Making Beautiful Poached Eggs

Not long ago, I took on the mission of learning to make a mean poached egg. After making attempts too numerous to count, I was at long last able poach an egg that would rival the best in a blind tasting. That's just the problem--they were delectable (who knew that the humble egg could be so grand?), but they weren't pretty.

Though I was using the freshest eggs I could get from the local egg lady, half of the whites still managed to coagulate into a disconnected and jumbled mess, and wound up in the garbage disposal. There had to be a better way. That's where Julia Child comes in. I had the good fortune of borrowing The French Chef series from the library, and after she has a similar experience as the one I just described, she proceeds to poke a hole in the egg with a thumbtack, plop the whole thing in the poaching water for a moment, and poaching the little beasties as normal. Her eggs were nothing short of perfection, and given that this was taped during the 1960s, I figured that there weren't any camera tricks at play. So, I subjected my husband to yet another dinner of eggs benedict in order to provide myself with a final opportunity to make the perfectly poached egg. Folks, I'm here to tell you that J.C. is brilliant! Enough said...

Here's how to pull it off. Bring your poaching water to a simmer. You can add a bit of vinegar or salt to the water--different respectable cooks claim that doing one or the other will absolutely destroy the egg. Bullshit. I've tried it both ways, and they both work. Just don't use Real Salt like I do unless you want people to think that you've put sand in your poaching water. Anyway, take a regular (clean!) thumbtack and poke a hole in one end of your egg. Don't worry--the thing's not a little bomb waiting to explode! It'll be fine. Then place the egg carefully in the simmering water, count to 10 (one-onethousand, two-onethousand, etc.) and remove from the water. Immediately crack the egg open into the same water and simmer lightly for EXACTLY 4 minutes. The cookbooks all tell you to push the whites over on top of the yolks, but this makes an ugly mess and is now unnecessary because of the whole thumbtack deal. The result is a perfectly poached, beautiful egg that will leave your readers on Facebook posting comments like, "Kristi, you're so weird." Bon appetit!

A New Take On Roasted Figs

Ever since my discovery of figs in 2002, I've adulterated the less-than-perfect specimens (ie, most of the figs I've come across in Montana) by slicing them in half, smearing them with chèvre, and roasting them for around 15 minutes in my toaster oven. However, as I was flipping through one of my hundred cookbooks this evening, I came across Deborah Madison's recipe in her Seasonal Fruit Desserts that left me wondering whether I ought to refine my treatment of these lovely fruits.

Roasted figs with butter and honey. Yum! But since figs and chevre simply belong together, I felt that the exclusion of the chevre left the poor figs looking naked. So I added some. Then, II drizzled the sauce over the figs, and roasted them for a long while. If anyone really wants my recipe, I suppose that I can produce it for you. But since I don't have many readers, it seems silly to do so. Anyway, to make a long story short, they were simply a revelation! Nothing short of true bliss...

Bread

My food snobbery is at its worst when it comes to artisan bread, especially the baguette. It's not that I can't handle consuming sustenance that fails to be artisan, which I'll qualify by stating that I absolutely love the sourdough sandwich bread from Sweetgrass bakery, a tiny and been-around-forever operation in Helena, MT. It's simply the yummiest bread that comes packaged in a plastic bag on this planet! No, what I find appalling is twofold: (1) bread that's marketed as being artisan that is crap, and (2) an ignorant customer base that actually trumps the virtues of said crap. 

For any non-Montanans, Helena (the capitol) and Bozeman (home to MSU, my grad school) are situated 100 miles apart, and as I live in Helena, I have the good fortune of having to make the commute to Bozeman four days each week. Here's the deal: Helena falls quite short relative to Bozeman with regards to both its restaurant and chocolate shop scene, though it is blessed with having a truly wonderful artisan bakery--the real deal. After traveling through Italy, I can assert with absolute conviction that Park Avenue has crafted a product so impressive that it rivals the best of what I ate overseas.

On the Rise, the Co-op, Park Avenue

Unfortunately, Bozeman's offerings fall short in this regard.  It lays claim to two "artisan" bakeries, one of which is On the Rise, an "artisan" bakery whose baguettes are, shall we say, sub-par. Though uglier than what's found in Safeway's bakery, their flavor falls somewhere between that and the Community Co-op's version, which is a more distant (but not out of the running) contender for the descriptive label "artisan." But I'll return to a discussion on the Co-op in a moment. On the Rise fails not only in terms of its poor baguette quality, but also in terms of its ciabatta (which boasts a pronounced and unappetizing ammonia scent, the hallmark of overfementation), as well as its croissants. I should have picked up one of the latter as well, just to prove my point. I think that they forgot to turn their ovens on and use real butter when making them. What really irks me, though, is that its advertisements frequently boast of being "voted #1" or whatever, while I'm left to ponder the question of who in their right mind thinks that this shit is actually GOOD???

