Alice Waters and Edible Education

I know, I know. It's been an entire six months since I've written anything in here. So sorry! I've been busy learning to batonnet and julienne and braise and saute. The school is going through a massive renovation until the fall quarter, so I shall have more time to write (I hope). I had hoped to keep you updated about the antics of culinary school, and perhaps I will get to that in later posts. For now, though, I want to tell you something exciting.

I saw Alice Waters in person. Granted, she was 50 feet away and obscured from view by rows of bobbling heads, but I occasionally glimpsed her modest defiance when the man in front of me leaned an inch or two to the left. We were all eagerly craning our necks to see her, this woman we've read and heard so much about, whose cookbooks we love and activism we love more. I anticipated a rousing speech.

The crowd was crammed tight in the largest conference room at the Green Festival. After introduction after introduction, I was beginning to get impatient for the star of the show to appear. Finally, after the panelists were seated, Alice Waters was introduced. With an air of hard-earned regality, she took her seat between panelists Tom Philpott, the food editor of Grist.org, and Chris Taylor, the director of the new documentary Food Fight. Food Fight is about Edible Education, a movement advocated by Alice Waters that puts gardens in schools and encourages the use of its produce for school meals. The film features several interviews with Waters.

"I had no idea this film was about me," Waters smiled, her powerful voice laced with maternal modesty. "I am embarrassed I am so prominent. This movement has been going around the country as long as I've been doing this. We are becoming so activated by this idea because we have been so separated from our food. We are coming back to our senses."

She sat proudly, with graceful poise. Her words were simple but poignant, and her voice suggested sincerity. She discussed the news that the Obamas plan to put in a vegetable garden on the White House lawn. Since 1992, Waters has ended her speeches, "And wouldn't it be wonderful if there were a vegetable garden on the White House lawn?" Now that the garden plans are underway, Waters cheerfully joked that "[Obama] should be having press conferences out by the composting."

Philpott mentioned that Monsanto sent a letter to the Obamas praising the fact that they were starting a garden but lamenting the fact that it was organic. He said, "Monsanto isn't going to skitter away because Alice Waters is speaking about organics." Waters was unruffled. "The pushback will be intense," she agreed. She said that is why we need to keep fighting and making films like Food Fight.

About Edible Education, Waters is adamant that "all children should eat at school for free, and should eat food produced by people who care for the land." Her vision is to have a garden in every school and get children learning math and science while developing a connection to the food.

The panel discussion flitted back and forth a bit more, punctuated by hearty applause if someone delivered a particularly effective line. Though the discussion was encouraging, I left with the feeling that I had merely heard a lot of big talk. I enjoyed hearing Alice Waters speak in her simple, direct manner, but missed out on any kind of real information. I would have been more satisfied had the panelists mentioned how we could get involved in the movement or what they were currently doing to promote Edible Education. Ultimately, though, her message came across: "Good food is a right and not a privilege."

A sweet tangent

Seattle is not the best place to make homemade marshmallows, at least not the kind with folded in egg whites. The meringue will soak up moisture from the October air, and the whole slab of stickiness will go slimy. Imagine squeezing your fingers around a snowy-white rectangle with the texture of a slug. Sound like something you want eat? I thought not.

Which is why, when you make homemade marshmallows in Seattle (or any other semi-arid environment), you should always use corn syrup. I know, I know: it's a foodie abomination. I am no big advocate of corn syrup. It is isolated starch molecules from corn kernels, turned into liquid glucose. We Americans consume far too much corn-derived food as it is, and the whole concept of refined starches and sugars makes me cringe. On the other hand, many many folks in the Midwest would be out of jobs if not for our reliance on GMO corn. We could go around in ethical circles for days and never solve anything.

That, and corn syrup becomes significantly more ethical-sounding when a batch of marshmallows turns out slimy and I need something that won't fall apart in humidity. Don't tell my Sustainable Food Systems instructor I said it, but corn syrup works. Of course it works. It's science. Corrupted, greed-funded science, but functional nonetheless.

