A Rhubarb by any other Name

I have to admit something that would probably get me laughed out of the presence of most serious bakers. I don't really do the whole "precision" thing when baking. I know, I know, baking is a science, and you have to be super precise about the amount of baking soda and all that...but do you? I suppose my more ad-lib style of cooking carries over into my style of baking, and that in turn informs the types of things I choose to bake. I've not done souffles or other such delicate items. Instead, I stick more to pies, muffins and, well, pies. Cakes are not my thing. With pies, especially fruit pies, you can be a bit more adventurous and seat-of-the pants with many of the ingredients. It is just not in my blood to cook something where the recipe must be followed exactly. Today's post is a perfect example of that.

When my neighbor told me a few days ago that he has more rhubarb growing in his garden than he knows what to do with (and, in fact, that he doesn't know what to do with any of it) and that I should come take as much as I want, I was overjoyed! I was thinking, of course, of task ten: make savory meals out of fruity things such as rhubarb. 

So I went over, got a lesson in pulling up the rhubarb, was cautioned not to eat the leaves as they are toxic, and went on my merry way. Rhubarb is pretty funny -- it looks more like celery than a delicious fruity masterpiece of nature. I forgot to take a picture of the fresh-cut berries, but will next time. 

The rhubarb freshly washed and sitting in the kitchen, all thoughts of task ten went out the window and I knew the first thing I made had to be strawberry-rhubarb pie. What resulted is not a pie, and in fact was of the cake family, but was just as good as pie (gasp! just as good as pie??), largely due to the fact that it doesn't really have much cake. The recipe below is a perfect example of my non-approved baking at random technique. 

I'm pretty pleased with the way my strawberry star design turned out.

Spoon Cake Recipe
(adapted from here)

for the fruit base:
a good amount of fruit (the recipe called for 8 pints of random berries; I had about 5 stalks of rhubarb, chopped into 1/2 inch segments, 1 large container of strawberries, chopped and a random smattering of blueberries -- I estimated this to be about 4 pints)
1/3 C sugar
3 tbsp corn starch
some lemon juice (1 tbsp?) -- or any citrus (orange would be yummy)
some vanilla (1 tsp?)

for the cake topping:
dry ingredients (mix them together)
1/2 C flour
1/4 C almond flour (I am trying out different kinds of flours and thought this would add a cool texture; feel free to use other flours)
1/2 C sugar
3/4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp kosher salt or sea salt
a little cardamom and ginger (these spices were afterthoughts -- cinnamon would also be good)
wet ingredients (mix them together, then add them to the dry ingredients)
1/4 C skim milk
1 egg
a little vanilla
a little lemon juice or zest
then add
1/2 stick melted or sat-out-on-the-counter-for-a-while butter

Mix together the fruit, and sugar and let sit for 15 minutes. Then add the corn starch, citrus, and any other things you have decided to add to the fruit base; be creative! I love making desserts with berries so I have developed an eye for how much corn starch I want to add; my fruit looked like it had produced extra juices this time so I went with 3 tbsp, and the result was a perfectly jelled-up-but-still-juicy consistency, which I like. I hate it runny, which some people like -- if you want runny, put less corn starch in.

Meanwhile, assemble the cake topping as described above. Put the fruit in a cake pan (I think I used 9x7 -- you'd want to double the recipe for 9x13), and then pour the cake on top. I had reduced the amount of sugar by a ton, so I was worried about the rhubarb being too tart, and at the last minute I drizzled the top of the fruit with agave nectar before pouring the cake on top. I don't think this is necessary but am also slightly obsessed with agave nectar. You do what you wan't (again...ad-lib baking approved by Lily). The cake topping won't cover the whole thing, so holes are okay, although try to get it pretty evenly spread around. If you want to go for a nice decorative design, then by all means go for it! Some of the berries will peek through the cake and that is good.

Put in preheated 375 oven for 45min-1hr.

Yum! My mom ran a few servings up to the aforementioned rhubarb-donating neighbors, and they loved it and have since asked for the recipe. I ate mine warm with some ice cream (you have to "spoon" it out hence the name).

Sorry task ten, savory rhubarb dish will have to wait.

Can't Beat a Beet!

After a fantastic Memorial Day weekend at a lovely house by Squam Lake in New Hampshire, during which I didn't cook a single thing (although I did eat some excellent meals cooked by others -- V did not sign us up to cook anything in his moving-and-bar-induced haze during which he thought the trip was next weekend up until a few days prior), time to get crackin' on my list! 

