Sarah at Avenue Food asked me to participate in the “Five Things You Didn’t Know Me” meme, so here goes.

1. I started this blog as a way to procrastinate from work, but it “backfired.” I’m a journalist by profession, and I’ve always wanted to do feature writing. Unfortunately, staff writers are far and few; most writers are freelancers who develop specialties, think of ideas, pitch editors and follow up. That sounded hard, so I started this blog to put off work. Then it dawned on me that I knew a lot about food, and I should try writing about it, professionally. When I pitched editors, I had a bunch of professional clips on court cases and movies, but nothing on food. So, I told them about my blog, and it led to assignments from Chow.com and the AP. To this day, I’m amazed at how well-received this blog has been.
2. The three foods I missed most when I vacationed in Paris were whole grains, soy foods and peanut butter. Generally, the French style of eating is healthy (French Women Don’t Get Fat stresses lots of produce and good quality, portion-controlled desserts). Salads just taste better in Paris, and I had the best cake of my life at Pierre Herme. But the French aren’t into whole wheat bread. The first meal I ate after my week-long trip last year was a PB&J sandwich on whole wheat bread and a glass of soy milk. Heaven.
3. My culinary pet peeve is untoasted nuts. Growing up, I always hated nuts. Then I learned that I’d only had bad nuts. Raw nuts are like soggy chunks of fat. When they’re toasted, they transform into something completely different. The fragrant oils release, and they become crunchy. Now I LOVE nuts, but only if they’re fresh and toasted. But in my book, even the best nuts are not allowed in chocolate chip cookies or brownies.
4. I don’t like babies. They’re fussy, and they cry all the time. Everyone says I’ll change my mind when I get older, but that hasn’t happened. You know how people fawn over newborns? I could never understand the fuss, but I can’t resist dogs.
5. Chocolate is my undoing. I can give up almost any food if I really wanted to. (I eat vegan most of the time for health and environmental reasons, but I’m a social omnivore.) If I don’t eat some form of chocolate almost every day, I’ll go crazy.

Now, I tag Kelli of Lovescool to participate!

More food related posts are to come! I’ve been backlogged.

The last time I checked, more than 200 bloggers made Sullivan Street Bakery’s no-knead bread, one of the easiest things in the world. You mix flour, salt, yeast and water in a bowl and leave it out for about 18 hours. Then you shape the dough (which is as simple as folding an envelope) and let it rise for a couple hours more. After baking, you get a crusty, spongy bread that sops up olive oil like no other. The secret, as the New York Times article said, is letting time do the work.

Although a follow-up article said you can replace up to half the white flour with whole wheat flour, I’ve never seen specific instructions for how to make a 100% whole wheat loaf. In my opinion, it’s not whole wheat bread unless 100% of the flour is whole wheat. Otherwise, you get a paltry gram of extra fiber in each slice, which isn’t even worth it.

Whole wheat bread often sneaks in white flour because whole wheat is more difficult to work with. The bran is coarse and cuts through air pockets before they finish forming. Adding vital wheat gluten (protein) makes the dough “stronger” so it can rise. Also, whole wheat flour soaks up more liquid. The dough must be very soft, like a stiff muffin batter, so the yeast can move around to do its work. I’ve heard that whole wheat bread should have 100% hydration (a 1:1 ratio of flour and water by weight).

Armed with this knowledge, I added about an extra half cup of water and 1 1/2 Tbsp of vital wheat gluten. It works, it really works!

It is not as airy as the original recipe, but it passes as everyday sandwich bread. You can add more gluten (use up to 1 Tbsp for every cup of flour), but I don’t like the taste. It reminds me of a bad protein bar.

A couple notes: you do not need special instant yeast for the recipe. I read that NYC grocery stores ran out of instant yeast because people were baking like mad. To substitute regular active dry yeast, use 25% more and dissolve it in a little of the reserved water. Instant yeast is finer and more viable, which is why you can add it directly to flour and use less of it.

