I’m one of those pastry chefs who very rarely makes their own puff pastry. Unlike croissant dough, good quality puff pastry dough is usually readily available (okay unless you live in the middle of nowhere, then you’re SOL), so I’m not especially motivated to make it from scratch…certainly not without a pastry sheeter. That’s not…
Month: July 2020
It’s tea time somewhere in the world…or I dream of Chelsea buns
I’ve resigned myself to the sobering fact that I’m not gonna be going anywhere anytime soon, nothing outside my self-imposed 5 mile radius…no flights across the country to visit friends in Maine…and certainly no trips outside the country. The world has, in effect, uninvited us to their party because we can’t be trusted to not…
Bring the biscuits, leave the dumplings…or Ode to Killing Eve Part Deux
Judging from my previous post about Killing Eve, you might get the impression that our obsession (okay mostly Rina’s) with the series revolves primarily around the brilliantly maniacal Russian assassin Villanelle, played by the spectacularly gifted Jodie Comer. However, let me go on the record by declaring Sandra Oh, who plays the complicated, impulsive, and…
Crocodile Rock & Pirozhki…or the cure for hiccups
Trapped in our homes for weeks and months on end, we’ve all had to come up with ways to occupy our minds (if not so much our bodies). I’ve been cooking, baking, and writing…in between half-ass attempts to literally get off my ass and exercise–which of late consists of me taking my mom (with her…
Heavenly Layers…or (not just) anyway you stack it
After last week’s aebleskiver/takoyaki experiments, I was out of ideas as to what to tackle next. Usually I let my stomach do the steering, but lately It’s been stuck in a culinary cut-de-sac, driving around the same six or seven food staples–ramen noodles, bbq pork, rice, chicken, sourdough bread, SPAM, and baby boy choy–though I…
From Aebleskiver to Takoyaki…one pan two worlds
In another episode of “Mimi finally uses random kitchen paraphernalia during quarantine…” this week I decided to pull the virgin cast iron aebleskiver pan Karen gave me for Christmas two years ago off the top shelf in my kitchen–which by the way is where the twice-used tortilla press resides–and dust it off…with the intention of…
Donut Run
Since I moved back to San Francisco over 6 months ago I’ve been sorting through a clutter of kitchen equipment and tools, scattered among seemingly endless boxes and crates in the garage. Being the pastry geek that I am, I’ve amassed a ridiculous collection of cake pans, tools, cutters, molds–you name it–so much so that…
A Choux Story
My choux story begins with cream puffs, the very first pastry I ever learned how to make on my own. I was probably about 12 or 13 years old. By then Mom trusted me to fend for myself in the kitchen, having managed to not set anything on fire (that she knew of). I was…