Adventurous Eating Starts at Home: Grape & Lavender Galette

-Adventurous eating doesn't always mean roasted grasshoppers and 1000 year eggs.-

“So I think I’m going to make a grape and lavender tart. I found a recipe on Martha Stewart,” I nonchalantly told BF.

“Grape and lavender? Why?” BF seemed curious about this one. It wasn’t the most straightforward recipe to be sure. In fact, I doubt he had ever seen or conceptualized a grape dessert before. It wasn’t like they were on the menus of every restaurant.

“Well,” I sighed, “to be honest it’s because, One: I’m intrigued by the idea of it. Two: It sounds kinda terrible to me but also sorta tasty. See, the idea of cooked grapes to me actually seems rather unpleasant. Grapes have a flavor that I think is best cold or even frozen -” I love to freeze grapes as a snack, “-and the idea of them being served hot just sounds groady. I imagine them tasting rather sickly sweet and having a texture of hot boiled mash with nasty strings of curled grape skins.”

“I assume the lavender is a part of this, too?”

“Exactly. Lavender is a tricky food. Few people can cook with it well and fewer even know how much to use when they do. I’ve had great experiences when it was used on a turkey as part of a salt rub and enjoyed some whipped cream touched with lavender, but other than that… I dunno. It’s quick to go from floral fragrance to being snuffed out with the fume of a grandmother’s panty drawer.”

“Ew.”

-The grapes I used were Flame, Black Emerald, Champagne, Obsidian, and Concord.-

“Yeah, I thought you'd like that comparison. So, this is just a grand experiment to see if I can get myself to like both cooked grapes and try lavender in a new way. Hopefully it’ll be awesome. It may just be alright. Possibly, it may taste like the sins of a used up, overly made-up, tranny hooker baked in a pie crust.”

“Nice,” he said and turned to leave the room.

“Ha ha! Man, I am on a roll today.”

This wasn’t my first stroll down this particularly unusual avenue of cooking. I had traveled this route many times, mapping out my various culinary distastes and challenging them in all sorts of ways. Too many jaunts down lima bean alley left me to realize that I simply don’t care for them in any way, and that I had my mother’s terrible and overcooked turkey soup to blame for this. A surprise run-in with Brussels sprouts and its retinue of Parmesan cheese and garlic showed me just how much I enjoyed the little cruciferous’ company on my plate. I have had enough encounters with spaghetti squash to know that given the chance I would lock them all up in a cell and throw away the key, the nasty little things. I attempted cooking with eggplant once years ago after being more than a bit nervous of them. These days we’re the best of friends.

So I would try with grapes and lavender.

Storytelling: Fig & Blue Cheese Galette

-Something to get teary about. For joy, of course.-

When I was younger I never understood how adults could cry at movies. It seemed so strange to me that some fictional story and people who never existed could emotionally touch a person so much. It was an action I attributed to adult life and gave it little other thought than that.

The first story I cried to was actually from a video game. The lovers were forcibly parted: he would fade into non-existance and she would have to live her life without him. She runs to embrace him one last time but he suddenly fades away and she sorrowfully passes through him falling to the ground where she begins to cry on the floor. My heart absolutely broke in sympathy for her; this girl that never was. I called in sick to school that day and refused to leave my room for the next few hours.

After that, I found that I was easy to emotionally sway. A somber violin chord, the right words, well placed pathos all pulled me so far in that when things came to their teary conclusion I simply cried my eyes out. It happened when I watched the final few moments of Six Feet Under where I bawled and my boyfriend at the time had to come out and comfort me. In fact, those last six minutes still make me misty when I watch them as I think about my own family and mortality.

When I read Yiyun Li's book, The Vagrants, the ending left me almost hollow. It was as if the author had tapped me like a maple tree and drained every bit of happiness out of me - leaving only poignance. The characters had reached out of the pages and into my chest tugging them apart like bits of string from a frayed cloth. Every word was memorable and the book still resonantes with me.

-A good fig does, too.-

Recently, I've become horribly addicted to watching the most modern seasons of the BBC's, Doctor Who. In one of the episodes, Billie Piper's character, Rose Tyler, is forever separated from her love, The Doctor. After two seasons of watching them grow so fond of each other only to be forcibly thrown apart by the universe itself I must admit I was more than a bit melancholy.



