A trip to the Ferry Building Farmers Market

I used to get so excited for May in Chicago, when the farmers markets would begin to pop up around the city, but towards the end of the season the pickin's were slim and all came to an end in the fall. So, I was stoked to find out that our local Oakland farmers market, walking distance away on Grand Avenue, was a year round event, happening every Saturday throughout the year! And not only was it open all year, but they have amazing produce all year too! I had the most amazing strawberries about a month ago--strawberries in October???

It seems as if I am turning into quite a farmer's market snob. Although I still love my farmers market, right down the street, this Saturday I ventured to San Francisco where I wanted to try the Ferry Building Farmers Market, something I have heard huge raves about and where many of the Bay Area chefs find inspiration for their menus. After a stroll through the vendors I understand the hype! What a wonderful gathering of fresh produce!

I thought that I would share some of my new discoveries:


Citron - Crazy looking stuff isn't it? I was told by the sales person that this is used for the zest only. At $8.00 per pound, that is some pretty expensive zest!

Purple Carrots - We now have every vegetable in purple, potatoes, cauliflower and now carrots! What color will come next?

Pummelo - These suckers were huge, about 6-8" in diameter (those are pomegranates behind for scale) and the largest of all citrus fruits. They are native to Asia and similar to a grapefruit.

Fuyu Persimmons - I have heard of persimmons, but never tasted one or seen one until moving to California. And, who knew that there was more than one variety? The Fuyu are meant to be eaten while they are hard, you slice them and eat them like an apple. Quite good, but I prefer the Hayicha.

Hayicha Persimmons - These persimmons have to be eaten when they are soft or they are very bitter, but they will ripen perfectly after picking. I had one several days ago and it was wonderful--sweet and soft.

Isn't California great? Wonderful and interesting produce all year long!

A Happy Thanksgiving

Hope everyone had a great day of eating! This holiday was just Terry and I, but I took the opportunity to try some new recipes. All was very yummy, but I will definitely be keeping the stuffing and cranberries in the mix for years to come.

Our Thanksgiving menu:

Appetizer:

Baked Goat Cheese with Tomato Kalamata Olive Tapenade and Baguette Slices

Dinner:

Herb Roasted Turkey
Cornbread Pecan Dressing
Mashed Potatoes with Horseradish
Sweet Potato and Leek Gratin
Green Beans with Roquefort, Bacon and Walnuts
Cabernet Cranberries

Dessert:
Pumpkin Eggnog Pie
Buche de Noel

Today we took our day off as an opportunity to explore the beautiful Muir Woods. This is a park just north of the Golden Gate Bridge and San Francisco that is a forest of huge and magnificent Coastal Redwood trees. Some of these trees reach over 300 feet tall and 20 feet in diameter! These trees, here in California are the tallest living things in the world!

Into the Kitchen and Making Cakes

After three weeks of lecture class, this week we were finally able to get our grubby hands dirty in the kitchen! Monday was the first day of our 6 week long cakes section. Our first project was a cheesecake, which was an interesting undertaking considering there are 25 of us together in the kitchen, and we had to work out how to dance around one another. I was blown away by some of the equipment--would you believe that there is an oven that can bake 40 cheesecakes at the same time?

We were given the option of several different types of cheesecake, but together with a partner, we decided to make the New York style, vanilla/chocolate swirl! I think it looks good, but we still don't know how they taste, as they are still in the school fridge waiting for their toppings this Monday. Not much to pass on in the way of tips on cheesecakes, but don't over bake! You can tell it is done when you tap it on the side of the pan and it all moves together, but not solid. Also, the more cream cheese you use, the firmer the cheesecake you will have!

Tuesday and Wednesday we made and assembled, a Buche de Noel--which was a Buche de Thanksgiving for us since it was the day before the big day. This is a typical French dessert, a rolled cake, typically made with vanilla genoise cake and chocolate buttercream frosting and decorated with meringue mushrooms and marzipan holly leaves. In looking at other recipes, there are many different variations on this.

Our version was a nut roulade, which is like a genoise but with nuts, with chocolate whipped cream and marzipan decorations. I made colored leaves and pumpkins to evoke the feeling of fall and Thanksgiving. The chocolate whipped cream was outstanding, and whips up in less than 30 seconds, and the combination with the nut roulade was amazing--yum!

Third Week of Classes

In our third week we finished our first session of classes, took exams on Thursday and Friday, including the certification exam for Safety and Sanitation. I received all A's in all three classes and am off to a good start! In another three weeks I will find out if I passed my certification, however, I feel confident I have.

The most exciting news about last week is that it is over and we are moving on to our cakes section, which will last 6 weeks. I will have much more excitement to report once we get our hands dirty! Monday we start with cheesecakes--yum-o!

Second Week of Classes

In our second week of classes we continued learning everything we never wanted to know about safety and sanitation in the kitchen. After this class I doubt I will ever look at any restaurant the same! This coming Friday we have a certification exam, which will be a valuable tool in pursuing a career, as every kitchen is required to have someone a certified employee on the premises during hours of operation.