On the drive back to Maine, we alternated obsessing about raising my mom's Prius' gas mileage by another .1mpg and brainstorming my first crack at task eight: invent the best beet salad. Apparently, the four hour trip provided a bit too much fodder for brainstorming, as we produced WAY too much food (see my mom's ingenious use of leftovers in future post; side note: we succeeded in lowering the gas mileage -- this was countered when I accidentally failed to turn the car OFF today after driving to the post office and left it on in the driveway for about three hours, argh silent car). 

I really wanted to do multi-colored beets, but they only had red beets at the store (today I found golden beets in the Belfast co-op, but too little to late, golden beets! I went on without you!) Afraid one bunch of three large beets wouldn't be enough for four people, I bought six. I ended up using two. But, not to worry, beets are a slight production to cook. Although the process is super easy (cut off leaves, put beets in boiling water, wait til fork goes through, put in cold water, peel off outer skin with fingers, cut), the production comes into play because of beets' tendency to make you, the cook, look as if you've just murdered someone in your kitchen when you are peeling them, handling them, or standing within five feet of them. So making a large quantity at a time is a great, if accidental, idea. And they make fabulous leftovers for future beet salads (see below).

I also had the idea of adding shaved asparagus from something I saw on Iron Chef. What can I say, most of my cooking ideas come from Iron Chef. This didn't work out. I blanched the asparagus but then the peeling was taking too long and I got bored. So I just cut the asparagus at an angle and that worked great. 

I cooked an ear of corn briefly in some olive oil with salt, pepper, and lemon -- this was to be the basis of the vinaigrette. Added some of Lily's balsamic vinaigrette. I'm telling you, it's not just the name, this salad dressing is awesome. It is basically just oil and vinegar with a bit of garlic and salt. But it doesn't get all icky and separated. I am a fan. But don't worry, I'm not forgetting task sixteen!

Mixed it all together with a little itty bit of mixed greens, then a bit more pepper on top, and huuuuge chunks of some local Maine goat cheese (is it too smug to mention when ingredients are local)? I then artistically arranged the beets around the plate and forced everyone to eat the salad before they could fit the main course onto their plates, as you can see:

Witness plates held captive by salad; entree items anxiously awaiting spotlight in center of table

Oh, and I was obsessed with crushing pistachios and sprinkling them over the salad, even though V was skeptical. It didn't hurt the salad, but was likely a waste of pistachio. And it was kind of weird. Looked nice though.

The salad was really good (at least no one failed to clean his/her plate to get to the entree portion). The sliced asparagus and corn are a nice touch, and you can't really beat beets and goat cheese. But this salad is still missing something, and I think that is: some herb situation (hello task five!); and homemade croutons or little toast thingies. 

I also cooked up the beet greens very simply (cooked a little onion with the chopped stems first in some olive oil, then added the leafy greens part -- that's basically it, they have a nice flavor that doesn't need much).

V made some mushroom polenta (cornmeal! V helping me with task seven: learn about those grains!) from his new Ming Tsai cookbook (actually, I bought the cookbook for myself, but when he saw it was Ming and one-pot meals, he was excited to try some of the recipes and I didn't want to discourage that). It was really yummy (mmm "basil salad" garnish) but produced a lot of leftovers, some of which we ate today for lunch, but I am going to try making little fried polenta cakes tomorrow. 

We also grilled some shrimp and chicken (are you starting to see why the car ride was obviously too long for our brainstorm approach?), but we accidentally used way too much of a new spice rub, and it was toooo strong. It all got eaten, but I wasn't a fan. Boo packaged spice rubs! Unless you are delicious, in which case yay!

Okay, that was the dinner. Everything was good but could use some tweaking. We think maybe some dried mushroom as well in the polenta next time to give it even more mushroom flavor (those who knew me in childhood are now thinking: is this the correct blog? I hated mushrooms up until about a year ago, but after a hard-fought battle, finally won myself over and am now a huge fan). 

Today for lunch we went for try two of beet salad (beet salad, leftovers style). It was: baby spinach, two asparagus stalks, chopped at angle, handful of leftover cooked corn, some blue cheese, handful of grape tomatoes, and a lil' bit of bacon crumbles leftover from something, and a breast of leftover grilled chicken (heated). I heated the Lily's vinaigrette as well and then tossed everything together. Served three, but we only had two. Argh leftovers of leftovers!!!! This one was yummy, and blue cheese is my fave, but I must say I think it and the bacon overpower the delicate deliciousness of a beet. The piece of toast on the side did help, though. 

And the beet quest continues...

Port from the Bar

I know I said I would try not to add any more tasks to the list for a while, but I just had to. This one won't interfere with the cooking.

A lover of wines great and small, especially while cooking or with food, I think I need to take the plunge into the next step of grape-based fermented liquids: port. With that in mind, and without further ado, I bring you:

18. survey as many ports as possible.

Port number one purchased at the New Hampshire liquor outlets (where else?):

Why write down the name when you can take a picture?