Excuse me a moment. I have something in my eye...

Why is this sort of story telling so rare these days? What happened to characterization, story exploration, and plot?

No, these days we get this.

We drown in a deluge of raw sewage that is reality television and poor storytelling. Bad Girls Club, Hell's Kitchen, seasons 2-4 of Heroes, the list goes on and on, and - even worse - gets renewed season after season.

Generally I don't watch a lot of television. Given, I have a few guilty pleasures. True Blood is one, but that's more softcore porn that anything thank you Ryan Kwanten being naked in every episode. I do watch The Real Housewives and The A-List, but only after I've had a glass of wine or two and I've finished a thirteen hour work day. In these cases I don't want to use my brain anymore and, in that regard, reality television certainly has a place in my life. The Daily Show for sure, though I wish John Stewart would take a note from True Blood and get naked every episode as well.

The Temperature Inside: Blueberry Pie with Thyme & Honey + Fearless Chocolate Winners

-When your karma turns sour, make it sweet with pie.-

I have terrible apartment karma. Faulty buildings seem to lie dormant in my life like a virus, occasionally flaring up with all the intensity and rage of full blown outbreak. No, wait, karma assumes I’ve done something bad to deserve this. Maybe in a past life I was a Saxon who toppled some great tower or other architectural testament to man’s vanity and artistic nature? I’m not sure, but I'm pretty sure I haven’t done anything in this life to warrant this string of luck.

Maybe that’s it? I just have bad luck. A dark cloud of doom and asbestos plaguing me with bad wiring and old pipes.

“Then again,” I said to myself while standing in my bedroom looking at the giant water-filled hole that had been jackhammered in only hours earlier, “maybe it’s just freak coincidence.”

It's Horrid Outside: Potato & Onion Galette

-Rain, rain, go away. Come again another day. And when you do I will bake. Many tasty to things to make.-

It is horrid outside. "We need the rain in California," I say out loud to Eat Beast who stares towards the garden where the sky is apparently falling. Californians say this phrase to themselves and each other when it gets bad. I tell it to myself every Spring when it starts to come down so hard that the rivers threaten to wash out the many poorly conceived suburban sprawls incongruously built in the many flood plains here in Sacramento.

Listening to the peal of the rain striking the apartment I can’t help but go to the window and join the cat and look outside. The rain is blowing nearly horizontal and I’m worried about all the plants I just put into the ground. I’m praying they don’t get uprooted, broken, or drowned in all this. I fight the urge to check on them. Right now going outside for any reason is not only unappealing but insane It's true that we do need the rain. However, no one said anything about being happy about it.

A large crack sounds and a tree branch the size of a Harley from the nearby Eucalyptus suddenly crashes with a thunderous thud on top of the metal corrugated roof of the parking spots behind my fence. I stare at the branch and am relieved that it didn’t land in my yard on the baby tomatoes plants. Eat Beast's hackles are raised and a moment later he takes off to hide in the closet. And, with that, I decide that it’s time to dice up a stick of butter.

-And get a few other things ready as well.-

Pâte brisée, a fancy word for very buttery pie dough, is something I’ve become rather skilled at making. I learned how to make it from my friend, Elise, and with it gained from her some good advice about it. One particularly important tip is that at the first inkling I have of wanting to make a pie or galette you chop up some butter and toss it in the freezer. (Cold butter is key to flakey pie dough.)

I now whip out sticks of butter for dough at the slightest whim. Pining for an asparagus galette for dinner? I’m on it. Desiring some comfort food because your girlfriend dumped you for some ass with an emo haircut and a tribal band tattoo? Give me an hour and we’ll have pecan pie. Bored on a Friday night? Come to my house. We can whip together a fig and nut tart and do tequila and Serrano ham shots off the neighbor's stomach, and, yes, this is a thing that I did once in college.

Regardless of the situation, just let me butcher and freeze this butter and we'll be golden. Still, more often than not it's the chilling rain and winds that spur me to get down the food processor and get a bowl of ice water ready. I feel that pâte brisée, especially when baking and at its most fragrant, is the fatty, flaky antithesis of late Winter and early Spring storms. Shitty weather puts me in the mood for comfort food and right now something hearty and filling surrounded by crusty, golden, almost regrettably packed with too much butter crust sounds perfect.

