still edible, and it was still kind of Eggs Benedict (yes I'm going to capitalize it) so my spirits were buoyed for another attempt. Slow, steady progress...

The second attempt came last Sunday morning. The sun was out, I'd recently completed a lackluster thesis paper that had left a nasty taste of uninspiring mediocrity in my mouth. The time was now.

Poached Eggs: Poaching eggs remained the final egg frontier for me. I'd pretty much got a lock down on all other possible egg preparation techniques. However previous attempts at poaching resulted in a pot filled with white jelly fish like entities. How'd I rectify this? I don't know, I think the key is bring the water to a boil, then reduce to a simmer, go SLOW but QUICK when placing the egg in the pot. It's a zen thing. Then corral with the greatest of concentration and ease the wayward globule of egg into as close a single entity as possible. Cut off whatever stringy excess might form and pray it looks good when you pull it out. This, surprisingly, worked. Hurdle one, conquered.

Hollandaise: I've taken to making my own mayonnaise (I'll get into it some other time, suffice to say it's both a beautiful act as well as highly rewarding), I can get an emulsion going and add boat-loads of oil to some eggs, all without heat and the end result is usually quite damn good. So, with this in mind, hollandaise shouldn't be that much of a stretch. If anything it should be easier.

Well friends it is. I guess I was put off by the double boiler, frightened of a repeat scramble and generally convinced that anytime you're getting an emulsion going things can go downhill quick. However, this time it worked, I beat the yolks, thickened them and added clarified butter while whisking like a son of a bitch. If things looked to be getting too solid I'd hold the pan in one hand away from the steam and whisk more, they'd settle down. If it was setting too much, bam, hit it with some water, problem solved. In short, I was becoming in-tune with the sauce. I knew what it was asking for and how to give it to it. (File under: "Cooking is like: sex, dancing, driving exotic sports cars, painting...etc..")

I compiled everything in the usual order, bread, meat (regular bacon, not Canadian Faux-bacon), avocado, beautiful poached eggs, hollandaise and cracked black atop. A brave new world has been opened up to me.

I came, I saw, I conquered.

"La Puerta" and San Diego beach life dreaming.

"La Puerta" A Review, of sorts, kinda.

A lady friend and myself recently made a somewhat spur of the moment overnight trip to a town called San Diego, it's located in the southernmost section of California, but is still in the Northern Hemisphere. Crazy right? I know.

We ate at a place called "La Puerta" which according to Apple's Translator Widget means "The Door" in English and "La Porte" in French, which when translated back to English means "The Gate".

It's a restaurant/bar located in the Gaslamp District (Spanish:Distrito de Gaslamp, French:Zone de Gaslamp, German: Gaslamp Bezirk) which is a pretty douched up area it turns out. Knowing this, and knowing that it was a recently opened establishment that has a DJ setup in the back of it, we were running a real risk of it being more style than substance. Places that look to recreate something authentic but remove either the dirtiness or danger of the original are rarely my cup of tea (Example: Stinkers a "bar" in Silverlake Los Angeles that sells itself as a "Truck Stop Bar". Knowing that every hipster wants to relish the irony laden context of drinking in a trucker bar but are too pussy to get stabbed or raped, they created a playful facsimile of one. About as authentic as Disneyland's French Quarter is to the real thing.). To be fair, there's some of that going on here. They play Lucha libre stuff on one of the plasmas and I'm 90% sure it's done in a ironic kitschy fashion.

However, in this case (and perhaps many others to follow) I say 'fuck authenticity! Let the food poke fun at it's origins! Have TJ Dogs on the menu (Bacon Wrapped Turkey Hot Dogs-Diced Tomatoes-Grilled Onions-Jalapeños-Ketchup-Mayo)! Take the spirit of Mexican street food and the selection from local taquerías, add a dash of higher cuisine to it and sell it back to my hipster trash ass!

That's exactly what La Puerta does and they do it well, REALLY - fucking - well. I had the 3 street tacos, which gives one a mix and match choice of six different tacos comprised of differing meats and accouterments. I told the waitress to give me whatever combination of tacos she thought most fitting. She did well, very well.