I had the greatest success with King Arthur’s hard red spring wheat flour. I usually buy what’s cheapest, but other brands like Whole Foods, Gold Medal and Hecker’s are more coarse. Remember, more coarse = less rise. Flour is so cheap anyway that you can afford to spend a couple more bucks on a good brand. It could make the difference between beautiful bread and a grassy tasting doorstop. On the downside, King Arthur isn’t as nutty-tasting as other brands, but it also isn’t sour and grassy (like Whole Foods).

Because the dough is so sticky, you need about an extra half cup of flour to dust your hands and shaping surface.

Also, because the whole wheat dough is wetter, you need about an extra 10 minutes in the oven.

If you don’t have a heavy oven-ready pot or don’t want such a flat loaf, you can use a standard loaf pan. Cover the top with an upside-down casserole dish or a tent of foil so it doesn’t brown too quickly. A trick to getting nice crust is to preheat a pan (not glass-it will shatter) on the oven floor and fill it with hot water during baking. I think it’s worth the extra step. Of course, if you have a covered pot, it will create its own steam. Why does steam create crisp crusts? I don’t know, but here’s an explanation on Peter Reinhart’s blog. I tried to get the best of both worlds (loaf shape and a hot covered pot) by putting a loaf pan inside a casserole dish and filling the gaps with water. The lid kept clanking as the water violently boiled. But it created an amazing brown top and permeated my apartment with the scent of caramelized bread for a day. However, the sides and bottom of my loaf didn’t brown because it was insulated by the extra glass. I also tried putting the whole apparatus on the bottom rack and turning the oven up to 500 F. The browning was better, but the crust set before the loaf had a chance to finish expanding.

No-Knead 100% Whole Wheat Bread

Adapted from the New York Times and Jim Lahey of Sullivan Street Bakery

Time: About 1 1/2 hours plus 14 to 20 hours rising

(The metric measurements are more accurate.)

3 cups (430 grams) whole wheat flour, plus 1/4-1/2 cup more for dusting
1/4 teaspoon (1 gram) instant yeast (or 1/4 plus 1/16 teaspoon active dry yeast*)
1 1/4 teaspoons (8 grams) salt
1 1/2 tablespoons vital wheat gluten
2 cups minus 1 tablespoon (430 grams) water
Cornmeal or wheat bran as needed

1. In a large bowl combine flour, instant yeast, salt and vital wheat gluten. Add 1 1/2 cups water and stir until blended. Keep adding water until the dough is shaggy and sticky, like a stiff muffin batter. It should not be so wet that it’s pourable. You will probably use all of the water, but different brands of flour are more absorbent. Cover bowl with plastic wrap. Let dough rest at least 12 hours, preferably 18, at warm room temperature, about 70 degrees.

2. Dough is ready when its surface is dotted with bubbles. Liberally flour a work surface and place dough on it; sprinkle it with more flour and fold it over on itself once or twice. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and let rest about 15 minutes.

3. Using just enough flour to keep dough from sticking to work surface or to your fingers, gently and quickly shape dough into a ball. Generously coat a cotton towel (not terry cloth) with flour, wheat bran or cornmeal; put dough seam side down on towel and dust with more flour, bran or cornmeal. Cover with another cotton towel and let rise for about 2 hours. When it is ready, dough will be more than double in size and will not readily spring back when poked with a finger.

4. At least a half-hour before dough is ready, heat oven to 450 degrees. Put a 6- to 8-quart heavy covered pot (cast iron, enamel, Pyrex or ceramic) in oven as it heats. When dough is ready, carefully remove pot from oven. Slide your hand under towel and turn dough over into pot, seam side up; it may look like a mess, but that is O.K. Shake pan once or twice if dough is unevenly distributed; it will straighten out as it bakes. Cover with lid and bake 30 minutes, then remove lid and bake another 15 to 30 minutes, until loaf is beautifully browned. Cool on a rack.