I take a stick of butter and chop it up into ½-inch cubes before dropping them in the bowl and cram them in the freezer, teetering on a carton of ice cream between a vacuum-sealed duck and an opened bag of ice.

After about an hour of teasing the cat with his toys (the both of us feel this to be an hour well spent) I toss the butter along with some flour and salt into the food processor and pulse it a few times. This time I’m smart enough to cover with my hand that one spot on the processor where the top and base don’t quite meet. Forgetting to do that means a tall dusty plume of flour will shoot directly into my face like an old vaudeville gag. Usually - naturally - I only seem to forget when I have company or am wearing black. Its always humorous to everyone but me. I usually mutter out four or five f-bombs in a single sentence and change shirts.

-Seriously, though, the ferocity of my swearing is enough to make the bluest cheese blush.-

Once the butter has broken down to the size of peas a few tablespoons of ice water are dropped in and pulsed until the whole thing resembles a coarse meal that easily pinches together. It all gets loosely kneaded into a ball and wrapped up in plastic. The whole process take about 2 minutes. Wham, bam, thank-you-Sam for we have crust.

It chills out in the fridge while I chill out on the couch with the now tired Eat Beast who only occassioanally lifts his head in response to the wind taking down another tree branch. I read a book, he naps on my lap, the dough sets.

The rain continues to beat down on the windows and sounds of wind echo out the fireplace as if some disoriented Jabberwocky lost itself inside and was howling for assistance. Eat Beast tries not to show it but a flick of his ears in the direction of the threatening moan and the sharp pain of his nails gripping my leg tell me he's alarmed. It is tempting to investigate the sound a bit more but a good book and 15 pounds of cat keep me in place.

A little bit later I kick the fat puss off and I start digging through the pantry and fridge looking for whatever ingredients will make for a whatever-but-satisfying filling. As long as the final product tastes good and chases the gloomy overcast of the weather out of the apartment I really don’t care. I uncover a yellow onion, a red potato, some mustard, and some fresh thyme. The scraps from a wedge of Gruyere and some Maytag blue cheese also make the cut. Fine fillings for a savory galette.

-Any sort of cheese you might have on hand will be just fine for this.-

The onion gets thinly sliced and tossed into a skillet with some olive oil and ground pepper. While it sweetens and becomes golden in color like slivers of topaz I start slicing up the potato and shredding the cheeses. BF picks up the thyme and asks if he can help but I take it out of his hands and shoo him away. Stripping thyme is one of my favorite tasks in the kitchen. I enjoy how its aroma wraps around my head and makes me giddy, and I love how it lingers on my fingers for hours after. It reminds me that I was at least somewhat productive in my day. The dough gets rolled out, the fillings layered and tucked in, and I kick the oven door closed.

I slump back down on the couch and willfully ignore the responsibilities I know I should be attending too. The past few weeks have been overkill for me. Project after project, assignment after assignment, let alone the attempts to constantly resuscitate a social life and keep a healthy and active relationship with another human being and three cats have kept me busy.

Today’s depressing weather and that snap of the tree was enough to finish me off. I decided to play hookey from my life that day. I was going to read online comics while a galette bakes in the oven. My chores and have-to’s and To-Do lists would all be there tomorrow, but for now I plan to whip the beasts into their cages and lock the gates. They’ll be just fine left unattended for the day.

The galette finished and it smells like everything old fashioned cooking, warm, golden, and crinkled. It feels like the old fashioned type of cooking you always hear your grandparents wax on about. I imagine that if you could distill their frayed and ancient cookbooks into a flavor it would taste like this. Hot and crunchy, packed with herbs and with just the right tang from the cheeses.

I don’t know if this is French food, but it feels so rustic French countryside. It looks it at least. I imagine it tastes like some part of France I’ve never been to I’m proud of myself as French food isn’t my forte and imagine that Dorie Greenspan and Julia Child would both be quite proud of me.