V and I have tried some as an after-dinner treat, and, well, we like it. I am not the world's best port taster (or else I would hardly need to add task 18!). As far as the ports I've tasted go, this one isn't particularly sweet, it isn't very alcoholic, and it is very sediment-y. Maybe we should have decanted it? Gah. It is very drinkable, perhaps too much so, without much character to speak of. It is smooth and easy and nice. It is good to sip at the end of the night, but isn't something memorable that could become my favorite. Nothing like the my pinot noir obsession with Ponzi (How can one be obsessed with a particular pinot noir, you ask? Go try some. It is effervescent and oh so lovable). 


So, first port tasting started out with good but not great. Fortunately we are heading to Squam Lake in New Hampshire tomorrow for the Memorial Day weekend to visit with some of V's friends. Google maps tells me our route will take us right by a liquor outlet in Conway, NH, where we will try purchasing a different port as a gift for the host. Maybe he will let us taste some!

First Bar Meal

Before I begin this very momentous post, in which I tackle several items on my list in one meal (multitasking win!), I must first show you this picture so you can see what I was going on about with excitement to start cooking in Maine. This kitchen makes me happy:

Island w/ barstools means cook is never lonely!

The picture was taken at night to make it more photogenic and the like, but during the day there is sunlight streaming through all of those windows and it is just delightful. 

Enough of that. I liked cooking just as much in my ridiculous kitchen in Oakland in which a new burner would stop working every day, it seemed. So, the love of cooking isn't really about the kitchen. But it can be a nice treat :).

For propriety's sake, I must point out that I did actually start my culinary bar studies with task one: how to cook an egg every way. Our first morning here, we were still on West Coast time and woke up much closer to lunch than breakfast. So, I fried two eggs over easy and we had brunchwiches on fresh sourdough bread with avocado, melted cheese, and honey turkey. I've decided brunchwiches is a new thing and plan to make more of them. BUT I don't really count this as a solid step in the direction of culinary mastery, because this method of frying eggs is something I have done a thousand times before and, to boot, I broke one of the yolks when transferring to the sandwich. So, we'll start task one afresh later, and with a bit more intention and planning. Eggs cannot be taken too lightly, after all.

Which brings us to this evening's meal and task two: roast the perfect chicken. Oh where to begin on this epic task! I read this short article by Janet A. Zimmerman about how elusive the roasted chicken can be, and how we should all just give up (like we have with cows and most other animals) and realize chickens should be cooked with their parts already separated. And yet. Master chefs everywhere (including my idol Julia Child) have been saying the perfectly roasted chicken is the mark of a good cook or restaurant for ages.  But everyone, and I mean everyone, has his or her own perfect way of doing it. If you want a brief overview of how absurd these methods can be, and how much they vary, just read Zimmerman's article.

So how was I to proceed? Well, I basically just decided at random. I wanted to grill it, and I wanted to baste it with some butter. Those were my decisions. I had to start somewhere, I figured. If this doesn't produce the perfectly roasted chicken, then so be it, I will still be one step further on my quest. 

The key to the perfectly roasted chicken is crispy, browned skin. This requires dry skin, so I took the chicken out of the packaging this morning, washed it, removed the innards, and dried it with a bunch of paper towels before dousing it with salt, covering it with more paper towels, and sticking it back in the fridge. Oh yea and I put some herbs under the skin (rosemary, thyme). Then I went on a hike. 

Many hours later, I took that baby out of the fridge, and, after having been persuaded by the internet that the best way to grill a whole chicken is by removing the backbone and butterflying it out, a technique known as spatchcock, I did just that. This is not hard.

I melted a wee bit of butter with some honey mustard for my basting liquid, heated my grill up to around 350ish range, and put the chicken down. The glory of the spatchcock is you don't have to flip it. Just let it sit there for 45mins-1hr. It came out like this:

Please excuse the split skin on the drumstick, because this was delightful.

Yum! Juicy tender, skin super crispy (as you can see, the bottom is QUITE crisp), but my family liked it that way. 


I'd say this was a fairly bold step in the fulfillment of task 2. Obviously I'll have to try some other methods just for comparison. But if something can be done on the grill, why shouldn't it be? Grilling is more fun.


Served with corn muffins and this corn-vinaigrette salad, with chives and oregano and a lot of lemon. The vinaigrette was essentially made by cooking some corn and garlic in a little bit of grapeseed oil, then adding the herbs and lemon and some red wine vinaigrette, as well as a little olive oil and S&P.  A start, but not a completion, of task sixteen: concoct most awesome salad dressing. Grapeseed oil is something to remember for future attempts, as it has a very light and fresh flavor yet doesn't separate out nearly as much as a lot of other oils. Also, I'm pretty sure corn is a great flavor for (almost?) any salad. Tossed in some spinach and mixed greens, with grape tomatoes. It was refreshing and light.