Yield: One 1½-pound loaf.

*If substituting active dry yeast, let it proof in 1/4 cup of lukewarm water (reserved from the total water) for 10 minutes. Add the yeast with the rest of the water when mixing it in the dough.

Links: Video of Martha Stewart jumping on the bandwagon and making the bread.

Sur la Table and the Food Network want you to believe that you need a $200 KitchenAid stand mixer or Le Crueset pan to be a serious cook. In reality, you only need $10 to buy one of the most durable and versatile pieces of cookware: the cast iron skillet. It is nonstick (no need to worry about Teflon poisoning), browns evenly and can go from the stove to the oven. I’ve had great success using it for pancakes, chicken with 40 cloves of garlic (you get an amazing crust and sweet, creamy garlic), tarte tatin and BREAD.

The secret to crusty artisan-style bread is baking on a pizza stone. Of course, it’s a huge investment. You can get around it by buying a ceramic tile from a hardware store, but what else are you going to use that tile for? Because of cast iron’s ability to hold in heat, it makes beautiful brown crusts. Plus, you can use it as a griddle, casserole dish, frying pan and bakeware.

Before Sullivan Street Bakery revealed its wildly popular no-knead bread recipe (it’s baked in a cast iron pot) and Mario Batali sold cast iron pizza pans, I made cast iron skillet-pizza, two years ago. Honest, look at the file information in the photos!

By baking in cast iron, you get charred crusts that’s the stuff of New York legends. You don’t need a pizza stone. You don’t need a coal-fired oven. Just start with your favorite pizza crust recipe and preheat the oven with the pan inside. Then, generously dust a pizza peel or cutting board with cornmeal or rice flour. Shape your crust on the board and add the toppings. When ready, slide the crust into the smoking hot pan and bake as directed.

To reheat leftover pizza, cover it any pan (cast iron or not) over low heat for 5-10 minutes, or until the crust comes back to life and the cheese is melted. Even Domino’s tastes divine this way.

Resources:

How to care for a cast iron skillet
Note that you’re not supposed to wash it, which may be good or bad, depending on how much you like clean up. Also, you can’t cook acidic foods like tomatoes in it. They are very heavy too, but that means that they practically last forever.

Photo: Mark Peterson/New York Magazine

Yolato, a new store selling yogurt gelato, is offering two chances for free dessert. Sign up to receive news and get a coupon for a free regular-sized yolato at their West Village location. Or stop by their new Upper West Side store on March  9 and 10 14 for a taste. It should be delicious, since gelato is like ice cream amplified to the nth degree, and real frozen yogurt is making a comeback in New York. For the record, that L.A. transplant, Pinkberry, tastes like grainy frozen ice milk because they reportedly use 7-UP.

Yolato
120 Macdougal St., New York, NY 10012
nr. Bleecker St.
212-228-6303
map

2286 Broadway
nr. 82nd St.

In other small news, check out Avenue Food, an NYC blog with street credibility. Last Saturday, Sarah hosted a Wine, Cheese and Wii Party. I don’t know what was better: the crusty mac and cheese, gruyere/caramelized onion pizza or the workout on the Wii. Sarah posted videos of us playing (it’s more entertaining watching the player than the TV screen itself). Unfortunately, the video of me had some technical difficulties.

Photo: 2005 snow storm in Times Square (Edward/Wired New York)

As sleet pierced my face like needles today, I couldn’t help but think of busting out a barbecue grill. In the past five years, winter grilling has steadily increased across the country. Some hardcore fans smoke meat for 20 hours during blizzards. For the rest of us, here’s some tips (it’s actually easy if you keep the lid closed and use a meat thermometer), courtesy of an article I wrote for the AP.

Try these specially designed winter recipes for Grilled Pork Chops with Squash, Apples and Cider-bourbon Jus and Asian Grilled Flank Steak.

Update: Download the podcast in MP3 form for your iPod!