I have no photo for you today, but just imagine the piles of pillowy, over-sweetened goodness. These will be excellent dunked in a mug of thick, foamy hot chocolate come winter.

Disclaimer: eating too much corn syrup will in fact give you nasty diseases, despite what the ads may tell you.

Marshmallows!

3 packets unflavored gelatin (such as Knox brand)
1/2 cup cold water
2 cups granulated sugar
2/3 cups light corn syrup
1/4 cup water
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon vanilla extract

Line a 9x9 inch pan with aluminum foil. Coat with a light spritz of nonstick cooking spray, or oil it gently. Set aside.

In a large (and I do mean large) bowl, dump out the gelatin packets into 1/2 cup cold water. Let sit for about 10 minutes.

Meanwhile, stir sugar, corn syrup, and 1/4 cup water into a saucepan. Bring to a full boil and let it bubble for at least one minute or until mixture reaches 250 degrees on a candy thermometer. Slowly pour the boiling mixture over the gelatin, using a hand mixer on low speed to combine. Add the salt, boost the speed to high, and mix for a solid 12 minutes, until the batter has doubled in size and stiff peaks form. Alternatively, use a stand mixer with a whisk attachment. Add the vanilla and beat until combined. Pour the marshmallow into the prepared pan and smooth out the top as much as you can. Allow to sit for at least three hours or overnight, uncovered.

Put a smattering of confectioner's sugar on a plate. Dust a cutting board with confectioner's sugar and turn the marshmallow square onto it. Cut into bite-sized squares with a sharp knife. (I like making extra big squares so that only one big marshmallow fits into a mug of hot chocolate.) Wetting the knife with hot water helps keep it from sticking, but if your knife is too hot the marshmallows will melt. Dredge the pieces in the confectioner's sugar on the plate. Store at room temperature in an airtight container.

The New Kids on the Butcher Block

We are thirty in number, and we sweep around the school in white-jacketed, houndstooth-pantsed clusters. If you were to look at our faces, some would be wide-eyed with their eyebrows up in nervousness. A precious few hold stolid expressions, some hunch their nervousness into curled shoulders, and still more strut around comfortably. There's a nerdy kid and a princess and a class clown, even. We're no breakfast club but we do prep for the lunch lines, and hopefully there won't be all that sappy stuff at the end, you know like when Molly Ringwald gets all weepy over the angry grunge guy while the kid with glasses reads a dramatic voiceover.

We are the new kids with patchy knowledge and plenty of bravery. We are thrown in the kitchen knives-first, chopping and mincing and dicing for the second quarter kitchen. First quarter students are, essentially, the bitches of the rest of school (albeit willingly). We have our own kitchen separate from the main area, close to the locker rooms, but we do much of the grunt work for the upper quarters. The work gets us practicing our knife skills as well as management; we are required to rotate through a rotary of roles daily.

Today was the first day with our brand-new knives and pressed white uniforms. Last week, a common conversation was whether or not the second quarter students would harass us when we were assigned to their kitchen. Turns out, they were wonderfully nice and helpful. Where are all the hazing stories? I am sorry I have no stories of new-kid woe. No one has been pushed upside-down into a trash can or had their lunch money stolen. Perhaps culinary school is sufficiently bully-free.

So far it has been lectures and more lectures and safety rules. Knife demonstrations and one slow day in the kitchen with a knife. So much for fearful expectations. We haven't been put on the butcher block after all, but in front of it.

Day One: Theatrics

The Culinary Arts orientation was held in the performance hall. The flier said coffee and pastry at eight, program at eight thirty. When I arrived at ten past eight, I expected a half-full lobby of mingling students, maybe a couple of instructors teetering around to greet us and a neat line at the pastry table. Instead I found a lobby packed tight with smiling, waving bodies, the pastry table inaccessible due to the numbers of people standing in groups around it. I stood by the table, eyeing zucchini bread just out of reach. I seemed to be the only one at the table not speaking to anyone. Looking around for echoes of my predicament, I spotted a couple of girls sitting at either end of a couch, not speaking, appearing curious and bewildered.