So I guess I can check off four herbs in my quest to complete task five: cook something with every herb I can find. Let's not dwell on the fact that it was four of the easiest herbs, because these four herbs were delicious and discernible in their dishes, and that ain't shabby. 

Those yellow crisps are parmesan crisps (literally just parmesan cooked in a pan for a minute or so) for the salad. 

Oh yea, and I took six mini-quizzes as part of my pre-bar class bar review. As far as I can tell the purpose of these is to convince you you know nothing so that you feel you haven't wasted a huge chunk of money on the bar review class. I'm onto them...

Inspiration from Packing (and Cat Cora)

Packing all day gave me the opportunity to watch A LOT of episodes of iron chef america. Jeffrey Steingarten's witty banter with Jeri Ryan aside (yes, that Jeri Ryan), my favorite part about watching all those episodes was letting the food inspire more items for my list. This is exciting.

13. chilis: what's the deal? serranos, jalapenos, poblano, anaheim, you name it. I currently rely fairly heavily on dried red pepper flakes and/or sriracha (rooster) sauce to kick up my dishes. Why not go straight to the source? I want to learn about the different kinds and find dishes that make each one shine.

14. almonds: did you know they are not technically nuts? Yes, Alton Brown (later confirmed on wikipedia) informed me they are more like seeds (drupes!). They also happen to be the most delicious nut drupes out there, if you ask me. But I never cook with nuts (or drupes), aside from tossing them into salads. Dumb.

15. hummus: so good, right? I'm gonna figure out how to make it.

16. concoct most awesome salad dressing.

17. figure out what meat(s) and other stuff go into the perfect meatball.

Just thought I'd share. I better get to bed for moving day tomorrow. And then I'd better get cooking before I add too many more items!

Packing for the Bar

Well, the movers are coming tomorrow. I am getting there, but I'm not there yet.

~ At least the closet is empty! Murphy is not amused. ~

The most important decision (not really, but I have been spending far too much time thinking about it) is which COOKBOOKS to bring with me to Maine. I've already ordered a few from Amazon that are waiting for me anxiously. But will I need my usual ones? What about all my cooking magazines? I should throw them away, but how can I? Also, why is my collection of hand-written and internet-printed recipes so unorganized???

~ Running shoes will be key, obviously. ~

~ Did I mention the KNIVES? ~

No, I don't need to bring these things with me (except the knives). Right???? After all, this is why the internet was invented.

Back to the grind, folks.

Cooking for the Bar

I'm studying for the bar exam. Or, I'm supposed to be studying for the bar exam. People say it is hard and you have to study a bunch, but what they didn't consider is that, obviously, you can't study on an empty stomach! So I'd better cook something. And while I'm at it, I figured: Why not cook something that is the best ever?


During the three years of law school that I just realized are over, I've probably expanded my culinary repertoire more than I've learned anything about the law. Why mess with that ratio now? Sure, we've all gotten trapped in this cycle occasionally. But the inspiration and effort is what its all about. So, in tandem with my last, most epic session of law cramming, in which I have to learn everything about the law, I am going to learn how to cook...well, why not everything?


I've got some cookbooks. 
I've got the perfect kitchen (I'm spending the summer at my parents' house in Belfast, Maine -- an epic setting for my cooking quest).
There is a glorious farmer's market in downtown Belfast - awesome!
I've got the will, and I'll fudge the skill.


So, here we go. This is going to be an evolving task, but it isn't going to be structureless (please!). Some of the tasks I plan to master, and document here:

1. how to cook an egg every way
2. roast the perfect chicken
3. homemade pastas (after all, I made my first homemade gnocchi and ravioli in this very kitchen, but these efforts were far from masterful)
4. create the best ever fish taco
5. cook something with every herb I can find
6. perfect marinades for salmon, tuna, pork
7. learn what to do with all those awesome grains: quinoa, farro, couscous, millet, cornmeal (hello polenta!), I mean I don't know, spelt? Let's go crazy. 
8. invent the best beet salad (I have high standards for this as I am obsessed with beet salads)
9. most delicious homemade tomato sauce
10. make savory meals out of awesome fruity things such as: rhubarb, figs, kiwi, blueberries, apricots, cherries
11. what the heck, artichokes? everyone thinks you are good, but I don't get it. Let's get to the bottom of this.
12. how to pickle veggies at home

Okay, that's enough inspiration for now. I'd better go pack up my kitchen here in Oakland (yes, I am bringing my knives to Maine). Not as fun as cooking, but necessary.


Got ideas for my list of tasks to master? Leave in comments!