Photo: Steven Sunshine/NY Daily News

During my first year in New York, my best friend from high school mailed me a bright orange sweater for my birthday. She wanted me to stay warm and bring some Californian attitude to dreary New Yorkers. The truth was, I already fit in with my charcoal-hued clothes. I hardly wear bright colors, because I’m afraid of looking disastrous. For example, one St. Patrick’s Day I wore a fluorescent green parka, which I’ve never worn since. People literally said, “Ouch, you’re blinding me! Turn your windbreaker inside out!”

That’s why I was mortified when the picture above appeared in the New York Daily News‘ review of Caffe Falai. Last Saturday, I had just finished working out (playing on a trapeze and hula hooping!) and needed to refuel. Too lazy to change into street clothes, I stumbled into a pristine white restaurant wearing a ratty orange T-shirt. The scene was something straight out of Sex and the City: posh food and people who looked like they just stepped off a runway. To add to the glamour, there was a photographer snapping pictures. I was afraid that I would be refused service, but I figured I had a right to experience chef Iacopo Falai’s food.

Falai, the ex-pastry chef from Le Cirque (where Jacques Torres also worked), now has three restaurants in the city. Each serves carefully crafted Italian food, but the desserts are French. Each location includes my three favorite foods: bread, olive oil and chocolate.

Caffe Falai didn’t disappoint. I had the stewed figs with fresh DiPaolo ricotta and almonds. The figs were bursting with a caramelized wine sauce, and the ricotta was like unsweetened ,room-temperature ice cream. The almonds weren’t just a garnish; they were made into almond brittle to contrast the soft cheese. It exceeded all my expectations. My only complaint was that the sauce was so sweet that you needed a lot of cheese to tone it down.

Also on the menu were fresh salads (about $6), brûléed eggs (about $10) and panini ($7). Each table came with freshly grilled housemade bread and olive oil.

All of Falai’s restaurants are comparable in quality, but Caffe Falai is the easiest to get to. The original Falai is the fanciest but also the most expensive and has the smallest portions. Falai Panetteria has the heartiest food: fresh whole wheat lasagna with Bolognese sauce and polenta with wild boar ragù.

I can’t believe the Daily News ran that picture. Maybe it’s because I let the photographer hang around; I sympathized with his plight. Or maybe it’s because the orange t-shirt made me stand out, just like my best friend would have wanted.

Caffe Falai
265 Lafayette Street (between Prince and Spring), Soho; (917) 338-6207

Falai Panetteria
79 Clinton Street (Rivington Street), Lower East Side; (212) 777-8956

Falai
68 Clinton Street, Lower East Side; (212) 253-1960

More info:
Daily News review of Caffe Falai
The First Bite is the Sweetest (Caffe Falai video from Gridskipper)
One Dessert, Many Flavors, Even Sweet (NY Times article with recipe)
Star Chefs profile of Iacopo Falai

Photo: What We’re Eating

You can take the New Orleanian out of Mardi Gras, but you can’t take Mardi Gras out of the New Orleanian. Ever since Hurricane Katrina struck, evacuees have spread their culture and cuisine to other states. For Mardi Gras, some order four king cakes, others import 40 pounds of crawfish and still others adapt their favorite recipes to local ingredients. For more info and tasty recipes, check out an article I wrote for the Associated Press!

More info:

Extended profile on a Mardi Gras Indian I interviewed

What the heck is Mardi Gras, anyway?
Nola.com guide
Wikipedia entry

I once ate a chocolate chip cookie that fell in the dirt. I wash ziplock bags and reuse them. I like taking the second-to-last item on a dish so someone else will feel guilty about taking the last one.

Up until I visited my first food blog three years ago, “I like to eat Nutella straight off my finger” would have joined the list of culinary confessions above. I was so crazy about that chocolate-hazelnut spread that I Googled it, which brought me to Il Forno’s post about Nutella’s 40th birthday. After reading about Nutella’s history in detail, I no longer felt like a nut. I may eaten a jar of Nutella in one week, but one girl finished it by the spoonful over three days.