"Is this where the people who don't know anyone else sit?" I smiled as I settled down between them, cheery with morning newness. I hid my nervousness. Even adults get first-day-of-school jitters.

They both turned out to be first quarter students. Glad to have a group with which to herd, we filed in to the theatre with the rest of the culinary and pastry students.

The program was comfortable, an easy transition from theatre. With its sound, lights, and projections, the whole production was reminiscent of a show's tech rehearsal. Mistakes were made, chef instructors shielded their eyes from the light and called up to the guy in the booth, and improvisation was necessary when cues were missed. It was a lovable mess of introductions and media. I adored it. Unpolished and scrappy. A casual gathering of people who missed each other and love what they do and love being in that space. It's no wonder I am not the only one changing from a production-related career to, well, another production-related career. The latter is just less obvious.

Imprinted

Culinary school looms ahead. I have been instilled with plenty of fear, filled with stories of serious discussions in walk-in coolers and chefs throwing pans across the room. Okay, it's not like I'm going to the oh-so-elite CIA. I don't expect flying cookware, though I won't be surprised if a student decides to toss a utensil. (Who hasn't wanted to throw something after spending three hours on a dish that turns out terribly?) All I expect is to learn about food and let the theatre of the kitchen and classroom emerge at will.

Culinary schools are ubiquitous. Every medium-sized city has at least one. Seattle has at least five. New York has over twenty. They are speckled all over California, and several spot the East Coast. The popularity of chef-dom is undeniable. It is easy to feel lost in all of the Star Chef aspirants, lost in this overpopulated world where everyone is competing for something, where too many people are vying for success in the same niche. In a world in which everything has already been done, how do you find uniqueness?

It's a rhetorical question, really. Personally, I find uniqueness in lemon curd tartlets. I may make a recipe exactly according to directions, but it will taste different to me than it does to you. We will never know exactly how an edible tastes to another eater. Sure, we can all use words like "sweet" or "tart" or "rich," but we do not create the same image in our brains. A sampling of lemon curd flickers a memory of elevenses at Harrod's in London with black currant scones and fresh Devonshire cream, followed by an afternoon at a tea room in residential Kensington. For me, Devonshire double cream is the ideal mate for lemon curd because they have imprinted together in my head. For a coworker of mine, lemon curd reminds her of homemade tarts baked in her mother's kitchen. These tarts, or any food for that matter, arouse each taster in a way linked to personal experience, though on the buds they may taste homogeneous.

In her book The Art of Simple Food, Alice Waters writes beautiful recipes that inspire the creative mind. This lemon curd tartlet recipe comes directly from the book, except for the addition of raspberries and drizzled chocolate. The lemony goodness is perfect for the late summer sweet tooth.



Lemon Curd Tartlets
from Alice Waters

Equipment:
six 4-inch tartlet pans, preferably with removable bottoms

Sweet Tart Dough:
8 tablespoons (1 stick) butter, softened slightly (leave for 15 minutes at room temperature before using)
1/3 cup sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 egg yolk, at room temperature
1 1/4 cups all-purpose unbleached flour

Lemon Curd:
4 lemons
2 eggs
3 egg yolks
2 tablespoons milk
1/3 cup sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt (omit if using salted butter)
6 tablespoons butter, cut into small pieces

To make the dough, beat together the 1 stick butter and sugar until creamy. Add the salt, vanilla, and egg yolk, mixing until completely combined. Fold in the flour, mixing well until there are no floury patches (any dry patches will cause the shell to crackle in those places). Gently gather up the dough and wrap it in plastic. Refrigerate at least 4 hours or up to 2 days.

When you are ready to roll out the dough, take it out of the refrigerator. Let it sit about 20 minutes if it is too hard to roll out. Roll out the dough between two sheets of floured parchment paper. If the dough sticks, peel off the parchment and dust the dough with flour. The dough should be 1/8 inch thick. Allow the dough to rest a few minutes in the refrigerator before using. Cut the dough 1/2 inch larger than the tartlet pans and prick the dough lightly with a fork: this will keep the dough from bubbling up while baking. Gently press the dough into the pans, trimming any extra by rubbing your thumbs across the top edge of the pan in an outward direction. Press the sides in and up after trimming the dough to help keep the sides from shrinking down while baking. Chill the dough for at least 15 minutes before baking. Bake in a 350 degree oven for 15 minutes, or until an even light gold in color. Halfway through baking, remove the tart shells from the oven and lightly pat down and bubbles that may have formed. If the top edges are browning before the rest of the shell, remove shells from the oven and cover the edges with foil before continuing to bake. Allow shells to cool before filling.

