The five minutes spent milling about looking for a bag of strong white flour that was literally right in front of me the whole time might have been taken as a sign by some, suggesting that a certain awareness of one’s actions would be in order for the ensuing cook.
But no, new relaxed cooker Lisa, buoyed by a good file review this weekend and a sleek menu plan, moved blithely on, resolving to make my choux galette with regular flour1 (honestly did not notice much difference) and then roll with the punches because that’s what you do in the kitchen, right?
And the punches came. Forgotten egg wash, the sliced garlic in the fennel and the crushed garlic in the mussels, the pinny sketer stalks of rhubarb that took endless minutes to slice thinly and then place just so on the tarts, the endless minutes spent cleaning the mostly clean but very small mussels and then the endless minutes spent wondering if they were all alive (they were), the forgotten folds on the sourdough, the mislabeled and unset timers, the stupid electric range that burned the wrong garlic anyway in the mussels, the poorly written recipe for the fennel that nearly caused the same,2 the extraction of the mussels that somehow died between confirming they were alive and then cooking them, and that was all before I set off the smoke alarm.
It was pretty exciting, actually, and Bill got to witness it all via FaceTime - the housemates rushing in to help open doors and windows and wave towels ineffectually at what we think are smoke detectors, the students living in Mrs. Walsh’s cottage next door coming over to see what was going on, the students living in the courtyard across the road coming over to see what was going on, all of them coming inside and milling around, in the middle of it all Guy from Israel asking if he can have that burnt one (it wasn’t BURNT GUY, IT WAS COOKED THE WAY IT WAS SUPPOSED TO BE it was just the sugar in the oven burning because I didn’t put parchment underneath the pan) and all the noise Noise NOISE NOISE until finally Our Hero Scarlet from Colorado started pushing buttons on the control panel in the laundry room and made it stop.
I had to push more buttons later to get the post-alarm beeping to stop, fortunately I chose the correct one.
After that I messaged not just my house but the entire school that dinner was ready, knocked over a salt holder spilling it all over the floor, served totally inappropriate and worse, ineffective brioche with my delicious mussels, had very much the wrong salad leaves for everything, and didn’t have enough cream left to make more than a teaspoonful of SWC for dessert.3
But as my parents would say, other than that Mrs. Lincoln, how did you enjoy the play?
Sorry no pix of this one you’ll just have to imagine the chaos. I still think it is a good menu. There are great flavors, and I think I’ve got time to do it all as long as I don’t talk to Bill, don’t set off the smoke alarm, get my puff pastry creation time down to 12 minutes,4 put pucks deep and just cook the right way.
So that was eventful, and it capped off an entertaining weekend.
We Pennyworters plus Honorary Pennyworter Jess from South Africa treated ourselves to a little ol’ Ballymaloe House dinner on Friday which was swell as they always are except that we walked in to discover that we were at a table RIGHT NEXT TO Darina and Tim and some family and friends of theirs. Sheesh it was like being seated next to the principal’s table and conversation was definitely muted until they left. Lovely meal, though, as always - venison for me!
It was also Sangree’s birthday this weekend and you know what that means . . . a super awesome cake from the School! This one had gooseberries and buttercream and was so good you wanted to eat an enormous piece but if you did you would then crash from sugar shock as we all learned one by one. We had to eat it though, because we had another cake coming on Monday (stay tuned for that one).
Saturday was Italian Night over in the Courtyard and let me tell you: ain’t no potluck like a culinary school potluck. It’s not that everyone is trying to impress everyone else, it’s just that NOTHING IS BAD. Everything is good and well-made and home-made (even that pitcher of Negronis - made ‘em myself!) and when people are practicing pasta for their practical exam or tiramisu or even just making super awesome eggplant parm, you know it’s gonna be a meal for the ages. My other offering - the NYT’s No-Churn Olive Oil and Sea Salt Ice Cream with Hot Fudge wasn’t so Italian but olive oil so OK and it did vanish in a very satisfying way. Then Daniel showed up with his entire lamb and candles were put in cakes for his and Sangree’s birthday and there was a Soul Train dance line and I got a tour of the Coach House and I learned that Théo from Ireland was Colonel Pickering in his high school’s production of My Fair Lady and now I know one other person on the planet who knows that tonight old man you did it! 😍
Even managed to escape that one without a hangover - although in retrospect maybe the comedy routine that was my practical exam praccy was in fact just the lingering effects of those Negronis?
TWO MORE WEEKS.
Wait, just realizing today is the Fourth of July, so Happy Independence Day, Yanks, and sucks to be you, Brits!5 (KIDDING - I mean, you’ve got weights and measures over us for sure.) The Boston Globe always prints the full text of the Declaration of Independence as their editorial on this day, and it is worth a read, especially if you have Jonathan Groff’s King George in your mind’s eye while you are reading it.
But on this particular Fourth, in this particular verison of the United States to which I must return in ten days, I wonder if we might be better served by another reminder of our purpose. On July 4, 1863 the epic battle at Gettysburg Pennsylvania had just ended in a Union victory in the east, Vicksburg Mississippi was surrendered to the Union in the west, and ghastly racially-motivated draft riots were taking place in New York City because that taproot of this war ran deep under the entire country. The conflict was long from over, and many more would die in service to a slavocracy and in defense of democracy by April 1865. A few month later, in November, Abraham Lincoln gave a short address at the dedication of a national cemetery at Gettysburg. Edward Everett talked for two hours before Lincoln, but nobody remembers what he said because this came next.
Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow -- this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
Of, by, and for. Democracy’s most eloquent champion, indeed.6
Strong flour = bread flour in the US. It has more protein than regular, so more gluten → stronger structure and chew. Think pretzels v. pie crust.
Yeah, I went there. Some of the recipes we have received are seriously in need of some editing. I mean, it’s BRAISED fennel FFS, you don’t say that you may need a few tablespoons of water at this point AFTER you say cook with the lid on until tender. Also, how about turn the heat down to let it, I don’t know, braise?
SWC = Softly Whipped Cream. Goes with pretty much everything here.
In demo last week Rory asked if we were enjoying making puff pastry, and commented again on how it is one of his favorite things to make and you can get the active time down to about 12 minutes, sowing terror in the hearts of the few of us (me?) who are making puff pastry for the practical exam.
Or as Sangree so memorably said to Lucy at the House dinner, “Put a cork in it, British.”
That one’s for you, WG.
Yeah this 4th ain't 4th-ing for me. It's terrifying what's happening.
In cooking matters, I think your absolute shitshow was exactly what needed to happen because it's only going to get better, and this is why you practice.
Q: when he says puff pastry in 12 minutes, does he mean like actual laminated dough? eek! I recall missing a fold (actually I folded it the wrong direction) in croissant dough that I had been slaving over, and not realizing it until I was watching all the butter leak out the sides as it was baking! The instructor's comment, "Well, they won't be dog biscuits exactly, but you wouldn't serve them to company." Sigh.