Diversion: San Francisco

Over Labour Day weekend, Eric and I escaped to San Francisco for some relaxation, culinary exploration, and time with good friends who reside in the Bay Area. It was an opportunity to revisit the city which, inadvertently, has become woven into the misguided journey I took towards pediatric ophthalmology.

I was lucky in the past to spend two summers in the San Francisco Bay Area, first in 1996, and then in 2001. After receiving a grant from the American Pediatric Society, I spent six weeks, during the summer between 1st and 2nd year medical school, doing childhood lymphoma research at San Francisco General Hospital with an inspiring clinician scientist. Honestly, I think it was the best summer of my life, being independent for the first time in a dynamic city while being mentored by the first of many physicians whose passion for medicine seemed so limitless and contagious.

By the summer of 2001, two years of ophthalmology residency had passed and despite encounters with three ophthalmologists who were very influential in my professional life, I was struggling to emulate the passion for ophthalmology which they possessed and shared freely. In my naivety, my desire to have their passion became confused with my desire to pursue ophthalmology, leaving me intensely conflicted as I progressed through residency, unable to find any path which felt right. After spending the summer at an ophthalmology course in Stanford, the slow realization that I may never find that passion in ophthalmology culminated in my final excruciating decision to leave my pediatric ophthalmology fellowship in 2005.

And so, this visit to San Francisco was a strange intersection of my former medical aspirations and my new existence, especially because my ten year medical school reunion also happened to be scheduled for Labour Day weekend in Vancouver. Since I had neither an ophthalmology practice nor child to brag about, going to San Francisco was definitely the better choice.


In between window shopping and a day trip to Napa with friends, we had three favourite meals. The Slanted Door in the Ferry Building provided excellent service, a fabulous view, and a well-balanced modern Vietnamese lunch (try the grapefruit and jicama salad as well as the cellophane noodles with crab). Perbacco, an Italian ristorante recommended by a former San Franciscan (thanks Thahn!), was a highlight not only because of our dinner company, but also because of the divinely tender seared squid on arugula and the hearty handcut tagliatelle with pork sugo which I devoured.

Most memorably, we made the pilgrimage to Chez Panisse and ate upstairs rather than downstairs (I like having choice). This historical birthplace of California cuisine and the organic locavore movement was cozy and straight from the 1970's but the food was refined and current. The duck breast with fig relish on rocket was so intense and delicious. Then, the wild nettle pudding soufflé with corn, zucchini, and chanterelle mushrooms was so uncomplicated and pure in flavour. I could eat there every day.

I will always love San Francisco for many reasons, the diversity, the hippie spirit, even the odd weather. But mainly, I will always love San Francisco because it was where I was filled with so much promise and desire to find passion and direction in my career despite not truly knowing what I was meant to be passionate about. Perhaps I am still on my way to finding out and this visit is merely another breath of inspiration.

On learning

I just realized that this is my 101st post since the inception of my humble little blog in January 2007. It has served to document varying topics from the mundane to the intensely personal, with the new world of pastry viewed through an atypical lens acting as a backdrop to what I try to present through my writing and photography. Much of my blog focusses on my own creative output which has emerged from my home kitchen as a means of forcing myself to grow beyond what I have learned from pastry school or at work.

Before entering pastry school, my personal goal had been to gain enough fundamental knowledge to be able to understand the inner workings of any recipe well enough so that I would be able to modify, adapt, and troubleshoot with confidence and skill. There is nothing I hate more than doing something simply by rote and this is reflected in how I learn and study any subject, be it ophthalmology or pastry. In fact, I possess a surprisingly horrible memory for someone who can claim 14 years of university-based training. Instead, I have always relied on understanding something inside and out before having any hope of owning that knowledge.


Has this goal been fulfilled? Yes, partially. Three years ago I would not have been able to pay homage to Pierre Hermé's Arabesque macaron (Eric's favourite) and successfully play with pistachio paste. I hadn't even heard of Pierre Hermé! Yet, there is so much more to learn and explore and I am not quite sure how and where to find the knowledge I seek. My insatiable appetite for learning has never ceased. I wish there was a pastry equivalent to weekly grand rounds or continuing medical education at a non-existent world-class pastry institution nearby. You would find me in the front row, notebook in hand, with coloured pens ready for action, guaranteed.

