And the winner is...

Comments and maybe more pics to come soon. I'm going to bed.


For all of you who were worried that I had dropped off the face of the Earth, fear no more. I actually showed up to Top Chef Oakland on Saturday, with my game face on. So the format of this post may change, but for now I am going to list both Ari's and my menus, then post pictures and my comments for each course. Hopefully we can manage to get Ari's comments on this post as well. Here goes...

Jason and I didn't actually make it to Oakland until around 10 a.m. on Saturday, an hour later than we had originally planned. Summary: Surprise ingredients were revealed (Anne chose lobster, Jason chose not too chocolatey chocolate cake), menus were finalized, grocery shopping ensued (budget, schmudget), and we were cooking by noon (well, Ari was cooking and I was wandering aimlessly around the kitchen - it takes me a while to get organized).

Okay, so here are the menus:

TIFFANY
Cocktail: Blood Orange French 75

Course 1: Oysters two ways: Oysters and Pearls and Hot and Cold Oysters with Asian Slaw

Course 2: Truffled Lobster Risotto

Course 3: Yabba Dabba Do - Roasted Rib Steak (top round steak), with Golden Chantarelles (shitakes), Pommes Anna, and Bordelaise Sauce

Course 4: Chocolate Sour Cream Cake with Red Wine Raspberry Sorbet and Mango.



ARI

Cocktail: Cupid's Potion (I think)

Course 1: Asparagus with Poached Egg, Prosciutto, and Shaved Parmesan

Course 2: Lobster Burgers with Sweet Potato Fries

Course 3: Pork Shoulder Ragu over Homemade Pappardelle

Course 4: Whoopie Pies




Cocktails

First Course:

Second Course:



Third Course:


Fourth Course:

New Years Eve

For New Years, we made a Harter standard - Sweet Potato Galette- a round and crusty cake of caramelized onions, sweet potato, thyme and goat cheese. The experimental project consisted of buckwheat blinis for the caviar we picked up. The interesting part of the batter for the buckwheat blini was the addition of eggs just prior to putting the batter on the griddle. The egg helps the yeasty batter coalesce, so that the blinis come out nice and round. This wasn't a major feat of dining by any measure, but it was fun for the new year and most certainly de-freakin-licious.

WWTCD?

I don't know which Sunday night it was, but during one of our infamous Sunday night dinners, we were joking around about Top Chef. We were saying that in any cooking situation, cooks should always ask themselves "WWTCD?" - That is: What Would Tom Colicchio Do?

So for Christmakkah, Julia designed a t-shirt on Neighborhoodies.com (see the picture above). Don't worry everyone, I will be wearing this shirt on the day of the competition. It will serve as a constant reminder to keep my standards high, to make sure that everything is "seasoned properly," and to be creative.

But that wasn't the whole gift: she also got me this snazzy butane torch for anything and everything that needs to be torched in the kitchen. This opens up a lot of possibilities, especially because on the day of the event, the oven will be in high demand. I could torch a piece of raw meat to sear it instead of using the stove top, or I could use it for the standard creme brulee. Hell, I might just use the torch for all of my food, following the theme of "keeping the flames of love hot."

Tiffany- if the torch and the tee don't stir you out of your slumber, I don't know what will...

Moving Forward

I can't wait forever for Tiffany to post, and while I fear that I'm dominating the blog, I can't let her lack of training stop me from posting about how I'm going to win this competition. I've been VERY busy in the kitchen, and I've extended my studies outside the kitchen as well. Anne and I ate at The French Laundry, and I want to share a few observations about that experience.

Needless to say, the food was outstanding. When we arrived, we looked into the kitchen, and saw a cook emptying huge blocks of butter into a bowl. I'm going to guess that they use butter for nearly everything, and it helps. My favorite dish was a seared diver scallop prepared in, you guessed it, butter, with celery, chestnuts, and mandarin orange. Who knew that combo could be that good? How do you find out what flavors go well together? Besides experience, I think there must be some intuition involved. I don't think I have this intuition, so for the competition, I'm going to have to keep reading recipes.

We returned from the French Laundry, and in the spirit of Thomas Keller - using all parts of the ingredient - I attempted to make a beet reduction/glaze/sauce whatever you want to call it. So after roasting beets and peeling the skin in an icebath, I took the reddened water and reduced it with sugar. After straining and reducing, reducing and straining, it turned into a nice syrupy sweet sauce/glaze/reduction. I don't know what I would do with it, but at The French Laundry, there were lots of these types of liquids, and they were paired with different foods, and you just swiped your food through them.

