Posts Tagged ‘Book Larder’
Dessert party with Gail Simmons at Palace Ballroom – Downtown, Seattle
Posted on: Monday 05 March 2012
Presented by Book Larder, the dessert party with Gail Simmons was held at the Palace Ballroom and coincided with the Top Chef season 9 finale on leap day. I love MasterChef Australia but I haven’t watched Top Chef so I was curious about Gail‘s memoir, Talking with My Mouth Full.
Banners of each chapter in cursive font and a symbolic illustration decorated the space.
The dessert menu was three chalkboards tied together with string.
Clockwise from top: schnecken, apple cake, derby tartlet, and chocolate meringue pie. The recipe of Tom Douglas’ grandmother, the schnecken was sticky sweet rolled and glazed pastry sprinkled with chopped nuts. Gail’s plum cake made with apple was scented and light. Chewy and nutty, the derby tartlet was a bite size treat. A pillowy twirl of burnished meringue rested on a chocolate filled crust, the mini pie was the highlight of the dessert party.
Rhubarb dump with crème Anglaise in a ramekin.
Tom Douglas welcomed us to the desert party, and introduced Amy Pennington and Gail Simmons. Amy is the host of Check, Please! Northwest which premieres this Thursday 8 March at 7pm on KCTS 9.
Both ladies listened to each other with intent and were animated in conversation. Gail’s mantra of ‘the harder you work, the luckier with are’ resonated with me.
Gail cited Survivor and Fear Factor as the stigma of the reality television genre when she filmed her first episode of the inaugural season of Top Chef in 2005. Many hours of footage from many cameras were edited for each show. Instead of applying a formula to the judging panel, their styles developed as a team.
Gail’s father was born in South Africa. He moved to Canada in the 60s and met her mother in Montreal on a blind date. Gail’s mother operated a cooking school out of her home kitchen and wrote a regular column for Canada’s national newspaper, The Global and Mail.
Gail graduated with a liberal arts degree with majors in anthropology (she ‘really likes monkeys’!) and Spanish (the language of kitchens). Gail wrote reviews of ‘ghetto’ restaurants for her university newspaper.
Her mother’s best friend, Linda, inspired Gail to enrol in culinary school to learn the science of cooking. Linda encouraged Gail to write down what she loves, and on the piece of paper was ‘eat, write, travel, cook’. Culinary school is a modern construct, and to speak and write ‘with authority’, she needed to know the subject.
In New York Gail worked for the esteemed Vogue food critic, Jeffrey Steingarten. Gail described her former boss as an extraordinary mind, a meticulous researcher and self-deprecating. It was ‘an education’ to be Steingarten’s assistant, a difficult job that has ‘opened doors’.
Gail recalled a dry aged meat experiment for an article where Steingarten left the meat on the counter to rot. Dry aging of meat is a calibrated process in a precise environment and Gail cleaned up the putrid meat with maggots before Steingarten returned from overseas!
Gail noted that physical strength is an attribute required in kitchens, it is gruelling manual labour to ‘execute a chef’s vision’. A key to success to knowing ‘when to keep mouth shut’! Gail emphasised the importance of goals and to be flexible with the path to achieve them.
As a judge she uses descriptive words (‘oozy’!) and assesses each dish objectively. She recommends Stephanie Izard‘s Girl and the Goat in Chicago, Spike Mendelsohn‘s Good Stuff Eatery in Washington DC and Harold Dieterle‘s Perilla in New York of the Top Chef contestants.
An audience question about Gail’s health was controversial. Amy stated that the question would not have been posed to a man. Gail responded that it is an ‘occupational hazard’. She tastes food in two or three bites, is attentive of her diet off camera, is active and while she is not American, she walks like a New Yorker!
Gail was gregarious and energetic, and I intend on reading chapter eight, ‘Alone with rotten meat: the Vogue years’, first!
Momofuku Milk Bar by Christina Tosi at Book Larder – Fremont, Seattle
Posted on: Wednesday 02 November 2011
- In: Learning
- 5 Comments
I attended my first event at Book Larder yesterday. A community cookbook store in Fremont, it is a warm and welcoming space with the kitchen at its heart. A large group gathered for Christina Tosi, author, chef and owner of Momofuku Milk Bar.
A vintage stove is salvaged as a window display.
Cookbooks are categorised and neatly stacked. I’m enamoured by the teal walls, a regal shade against the stark white shelves.
Wooden tables are focal points for new releases and local authors.
A snapshot of the Australian section! In stock were Frank Camorra, Margaret Fulton, Bill Granger, Rachel Grisewood, Donna Hay, Luke Nguyen and David Thompson.
The kitchen is equipped with modern appliances and accoutrements.
On the cover of Christina’s cookbook is the neon ‘milk’ sign of Momofuku Milk Bars.
A container of cereal milk mix.
The view of the kitchen through a glass of cereal milk. Milk infused with cornflakes, sugar and salt, the sugary beverage replicates the taste of the liquid left at the bottom of a breakfast bowl.