A reason to celebrate

Although I have received several inquiries in recent years for wedding cakes, this three-tiered classically elegant cake for my friend Patricia is the first request that I have accepted. The vanilla cake with lemon curd and lemon buttercream barely fit into my refrigerator and relegated my usual array of fruits, veggies, and meat (a.k.a. breakfast, lunch, and dinner) to a second-class position. Now I know with certainty that the largest cake I can currently make at home is for 100 servings.


Making the cake was the easy part even though the more simple the design, the more flawless it must be. What followed gave me chest pain. As some of you may know, I am a 100 pound weakling who has gained some muscle mass since entering professional pastry; however, cake for 100 people is heavy, its filling is heavy and the rolled fondant making it all pretty is heavy. The delivery and final assembly gave me and my normally imperturbable husband more stress than anticipated.


Moreover, to witness the cake's destruction as it laid slaughtered on the dessert buffet table caused a brief apneic spell, which eventually passed upon learning that people enjoyed the cake's lemony goodness. Nonetheless, I am proud of the final result and honoured to be even a small part of Patricia and Chris' wedding celebration.


The best part of the evening was seeing all my medical school friends together. Although I do not miss the clinical demands of medicine, I certainly miss the comradery of medical school, the result of shared stressors combined with shared successes. Despite my mixed feelings about the original path I took in life, the experience is irreplaceable simply because of the wonderful people which I met along the way. Congratulations Patricia and Chris!

Strudel lessons

As promised, a cherry strudel was my project this week, using up some remaining local Lapin cherries which were competing for attention with five pounds of blueberries in the fridge. My first exposure to authentic strudel was on Day 3 of pastry school, when we watched in dumb-struck awe as our expert German pastry instructor stretched a handful of strudel dough into a tissue paper thin sheet which covered the workbench (about 2.5 feet by 5 feet) without a single rip or tear.


Admittedly, my strudel skills are rudimentary and this cherry and peach strudel is not traditional Austrian apple strudel; however, I was determined to practice my strudel dough stretching abilities using local summer fruit. When working with strudel dough, the goal is to pull and stretch the dough as thin as humanly possible without tearing it. How thin? Thin enough to read a newspaper through it. Using gravity to gently thin the dough by its own weight is then followed by gentle pulling and stretching action with the palm of your hand. A flour dusted linen or tea towel works well to help roll up the fruit filled strudel without having to handle the fragile dough directly.


I did make a few mistakes. Although my strudel dough was hole-free, I think I was too cautious and could have stretched it even thinner. Too much fruit and not enough length of dough also produced fewer layers and thus, a less flaky strudel than I had hoped for. Finally, I underbaked it for fear of overcooking the fruit and so the strudel was not as crisp as it could be. But we ate it anyways!

Hot air

Soufflés have a bad reputation due to their notoriously fragile nature. Fearing collapse, those brave enough to attempt whipping up a soufflé have been known to avoid loud noises and even looking at this airy dessert the wrong way. But honestly, soufflés are not to be feared. In fact, soufflés are quite easy to make and as long as you are quick, organized, and cautious, these fluffy custards are impressive to serve and an excellent way to use up extra egg whites. An article in the New York Times dating back to 1908 even warns that the soufflé is "too useful a dish to be lightly condemned" and I whole-heartedly agree.


My soufflés were based on a gianduja pastry cream. In general, soufflés are made by adding whipped egg whites (a French meringue) to a base, typically a flavour-infused pastry cream or a roux. This is then baked in any straight-sided vessel, most commonly ramekins, and served immediately from the oven accompanied by a warm sauce Anglaise. One great tip that I learned from my mentor at pastry school was to brush the ramekins with clarified butter in upward vertical strokes to coat the sides, chill, then coat with sugar. This creates fine ridges which allow the baking soufflé to slide upwards. Also, after filling and leveling off the ramekin, run the tip of your thumb circumferentially along the rim (creating a small groove in the soufflé mix) in order to allow even rise of your soufflés (the above photo compares two soufflés, guess which one didn't get a good rim cleaning!). At this stage, the filled ramekins can even be frozen and baked off PRN.