To make the lemon curd, zest one of the lemons using a fine grater such as a Microplane. Juice all four lemons; there should be a bout 1/2 cup juice. Beat together the eggs, egg yolks, milk, sugar, and salt just until combined. Stir in the lemon juice and zest and add the butter. Cook the mixture in a nonreactive saucepan, stirring constantly over medium heat until it is thick enough to coat a spoon. Do not boil or the eggs will curdle. When thick, pour into a bowl or glass jars to cool. Cover and refrigerate until ready to use.

Divide the chilled lemon curd between the cooled tartlet shells. Bake in a 375 degree over for 7 to 10 minutes, or until the lemon curd is set. Top with raspberries and melted chocolate. Allow to cool before serving.

Belated bivalves

A couple of weekends ago, the Bivalve Bash occurred at Taylor Shellfish Farms in Samish Bay. I took pictures. I ate food, mostly oysters, and there were plenty. I watched children and adults run through mud and fall on their rumps, emerging from the muck giddy like pigs in the sun.


Today, I am just now posting photos of the event. Apologies for the tardiness of this post. The event joined with MudUp, which hosts a variety of summer events that always involve getting superbly muddy to raise funds for Puget Sound conservation. The website has a comprehensive list of other conservation events, as well reports on restoration progress and what else you can do to help out the cause.

I took a couple of photos of the Oyster Shell Sculpture Contest, but they didn't turn out. If you can imagine Shellhenge, a miniature Stonehenge composed of stacked oyster shells, and a Shellhaus, a mini Bauhaus, then you understand the creativity and whim behind the creators. Shells scattered the mud underfoot, creating a sort of path through the low tide expanse just off the safety of the wooden deck. On either side all sorts of structures emerged from the shells on the ground, making for an impressive walk.


Above: roasted oysters with a variety of sauces to sample. The oyster bar with four types of raw bivalves offered them up slurp-ready for a buck a pop, or a dozen for $10, and I found them deliciously briny and plump, tasting fresh of seawater. The curried mussels over rice were delicately sweet and spicy, with the mussels' meaty flavor still intact. I ate an entire bowl of homemade mixed-berry shortcake, unable to stop eating the sugary melt-in-mouth biscuit soaked in the berry syrup. Fresh and fabulous eats, musical entertainment, and more oyster shells than you've ever seen in one place. That's what I call mudding up.

The burning of the beasts (or why I am not a vegetarian)

"I am so glad I’m not a vegetarian right now," I said, lurking around a whole spit-roasted lamb at Burning Beast, a meat-centric event that elevated me into newfound carnivorousness. Watching the chefs from a local Seattle restaurant hack expertly at the lamb was an exercise in anachronism; the event was a throwback to a medieval feast combined with a play on the Burning Man festival. As Burning Man is a mass exodus for art, Burning Beast was a pilgrimage to the altar of meat. For me, it was a turning point.

Hungry people were already queuing up behind me, empty paper plates in hand. One of the chefs felt the carcass to find its joints before drawing a scimitar through precise locations, breaking down the whole beast, limb for limb. I awed at my own fascination of the process, the complete lack of disgust. Not too long ago I would have cringed at this display, the whole lamb so whole-looking.

It's odd, to go from a vegetarian shrugging at a meat-eater's attempts to convert, to an omnivore attending a meat-heavy event. To go "un-vegetarian" seemed to others like a fickle choice, a giving up of my ideals. A friend prodded that I wasn't up for "sticking with it." Being a vegetarian wasn't difficult, not something in which I felt stuck. If anything, it expanded my creativity to include unusual ingredients and seek out colorful flavors. I became a vegetarian not for any kind of emotional attachment to animals, but because of the mountains of fossil fuels involved in meat production, and the hormones and antibiotics pumped into the meat.