• First taco was Cochinita with pickled onion, I'd never had Cochinita before and saying so discredits everything I've ever said or written about pork before. It is in short, one of the more amazing pork creations I've ever had. I wish I could tell you more about it (I'll read/eat up and get back to you).
  
• Second taco, Carne Aada with Avocado Creme. Also very excellent, but I'm pretty tipsy at this point and just wanted to get to the third taco so I plowed through it.
• Third taco, Pastor. This was really something special. I was having a food orgasm while eating this taco. There's such a wonderful savory sweet thing going on with the pineapple here that I'm honestly at a loss to describe it to you. I enjoyed it so much that I can only remember the sensation of endorphins rocketing their way through my brain and can hardly put together a mental recollection of the flavors.
  

The street taco idea really worked. I was eloquently explaining drunkenly ranting to my companion about how serving a bunch of small tacos amuse-bouche style, could be a really amazing idea. Like a sushi bar, but tacos... OK never mind.

It was also happy hour when we showed up, this was was an incredibly pleasant surprise as it allowed me the pleasure of drinking four quality Cadillac Margaritas for a scant $20. This leads me nicely to my apology for not taking a single picture of absolutely any of this. There was simply too much drinking and good company going on for me to be thinking much about photographing the food/restaurant. I was getting all stary eyed and scrunching up for clavicle shits, you understand.

Anyway. La Puerta, they serve food until 1, it's hip-ish, the food is fucking amazing, the margaritas and tequila are cheap (at times).

Making Peanut Butter, Mayonaise, Spinache, Onion Bagle Sandwiches and Pretending it's The Weekend...

I woke up one fine morning, about a week from today and was filled with a most unusual craving for peanut butter. Normal people would quell this urge by simply having toast and peanut butter, or a PB&J (I hate that I just type that...). But not this guy. This guy wants to be bold, he wants to be bizarre and he wants to push the very limits of what people consider to be a acceptable flavor combination.

This is the result. I admit to googling peanut butter sandwiches and finding the mayonnaise idea as a result. The spinach and onion bagel however are all me.

What was the taste like? Here's where things get tricky. I think I may have a palate problem brewing here. I don't seem to dislike anything. With the exception of things that are 1) rotting, 2) really crappy quality or 3) poisonous. I'll eat whatever it is and most of the time, even if the flavors are really poorly paired and off the wall insane, I enjoy it. The simple fact that I've never had mayo and peanut butter together is enough to get me excited. So. Did I enjoy this? Yes. I ate it all and with a fair amount of pleasure.

But here's the real question. Would I make this again? No. Even though I enjoyed it as an oddity it was not a well crafted sandwich. There's simply too many other amazing things that could have been done.

In closing, life is too short to not mess around with food. However if I had been hit by a bus after eating this there's a lot of other things I would have rather had as a last meal.

Friday Poolside Lunch Porn

When Summer has given way to Fall and school nags at me to complete useless tasks of which I cannot force myself to care about, I will long for these days.

How Collin Got His Groove Back. Or, MAKING SHIT FROM THE HIP!

Feels good to do something right even though you have no idea what you're doing at all. Last night was a good night with regard to cooking. I made the above, which is a combination of sweet potatoes, peaches, bacon and a fair amount of brown sugar. Rich, for sure, but good, oh yes.

This was a construct that I made on the fly with no clue what the end result was going to be. I simply began with the notion that I wanted to include peaches in whatever it was. Then I used what was laying around. The result was a really nice caramelized brown sugar flavor, with peachy fruitiness and that wonderful saltiness from the bacon. Not something you could eat a plate of, but it was nice to have there for nibbling throughout the meal.

One thing however. This dish did not fit the meal, at all. We had a large salad with this and it was the definition of a culinary shotgun marriage. No good. This Is something that would probably be better served with a big amazing thanksgiving dinner than a light summer meal. But oh well, it was fun so fuck it.