Another case in point: Sara from Ms. Adventures in Italy and Shelley from At Home in Rome solemnly declare today “World Nutella Day” – a day to celebrate, to get creative with, and most importantly, to EAT Nutella.

I made a Nutella tart from Pierre Herme, known worldwide as the Picasso of Pastry. When I went to Paris last November, I bought a 6 Euro slice of cake and a 2 Euro macaroon from his store. Boy, were they worth it. All the textures and flavors were perfectly balanced. That man is a culinary engineer.

The recipe was first posted on Il Forno’s site. It’s a mouth-shattering crust with a layer of Nutella, bittersweet chocolate cream, and toasted hazelnuts. A couple notes:

• Use unsalted butter, or the salt will overpower the chocolate. If you only have regular butter, you can be a smart aleck and call it “salted chocolate hazelnut tart” (not that it’s my thing).
• Drizzle the butter into the chocolate mixture and mix thoroughly. The mixture will want to split because it’s so greasy. I actually think silken tofu would make a fine substitute, but that’s another post.
• You only need half the amount of hazelnuts called for: a half cup.
• If you don’t have a tart pan, form the dough in a 9-inch springform pan, making the sides 1-inch tall.
• People have complained that Herme’s tart dough is difficult to work with, so here’s a recipe from Into to Fine Baking at The New School’s Culinary Arts program.

Lynn’s Tart Dough – Pate Brisee aux Oeufs (French Pastry Dough with Eggs)

by Lynn Kutner

This dough is a dream to work with: it hardly sticks and can withstand heavy rolling. The secret ingredient, an egg, enriches the dough.

Take the extra effort to blind bake the dough so it keeps its shape. Brushing the crust with egg wash and sugar will make it stay crispy.

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp salt
1 stick unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 egg yolk (save the white to glaze the crust)
2 tablespoons ice water (a few more drops if necessary)

In a bowl, combine the flour and salt. With your fingers, rub in the butter until the mixture feels mealy (small bits of butter are still visible). Aerate the dough with your hands as you work.

In a measuring cup, add the egg yolk. Add water ALMOST to the 1/4 cup mark. (1/4 cup is the maximum total of egg and water)

Make a well in the flour-butter mixture and pour the liquid in the center. With a rubber spatula, flip the flour from the outside in. If the dough is too dry, break it up in the center and add a few more teaspoons of water.

Flatten the dough into a circle about 1/2″ to 3/4″-thick. Wrap in plastic and chill two hours to overnight.

If you chilled the dough overnight or froze it, let it sit at room temperature until it is pliable but not soft. If the dough cracks when you work it, let it heat up a little longer.

Lightly dust a rolling pin and work surface with flour. Roll the dough 1/8″-thick. Work from the center and roll in one direction, stopping just short of the edge. Turn the dough 90 degrees and continue till finished. Gently ease the dough into a tart mold and trim the edges. Cover with the surface plastic wrap or wax paper and freeze while you preheat the oven to 400 F.

When the oven is ready, prick the dough with a fork all over. Cover the dough with foil and weigh it down with raw dried beans, rice or metal pie weights. Bake for 20 minutes, or until the crust is lightly colored.

Remove the foil. In a small bowl, combine the leftover egg white and a couple teaspoons of water. Brush the egg wash on the crust and sprinkle with a couple teaspoons of sugar. Return the crust to the oven and bake for until golden brown, about 5-10 minutes.

Related links:
Nutella cake
Su Good Sweets’ homemade chocolate-hazelnut spread recipe
All other Nutella posts
World Nutella Day posts

In Legally Blonde, Elle Woods shows her bumbling stylist the sure way to get any man.
“Whoops, I dropped my pencil,” Elle demonstrates. Then she bends down and snaps up. “Bend and snap! Works every time!”

