the quest for the best

there is no doubt that box mix brownies are the best. THE BEST!!!!

but, they are so epically disgusting. so, i am on a mission (along with another crazy person) to make THE BEST homemade brownies that taste just like mix brownies, but better.

yesterday, i made my first trial batch. they could have been a little chewier (we think that will involve less baking powder/more baking soda/cake flour/maybe some cornstarch or powdered sugar), but i have to say that they were pretty darned good. in fact, i think that they were the best homemade brownies i've ever had.

test brownies, first try

4 T. butter
12 oz. bittersweet chocolate (i used a random mixture of valrhona, el rey and *gasp!* scharffenberger, since that's all i had)
1/2 cup cocoa (i used valrhona, because it's the best)
1 1/2 cups AP flour
1/4 t baking powder
1/4 t baking soda
3/4 t salt
4 large eggs
2 C sugar
4 t vanilla
3/4 C water
3/4 cup oil (i actually used olive oil since that's all i had)

preheat oven to 350°F.

line a 9x13 inch pan with foil or parchment, leaving couple of inches extra over each side so you'll be able to pull out the brownies in one piece later.

melt the butter, chocolate and cocoa in a double boiler.

meanwhile, beat the eggs and sugar in a stand mixer on medium speed for about 4 minutes until they are pale and creamy.

sift together the flour, soda, powder and salt.

when the chocolate mixture is thoroughly melted, add it to the egg mixture, and mix to combine.

combine the water, vanilla and oil in a cup with a pour spout.

alternately add the dry ingredients and the water/oil/vanilla mixture to teh chocolate egg mixture, mixing after each addition. start and end with dry ingredients.

do not over mix!

pour into the pan and bake until just set. i think mine took somewhere in the neighborhood of 30-35 minutes.

good luck!
last week, bored and computerless (i don't even want to talk about it), i caved in and bought tom mcnamee's book about alice.

i met tom in italy, at the dinner table where i tasted my first white truffles. alice had them in a little box, along with the first eggs laid by chickens at the edible schoolyard (cristina had carried them half-way across the world on her lap), and she gave them to chris to go around and shave over everyone's pastas. pasta after pasta after pasta. tajarin, ravioli, agnolotti--so much pasta! i remember the bathroom in that little hole in the wall restaurant (corby had sent us there) had this funny toilet seat that flew up every time you flushed, and sprayed itself with sanitizer.

the next night we left turin for the countryside, and got soooooo lost. we were headed to cornale for dinner, and after three or four hours in the car (it should have been an hour's drive), we found the place and had a great, authentic, pure dinner (tajarin with chicken hearts!) that just overwhelmed us. out of all of us, my italian (still quite weak at that point) was the best, so i translated for us everything that elena had to say. she swept us off her feet with her passion fro farmers and the land, and we stayed there for many, many courses beyond what we needed.

though we knew we were late to get to verduno, we had neglected to realize that the time was changing that night. we thought we were getting there at 1.30am, but we'd actually made them wait up for us until 2.30. yikes. maybe that explained why they hated us so much the next day.

anyway, you can read tom's version of the dinner in the alice book. it doesn't mention mikhail baryshnikov taking photos of us all day long with a little disposable camera, or me wincing when i realized that i had to make creme anglaise with that weird parmalat cream in a box and then desperately trying to hide the evidence from alice and lindsay. there are lots of little and not so little mistakes in there (the whole book, not just that chapter), and it makes me sad, because i know that he worked on it for a long time. i also was sad because i was cut out of the original story in saveur (though i did get to write the recipes for that article), after dragging 10 kilos of porcini and 6 huge cardoons in my backpack on the eurostar train from florence (i got a lot of weird stares from the italian businessmen). but all's well--i can make my own star one day. i don't think i need to ride this one to get where i'm going.

there is a great picture of bob in the book. and one of cp before it was cp. it was worth it for those two photos.

no paella for me

after three long months of being dragged around by the paella lady, the paella is no more. i am so relieved.

a friend of the mother of the boyfriend of a friend, she called to ask me to make a paella for a wedding she's catering this summer. she said that she'd never made it before, and had heard that i was really good at it. i kind of tried to get out of it, but she insisted that i make it. i said i'd be expensive, and i just made up a number (i had just worked at the getty's and used that as a starting point). i was kind of delirious, and didn't think about how much work it would actually be, and i felt kind of guilty for quoting so much, so i told her that i'd make her a sample one sometime to show her what she'd be getting. i also said i'd only do it if i was the one who'd make the broth, and insisted that she let me buy from my own sources (monterey fish, the spanish table, pacific gourmet, etc.). she seemed to agree to all of my conditions.