My disillusion with meat occurred when I began researching the meat industry in college. I was angry that food could be so industrialized, previously imagining lovely green farms filled with sunlight and grazing cows. When I read stories about cows standing in their own waste, any desire to eat from the industrial food system was eradicated. I cut out meat entirely in a fluster of anger, thinking vegetarianism would protect me from ingesting scientific-sounding things that would likely give me unwanted superpowers. At Burning Beast, however, I found myself standing in a field filled with the aroma of roasted flesh, and I was hungry.

We were on a dairy farm turned artist retreat near Marysville, Washington, only about an hour north of Seattle. Several teams, most of them high-profile chefs from Seattle restaurants, were garnishing and cutting and checking their beasts; each team chose one animal to prepare whole or in parts at the secluded location. They were allowed to use only natural elements and simple machinery (such as using bicycle cogs to turn a rotisserie) to cook their beast; no gas grills allowed. The event’s coordinator, Tamara Murphy, is the owner of a meat-fearless restaurant called Brasa in Seattle. Her intent with Burning Beast was to reconnect chefs and consumers to the land. As soon as she rang the bell signifying dinner’s launch, the crowd at Smoke Farm pillaged the food off the tables, piling their plates with roasted duck, goat with “more-meat” stuffing, and rabbit and pork belly sausages.

If I was teetering on the vegetarianism fence before, then I leaped over to the omnivore side at Burning Beast. I nearly became a carnivore after a lamb confit made by the Culinary Communion folks, who teach cooking classes with a community-building flourish. While I was in line for the confit, a patient dog caught rejected scraps as the chef shredded the lamb. The confit was pulled and piled atop pita, which had been smothered in "gut relish," a succulent concoction made from the lamb's mashed internal organs. A dollop of tzatziki finished it off. The lamb was cooked up in the rendered fat of "Wooly pigs," the Berkshire hogs that have been so popular in Seattle of late. We lucky few lingering near Culinary Communion's table post-dinnertime got the pick of the night; a batch of the confit was lifted out of the fat at least an hour after the rest. I was stuffed already, but had just enough space for a few melty bites. You know, for dessert.

As a parodic contribution to Burning Man, a rickety-looking figure of some kind of animal was built out of wood scraps and lit as dusk settled in. The bonfire brought more meat-laced conversation, mostly about Seattle street food and the merits of cream cheese on hot dogs. I learned that after you hit the bars in Seattle, a hot dog nestled in a cream-cheese slathered bun is the late-night food of choice. I’m not sure I’m ready for hot dogs with cream cheese just yet, unless it is created by the same people who made the rabbit and pork belly sausages.

Though I may seem to have given up the idea that eating meat is not sustainable, I have actually just revised it: an animal may be eaten sustainably, without the unnaturally corn-fed diet, gushes of pollution, or hindrance to ecological health. In practice, I am not always able to eat this way. Grass-fed meat is expensive. Free range whole chickens cost more than factory ones. Researching where every item came from just isn't practical. And I get lazy, or hungry and impatient. But as sustainable meat became easier to locate, I began to eat it again, in small amounts, bites at a time, starting with sneaking pieces off friend’s plates “just to remember what it tasted like.”

It will be quite some time before I eat that much meat again. I'm ready for a diet of greens. One of my companions at the event was a woman who keeps a kosher kitchen. We all break our own rules.

As I type this, a chicken stock is stewing in the kitchen. It's my first try, and so far it seems to be going well. I must honestly say that I don't really know what to do with raw meat, my former vegetarian tendencies making its presence in my kitchen an uncomfortable experience. It seems so out of place there, like stilettos on a camping trip.

Even after filling my belly with beasts, I am still only an occasional meat-eater. Discovering one's omnivorousness, like roasting a whole beast, is a slow process. A full conversion may take some time. For now, I am simmering a stock, and anticipating the next omnivorous adventure.