I also played around with some potato...blanching it in water, slicing it thin, layering the slices into a mille feuille, and then browning all the sides in butter. It wasn't that good, but technically it all worked out.

I'm going to take this last sentence to call Tiffany out, to ask where she's been, to write about her adventures. Where are you Tiffany?

Scaffolded Success

Yes, I'm an educator, and yes, I use words like "scaffolded" when I talk about everything, including yesterday's afternoon of making ravioli and gnocchi FROM SCRATCH.  It was a scaffolded success because Anne helped me make everything.  She was my scaffold (training wheels).  We were making dinner for a bunch of friends, and it was a pretty ambitious menu; I couldn't have done it without Anne's help.  Not that making pasta dough is that difficult when you have the Kitchenaid attachment, or that making the filling is that difficult either.  What was difficult was handling the 3 foot long paper thin sheets of pasta as they stretch their way out of the machine.  With only two hands it's difficult to manage.  But after making the first quarter of the dough, I learned a few tricks.  

First off, after running the dough through a medium setting of the pasta roller, I cut the foot-and-a-half long sheet in half and worked with smaller portions.  They still stretched out long enough to make plenty of individual ravioli.  In addition, I was at first afraid of using too much flour on the dough, but the flour really helps the dough make it's way through the roller, so I made sure that the sheets were well floured after the first batch.  And finally, let's not underestimate the value of advance planning, i.e. knowing what you will do with the dough once it's stretched.  Having well-floured baking sheets out and ready for placement was crucial.  

So what type of ravioli did I make you ask?  The green filling you see above is a spinach ricotta, and the orange is a sweet potato filling.  With each ravioli went a different sauce.  With the spinach ricotta went a beurre blanc (and I must say I'm kinda grossed out about how much butter goes into that) and with the sweet potato went a brown butter, thyme and balsamic sauce.

Now for the gnocchi.  On Sunday night we joined Seth and some of his friends at a restaurant in San Francisco called Poesia.  Seth's sister Shai is dating the owner, an Italian man named Francesco, from the Calabria region of Italy.  The food was great, and because of the connection, we made friends with our waiter Luigi, who taught us how to make 5-minute gnocchi not with potato, but with ricotta!  Yes, I know you want the recipe, but I have to keep it secret for now...my competition is reading this!

So it took Anne and I about 2 hours to make all the pasta.  The pasta all tasted great - we definitely have room to improve: all the filling sorta looked like brains inside of the pasta when we took it out of the water.   Not sure how to give it that smooth glossy texture.  We were definitely tired at the end of the evening, but had a great dinner with our friends, who went right home and voted for me, which is why Tiffany and I are now tied.  Booya.

Valiant Attempts

My cooking these days gives me absolutely ZERO confidence in the first weeks of training. Anne bought some sockeye salmon from Trader Joe's this week. We had no idea Sockeye salmon is some strong tasting salmon; I mean it's SALMON. So when we paired it with quinoa and broccoli, it obviously overpowered everything, including our tolerances for salmon flavor. Oh yeah, I thought a pear ginger sauce would be good with the Asian marinaded salmon, and guess what? It wasn't. But, I did use my new ring mold for the quinoa, and that worked out well. No picture though.

Then last night I made a homemade pizza: onions, cherry tomatoes, asiago, mozzarella, lemon juice, garlic olive oil. It was a beautiful thing. I steamed the onions just for a minute or two to soften them but retain their crunch. I layered the onions and tomatoes below the cheese and then put some on top as well...and then...well, and then the pizza stuck to the wooden paddle because I didn't put enough cornmeal under it. So after a meltdown in the kitchen, I had to call Anne into the kitchen to help, and it ended up being a wrinkled mess of a pizza.

I'm going to chalk this week up to fatigue and hope that it can only get better.

Giving Thanks

So, I would have taken pictures of the massive amount of groceries purchased in a record half an hour over my lunch break, but The Husband had the camera. I know, I know, get another one you say. Don't worry, it's on my Christmas list. The fact that it costs almost as much as 10.7, hundred dollar Christmas presents combined shouldn't deter any of my relatives from at least considering it. You know who you are.