Finally, soufflés should not be disturbed so once they are nestled in their water baths in the oven, the oven door must remain closed for the entire duration of baking. This is where experience helps and familiarity with your oven is key since neither poking nor peeking is permitted. Just make sure that your hungry guest is ready to eat when the soufflé is ready in order to avoid disappointment and deflation, respectively. In my case, I had to quickly drop my oven mitts, run with the soufflé to my sunny window, and grab the camera to capture maximum height before worrying about eating!

More monkey business

Back in January, I made a Curious George birthday cake and was asked to make another recently for a little boy named Matthew. This George was slightly larger and filled with vanilla cake, coconut mousseline, and of course, caramelized bananas. It gave me an opportunity to try a new toy that I bought myself, a power sprayer, normally used for paint! Having used a power sprayer at pastry school and work for bon bons and entremets to achieve interesting finishes with chocolate spray, I wanted to give Curious George a velvety texture instead of glossy ganache glaze. Using melted chocolate thinned with cocoa butter allows a fine mist to be sprayed onto a frozen item, instantly solidifying into a suede-like matte finish.


In fact, hardware stores can be a gold mine of useful pastry equipment. Cut metal piping become ring molds, four metal bars make an adjustable ganache frame, a graining tool can make chocolate look like wood, and the list goes on. My industrious German pastry school teacher taught me these important lessons. Not only are hardware stores more ubiquitous, but also the prices are usually far cheaper for the same tool that works equally well than when sold as a "pastry" tool.


Can you tell that I'm frugal? In case you haven't, I used the excess coconut mousseline as filling inside some profiteroles that were brought to a family dinner. Easy and delicious!

Diversion: becoming green

Although I was born and raised in Vancouver, surrounded by glorious wilderness, mountains, and water, I have never been deeply affected by environmental issues except the occasional head shake when driving by ugly clear-cut forests somewhere far away. In many ways, I have been the antithesis of a tree-hugging British Columbian, known to drive two blocks to class because it was raining and not recycling regularly until 2005. My awareness has certainly changed over time and the inciting event which prompted this shift was, surprisingly, pastry school. The focus on sustainability and local ingredients at school made me re-evaluate my own views and attitude about the environment. Who knew social change and global issues would be topics of discussion whilst creaming butter and piping profiteroles?


Nowadays, Eric and I are keenly aware of what we buy, consume, and discard. We joke that our vermicompost bin is actually just a home for our hundreds of pet worms. Public transit is a regular part of my life (as long as the bus actually arrives at the bus stop). After watching a provokative documentary about the negative environmental impact of plastic bags (click here to watch), we no longer use any plastic shopping bags and even switched to cornstarch derived BioBag garbage bags for our household waste, as suggested by the greenest friend I have, Katie, who works for Green Table Network. Occasionally when I do forget to bring my reusable shopping bag, I ask for a paper bag or cardboard box for bulkier items which can be easily recycled.


Being a recovering convenience junkie myself, I recognize that sometimes it's not easy being green. Most of the time, however, these little changes that we have made are completely painless and have no negative effect on our lifestyle whatsoever. There are no plans to start hugging trees in the near future, but perhaps, I will tiptoe through my tulips tomorrow.

Three trees

Yesterday, a seven feet tall Fraser fir was the newest addition to our home and dressed up with festive finery and glitter. Even though I voice my share of "bah-humbugs" during the holidays, at heart, I love Christmas and in particular, Christmas trees. Green and gold ornaments adorn our tree, with a lovely hand-made quilted tree skirt underneath.


This time last year, pastry school graduation was imminent and I had a mild obsession with pastillage snowmen. As a result, this snowman family was born and will continue to grace my mantle for years to come. I can honestly say that, next to my wedding day, graduation from pastry school was the happiest day of my life. It represented the start of a new chapter in my professional life which I had always believed was unachievable due to my own insecurities and fears.


Perhaps, I should have just succumbed to a life in pastry, full of sore backs, achy wrists, and scraped hands, over 10 years ago when my good friend Shelley created a personalized miniature Christmas tree as a Christmas gift. The central ornament, handcrafted by Shelley, is supposed to be me, in a chef's hat with the words, Baking Queen, now faded with time. Every year, I put my little tree on display and admired the tiny cookies and wooden spoons made of Fimo with a twinge of sadness. This year, I happily know that this tree does truly represent me.