and then the phone calls began. i barely answer my phone as it is. everyone thinks i'm mad at them, but really, i never even check my messages. she wanted to schedule a time for me to make the sample. somehow, the sample turned into a dinner party for the wedding party and guests. the number of guests at the wedding rose by 50. and the paella changed from a four-hour paella station to paella for 200 all at once.

ugh. i began regretting it. i realized that i'd been nuts when i quoted her a price, and that i'd basically be doing four days (four days!!!! i already work so much, i don't even have four days a year to myself!) of work for a few hundred bucks. so, i went back and told her that i had to change my fee to a flat rate. i sent the email the night before i went to her house to make the sample paella.

when i got there, she didn't say anything about the email, so i assumed that she hadn't seen it. but toward the end of the night, i brought up something from email, and she said that she'd read it. and since she didn't say anything about my fee, i figured all was well. i mean, these people live in mill frickin valley--both the caterer and the client. the client's yard is bigger than live oak park, a veritable redwood forest! if anyone can afford to cough up a few hundred bucks to pay for what they said was the most delicious paella they'd ever had (the bride even said that the paella was so good, she wanted it to be the main course instead of the second course), it's them.

the next day, the phone calls began again. she said that my requests, both for using monterey fish, and for my fee, were outrageous and completely disproportionate to her budget. she said she wanted to make the broth out of her own fish (which was kind of stinky and had obviously been frozen when i went to her house) and just wanted me to come cook the paella. the broth is the most important part, i said (and besides, she called me because she's never made paella before, right?) i said i wasn't willing to compromise on either. i said, they seemed to like it so much that i'm sure they'd pay the extra money for it if she just asked, and she said that she wasn't willing to compromise her professionality by re-quoting them a price (implying that i was being unprofessional by raising my price. which i was. but to be fair, the guest count rose by 25% and she suddenly wanted all of the paella at the same time, which is about 6 times as difficult). so we parted ways. thank goodness.

my only question is, why the heck did she wait until i did this whole dinner for them to tell me? why didn't she just tell me before i went to all that trouble? i mean, now she's going to have to explain to them why i'm not there and why the paella is not the same.

oh well. i guess this was a good lesson for me to learn. i work too hard to undersell myself. and the sad thing that i learn over and over each day is how unwilling people are to spend money on what they eat, at every level of the food chain. all i'm saying is, you get what you pay for.
i heart mmw's yuppie self-loathing. mostly because i feel it so intensely each day myself.

i love how he calls himself an asshole, and everyone else a douchebag. so awesome.

i hate eschewing the normal ideals and then pretending that my rustic ones are so much more authentic. i still want to own a home one day, to never have to worry about money, to have a shiny macbook pro, and travel endlessly around the world. but it's so much easier to pretend that i'm better than everyone else by making my own knife bag (or having my mom make it for me) instead of just going to sur la table and buying one. or making my own whatever instead of buying one--i mean, most of the time it's because i'm too cheap, not because i am more authentic.

why do i suck so much?

i just spent the last few hours interrogating a vp at niman. so many questions have been floating through my head since the mackey class, and since i asked mp if he only eats grassfed beef, and since i started researching more in depth what actually happens at niman, and it was just so good to finally be able to get some straight answers. every time i see bill niman, we start talking about ideals and individual cows and mutual friends and whatever (last week it was trader joe's vs. whole foods), so i never get any answers. it was really good to get some actual facts. one thing that worried me was what happens to the cows when they are being moved from the grass to the feedlot. what are the conditions on the truck like? is there enough room for them to move around? do they have anything to eat or drink? are they stuck on those trucks for days straight? i was really worried about this stuff, and talking to this guy (who i really like) settled a lot of these issues for me. bill told me that i could go up anytime and see the ranch and a local feedlot. this is something i absolutely need to make time for. i might be able to squeeze in a trip between bouts of self-loathing. we'll see.
i have had a major breakthrough in my ice cream making. i thought long and hard about what could give our ice creams a better texture, and i tried a bazillion things. in december, when we did a fundraiser dinner at the ritz-carlton, the pastry people there were pretty unimpressed with our saffron ice cream, which was just melting all over the place. they suggested all sorts of strange chemicals and inverted sugars and doodads, and though it kind of made me happy to know that there was some way to fix these problems, i knew that i could never use chemicals to get where i wanted to go. but i'd noticed that certain of our ice creams always had really good texture, and wondered if i could fake their common element in all of the rest of our ice creams. so i tried it. and it worked. amazingly.