Back to business. This weekend is going to be a complete coordination of culinary craziness. I would like everyone to note the copious usage of alliteration in my posts. See Mom and Dad, I did learn something in college! OK, but now really back to business. I have two Thanksgivings to attend and cook for this weekend. I know, lucky me. Tomorrow is the In-law Thanksgiving. I am really looking forward to this since a) my daughter gets to play with her cousin, and b) I have been told what to cook and bring. As stated previously, structure imposed by outside sources is always welcome. So, on the menu tomorrow is gnocchi with mushroom sauce and roasted green beans. I have added a long fermentation, no-knead bread just for the sake of experimentation. Not only must I complete these dishes tomorrow, but I also must brine the turkeys (yes, that is plural) for Sunday as well as prep for my dishes. The menu Sunday consists of two bbq'd turkeys, one ham, stuffing, candy apple pie, port-glazed pearl onions, and jalapeno-cranberry sauce, at least so far. Did I mention that I was cooking for at least 30 people? I'm pretty excited. For real. After all of this hullabaloo, we celebrate "real Thanksgiving" with my parents on Thursday. Thankfully they don't mind leftovers. I do, however, have some recipes (butternut squash/chicken liver pate, pumpkin creme brulee) that I would like to try for them. We'll see how inspired I am at that point.


OK, so now you know what to expect this weekend. I am commandeering the camera and will document the madness. Obviously this is preparing me for February because I will be cooking. Cooking a lot of stuff. Do you see the connection?


P.S. Anne, as you know, I am immune to peer pressure (obviously), so your goading had nothing to do with me posting tonight. FYI.

Drunk Dial

Last night, as I was into my third Anchor Steam and Tiffany into her second Jack and Diet, we exchanged a series of text messages that resulted in a full Saturday of all things cooking. She drove down to Oakland today for what turned out to be the first of several Top Chef Quickfire Challenges. It started off as just "cooking a fun dinner together," but while at Grand Lake Farmers Market, Anne had the idea of doing an appetizer challenge. So Anne laid out the rules: one vegetable, one dairy, and one other element in the appetizers. She obviously thought she would get to eat all of her favorite foods in one place, but she forgot who was cooking. Tiffany and I, being aware of our amateur status, agreed on both using eggplant and seeing what the other would do with it (Top Chef meets Iron Chef). In addition, we totally knew that eggplant was one of Anne's LEAST favorite foods, and being the sole judge of the challenge, we said fuck it, she needs to eat what we make for her. So we did our shopping, and prior to the start of the challenge, we paid a visit to East Bay Restaurant Supply Co for some important pieces of equipment, and happened upon JC Cellars/Dashe Winery in Oakland as well. So we bought some tools and drank some wine, and then came home to start our cooking.

I decided to make Eggplant Dippers: breaded, fried eggplant spears with a mushroom dipping sauce. Tiffany went with Eggplant Bruschetta: baked eggplant rounds with goat cheese and tomato shallot salsa. Tiffany won.

My dippers lacked breading, and the whole thing looked like puke. (See picture above). Tiffany's had color, lots of complex flavors, and didn't look like puke. I think I got points for originality, but hers took the cake.

Moral of the story: you can visualize and plan, seing your food coming out a certain way, but if you've never done it before, chancing of it actually working out are pretty slim. P.S. - the kitchen was a mess after just one appetizer. Imagine what 4 courses will bring. P.P.S. - the dinner that we cooked together - roast chicken, roasted sweet potatoes and green beans - rocked the house.

All in all, an amazing day.

Creole Shrimp Farfalle with Oven-Roasted Haricots Verts

OK, so it was leftover garlic & creole seasoned shrimp thrown over some bow tie pasta with cherry tomatoes and roasted green beans. But the tomatoes were from my garden!!! I, too, would have posted pictures except that would have necessitated stealing them from someone else's blog and probably commiting some sort of copyright infringement. Thankfully I'm not that desperate. Yet. Ari's post sounded really good, I'm sure Jason wouldn't have considered the filet over salted. Jason is going out of town this weekend, which means I'm turning our kitchen into a veritable food factory. I may even reveal my secret weapon (insert suspenseful music here). I'm really posting to let Ari know that I will be preserving some Meyer lemons that should be ready by February. They will be communal property. Just so you know.


Oh yeah, no one is getting Christmas gifts this year because I am spending all of my money on food. Just kidding Dad, of course I'm being financially responsible!

Pan Seared Filet Mignon with a Red Wine Reduction

I cooked tonight (forgot to take a pic), and am planning what I want to practice tomorrow night. I had a cheap filet mignon from Trader Joe's. I pan seared it and made a red wine pan sauce. I did the filet perfectly (medium rare), but I actually salted it too much. Tom Colicchio and the other judges criticized the chefs for not salting enough last night, so I took a chance and overdid it. I also needed to let the pan sauce reduce a little longer. Other than that, not a bad first attempt.