The air was perfumed with butter and there was an abundance of sweet treats.
We munched on sample containers of cereal crunch, a caramelised cornflakes snack.
A platter of cornflake chocolate chip marshmallow cookies.
Deceptively plain in appearance, these corn cookies were chewy with a distinct corn flavour.
Sugar, butter, cream, eggs, milk, cream and oats. The core ingredients of crack pie. Its magical ratios are whisked, kneaded, cooled, baked and frozen into a dense, sticky and crumbly dessert.
Christina described Momofuku Milk Bar as a bakery that serves cookies and cakes with a personality. As a child she was a ‘picky eater with a sweet tooth’. She enrolled in culinary school in New York as an aspiring pastry chef to do what she loves which is to ‘eat sweets all day’! After she graduated she worked in fine dining restaurants. She enjoyed the challenge but was questioning her career direction when she was introduced to David Chang.
David had ‘drive and courage but no infrastructure’ and Christina was hired for the ‘etcetera’ role of ‘everything non-kitchen’ related. She would work during the day, bake at home at night and bring her baked goods into the office to share. There were no desserts on the menu at Noodle Bar or Ssäm Bar. The restaurants were chef focused where the chefs did the payroll and trained the wait staff. It was endearing but masculine.
After a couple of jokes, David was serious about Christina making desserts for the restaurants. She introduced one at a time while still doing her ‘etcetera’ role and transitioned to full-time chef. When the real estate next to Ssäm Bar became vacant, David decided Christina should open the Milk Bar. It is this passion and intuition that characterises David Chang.
Christina commented that the Milk Bar was a ‘lady approach to opening a Momofuku’. Christina built a team of small and talented people that operate the Milk Bars. Each item at the Milk Bars has intention and story behind it. Favourite components of desserts are deconstructed and reconstituted.
David opened Momofuku Seiōbo in Sydney last week and I asked Christina if she’ll follow with a Milk Bar. She explained the business has grown rapidly over the last three years and her fear is to split her team and fracture the creative process. She noted there was space available for the expansion!
Another question asked was about home cooking. Christina said the essence is home cooking but she references her formal training. She likened milk powder to ‘MSG for the baker’. She worked at wd~50 prior to joining Momofuku and it was there that she learned to think about the science of food. Her cooking is ‘tangible in unexpected ways’.
The final question was about working with David Chang. Christina spoke with respect and affection on her relationship with David. Working with David requires commitment and tenacity, they have a deep understanding and trust that is ‘silently dynamic’. She is stubborn and David knows it!
Christina brought boxes of cookies from the Milk Bar. From top right: corn cookie, cornflake chocolate chip marshmallow cookie, compost cookie, blueberry and cream cookie, and confetti cookie.
I purchased a copy of the book and I look forward to reading about the ’intention and story’ of each of the recipes.
Congratulations to the Book Larder for a stellar calendar of events and sincere thanks to Christina Tosi for sweetening our Tuesday evening.
- In: Eating | Fremont | Seattle | USA | Washington
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In the Fremont Avenue North hub near Uneeda Burger and across from Paseo, and two doors up from the soon to be opened Book Larder, is Dot’s Delicatessen. On a temperamental autumn day, I met Myra and Shirley for lunch.
Two bay windows display butcher accoutrement and frame the entrance. Dot’s Delicatessen is etched in gold and an amber banner of keywords skirt the bottom of the glass panes.
A basic chalkboard on the sidewalk lists lunch and dinner items in cursive script.
The interior is clean and well lit. On the left is the counter and open plan kitchen. On the right is a narrow bench with stools and at the back are a handful of tables.
A refrigerated cabinet has platters of house made sausages and charcuterie.
Dot’s also stocks a variety of local meats.
Shelves are neatly lined with produce.
The menu is divided into sausages, sandwiches, charcuterie and sides. There’s also a happy hour section and daily specials.
A sausage drawing parodying the cow cuts is next to the register.
We pushed two tables together and settled in. The small dining room has a view into the open plan kitchen cladded in stainless steel.
We shared the large frites. Served in a take-away container, the thick batons of hand cut potatoes were crunchy.
I split the BLT and Rueben sandwiches with Shirley. House smoked bacon, lettuce and tomatoes were wedged in lightly toasted sourdough spread with aioli. Slices of juicy and sweet heirloom tomatoes were refreshing and the salty shards of bacon were delightfully crispy.
Generous layers of pastrami and mild sauerkraut were sandwiched together by molten Gruyère on rye. The Rueben sandwich was delicious with a distinctive house dressing.
We lingered for a while before relinquishing our table. Dot’s was doing brisk business during the lunch service!
A short walk to Uneeda Burger and we happily sipped on extra thick chocolate shakes for desserts. A lovely afternoon concluded with a brief visit to the Book Larder, scheduled to open on 12 October. I smiled when I spotted a shelf tagged ‘Aussie’.