I won't bore you all with the details of my food science class, but we are learning things like when making meringue, we add cream of tartar to the egg whites because it helps speed up the beating process. The sugar should be added after you have beaten the egg whites and its function is to stabilize the meringue. Never knew all the technicalities of making a meringue did you? It has been interesting learning what ingredients do and why we have to do things in a particular order. I hope that this will help explain those experiments that have gone wrong!

In our skills classes, we have continued to practice piping chocolate, working on consistency. We added piping buttercream (some of my better attempts above) and knife skills, where I am learning how to successfully supreme an orange!

After a full week in the classroom I am really itching to get into the kitchen and BAKE! One more week in the classroom and then we will be baking cakes! In the mean time I fulfilled my baking itch by making cranberry scones. I usually use cream in making scones, but I used 1/2 and 1/2 and was very happy with the result--perfectly tender, not too dry and less fat too!

Cranberry Scones

2/3 c ½ and 1/2
1 Egg
3 c Flour
4 t Baking powder
½ t Baking soda
½ t Salt
8T Unsalted butter, cold and cubed
1 c Fresh cranberries
½ c Granulated sugar
1 t Orange zest

Heat oven to 375°F
Beat in egg into ½ and ½ and set aside
In a large bowl, mix flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt
With a pastry blender cut in butter, until the mixture is fine granules
Add cranberries, sugar, and orange zest and mix
Add ½ and ½ mixture, stir with a fork until a soft dough forms
Turn out dough onto a lightly floured board and knead until well mixed
Form dough into a disk about 1” thick and place on an ungreased cookie sheet
Cut into 8 wedges and brush with egg wash and sprinkle with sugar
Bake 20 to 25 minutes or until medium brown
Remove to wire rack to cool

And then the week came to a close with this beautiful image of the sunset at Civic Center Plaza as I walked to the train on Friday afternoon.

Big Day in the News

Retired

Divorced

In Power

Wow! I think we all need a good nights rest after today!

Pee Wee Kiwi

Oh how cute these little things are! I found these at Trader Joe's the other day and wanted to share with the rest of the world--a new fruit to most of us probably. From the outside you would never even know that these little guys were the same fuzzy fruit from which they descend, but the flavor gives 'em away. Each one is about the size of a grape (about 3/4" for all of the architects out there!) and you don't peel them, just eat 'em--genius! I have been eating them like grapes, but they would make a great garnish or top a torte nicely, especially with their vibrant green color!

Second Day of Classes

We only had to wait until the second day of classes until we got our hands dirty! Nothing really extraordinary, but we learned how to make a piping tube out of parchment paper, know as a coronete to us culinary literate (he, he, he). We then melted chocolate, gasp, and did some piping practice! The top was a bit shaky, but things got better...


I was most impressed with my 'Bailey'

First Day of Classes

For the first three weeks my schedule is as follows:

7 am Safety and Sanitation
9 am Food Science
11:30 am Skills

Safety and Sanitation is all about the gross stuff we find in food, what makes us sick and how to prevent it--I am learning way more than I ever wanted to know (ewe!).

I am really excited about food science, where we learn about all of the chemistry behind baking! This class is one of the main reasons I wanted to attend school. I am glad we are doing this class first before really getting our hands dirty so I can asses my successes and failures.

Skills is learning to use all of that kitchen equipment, especially knives and learning piping skills destined for all of those cakes that have yet to be baked.



Today they also distributed our tool kits. Can you believe that they gave us a rolling suitcase filled with fun gadgets? It was like Christmas opening that baby up (don't be jealous)! We also got a knife roll, which is good to take between here and there with the most important tools. Another fun day lugging bags home on BART!

Orientation

November 1st was our half day orientation (which really was not helpful at all) where we were given a bag of our uniforms, including:

2 jackets
3 pairs of pants
4 aprons
5 toques
4 neckerchiefs
24 side towels
1 pair steel-toed shoes

All of this adding up to the complete and proper CCA uniform (not cute at all, but better get used to it!). Thanks to the elastic waistband on those pants I can do my duty in the taste testing department! Whoo Who!

To make the walk to the BART even more painful they loaded on several textbooks (if you are interested...):

Professional Baking
Nutrition for Foodservice and Culinary Professionals
Servsafe
Baking and Pastry Course book
3 volumes of Baking and Pastry packets

So, sufficiently loaded down, we were released and told to return in that stunning uniform, perfectly pressed, the following day at 7:00am!

Introduction

So, what is this blog thing anyway?

Well, my friends... a blog is kind of like an online diary where you (yes, you too!) can tell the world anything on your mind, share cool facts or just blither on about the day to day gruel. It's kind of like having a virtual psychiatrist, and who wouldn't want that...okay me neither.

So what is this blog for?

I am going to use this blog as a way to keep family and friends, as well as anyone else who wants to join in on the fun, up to date on what is going on in my new adventure...attending a baking and pastry program in San Francisco! I will be posting what we have been up to in class and probably I'll add some of my home kitchen experiments too.

My hope is that this blog will be a resource documenting what going to school for baking and pastry is all about.