As for tomorrow, I'm working on what I want to practice. I need to run to Whole Foods to get some materials. I'm learning quickly that this could become a very expensive two months.

My Arsenal

This is my mountain of knowledge. My hoard of how to, how much, and how come. That mess on top are the hundreds of recipes, cooking tips, and technique demonstrations that I have torn from various publications since I was eighteen (an attribute of my mother's that I apparently couldn't leave at home). This doesn't include the myriad recipes from food blogging paradise that I have saved, bookmarked, and copied and pasted into Word documents. I haven't tried even a fraction of the recipes shown here, but they sound good, or did at one time. I am very proud of my assemblage, it has pretty pictures. How could I not win? I have a book on how to cook everything! Not to mention, 2001 chicken recipes. Beat that Ari!

Those who know me well understand that this might as well be reams of blank paper. These books are one thing I am not, organized. My brain rejects such a state with great conviction. What Ari probably doesn't realize is that by initiating this blog he has bestowed upon me the gift of forced structure and focus. Having to post twice a week necessitates a systematic (my mom's favorite word to describe how we had to sweep the floor) approach to this competition that otherwise would have found me floating aimlessly in my sea of recipes and pretty pictures. I thank you Ari, you have set the cornerstone of your demise (insert witchy cackle here).

So, my new found sense of focus has brought me to the conclusion that I will start at the very beginning, a very good place to start...

• Knife skills
• Stocks & consommes
• Sauces & reductions
• baking & the science behind it
• terrines (I'm obsessesed)
• and, of course, molecular gastronomy

I will try to include pictures. I am not (at the moment) concerned about how much of my training and technique I reveal. I am, however, concerned about my extensive use of parentheses and references to my mother in this post. I think that Ari and I gleaning knowledge from each other and anyone who wishes to comment can only make this competition more interesting and involved. Come February, I am confident that we will have distinct menus, techniques and applications. I hear truffles will be in season...

The Basics

I'm not sure how closely I should hold my cards to my chest at this point. The more I say about my training in the blog, the more Tiffany knows, so I'll say this just to start things off: I've made a list of critical areas that I need to focus on for the competition. I spent most of last night reading about stocks and sauces in the Joy of Cooking. Now, of course Tiffany will have access to the stocks I make and vice versa, but I'm learning that it's all about how you layer flavors once you create those stocks. Knowing that Tiffany owns the French Laundry Cookbook, I decided that I needed a little more French education, so I bought Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking. I wanted to get Keller's book, but I'm going to spend time learning all of the basics from Julia. All in all I'm not worried about the fact that I only have two and a half months to learn what, in my dad's words, take chefs a lifetime to learn. Easy.

Welcome to Top Chef Oakland!

The scene is Valentine's Day 2009. Tiffany Hodgens, mother of one and happy wife, will be challenging Ari Dolid, happy husband, in a competition called Top Chef. (It's really Top Chef meets Iron Chef). Over the course of the next few months, Tiffany and I will be preparing for the competition, and will be posting aspects of and ideas from our training. From stocks and specialty ingredients to tools and menu composition, everything is described here.


Overview:
Each participant will plan a four course menu around the theme of Valentine's Day, and will also include a pre-dinner cocktail. They may practice recipes and brainstorm ideas ahead of time, but menus will be composed on the day of the event. The morning of the event, the two judges (Anne and Jason) will each introduce a secret ingredients that both contestants are required to use in their menus.

Preparation:
Participants are allowed to test recipes in advance.
Research and practice are encouraged.
Exact menus for the event can not be prepared ahead of time.

Ingredients:
Ingredients are bought on the day of the event at the farmers market and grocery store.
Specialty items may be purchased in advance for use on the day of the event.
A Full pantry will be available to both contestants.
Chicken, Vegetable, Veal, Beef, Fish and Seafood stocks will be prepared in advance. Each participant will prepare 3 of the stocks, and will prepare enough for both participants to use on the day of the event.

Tools:
All kitchen tools will be available to both contestants.
Contestants may bring their own tools.

Menus:
After finding out the secret ingredients, participants will have 30 minutes compose menus, and will have 30 minutes to finalize menus after visiting farmers market.

Day of Event:
Participants will go to the farmers market and grocery store for ingredients.
Each participant will have a budget of $75.
Participants have from the time they return from farmers market until 6pm to prepare their menus.
Anne, Jason and other judges (TBA) will judge based on Taste, Originality, Presentation, Menu Composition, and use of surprise ingredients.

Blog:
Each participant must post two blogs per week on the designated blog site to update audience on their preparations.