now, our ice cream is completely soft and scoopable, and melt-in-your-mouthable, and creamy, and it makes me so happy. ever since i was a kid, i've wanted to have an ice cream shop. the dream still lingers on, so it's good to know i have a secret weapon that's natural.

tartine

i've had mixed results with the tartine cookbook.

recipes that are awesome:
chocolate-almond toffee
roasted bananas
chocolate pudding--really delicious, but i stress the importance of using high quality cocoa and chocolate. i used valrhona cocoa (which has no equal, in my opinion) and el rey chocolate.
lemon-almond tea cake
buttermilk scones
walnut-cinnamon slices
shortbread

recipes that suck:
chocolate pots de creme--they don't have nearly enough sugar
croissants--way too much butter (and for me to say that, they must really have too much butter)
lemon cream--way too eggy. yuck. i have a major problem with eggy custards.
tomorrow night, john mackey and michael pollan will face off live at zellerbach. in the morning, mackey is coming to our class, to face off with us, i guess, since mp said he's not saying a word in class (he wants to save it for the show).

our assignment was to write five questions for mackey, and send them in to mp to read over. i thought of the most challenging questions i could imagine. mp just wrote back and said that they are tendentious, a word i had to look up in the dictionary. i guess i have to rethink the way i'm gonna ask my questions, but here they are:

Mr. Mackey,

In your first letter to Michael Pollan, you proudly assert that the Whole Foods store in Hadley sits amidst many small farms and has the authority to buy directly from them. During the season, you say, Hadley buys local produce from over 25 small farms. I am the buyer for a restaurant here in Berkeley, and we make it a priority to buy from small farms. This morning I sat down and counted how many farmers/ranchers/local artisans I speak with on a weekly basis: in the winter, 47, and in the summer, 70. How is it that our tiny, independent restaurant, with a relatively narrow menu (Californian-Italian food) can manage to buy from nearly three times as many local producers as your shop that sits in the middle of a fertile landscape? We have to turn people away in the summertime. Why isn’t the Berkeley store buying from those same farmers? I know that sometimes quantity is an issue, but don’t quite understand why. If Raye Byrne brings two flats of her mulberries to you, unsure that she’ll have more later, why not buy them and offer your customers the chance to buy something incredible? People are willing to buy these sorts of things, and they will only come to understand seasonality better when they realize that they can’t get whatever they want, whenever they want. Our local produce market, Monterey Market, does just this with almost every small farmer I know—in fact, Monterey is the only place to get the most special Kishu tangerines grown by Jim Churchill in Ojai, and they are only available for a few weeks each year. People get it, though, and they wait, they pay the premium price for them ($3.29/pound this year), and they enjoy this incredible fruit that amazingly, is only grown by this one farmer anymore.

If organizing your purchasing is a main concern, then why not put aside the notion of buying from farmers who show up at your door unexpectedly and create a plan to “spread the wealth” by buying from one farmer one week and another farmer the next?

Walter Robb recently said that ten percent of the organic produce consumed in the US is imported from overseas. What percentage of Whole Foods’ produce comes from China? What percentage of the ingredients used in the processed organics sold at Whole Foods, including both the 365 line and other brands, comes from China or overseas? How can the average consumer distinguish what is grown in the country and what is not? How do you plan to make these sourcing issues transparent to your customers, who deserve to know where their food comes from?

I just went to the Berkeley Whole food store, and noticed the vague signage in the meat section. It’s pretty obvious that most people won’t learn to ask where their food comes from, and instead must be told the truth from the start, so why doesn’t it clear what farms or ranches the chicken and beef come from? Being confused by the vague wording on the price tags in the meats, I had to ask the young butchers where everything comes from, and though they were able to tell me, they weren’t very informed beyond the basic facts. Both Andronico’s and Berkeley Bowl have extensive signs detailing where all of the meat comes from and whether it’s organic, free-range or grass fed. Why doesn’t Whole Foods have the same?
i can't sleep, again.

i totally love tylenol pm, but i am afraid to take too much of it. i should probably just take some now, but i'm not going to.

michael pollan's class today was pretty great. i'll find out soon if he's going to let me audit. i was kind of wishy-washy about it before, but now i really want to do it.