Some would argue that the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach. In that case, the bend and snap also works. For the holidays (I am way behind in posts), I made the famous Chez Panisse gingersnaps. Although they’re gingerSNAPS, they’re bendy and chewy if you underbake them.

Why are these cookies so famous?  Renee at Feeding Dexygus Seconds once applied to be a pastry chef at Chez Panisse, the restaurant pioneered eating seasonal, local produce (30 years after it opened, the rest of the country finally caught on with the food politics/organic/vegetarian craze). Renee didn’t get the job, but she walked away with one of their recipes. Since sharing this heartwarming story, the recipe spread like wildfire at The Amateur Gourmet, Chocolate & Zucchini, Kottke, The Baking Sheet, Tarting it Up, The Recipe Box, Simply Recipes…you get the idea. I compulsively clip recipes, so it took me a good two years before I had a chance to try it out.

They are one of my favorite non-chocolate cookies, the other being potato chip cookies. Although they look like mis-shapen blobs (the dough is very soft), no one can say no to butter, sugar and warm, tingly spices. If you want them to live true to their name, bake them till they are dark brown. Forget the rule of pulling cookies out of the oven just when the edges brown and the middle is still soft set.

I cheated and actually like the cookies chewy. There’s so much molasses that they’ll be “gingerbends” unless you bake them to death.

They’re more presentable if you slice the dough from a log. Forming it in a loaf pan makes for really big cookies that squish under the knife. If you make rounds, decrease the baking time to 8-9 minutes. I would send you over to Feeding Dexygus Seconds for the recipe, but it doesn’t work now. So here it is in my words. You can actually make the cookies without an electric beater. In Into to Fine Baking at The New School, we didn’t use machines for any of the doughs!

Chez Panisse Gingersnaps

8 ounces unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 1/4 cup + 2 Tbsp. sugar
1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
2 small eggs or 1 1/2 large eggs
1/3 cup molasses
3 cups all-purpose flour
2 1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
2 1/2 tsp. cinnamon
2 1/2 tsp. ground ginger
1/8 tsp. ground black pepper

In a medium bowl, cream the butter until soft. Beat in the sugar, then add the vanilla and eggs. Add molasses and beat until well-incorporated. Sift the dry ingredients, and add to the mixture. On low speed, mix until it all just comes together.

Line a 9″ x 5″ loaf pan with plastic wrap, so that some hangs over the edges. Firmly press the dough into the bottom of the pan, making the top as level as possible. Cover the dough with the plastic overhangs. Freeze until very firm, preferably overnight.

Unwrap and remove dough from the pan. Slice the brick into thin slices, no more than 1/8″. Place on a sheet pan lined with parchment paper or ungreased foil. Bake in a preheated 350 F oven until the edges turn dark brown, about 12 minutes.

Notes:

• Alternatively, you can form the dough into a couple logs that are 1 1/2″ in diameter. Slice as directed above and bake for 8-9 min.
• The dough gets soft quickly, so work quickly.
• Because the cookies are thin, there’s a fine line between underbaked and burned.

Sorry for the lack of updates. Life has taken hold, and I’m working on freelance food articles. There’s a lot of posts in development here. When I get a moment, I’ll talk about the famous Chez Panisse gingersnaps, NYC Chocolate Show, French Culinary Institute grapefruit dessert demo and how to get a crispy pizza crust without a stone. Until then, here’s an all-natural chocolate-hazelnut spread recipe (a la Nutella) that I developed a while ago.

Also, I’m getting on my soapbox, but this Rolling Stone article about pork is why I’ve severely limited my consumption of animal products. Smithfield Foods, the nation’s biggest pork producer, generates more poop than all of Manhattan. Not only is it bad for the environment, but people who live nearby have to breathe it in. The poop that is collected is mixed with stillborns and antibiotic syringes. Even if you love bacon, please be aware of where it comes from. Boycott Smithfield! Write a hate letter!