Park Avenue, the Co-op, On the Rise

The Community Co-op's artisan offerings fall somewhere in quality between Park Avenue and On the Rise, and they are definitely Bozeman's best option for baguettes and ciabatta. As an amateur home baker, I can appreciate the learning curve of baguette shaping, scoring, and baking, and as the Co-op's dabbling in artisan bread-baking is young, I appreciate its efforts--I have no doubt that someday its baguettes will truly be spectacular! In fact, I have seen substantial improvement since it began this venture a year or two ago. If I could offer one suggestion to the Co-op, it would be to stop bagging its bread in plastic when the crust's crispness is essential to the whole bread-enjoying experience. Until then, if I'm forced to buy my bread in Bozeman, I suppose that my best option is to stop by the Co-op early, pick up a baguette, and immediately free it from it's repressive plastic bag. That way, all crispiness is not lost.

It's Been A While

It's been a long while since I've posted anything, but don't think that it's because I lost interest in food! After spending nearly three weeks in northern Italy and in Tuscany this summer, I can conclusively say that I love food even more now than ever!

So why the lull in posts? Well, I've been busy. Graduate school, family obligations, and life have kept me away from the computer. I even closed down my Facebook account (which I've recently reopened after the trauma was simply too overwhelming)! Unfortunately, I remain unable to spend much time composing blog posts because did I mention that I am a graduate student? 'Nough said.

I am having visions of cheese shops like those I discovered in Tuscany, and so will perhaps blog about them in the near future. But for now, I must return to my quantitative methods homework on constrained maximization. FUN!!!!

Till next time...

Merlot, White Zin, & Chardonnay: An Insane (Pending) Tasting

For the past several years, my wine snobbery has forced me to view merlot, white zin, and chardonnay in the utmost disdain. Why? I have no idea. It’s most likely due to the fact that nearly every source of so-called authority has decried them as being suitable only to the uninitiated, if not the garbage pail.

To be honest, I’ve never liked white zin. Ever. Not even as an underage  and opportunistic drinker of anything containing buzz-inducing properties. It’s sweet in a bad kind of way, and aside from a decent rosé, I’ve always viewed pink wines as being pretty damn scary. As for chardonnay, my first (legal) glass of wine was of this variety. I was with my family at Outback Steakhouse in Calumet City, IL, and I had ordered some kind of seafood. My mother, a now-recovering exclusively-white-wine-drinker, ordered a glass of said beverage to complement whatever it was she was eating. So, I copied her. I don’t recall being disgusted by the flavor of the wine, though I do remember thinking that it wasn’t going to be replacing my preference for beer or white Russians anytime soon.

My experience with Merlot was undeniably different. I always liked red wine, and I  happily recall the day  when I was finally allowed to take communion in church as an adolescent. When I became of legal drinking age and was exposed to reds, it was merlot that captured my interest. Mind you, this was back in the ’90s, and I didn’t know any better that I wasn’t supposed to appreciate this stuff. Anyway, I happily drank my occasional glass of merlot until, well, perhaps the mid-‘00s….

I don’t know when I realized that I ought to steer away from the merlots, and steer towards the cabs, the syrahs, and the (red) zins. But I eventually did, and upon befriending Heather—a wine-o, fellow grad student, and single parent (I used to be one of these)—I really began to broaden my appreciation for wine. I thought I was a budding wine connoisseur, shunning the wines that no serious wine drinker would ever try, and developing my palate’s ability to detect the unique bouquet that each bottle possessed, the difference in flavor between a 2006 and a 2007 Layer Cake Primativo, etc. And then I picked up a copy of the Cork Jester’s Guide to Wine.

This post is getting long, so I won’t belabor how this book—written by a wine “expert”—is awesome and humorously mocks wine snobbery. I only mention it because it made me realize how my own snobbery and refusal to recognize that there MIGHT be something worthwhile in a glass of the sweet pink stuff, chardonnay, or the popular-among-idiots-only merlot, was simply forcing myself into the dreaded category of wannabe-wine-o. That’s embarrassing.

So, Heather and I decided to humor ourselves by putting on a tasting of these three beverages in order to determine for ourselves whether they truly deserved to be the social outcasts that they are. We set one rule: to do our homework. No boxed Franzia; learn about what’s out there.

I was in charge of the merlot, and Heather was in charge of the white zin. Celeste was going to be put in charge of the chardonnay, but I don’t know if Heather was ever  able to actually convinced her that our tasting warranted any merit. Either way, it all fell through when Heather go sick on the night we had planned for our tasting. A coincidence? You be the judge. And I moved 100 miles away the next day. I am dying to determine for myself, however, whether all merlot, white zin, and chardonnay sucks. Maybe it’s the true connoisseur who can allow herself to appreciate a glass of the stuff that’s publicly shunned thanks to other wannabe-wine-os.

I will report back after having undertaken this experiment, though I am begging for suggestions…