pretty much all i can think about is my uncle and my family. i don't know what to do--my family is falling apart. everyone is falling apart. i have fallen apart (that happened long ago, though).

if you are wondering what is going on with the outgoing message on my voicemail, all i have to say is this: melissa made me do it

we've been making a lot of this salad at the restaurant lately. the blood oranges have been so good! but i think that's pretty much going to be over now that we've had this devestating freeze. i had some kishus yesterday--i hope they'll be around for another couple of days at least. i have to go to monterey in the morning, so i'll find out then, i suppose.
my computer had a major nervous breakdown and has been sent in for work. i've been internetless for nearly a week, and it feels really weird.

i have been sleeping a lot better, though. i don't doubt that the two things are connected.

a friend is loaning me an old ibook for the week. but i have to say, thank goodness for applecare. it's totally worth it. these repairs would have cost $350. and a few months ago, i got them to give me a new power cord. that pays for itself nearly twice over, and i still have a year and a half left on the warranty.

everyone, get applecare!

auguri per il anno 2007




i hope that sweetness reigns.

small goals seem appropriate, and attainable. here are some of mine:

to take at least three photos a week that i am really happy with.

to leave california at least once. i realized recently that i haven't left the state since i returned from italy in 2004.

to become familiar with the sewing machine and make something from the fabulous denyse schmidt book amber gave me (thank you so much! can i begin to explain how much i love it? no, probably not.)

to be more careful about what i eat. i need to eat more vegetables.

to write at least two things i am proud of.

to fix the toilet paper holder.


anyone out there have anything interesting you're thinking of resolving for the new year?

i can't sleep

there is just so much going through my head. i can't deal with it all, and my body is spazzing out. awesome.

and now, even though i can't remember ever being this tired, i can't sleep.

my heart is officially broken. for my uncle, my family, myself. for my sister, who went through this twenty-six years ago as a child. for my grandmother, who sits home and cries uncontrollably, feeling helpless. for my cousins, who now face something no one ever dared imagine. this is the saddest time i have ever known.

i can pretend to be happy about silly little things, i can pretend to focus on work, i can try to smile at the thought of my friends visiting. but behind it all, i see my uncle's face. it's all i can see. it's all i can think about. i don't know what to do.

this christmas eve

if you have ever liked or loved me,
or thought that i was nice or funny,
if you have ever smiled for me or i've smiled for you,
if you have ever loved anyone and faced losing him or her,

then please, please send some warmth and thoughts of well-being, strength, and health to my uncle.

bah humbug

twelve reasons why this holiday season sucks:

1. oh so many problems with my new health insurance--they don't want to pay for anything. i swear, having health insurance is more stressful than not having it. at least when i didn't have it, i didn't come home to unexpected bills all of the time.

2. i found out that my uncle has a very advanced case of brain cancer. aside from the devestation that this has caused our family, i am also worried for myself. in my immediate family, there have now been four cases of cancer, and two of brain cancer. my sister's and my uncle's brain cancers, though not identical, were both caused by tumors that they were born with. this leads me to wonder if this is genetic, and if i am more likely to get cancer. i have become obsessed with green tea extract and brassicas.

3. as i was leaving elephant pharmacy the other day (i was there in search of a naturopath to speak with about natural cancer treatments), a blinged out dude in a 2006 mercedes suv hit the side of my car. there is a big ol' dent in it now. so fun. and he didn't admit fault (even though it was totally his fault and there was even a witness who agreed).

4. i got a ticket to go home for the weekend to see my uncle and family, and then my mom told me that he was going to be moved to la. so i switched my ticket to la, and then she asked me why i did that. she told me that my dad and my other grandparents wanted to see me, too, so i had to call again and change the ticket again, and get charged more. oh so fun.

5. i am dead tired from work. this december has been so busy, and so much of the work has fallen on my shoulders. i'm happy when the restaurant is busy, but not when i have to pick up after other people and fix their mistakes. i have enough work to do on my own.

6. yikes! the farms are closing down for the holidays. all of them. at the same time. where are we supposed to get anything to serve? this is really stressing me out. i fully believe that the farmers deserve a break, too. just not all at the same time. please.

7. the new printer we got at work is a piece of crap. and xerox won't take it back. i am in the middle of raising hell with xerox, and i'm pretty sure we'll get a new one. i just wish there were someone else to take care of these problems. all i ever wanted to do was cook, and now i spend my mornings making threatening phone calls to xerox. fabulous.

8. my computer started making a strange buzzing sound.

9. ugh. i don't even think i can make it to twelve.