Vive la Wisconsin!

As I said in a recent email to Narya, I have not fallen off the face of the earth. I was, however, dangling a bit for a while.

I am now a proud resident of Paris, Wisconsin when the internet has been pretty hard to come by. I really do need to write up some account of my trials and tribulations and figure out who at AT&T to send it to. Rather than bore you with the full 3-week story, I will divulge that 6 different people were sent to or near the house and none did anything that ultimately solved the DSL issue. And right after I agreed to shell out the big bucks for monthly wireless service, I met our across-the-street neighbor (as distinguished from our to-the-north neighbor) and was told that they currently have DSL with no problems. It took them 6 months of back and forth with AT&T, but they got it. The wireless thingy is so cool and Nick will be able to use it when commuting via train, so it looks like we're sticking with it. When the two-year contract is up, I'll look into conventional DSL again.

I do have photos of the house, barn, and surrounds, but I'm not sure what the limits are regarding data transfer on the wireless thingy (henceforth referred to as Pete). I could check on this via my online account, but AT&T sends you a text message with your password when you register. Pete is not a cell phone, per se. He has no screen, he does not display text messages. So I have to call them and they have to MAIL me the password. Lord, it's the Tart... again. Please help me stave off that homicidal rampage I've been thinking about. Thank you.

Farm plans are as such: till up a generous portion of the mowed "yard" part of the property in the next couple of weeks for the planting of strawberries, garlic, shallots, and rhubarb. Clear the 6-or-so-acres of weeds and brush over the next few months and see what's there. Build chicken coop, get chickens, get a few sheep, plant more stuff, all over the next year or so. In the meantime, get the house in order. There will be no more lazy weekends for a while.

In work news:
I am happy to report that the new Chef has not yet revealed his raving lunatic side. His desserts are really good, he's particular without being micro-managerial, and his techniques are, mostly, spectacular (he boils Anglaise, it's not good). As a French guy he keeps his personal life largely to himself, which is fine by me. He comes in around 9 and leaves around 9, 6 days a week. He may keep his personal life to himself because he doesn't have much of one, I don't know.

In my own kitchen:
I have made ice cream every week since we moved in. Last night, we decided on mint-chocolate chip. Lebowitz's recipe calls for 80g of fresh mint and Nick had grabbed about 20g, but it actually turned out to be just fine. I bumped up the flavor with a teeny drop of peppermint oil.

The week before, I made the milk chocolate-Guinness ice cream using Bell's Cherry Stout in place of the Guinness. I folded in a few fresh cherries, which froze (duh). I'll make a cherry compote next time. Nonetheless, that one's a keeper. The beer is a bit much. It's very thick and inky dark. We're going to try making mustard with some of it, and sloooowly drink the rest.

Prior to those, I made one I think of as "Peanut Butter Insanity." Hold on to your hats, folks. I made peanut butter ice cream, peanut butter-chocolate ice cream, fudge sauce, and peanut butter "patties" (PB mixed with powdered sugar), and layered all this together. It was too much. Just a spoonful was sufficient to quell any ice cream and/or peanut butter cravings for the entire night. I think small balls of that interspersed in plain old vanilla ice cream would make less overwhelming treat. Both PB ice creams were excellent and contained no egg yolks. The plain peanut butter one doesn't even get cooked, just whirled a bit in the blender. And the PB makes for an excellent texture with no other stabilizers required. Genius.

Across-the-street neighbor brought us an enormous zucchini last night and I'm going to get cracking on some Z-bread. We'll grill the rest. I have no idea what we'll do with the cabbage she brought as neither of us is a big fan, but I'll think of something. After I get all the slugs off of it. Ah, country life!

Too early for even the most Brazen

free sunrise. from lucy drella on Vimeo.

This past Saturday the DZ offered a free jump to those who showed up for a sunrise load. I'm sure it was awesome, but I simply work too late to get up that early. Anyhoo, the video is cool, if a bit too long.

Besides, I was busy Saturday: painting at mom's , and then working on an alligator cake for my younger nephew's first birthday party. No one can say I didn't use my vacation day well, darn it.

He is a sour cream-chocolate chip cake with raspberry jam.

The legs were jamless; I added them later.

Legs and crumb coat!

The eyes are gumballs, the nostrils are Whoppers.

I used a leaf tip to pipe the scales. All 20 million of them.

Oh, but so worth it.

There were leftovers, but not as much as you'd think.

Onion, Rendered Transcendent

This is the most splendid way of cooking an onion I have yet to encounter. Adapted from Nancy Silverton's Sandwich Book. Oh, my, yes.

Preheat the oven to 400.

Take a red onion and cut it in half through the root. Trim the hair off the root and, keeping the root intact, cut the onion into 8-10 pieces.

Drizzle a good-sized cast iron, or other oven-proof, skillet with olive oil and a little balsamic. Scatter a generous quantity of thyme about the skillet. Arrange the onion wedges/slices in a single layer in the skillet and drizzle with a little more oil and vinegar. Sprinkle with salt and pepper and some more thyme. You may wish to add bay leaves, sage, or oregano as well.

Pop the skillet in the oven for 25-35 minutes, until the onions are soft and caramelized. Peek under one of the onion wedges to make sure the bottom is brown.

