Party Time!

Just returned yesterday from our trip to the Zingerman's compound. I'll get into details of the whole weekend in a bit, but for now I thought I'd share the main reason for heading there in the first place:

2nd Annual Tomato and Mozzarella Party

August 27, 2011

Ann Arbor, Michigan

We arrived at the creamery about 5:00 pm, and were handed name tags so that we knew we were Officially Invited. Then we headed over to the main event hall, where our cheese-making hostess Aubrey demonstrated how to make mozzarella!!! Really excited about this, because she provided lots of helpful tips I wouldn't have even thought to ask about. Such as - it's ok to wing it a little bit. You can always correct it if it's not quite right. (Seriously forget to think that when I'm in the process. Hearing it from a nine-year veteran is encouraging.)

It was while watching her stretch and form the cheese that I had a thought: I feel really weird. Wait, I know this feeling - I'm about to pass out! Maybe it's just the warm sun combined with the cool breeze... Or maybe I just need water. We've been traveling all day and I've hardly had any. OH MY GOD - I've hardly had any water all day!! I should get some before... Wait, what's she saying? I can't make out what she's saying. Ooh, out-of-focus tunnel vision... I'm definitely, definitely about to pass out.

At which point Matt hauled my ass over to the shady side of the building, where I sat in the cool grass drinking out of a large water bottle until I didn't look grey and clammy anymore, and then we rejoined the group.

Adventure!

(There was an appetizer served - burrata [a pouch of mozzarella filled with cottage cheese and heavy cream] mixed with roasted red pepper and olive oil served on a leaf of endive - which was delicious, but I didn't get a picture of it because I was busy not fainting.)

We were soon ushered inside to tables featuring centerpieces of fresh basil, accompanied by large vessels of water. This was a good thing.

Then we were fed this:

Fresh cheese on three tomatoes: Cherokee Purple, Aunt Ruby's German Green, and Kellogg's Breakfast. The Kellogg's Breakfast one was really sweet. I liked the Cherokee Purple best. (No, not because of that.)

Pain de Mantagne (a hearty, rustic bread) rubbed with garlic and plum tomato, drizzled with olive oil and served with Italian and French sheep's milk cheeses. I don't think this picture expresses how big this piece of bread was. It was about the size of both of my hands placed next to each other.

Fresh cheese rolled with prosciutto and pesto, paired with an Hungarian Heart tomato.

Eggplant fried in cornmeal with smoked mozzarella melted on top, later to be accompanied by a slice of Brandywine tomato because they cut up too many. The acidity of the tomato is just what the dish needed. :-)

Pain de Mie (hearty white bread) with Brandywine tomato and bacon fat mayonnaise. WTF? Who thinks of something like that? It was really, really good. And really, really rich. And by that point I'd eaten so much that I took one bite and thought, Hm, this is really good and really rich. I think I might throw up.

But I did not!

I was saved by this:

Vanilla gelato topped with Portugese tomato jam. This was a sweet tomato jam, made with cinnamon and sugar. I guess you really can't find it outside of Portugal. Aubrey fell in love with it last time she was there, and couldn't find it anywhere. So she got it added to the menu just so Zingerman's would import it and she could taste it again. She ordered one too many jars for the crowd that night. We now own a jar of Portugese tomato jam.

Before you worry - No, we did not try to finish everything that was put on our plates that night. I think that might be impossible. Though there were those who attempted it.

Along the way, there were informative discussions about the history of the tomato and the importance of species differentiation, cooking demonstrations, friendly banter, and a 20% discount off purchases at the creamery!

It was beyond fantastic to be surrounded by people getting excited over what kind of tomato and cheese they were currently tasting...

Here's a too quick snap of all the different tomato varieties we sampled (taken on the way out of the door; didn't watch my framing):

Emily, the farmer who provided Saturday night's produce, said she harvests between 800 and 1000 pounds of tomatoes every two days this time of year. We did not actually sample any Green Zebras that night, but she had brought some along just in case, and since they were there and all... We had those alongside some cheese fondue last night.

*bounce*

First Ever Plum Tart!

"I think I'm going to try making a plum tart. Frangipane's already done and all that."

"Frangipane... Is that what you're calling Pim these days?"

No, my darling smartass husband, that is not what I'm calling Pim these days, although I did get the recipe from her blog. Frangipane is, you may recall, that delicious blend of almonds, sugar, and butter that I concocted for my fig tart. I figured it would be equally yummy underneath some fresh plums, or at least worth a try, so that's what I did.

I still have no idea how to pronounce that word, by the way. I keep trying out different accents and emphases. You can imagine that up there said like Brad Pitt in "Inglourious Basterds," for example.