Project Buttermilk

Buttermilk is not an ingredient which I regularly use but when my sister offered me 750 millilitres of leftover buttermilk, the frugal baker in me could not decline. This gave me an opportunity to leaf through my old pastry school curriculum, a gold mine of trusted recipes, in search of the word buttermilk.


This fermented dairy product is essentially milk soured with lactic acid which is a by-product of cultured bacteria feasting on lactose. It gives richness and tanginess to many types of quickbreads and cakes, including muffins, which is the first thing I decided to bake. My favourite muffin recipe from school is a bran, pumpkin and ginger muffin, moist and light with an interesting crunch from toasted millet. Even though Eric has an irrational hatred of pumpkin due to a traumatic rotting pumpkin science experiment in elementary school, he admitted that this muffin was very good.


Next, the obvious destination for buttermilk is in buttermilk biscuits, a perfect accompaniment to a hearty beef stew which was on the menu for dinner. From Dorie Greenspan's Baking: From My Home to Yours, I found a simple recipe which made the perfect buttery oven-fresh sponge for the rich gravy.


Finally, the buttermilk found its way into a Devil's Food cake which I soaked with Bailey's irish cream syrup and layered with coffee buttercream. In case you think we eat like this every night, you are mistaken. Having a house guest and leftover buttermilk certainly motivates me to cook more than just on Sundays! The only problem is that I still have about 1 cup of buttermilk left but no longer any recipe ideas nor any space in my belly. Maybe pancakes on Saturday?

Dough-re-mi

Some people can not live without bread. I am not one of them. You will rarely see me eating bread except at a restaurant. During the bread section at pastry school, 80% of the products which I brought home were desperately given to my sister, my in-laws, my in-law's in-laws and whomever else because my rate of consumption was too slow and my freezer was too small. My appreciation for bread making and the baker has certainly grown exponentially since pastry school.


Making bread by hand (no bread machines, no KitchenAids) is very satisfying and I do not do it often enough; however, since obtaining a block of fresh yeast recently, my interest in baking bread has been rekindled. I prefer using fresh yeast but it is quite challenging to find so I resorted to asking a local bakery whether they had a block to spare and they kindly gave me one for free!


There is something inherently pleasing about mixing the simplest elements like bread flour, water, yeast, and salt, and with your hands alone, forming a shaggy mess into a supple smooth perfectly spherical ball of dough. Bread dough is a living thing, full of happy budding yeast, which bring flavour and texture to the final product. With just a few variations, additional ingredients, and different techniques, the possibilities are endless, from the simplest baguette to the most complex Viennoisserie.

Definitely not forbidden fruit

On Sunday, we went to the 17th Annual UBC Apple Festival for a surprisingly educational and enjoyable afternoon. Set at the UBC Botanical Garden, this popular two day event is a celebration of apples, featuring over 60 varieties of apples to taste and purchase (including trees). Being my first visit to this festival, I was so distracted by the apple tasting section, where eager visitors like me and Eric were given 30 minutes to receive small slices of each variety from helpful volunteers, that all 30,000 pounds of apples were sold out before I even had a chance to make it to the selling area.


Nonetheless, the highlight was discovering the diversity of apples available and learning about their characteristics. Just reading the names of some varieties, like Winter Banana, Glockenapfel, or Belle de Booskop, was entertaining. I managed to get my hands on a 68 page booklet filled with encyclopedic descriptions and classifications of all the apples featured at the festival, such as which apples to use in salads since they do not brown when cut, or which apples hold their shape best when cooked. My personal apple taste leans towards sweet-tart dessert apple varieties, crisp and juicy, like Honeycrisp, Jubilee or Rubinette.


Since I left the festival empty-handed, Braeburn apples from a local market were the next best option for the obligatory apple pie which I had to bake. Pies are fairly easy to make but deceivingly difficult to make well. Growing up, my pie experimentation with subsequent successes and failures led me to become curious about how to improve my technique and troubleshoot problems like excessive runniness to my filling or wet bottom crusts. This obsession with the perfect pie essentially fueled my natural desire to learn more about pastry and baking. Ironically, the very first item produced in my pastry school class was apple pie! It was as though the pastry gods were smiling down upon me in some small way.


Meanwhile, I am quite satisfied with my Braeburn apple pie, à la mode of course with home made French vanilla ice cream since I had leftover cream in the fridge. These apples kept their shape very well and the crust was light and flakey. Classic comfort food.