Potato & Onion Galette Makes 1 Galette galette dough adapted from Simply Recipes
1 1/3 cup of all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 teaspoon sugar
4 ounces (1 stick) butter, cut into cubes and frozen
1/4 cup of chilled water (plus a little more)
1 large red potato
1/2 onion
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 1/2 teaspoons fresh thyme, chopped
2 ounces blue cheese
3 ounces Gruyere
salt and pepper
Dijon mustard

1. Put the flour, salt, and sugar into a food processor and pulse to combine. Add the butter and pulse 9 times until the butter is in the size of peas. Slowly add the water while pulsing until the dough begins to form clumps and looks a bit like corn meal that pinches together easily. Empty the dough onto a clean surface, form into a ball with minimum handling. Pat down into a disc shape. Chill for at least an hour before rolling out.

2. Slice up the potato into 1/8-1/4-inch slices and set aside. Thinly slice the onion and toss in a saute pan with the olive oil, thyme, and some salt and pepper. Sauté until soft and lightly colored. Set aside to cool. Shred the Gruyere and crumble the blue cheese. Toss the potatoes, onion, and cheeses together and set aside.

3. Preheat oven to 375F. Roll out the dough out to 14-inches in diameter and of even thickness. Move to a parchment paper-lined baking sheet. Spread with a layer of mustard. Layer on the potato and onion mixture, leaving a 2 inch border. Fold in the 2-inch bordered edge over the filling and pleat the edges.

4. Bake for for 45-50 minutes or until crust is golden and the potatoes are easily pierced with a fork. Serve.

Tastes Like Way Back When

-This is a ride on the way-back machine for me.-

"I really, really, really need a slice of that right now! Ok, who am I kidding? I could eat half at this very moment!"

This was the response that the recipe you see above elicited from my blogging buddy, Matt, after he had edited the image for me. It is a common and expected response when it comes to Oreo cream pie. One taste is all it takes before you become willing to submit yourself to the weeks it will take to jog a slice of this off year after year.

My mom clipped this recipe from the back of a box of Oreo cookies back in 1970. The retro tablecloth peeking out above, the positioning of the pie, its perfect rim of crust and piped whipped cream just jive right with me. It's a pie that tastes like listening to The Kinks belt out "Lola" over the radio. It tastes like watching the flow and ebb of neon orange blobs in a lava lamp. It tastes like nights up late lying on the floor gossiping with friends. It tastes like laughing till you cry at a dirty joke with your family around the dinner table.

-A more updated photo of this groovy pie.-

For me this pie is about as seasonal as you can get. It can only be served during the coldest days with coffee strong enough to strip your floors. If you happen to have a tree twinkling with tinsel and an aluminum star in the background too, even better. This pie is more than just tradition for me - it's memory suspended in thick cream and marshmallow. Nostalgia in an Oreo cookie crust.

I recently called and asked my mom if she would send me a copy of the recipe. She scanned it in and E-mailed it over to me within the hour, along with a reminder not to add the whipped cream and cookies to the top until moments before I serve it. After getting over how trippy it was that she scanned me an image of a recipe clipping from nearly 40 years ago I went to the store to get the supplies.

This pie is about as simple as it comes: butter, milk, cream, Oreo cookies and marshmallows. A dessert with enough fat and sugar that a diabetic will explode upon contact with it. I switched out the margarine for butter and added a smidge of vanilla to update it a bit (remember that in the 70's America thought margarine was going to save us all?). Overall though it's the same pie as ever. Simple and delicious; and one that mom, Matt, and I'm sure Lola, would approve of.


Oreo Cream Pie
Makes one 9-inch pie

41 Oreo cookie
1/4 cup of butter, melted
24 marshmallows
1/2 cup of milk
1 1/2 cups of heavy cream
1 teaspoon of vanilla extract

1. Roughly chop 10 of the Oreos and set them aside. In a food processor or using a rolling pin finely grind the remaining Oreo cookies into a sandy consistency. Mix ground Oreos with the butter and press into the bottom and sides of a 9 inch pie plate. Place in the fridge to chill.

2. In a 2 quart sauce pan place the marshmallows and milk. Place over medium heat and mix with a spatula until melted and smooth. Do not leave unattended as mixture can easily scorch. Take off heat.

3. Whisk the heavy whipping cream and vanilla together until it forms stiff peaks. Fold 2 cups of the whipped cream into the marshmallow mixture. Fold in the chopped Oreos. Spoon into the chilled pie crust. Chill for 4 hours. Pipe on remaining whipped cream and add extra Oreos for garnish if desired before serving.

-It's a pie that walks like a woman and talks like a man.-