Loving it

I am so thankful that I have friends who love to eat. My friends are not foodies per se, nor gluttons by any means. Yet, these women know the meaning of taking pleasure in the enjoyment of food, savoury or sweet. We all have our gastronomic likes and dislikes (I am probably guilty of the most dislikes) but the sheer joy of eating is something that we all share. For example, we all took pleasure in consuming my friend Shelley's birthday tart, composed of strawberries, dark chocolate ganache, and chocolate frangipane in a chocolate shortcrust.

The converse is always frustrating, sharing a meal with someone who regards food as just calories or where the number of ingredients which are subjectively unpalatable outnumber those which are acceptable. Can you imagine going through life avoiding everything that you suspect has onion in it? In contrast, food intolerances and restrictions are certainly valid issues but even these should never stop one from enjoying food. I know a kosher vegetarian with a nut allergy who appreciates her food, from garden to plate.


Speaking of gardens, mine is blooming despite being ransacked by skunks who feasted on 50% of my tulip bulbs earlier this year. Cherry blossom season is in full swing and just like the importance of taking time to smell the roses, taking time to gasp at the beauty of a flowering cherry tree is equally important for your mental health!

Project Puff

Spring has sprung here in Vancouver, evidenced by cherry-blossom lined streets and the accompanying pollen. I even dared to get my winter coat dry-cleaned and stored this week, although my boots are still on stand-by. These transitional seasons can often be disorienting to me, a person who admittedly does not deal well with change. I am a creature of habit who prefers repetition and routine with an occasional dose of interesting.

My interesting experience over the past two weeks was playing around with pâte feuilletée (puff pastry). It has been probably over two years since I have bothered to make puff pastry at home by hand (at work with a sheeter does not count). And since the weather is still cool, I decided to make inverted puff pastry (where the butter layer starts on the outside instead). Four folds later (single, double, single, double), I had more puff dough than Eric and I should ever consume alone. Luckily, it freezes nicely and was portioned over the last two weeks into five different products to be shared amongst friends.


The tarte tatin and strawberry-lemon cream mille feuille were victims of my over-zealous oven. My puff dough browned too quickly, leaving it underbaked in the centre, as you can witness in the mille feuille's cross-section. Next time, I will also vent the tarte tatin during baking to lessen the residual cooking juices in order to keep the puff crust crispy, not soggy.

After some temperature regulation issues were resolved, my vol-au-vents baked properly but a few decided to slouch over to one side, much like my top-heavy hyacinths currently blooming in the garden. I think I need to practice shaping and assembling these again to redeem myself.

Finally, no puff pastry project is complete without using up leftover scraps to make palmiers and/or cinnamon straws. These crispy little munchies are so easy and make my frugal heart sing. In fact, I might use up my residual unused puff dough to make these tasty morsels instead. Everything tastes better with cinnamon sugar on it, doesn't it?

Snack time

Forget chocolate, forget sugar. Give me the most delicious smoked oysters, straight from beautiful Cortes Island, British Columbia, any time any where. These Oyster Man's gourmet smoked oysters are plump, luscious and smokey, not overly salty nor drenched in oil. After purchasing an entire case directly from the Oyster Man himself last fall, I had to purposely hide them on a very high shelf in the kitchen in order to prevent myself from easy access and immediate consumption. Just taking a snack break on a rainy afternoon between the third and fourth turns of my pâte feuilletée (puff pastry). I have been inspired by these buttery yellow daffodils this week...

Diversion: Sooke Harbour House

The Sooke Harbour House deserves more blog time than the one sentence I allotted in my last post. This lovely hotel combines nature, food, art, and relaxation anytime of the year (my four favourite things in life) and is just a short 40 minutes drive from Victoria, BC. Overlooking the Olympic Peninsula, SHH is remarkable for so many reasons but my focus was on the culinary philosophy and offerings from this luxurious but whimsical destination.