Churn baby churn

Even though I recently discovered that I was lactose-intolerant, ice cream is and always will be one of my favourite foods. Having 300 ml of leftover cream and an unsightly mass of untempered dark chocolate remaining from last weekend's entremet project, chocolate ice cream was the obvious final destination for these ingredients.


Given a choice, however, my frozen churned dessert preference would definitely be a fruity sorbetto. I do tend to be a creature of habit and throughout our trip to Italy in 2006, my recitation of "fragola, limone, caffe" as my standard trio of gelato flavours did become a little tiresome for my more adventurous husband.

Also, for all the food lovers in and around Vancouver, I hope to see you at the Chefs to the Field event this Sunday, August 19th from 11 am to 4 pm. This charity event will benefit a very deserving organization, the Terra Nova Schoolyard Society, which is headed by Chef Ian Lai who I know from NWCAV.

A tale of two entremets

This week, I produced two entremets as a favour for my mom's friend who was hosting a dinner party. It was a chance to test my new KitchenAid stand mixer as well as to exercise my creativity muscle. The experience made me recognize how little space I have in my freezer and how important it is to taste everything that you make.

The first entremet was a repeat of one I created for my plated dessert assignment during my Pan Pacific practicum, except a strawberry gelée was used instead of raspberry. This gave me an opportunity to use a beautifully simple row of strawberries to garnish this entremet, with a touch of chocolate for movement.

The second entremet was composed of mango passionfruit mousse, pistachio coconut joconde sponge, some fresh mango, and coconut basil bavaroise. Having an abundance of basil currently in my patio herb garden, I was very excited about combining coconut with basil. Unfortunately, I have a tendency to underestimate the intensity of herbs and decided to add 5 grams of basil instead of 2 grams, resulting in overpowering basil flavour. The same thing happened during my pastry school final black-box exam when I underestimated the power of thyme in an apple-cranberry compote. When will I ever learn my lesson?

Countertop eye candy

I did it. I splurged. After over a decade of coveting KitchenAid stand mixers, I finally invested in this Professional 600 series 6-quart stand mixer (pearl metallic finish). My perspective on these countertop appliances has changed over the years. Initially, as an amateur baking enthusiast, my motivation to own one was purely based on glossy photo spreads featuring modern kitchen decor which always included a stand mixer atop a spotless countertop. The frugal shopper in me, however, could never justify the expense and plus, I could never decide on a colour.

Later, as a pastry student, my teacher Chef Marco was a purist, rarely allowing the use of stand mixers in class unless absolutely necessary. My right bicep became fairly toned from repeated whisking of all meringues and whip cream during school. I was convinced that I would refrain from ever owning a stand mixer because I wanted to be true to the techniques I learned at school. Yet, after working in real pastry kitchens, the invaluable role of the stand mixer is clear to me. Not only does it allow one to multi-task, but also, it allows the safe execution of italian meringues and other techniques which require pouring very hot cooked sugar into whipping egg components.

And so, the newest member of my home kitchen sits proudly on my countertop, already baptized by helping produce pistachio-coconut joconde sponge and mango-passionfruit mousse. Even though I use one almost every day at work, I still can not stop staring at my shiny new stand mixer, knowing it will be part of many future pastry adventures to come!

From ophthalmology to pastry...

I graduated from the Professional Pastry & Bread Making Course at Northwest Culinary Academy of Vancouver on December 15, 2006. It was the best 15 weeks of my life!

After deciding to leave ophthalmology, I was uncertain about my next step. Luckily, I have a wonderful support system who understood my decision and cheered me on to find what made me happy despite my own self-doubt and anxieties. Undoubtedly, after 14 uninterrupted years of post-secondary education, I was weary about going back to school yet again. But this time, it was for the right reasons.

I have learned so much from Chef Marco Ropke who is the Pastry Instructor at NWCAV. My new passion for food and love of pastry not only stems from his influence but also from my new found friends from school. Through their encouragement, I have slowly built up my self-confidence in my skills and creativity.

As I journey through my first baby steps into the professional world of pastry, I hope to share my ups and downs, new discoveries, and ultimate success with you. This blog will also likely become a bit of "show and tell" of my own sweet creations from the past, present, and future.