Anyway, so I let a portion of the stuff come to room temp from the fridge and sliced up four plums - which I got specifically because

they were labled Dragon Pluots in the store. (Advertising works!) I let them sit on paper towels while I was getting everything else ready, but I was still kind of nervous because I'd never made a cooked fresh fruit tart at all before, let alone one with such juicy components.

I did the same trick with my remaining sheet of puff pastry as with my fig tart, scoring a frame around the edge and docking the center so that it would form a sort of box around the fruit as it cooked. I spread the frangipane in the center and arranged the fruit prettily on top, said a prayer (which mostly went "please work, please work, please work"), and slipped it into the oven at 350 degrees.

I waited 30 minutes.

When I took it out, the edges looked done, but the center, as I had feared, was still very wet and pliable.

Boo!

I wrapped the edges in foil, adjusted the heat to 375, said another quick prayer, and put it back in the oven for another 15 minutes.

It worked!

The bottom was golden brown and sturdy, while the fruit still held its shape. The flavor is rich and intensely jammy, and the underlying sugar is just enough to temper the slight tartness of the fruit.

...And it's purtiful.

Seems to serve about nine.

ZINGERMAN'S!!!

Firstly, if you do not know about Zingerman's, you are truly missing out on something wonderful. Imagine J. Peterman for foodies. A wonderfully illustrated catalog with a quirky sense of humor through which you can order a variety of intensely interesting foodstuffs.

thick-cut applewood-smoked bacon
raw milk stilton cheese
chocolate chunk sourdough bread
a ruben sandwich kit
sardine-stuffed cherry peppers
olive oils from Italy, Spain, and France

They even have a Culinary Adventure Society you can "join" to have the opportunity to taste things you might not otherwise get to sample unless you were to wind up in the small village in Europe where the stuff is produced.

Anyway - It turns out that this mythical perveyor of all things yummy actually exists in the real world! Specifically, in Ann Arbor, Michigan! And they have events and stuff!

While perusing the latest edition of their newsletter, I noticed that there is a Tomato & Mozzarella Party scheduled for the weekend of August 27th.

Also, there is something called the "Tour de Bacon."

Who wouldn't be excited by the sound of that?

The Tour is a special "contest" held this July and August, wherein if you visit all five of their retail locations within twenty-four hours (Deli, Dairy, Coffee Roastery, Roadhouse restaurant, and Bakery), you get a free t-shirt.

Reservations for the party have been made.
It's on a Saturday, so we should have ample time to complete the tour.

Photo below is my latest order. It arrived quite recently, so I'm still riding on a wave of euphoria. Included are an olive oil coffee cake (moms who've tried the lime coconut and/or almond ones, this is our favorite so far), all natural non-sweetened peanut butter made from jumbo Virginia peanuts, semi-dried Italian cherry tomatoes in olive oil seasoned with basil and garlic, and wild artichokes in olive oil, also from Italy.

Those artichokes are tiny.
Smaller-than-a-nickel tiny.

www.zingermans.com

Lunch.

Fried Tomatoes.
(They were green when I bought them, I swear.)

1 good sized tomato per person
1/2 cup flour, 1/2 cup cornstarch, assuming this is feeding two people
Salt, black pepper, and cayenne pepper in generous amounts
1 egg per tomato, beaten
Panko bread crumbs

Slice tomatoes into desired thickness.
Place on paper towels to drain.

Dredge in flour/corn starch/salt/pepper/cayenne mixture, then egg, then press into bread crumbs.

With tongs, put tomatoes into appropriately heated oil (350 degrees) and cook until both sides are golden brown.

Like all other fried things, drain them on a paper bag or paper towels.

Plate, and sprinkle with feta cheese and hot sauce.

Eat.

Problem Child.

So I was browsing my favorite food blogs the other day, and I came across Pim Techamuanvivit's recipe for what she calls "the easiest fig tart ever." (Check out Chez Pim for yourself!) And I thought, Easy fig tart?? That sounds delicious!

OK, actually I thought, Easy fig tart?? That sounds promising and the pictures are drop dead gorgeous. I need a better camera. I wonder if it's worth looking into SLRs or if just a better point and shoot would do it. I need something that can handle close ups, but I'd also like to be able to play with the focus and all that. Of course, I guess I could just do "all that" in PhotoShop, but it's just not the same somehow. Probably a point and shoot is fine. I can't really see dropping a grand to take pictures of my dinner...

But I digress.

Here are the ingredients:

10-15 fresh figs, halved or quartered depending on size
To spread under the figs, 75 grams each of granulated sugar, almonds, and butter
Pie crust dough, make your own or use a store bought "all butter" one

Simple enough, right? So I made a quick list of ingredients, got a little scared at the abstract idea of 75 grams worth of butter, and headed to the market.

Where I found no fresh figs whatsoever.
And no pre-made pie dough, either.

What the hell????

Figs! It's... they're figs!
You can stock starfruit, but not figs?
In the middle of fig season?