Both the exterior and interior of what is essentially a great big oceanfront house reflects SHH's devotion to all things food, celebrating the journey that food takes from the field or ocean to the plate. Even in the winter, wild greens flourish and end up in my Seventeen Leaf salad (I counted just to double check). Undoubtedly, the summer months would offer a more bountiful harvest of edible flowers, herbs, fruits, and vegetables but we were impressed by what was available during this cold dreary March, especially the 8 foot tall walking stick cabbage.

As a city mouse, not a country mouse, having a wood-burning fireplace in our room, the Passion Flower room (appropriate since my all-time favourite pastry ingredient is passionfruit), was a novelty. Every nook and cranny of the house is covered in local artwork inspired by the natural vistas and wildlife from land and sea. The wall of crabs in the dining room was particularly amusing, especially because of Eric's birthday cake.


There is very little negative to say about the SHH, except that I did not like the deconstructed apple strudel which concluded the seven-course tasting menu. Exceedingly sweet, it was a far cry from the impressive trio of sorbets we had the night before, pairing local flavours such as apricot and sage in creamy form. Ignoring this minute detail, our weekend at the Sooke Harbour House was the perfect romantic getaway to celebrate four decades of Eric's existence with outstanding local cuisine and beautiful surroundings.

Surprises

I have never successfully organized any event which involved an element of surprise, mainly because I am a notably bad actor/liar. This weekend, however, required major covert operations in order to celebrate Eric's 40th birthday in high style without his knowledge. Even the taxi driver was in on the surprise as I kidnapped him to his first helicopter ride to Victoria and onwards to Sooke for a relaxing and luxurious excursion at Sooke Harbour House.


The problem was that I had also promised to make him a cake of his choosing before deciding to spend his birthday out of town. Eric has an affinity for crab, biologically and gastronomically. Many of our travels, including this weekend, have involved tidepooling and in fact, we were engaged in Tofino in the rain, surrounded by a large party of star fish. Hence, he choose a crab-themed birthday cake to be served after our return on Monday, giving me a challenge, both technically and logistically.


Working with pastillage was the best choice since I needed a medium which allowed me to work well in advance. Using a live (later cooked and eaten) Dungeness crab model, I shaped the leg segments by hand from pastillage which were airbrushed with my new Aztek airbrush system which I love. The sides of the gift box (and a lid with bow which I forgot to photograph!) were also made of pastillage.


The cake itself was also made in advance and frozen after being masked in buttercream. An 8" x 8" square cake served as the gift box interior and the crab's body was carved from a 6" diameter round cake. Three layers of chocolate cake and two layers of pistachio dacquoise were sandwiched by dark chocolate ganache, passionfruit curd, and pistachio mousseline. After returning home on Sunday night, I covered the crab's body in rolled fondant and airbrushed the final details. Don't you love its smiling face?


The element of surpise with Eric's Crab birthday cake was not the cake itself since it is impossible to hide multiple crab parts littered throughout the kitchen from the husband. Instead, the expectation was that this cake was to be served at a small family dinner Monday evening; however, I stealthily planned to present the Crab to him at work Monday morning which meant I only had a rushed few hours to assemble, photograph, and deliver the Crab intact. With only a few minor hiccups, the Crab was a hit, finally cut and consumed after great initial reluctance to destroy it. Happy Birthday Eric! Forty is the new thirty!

Head space

I have been somewhat distracted lately by mundane activities of daily living and nagging thoughts. The creative juices have been running a little sluggish and maybe the endless winter has been wearing on my nerves. I need spring, a Vancouver spring where cherry blossoms and tulips fill the wet green spaces which we inhabit.


When too much clutter starts polluting my brain, I lose sleep and go inwards, even more than my usual introverted self. Why can't I be one of those disgustingly well-adjusted people who run 10 kilometres to clear their heads? My solution is to bake something with lots of butter in it.

Not being a bread lover, if I am to enjoy bread, my preference is for something soft and enriched, not crusty and rustic. Brioche à tête are rich and tender French breads packed full of butter and egg, in a characteristic shape resembling a little person's head and torso baked in a small fluted tin. Clearing my head of internal clutter might need more than these brioches, but it's a start.

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.