J5’s Blog

I just finished the first section of Modernist Cuisine which goes over the history which eventually lead to this book being written. This is my first impressions as I begin to immerse myself in this six volume tome.

The first thing that strikes me is that the books are huge, beautifully illustrated works of art. Except for the last volume, which is more of a quick kitchen reference, each book is in itself a coffee table book which can be left out for guests to leaf through and admire. This is where the first fault becomes evident. In its attempt to be a work of art it forgets that its utilitarian purpose is to be read. This is made difficult by the size and weight of each volume (the whole set weighed in around 47lbs.) which requires a coffee table or desk to read. While not a deal breaker it does put a crimp on being able to read a couple of pages before I go to bed each night. The book more than makes up for this short coming by sporting easy to read text and an easy to follow writing style.

As I had stated, the first section revolves around the history of cooking leading up to the modernist style. While very well written and packed full of informational tidbits such as short exposes on most of the important figures in modernist cooking today, it does show the inherent short comings of history being written by an impassioned insider instead of an objective historian. The text often comes off as defensive, lamenting on how the movement is often misunderstood and then aggrandising itself by drawing comparisons to the Impressionist art movement. This would be a completely valid comparison if done by an impartial observer but comes off a bit self serving when written by someone who can be considered a participant in said history. To the author’s credit, he does acknowledge it is a history as far as he saw it and others may have different versions to tell. The text also seems schizophrenic at times. At one point it seems to lament on the lack of legal protections for recipes but then tells us that a good modernist chef rejects secrets and instead seeks to share their knowledge with others. A more objective writer might have balanced the discussion of intellectual property by musing on whether or not the lack of legal protections has in fact fueled the creativity that is the hallmark of the modernist movement.

Once past these few glaring injections of the author’s ideologies, the book is actually shaping up to be a great read and a good start to what could be the seminal cookbook on modernist cuisine. It will also probably be the first one I read cover to cover instead of just rifling through to find some ideas for dinner. The next few chapters consist of a microbiology primer and fundamentals of food safety. I will post another review when I am done with those.

Are you getting excited?  GNOME’s flagship conference, GUADEC, is taking off in a little over a week in Den Haag, The Netherlands.  I’ve got my bags packed and a draft of my talk written.

With one more concert tonight in New York City, I set off tomorrow evening for a much needed vacation in Macon, France where I will be learning classic French cooking at Robert Ash’s cooking school.  The first lesson happens on my birthday, when I will be turning a nice and ripe 33.  Fresh fare such as bar à la crème de fenouil avec ses pommes dauphinoises, confit de canard, and profiteroles au chocolat, among others are set to be learned.  I’ve been playing with the idea of having a fund raising dinner with all the proceeds going to the GNOME Foundation during this year’s Boston Summit.  Perhaps after the course I will feel confident enough to trade donations for my cooking.

Afterwards there are a couple of days of layover in Amsterdam between when the course ends and GUADEC begins.  At GUADEC I am going to be devoting most of my time to whipping PyGObject into glorious introspection shape.   Please join us at the BOFs to learn more, help us hack or get help porting your apps to utilize the power of introspection.  There will be a BOF on general GObject Introspection on Monday the 26th between 14:00-16:00 and on PyGObject(PyGI) on Thursday the 29th between 14:00-18:00.  Otherwise you can find myself or any of the other introspection and GNOME python hackers any time during GUADEC.  If you are a newbie developer looking for something to hack on to get your name out there while learning some core GNOME technologies,  there are some really easy bits to sort of take control of and run with.  There is a lot of detail work such as fixing annotations or doing simple overrides that would take little effort to get up to speed with but make a huge impact on the final quality of the introspected bindings.  Heck, find me over a glass of beer at one of the after parties and I will wax poetic on the thing needed to be done to finish the last mile of our Python plans.

After GUADEC, Colin Walters and I will be travelling to Berlin, both to save airfare by flying out on a weekday and to decompress after a week of non-stop hacking.   I’m looking forward to seeing many old friends and making new ones.  Let’s make GUADEC rock and continue to push GNOME to continue to excel at excellence.  With this year’s focus on GNOME 3 and the underlying technologies that support it there will be a lot of exciting things to see and hack on.

I’ll be heading to GUADEC this year thanks to the generous support the GNOME Foundation Travel Committee but that won’t be my first stop in my mega marathon travelling month of July.