Whatever.

I grabbed a package of dried ones and a package of frozen puff pastry as substitutes. (I'm aware I had the option of making my own pie dough. I didn't feel like it. This is was supposed to be easy - it's in the description!) I also grabbed some almonds and a few sticks of butter.

Back at home, I remembered that I had a kitchen scale (yay!), and discovered that 75 grams of butter is only about three quarters of a stick.

I also discovered that I could not find the blades to my food processor.

Okay, so at this point we're working with dried figs, puff pastry, and a blender.
Fine.
Let's get to it.

I toasted the almonds in the oven at 350 for about 10 minutes. Then I dumped them in the blender with the sugar and blended - stopping often to rearrange things - until the two were homogenized into a fine powder.

Then I added the butter.
The blender did not like that part.

I dumped everything into a bowl and sort of kneaded the ingredients together till they were pretty much evenly mixed and my hands were nice and shiny.

To prep the puff pastry I scored an inch and a half border around the perimeter and docked (aka "poked holes in") the center heavily with a fork. Then I painted the border with egg white and sprinkled with sugar.

Time for assembly: Spread 1/4 of the almond/sugar/butter mixture - otherwise called frangipane, ooh la la - over the center of the tart and arrange the quartered/halved figs prettily on top.

Bake at 350 for about 30 minutes until puff pastry is golden and puffed around the edges, flat under the figs. (This part actually worked! I did learn something from all those cooking shows!)

When it came out of the oven I drizzled the whole thing with agave nectar. It looked DELICIOUS! Until I realized I'd forgotten to prep the surface it was sitting on and I might possibly be serving a fig and tin foil tart.

That sucker was stuck on good.

In the end, I managed to remove most of the stuff and arrange a photo op. The setting's nice, the lighting's good, and you can't even tell the thing's busted into a million pieces.

See?

Happy 4th!

It's the Fourth of July! The day for us Americans to show how awesome we are by declaring our greatness and blowing things up! Actually, depending on what part of the world you're in, I guess that can be any day....

But this is about food.

And what better way to demonstrate at least one of those things than by preparing seared sesame-crusted tuna with a ponzusake-ginger reduction?

Brilliant!
(and delicious...)

To be honest, I'm not sure how much the cooking method mattered for the main course here, but just to PROVE what patriotic citizens we are, we contributed to our carbon footprint by preparing it on the grill. The charcoal grill. Not one of those commie gas ones.

I served this with grilled corn-on-the-cob spread with mayonnaise. And lime juice and cayenne pepper, but the important part is that we burned the hell out of it and slathered it with fat. So it's barely like eating an actual vegetable at all! Bonus: It's really, really good. Just like eating grilled corn-on-the-cob with butter, but more caloric.

Also some edamame (boiled soy beans), which are really too healthy to mention.

Extra snaps:

Hello. I would like some of that, if it's tuna. I think it's tuna.


Yum. Tuna!


Can I have some more tuna?

Then I made desert:

OKAY, it's a brown sugar Pop Tart topped with whipped cream and berries from our garden. Pop Tarts are Americans. Tarty Americans. Still counts.

Then, for good measure, we blew stuff up.
Because we're America.
And that's what we do.

Seven-layer Bean Dip for the Gods.

Hiya, kids!

Today's recipe is brought to you by Nathan Fillion. Turns out TV's Rick Castle, Capt. Mal, and Joey Buchanan (the Joey Buchanan); and the interweb's Capt. Hammer also makes a killer bean dip, and he shared the recipe with little ol' Me!!!!

...And the rest of the Twitterverse, but let's just pretend I have some inside information and move on.

Seven-layer Bean Dip for the Gods

Ingredients (in order) :

A can of vegetarian "refried" beans
(I used the whole can before realizing that this recipe probably serves 20 people... Also, did you know that canned refried beans don't resemble beans at all? It's like a paste sort of dealie.)

A package of taco seasoning mixed with some low fat sour cream (Half a pack mixed with half a container - from here on the ingredients are more judiciously thought out.)

Diced fresh tomatoes. I used two, cleaned and seeded.

Guacamole. In this case, pre-packaged.

Diced green chiles, evenly distributed.

Sliced black olives. also equally distributed.

Shredded Mexican Cheese mix. As much as you want.
... Seriously, As Much as you want.

Pretty sure this is supposed to feed more than five people, but results are results:



Sampled conversation from those enjoying this "appetizer":

"Oh, good - you're here. Just in time, 'cause we've already eaten half of this stuff."
"This is really good."
"Really good."
"We should go outside - it's gorgeous out."
"Mm."
"Who's recipe did you say this was?"
"It's really good."
"OK, so why don't we go outside..."
"Yeah, maybe. What's the creamy stuff?"
"Low fat sour cream with taco seasoning."
"This is really good."
"...We could take the dip outside...?"