Allow to cool in the pan, but not too much or they'll stick to it. Trim off the root bit if you like. The onions turn into lovely fan shapes as they bake (just realized you might have enjoyed a photo of that), but this might not make for practical eating, depending on the onion's destiny.

New Dessert

Namelaka

Strawberry gelee
Balsamic reduction
Caramelized white chocolate namelaka filled with
Fresh strawberries mixed with yuzu sauce
Caramelized white chocolate square
Strawberry yuzu sorbet
Strawberry tuile

This one has some timing issues for plate-up. The strawberry gel squares are kept in the freezer and need to thaw on the plate for 5 minutes before anything else can be put on the plate. I'm thinking about trying to find room under our chiller drawers for a few pre-gelled plates. For production, it takes FOREVER to caramelize the white chocolate. Seriously, this takes at least 6 hours. It will probably end up being an early-in-the-week project for the day crew.

Oh. "Namelaka" is Japanese for "creamy." There's a good description in a Dessert First post:

"Finally, you might be wondering what "namelaka" is - I know I hadn't heard of the word. Namelaka is the Japanese word for "creamy", and this little daub of chocolate is meant to embody "creamy". When I saw that it was made of milk chocolate, milk, glucose, cream, and some gelatin, I didn't see how it was different from a mousse. But the proportions of the ingredients means that the result should be very, very melt-in-your mouth, with no cloying taste. It requires some attention and precision - the mixture needs to absolutely, 100% smooth - Chef Givre used a stick blender to finish the mix off, and you can't add too much gelatin or it will be stiff and gummy."

I am cooking like a mad fiend today. I've already made a pan of Graham Cracker Chewy Bars. Whoo! Sweet and buttery! Just one is plenty.

In the oven is a Lime and Coconut Quick Bread. I got the recipe off of Farmgirl Fare. Her's is lemon, rather than lime, but I had a surfeit of leftover and rapidly-browning limes from last weekend's Florabama mojito making.

I have some nice rhubarb in the freezer and picked up some strawberries today. I'll make a cobbler filling and freeze it, I think, as I'm going to have plenty of baked goods around. The King Arthur site has a few cobbler recipes which call for their scone mix as a topping, so I'm getting out my trusty scone recipe again to top the cobbler.

Lastly (oh, yeah, there's more), I'm going to make the Cinnamon Toast Ice Cream from the Workbook Blog. I've bookmarked about 100 of his recipes but attempted none. This one is a bit involved in that one must steep toasted wheat bread in milk over night, make the base, let it rest over night, then make the ice cream, then swirl in a couple more ingredients. I think it could be quite a spectacular match for the strawberry-rhubarb cobbler.

AND I'll be roasting tomatoes, glazing onions, baking some ricotta, and pulling a jar of last Fall's pesto out of the freezer to go with some chicken I grilled this afternoon. This, minus the chicken, is actually a sandwich combo from the Nancy Silverton sandwich book, but I thought it all sounded good if tossed with a little pasta.

Then I will pass out in a food coma.

Not Really New Desserts

Creme Brulee
Lord, people love creme brulee. I wonder how many of them are shocked and disappointed when it doesn't come in a ramekin. And how many don't order it because they hate rhubarb? Love it!

Speculoos (a sort of spiced sable)
Rhubarb Compote
Creme Brulee (recipe has a ton of sour cream in it. so delicious!)
Cassis-White chocolate ganache
Poached rhubarb strips (rolled into "snails")
Dehydrated rhubarb strip
Cassis meringue square
Lavender-Mirabelle ice cream (don't like the flavor, color, or texture of this one)
Dehydrated rhubarb "feather" garnish

Chocolate Apricot Millefeuille
We call it the MILF, for short. Yes, that generally gets a chuckle.

White Chocolate-Apricot compote
Toasted Pistachios
Dark Chocolate Cremeux (rich and bitter...yeah, I like my cremeux like I like my men...)
Caramelized chocolate puff pastry
White Chocolate Apricot ice cream (yum!)
a little salt on the ice cream
White Chocolate Curl

Fruits Rouge
This was just taken off the menu to make room for the new chef's
first dessert which you will get to see tomorrow.

Strawberry puree
Brunoise strawberries
Balsamic reduction
Micro Italian basil
Raspberry Vodka-soaked baba
Raspberry sorbet
Raspberry tuile filled with
Vanilla-Fromage Blanc foam

The St. Lucia is still on the menu.

We got 3 jumps in today. That puts me at 44. Nick pointed out that I have made almost a quarter of my total jumps in the last week!

Whitney took these last weekend

"Go Fast! Take Chances! Have Fun!"

Seems skydivers don't say "Drive carefully!"

Nick and I made it back this afternoon. The drive, while not quite a barrel of monkeys, wasn't too bad.

There was a small box of fabric softener (it's supposed to repel mosquitoes) on the picnic table at the Drop Zone this weekend. On one side someone had written "Don't" above the product name. On the other side, they'd crossed out "Bounce" and written in "Jump."

One jumper got some pictures on a dive I was on and is supposed to be emailing them. There the sort of pictures where if you didn't know it was me, you wouldn't know it was me, but I'll post them if I get them nonetheless.

This text posting is cool. Ended up with 7 jumps for the boogie. Kind of crappy, but the most I've ever done in a weekend. Leaving tonight. Back Tues evening.