• I will first be travelling to NY around the 8th for the God Street Wine reunion concerts and will be making a pit stop at the Long Island Linux Users Group to give a dry run of my GUADEC talk entitled “The Future is JavaScript” which will continue with my theme from last year of continuing to meld the GNOME Desktop with the web platform (this year focusing on what JavaScript brings to the table)
• I fly out of JFK Airport on the 17th for Lyon France where I am taking the week long Robert Ash cooking course at Rue du Lac in Macon, Burgundy
• The class ends on the 23rd and my Hotel is booked for the 25th in The Hague so I am not quite sure if I will stay in Lyon or start my way up.  I know I have some GNOME friends living between Lyon and The Hague so I am offering to cook dinner for anyone who will let me crash at their place for a couple of days before GUADEC.
• And then there is the main event – GUADEC.  My talk is on Wednesday the 28th at noon.  It shouldn’t be missed.
• To relax a bit more, save money on airfare and because I love Germany, I am heading to Berlin for a couple of days before flying back to the US

If anyone is going to be in any of the areas I will be in and wants to hang out.  Let me know and I’ll see if I can make time.

Substituting stone ground corn meal for flour when dredging fish you are going to fry is great as it give it a even tastier crunch. Can you figure out why it may not go over well some people? Answer in the comments.

Thanks to Joe Shaw’s recommendations five months ago I joined the Chestnut Farm’s meat CSA.   Today, fighting Cambridge/Arlington rush hour traffic I picked up my first monthly 10lbs. share.  It was kind of funny finding a mail in my inbox stating that I had signed up some time ago and oh ya you need to go pick up your share this Wednesday.  I almost skipped the mail but after looking at the quality of the meat I’m glad I read it.

It looks really tasty, unfortunately I spent last night cooking up 3lbs. of chuck beef stew which means I can’t justify cooking anything up just this minute.  I will however be taking some of it to my parents house for the holidays and cooking some for them.

At $8 a pound it is pretty expensive but I am treating it like a learning expense.  Since I don’t know what type of meat I will get each month I have to learn to cook almost any type thrown at me.  I figure during the colder months I will stick with soups, stews and brazing while during the warmer months I will switch to grilling and slow roasting.  If I like what they are sending me I may even get adventurous and see if they can send me the more exotic bits like sweetbreads though I suspect they sell those at a premium to restaurants.

Once I figure out my budget I may just start one of the vegetable CSA’s too.

Many French Onion dips are made out of powdered French Onion soup mix.  The thing is, real French Onion dip is just as easy to make with onions, olive oil, salt, pepper, Worcestershire sauce and beef broth.  Basically you make a pan French Onion soup and let most of the liquids evaporate and then incorporate the results into some sour cream.  I came up with this recipe after having some sour cream left from the icing I was making for my pumpkin cheese cake.

1 cup sour cream

2 small yellow onions

1 tablespoon of olive oil

1 tablespoon of Worcestershire sauce

1/2 cup beef broth

salt and pepper to taste

Chop onion into half moons.  Add olive oil to pan and put over medium low heat.  Add onions and a pinch of salt.  Sauté for a bit and then cover with lid to sweat.  Once onions are translucent add beef broth and Worcestershire sauce.  Add salt and pepper to taste and boil down the liquids until there is very little left.  Let mixture cool down a bit and then add to sour cream, mixing thoroughly.  Add more salt as needed. Refrigerate for at least an hour and then serve with potato chips.  So much better than the mix stuff and just a tiny bit more work.

I threw together this dish a couple of days ago after sneaking out on Ty to go to the pet store and supermarket. I knew I wanted to make a mushroom cream sauce and when I passed by the Tilapia on sale at Whole Foods I thought it would be perfect. As all seafood needs some sort of acid to bring out the flavours, and since citric always works well, I was going to pick up a lemon when I remembered I had unused oranges at home. That would prove to be a great choice for this dish. I also chose string beans as a side because they are easy and are 99 cents a pound around here.  Warning, I love cream and butter (I cook mostly French style) so you can reduce and substitute to make the dish healthier but in reality when fresh, non-processed ingredients are used, health is more about portions than any one component.

Ingredients

Sauce:

• 2 cups of baby bella (cremini) mushrooms sliced
• 1/4 cups of onions diced
• 1 clove of garlic diced
• 2Tbsp. butter
• 1/4 cup of white wine
• 1/2 pint of heavy cream
• 1 bay leaf
• 1tsp. powdered cayenne pepper (adjust to taste)
• salt and pepper to taste

Side:

• olive oil (enough to coat beans)
• handful of string beans per serving
• a clove or two of garlic sliced
• salt and pepper liberally

Main:

• olive oil  (coat bottom of pan)
• 1 tilapia fillet per serving
• 1/2 orange per fillet (juice and zest)
• a small sprig of fresh rosemary (reserve some for garnish)
• fresh parsley for garnish
• salt and pepper liberally

Instructions

Prepare the fish by marinading the fillets in fresh squeezed orange juice and dusting the sides with salt, pepper,  shaved zest from the orange rind and rosemary leaves.  Set aside.  Make sure not to leave it marinading too long (5-10 minutes is good) as we are not making cevice and don’t want the acid to cook the fish.

Start the sauce by sautéing the onions in a small pot with 1Tbsp. of butter.  Add a pinch of salt.  After a few minutes add the rest of the butter and the mushrooms and some pepper.  Sauté until the onions are translucent and the mushrooms soft.   Add the garlic towards the end of the sautéing process being careful not to burn them. Next add the wine and boil off the alcohol.  Finally stir in the rest of the ingredients and adjust the seasoning.  Let the sauce reduce and thicken on the stove.

Next start on the string beans.  In a bowl coat them with olive oil, salt and pepper.  Drop into a hot pan and sauté them until cooked but still crunchy.  Getting a sear on one side of the beans will enhance the texture and flavour.  At the last minute add the garlic slivers.  Put this mixture in tin foil to keep them warm.

In the same pan, wiped with a clean dish towel, put enough olive oil to coat the bottom.  Make sure the oil is hot and place the tilapia fillet in the pan.  Cook until the fish becomes flaky and delicate (3-6 minutes per side).

On a plate place the string beans to one side and the tilapia on the other.  Top the tilapia with the sauce making sure to include a heaping of mushrooms.  Garnish with rosemary and parsley.

The contrast between the heavy cream sauce and the light taste of the orange and flakiness of the fish was amazing. There was a good balance of spiceyness and sweetness with a little bitterness provided by the parsley and string beans. About the only thing I would add would be a bed of rice. I even used the sauce to great effect on a pan fried chicken breast the next day.

Ty even hangs around when I cook. And the truth is now that I have to feed, wait an hour and walk him at night I have a set hour in which to relax and cook every day. Go figure.

Before leaving for GUADEC I had purchased a pound of frozen shrimp because they were on sale.  Last night I needed to figure out what to eat so I decided to make some shrimp scampi over pasta.  I pulled out some of the shrimp and proceeded to defrost them by putting them in a bag and running cold water over them.  When I went to reach for the garlic I noticed they were all rotten.  I quickly rummaged around my kitchen and found a frozen ginger root and some green onions (also known as scallions).  The resulting mix was amazing as the ginger had carmalized on the surface leaving little bits of crunchy flavour explosions.  Here is the recipe for one serving.

Ingredients:

Pasta
5 large shrimp, shelled
1 sliver of ginger root, brunoise
1 Tbls. of fresh sliced scallions
1 Tbls. Sweet Cream/unsalted butter
1 leaf of fresh sage
salt and pepper to taste

Cook the pasta in boiling water. When the pasta is almost done start the sauce. Melt the butter in a sauté pan and add the ginger, scallions and fresh sage. Add a pinch or two of salt and sauté until the butter just starts to turn brown. Add shrimp with some more salt and pepper and cook on both sides until orange to the eye and firm to the touch. You need to manage your heat here as you don’t want to burn the butter and you don’t want to move the shrimp except to turn them once. This will also allow the ginger to start to caramelize. Toss the finished pasta in the pan and get it coated with the butter sauce. Take off the heat, let it sit for a minute and then plate and serve. Sprinkle some fresh scallion on for colour.

I would have taken pictures but it was so good it was gone before I remembered I had a camera.

Fudcon is great but when I like to unwind I go to the American Craft Beer Fest. Right now I’m getting ready for the beer and food pairing seminar. Like wine, beer is very versatile as an ingredient (if you have ever had a beer can roasted chicken you would understand). In any case we are about to start
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In other related news Gravity of Debian X fame was here. Great minds think alike and Linux hacker’s minds often think of beer.

Update

I tried to sneak off with the cutting board the food for the tasting was served on but to my dismay they let us just take them. Way to take the thrill out of the equation. I was however happy enough to get a high quality cutting board with the phrase “Here’s to BEER” branded on the top, and here is the proof:

I won’t be at the Gnome Summit on Saturday because of prior engagements (literally, I am going to a wedding).  We were however fortunate to get money from Google to host a Beer Summit on Sunday night starting at 7:00pm at Flat Top Johnny’s.  There are a couple of pool tables reserved and free beer available so hackers can exchange ideas, build friendships and hustle each other in an enjoyable setting.

Now for a small update on the Cookbook.  I haven’t had much progress since a large number of unexpected distractions have popped up.  The good news is Lulu.com updated their site and one of the options is a wizzard for cookbooks.  Of the three designs for page layout submitted by,  Vinicius Depizzol, Silvia Miranda, and Diego Escalante Urrelo, I liked them all and they all fit very well with each other so you all are going to be the first to get a book, payed for by me, once it is published.

As for my name on this list, I would like to thank the Acadamy, my Mom – hi Mom – Roderick’s Mom, and…what I don’t get to make a speech for being on the “B” list and I still have to wait in line at Spagos?  That’s it, I’m firing my agent.