Chocolating…

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When my friend Gwen returns to the island in the summer to work at the gorgeous Inn on the east side, she often stops in for a cup of tea and a chat. 

Gwen is an island girl, through and through.  She was born on a boat right here in the thorofare and if she had fins instead of legs, her beauty, wild hair, and general otherworldliness, would easily land her in the family of silkies. 

Her visits in recent summers have often found me in the middle of chocolate making–an act that she has aptly dubbed, “chocolating.” I have adopted this term with gusto.  So much better than “making chocolate today.”  What will you be doing today, Kate?  So glad you asked.  Today I will be chocolating.  I could easily be saying fencing, or sailing, adventuring, exploring.  And in many ways, chocolating is much like these things–a dive into the unexpected, subject to our fickle environments, a battle of wits and skill, an all-consuming journey into the unknown.  Okay, maybe I’m romanticizing just a bit.  But it is alarmingly easy to wax poetic about chocolate. 

Anyhoo, Mother’s Day is right around the corner, and here at the shop we’re in major production mode.  For the past week, I’ve been putting in 12 hour days–infusing, emulsifying, enrobing and moulding.  Normally, I wouldn’t be in such high production all at once, but it so happens that I will be attending a master chocolatier course in Canada the week before Mother’s Day, and so must have everything done before we turn the shipping operation over to our friends Amy and Meagan on the 1st.

Despite the long days, I love what I do.  Chocolating is a delicate balance (some say battle) between science and art.  And sometimes, lets face it, not so delicate (I say as I inspect a spectacularly chocolate-smeared apron before a throw it in the wash).  Each step of the process is beautiful to look at; from the ingredients of a particular infusion (picture 1., above: ingredients for the Sexy Mexi infusion: Ancho chiles, cardamom pods, whole cinnamon, vanilla beans, heavy cream); the color the cream takes on after the infusion is strained and every last drop is pressed from the spent ingredients (picture 2, above: color of the cream after the ingredients are strained out), the satiny, pudding-like texture of a perfectly emulsified ganache, the moulds ready and waiting to be sealed (see picture 3, above), and of course the finished product. 

The truth is, I have no idea how busy Mother’s Day will be…Cullen at Fairwinds Florist in Blue Hill, who started carrying our chocolates a few weeks ago, says that for her, Mother’s Day is busier than Valentine’s.  Now that’s saying something.  Like be prepared.

Well, must get back to the shop.  Today I’ll be enrobing those Sexy Mexi centers in Venezuelan milk chocolate (which may be the last of the Venezuelan stuff for a while, it seems).  Enjoy this amazing weather!

Things that make you go ‘whoa.’

Some day I will have a kitchen like Michael Salmon’s at the Hartstone Inn in Camden (where I was a couple weekends ago, sitting in on one of his cooking classes).  Copper pots, handwashing sink, and an assistant. 

But until the day some rich (and as of yet, unidentified) uncle leaves me his collection of Mauviel and a kitchen boy, I’ll be schlepping my tag sale saute pans over to the sink and washing them by hand.  A former employer once told a writer from Gourmet magazine  that he wouldn’t want an electric dishwasher in his inn’s kitchen because they don’t gossip.  When the article was published it was one of those quotes that the editors enlarge and set off in italics.  I guess they thought it was funny or quaint or both.  Ha ha.

Not that I’m complaining–I love my kitchen.  It’s big and bright and clean and organized. It always smells good (today, like fresh bread and chocolate) and isn’t cluttered with things I don’t need.  But it is decidedly unglamorous.  Utilitarian, yes.  Even, at times, inspiring.  But glamorous it is not.

So it was with utter jaw-dropping, giggle-inspiring shock that Steve and I got word that our little kitchen and cafe–sans dishwasher–made Down East Magazine’s May issue as an “other eatery worthy of note,” from their cover story “Where to eat now: Maine’s top chefs pick 50 favorite restaurants.”  Who gave us the nod?  Sam Hayward of Fore Street Restaurant in Portland.  Don’t believe it?  I don’t blame you!  We didn’t either!  But we looked and it’s true.  You can check it out yourself online or at the stands.  The very best part about the article?  Great recommendations on where to eat all over Maine.  And if any of you know Sam, be sure to tell him that he made our day. 

When a Caesar ceases being a Caesar

Confession: A few months ago, when my friend Mike D. told me that the Caesar salad originated in Mexico, I called him a liar and a cheat.  I wasn’t wrong, of course.  He is a liar and a cheat.  But, as it turns out, not about that. 

According to wikipedia, source of all things hallowed and true, the Caesar salad was created by Cesar Cardini in a border town restaurant on July 4, 1924.  Cesar was an Italian-born Mexican living in San Diego and working in Tijuana (which might explain some of the confusion), and the salad, like many great dishes, was created in a desperate moment, while Cesar was trying to accomodate a rush of holiday revelers pouring over the border to escape party-pooping American restaurants constrained by Prohibition.

Despite this humbling proof that I know nothing about Caesar salad (and really, much more frustrating, that, in fact, Mike D. does), it turns out I have continued to air untruths about this favorite dish of mine.   

For instance, just this weekend Steve and I found ourselves enjoying dinner in the Old Port with our friends Paul and Zoe.  Zoe is four months pregnant and when I asked her if she had been having any cravings, she confessed (much to my complete thrill) that she needs a French fry fix at least once a week.  SO much better than dill pickles and vanilla ice cream!  I can totally hang with a French fry junkie, so we headed to Bull Feeney’s Pub–home to some of the best potato and sweet potato fries I’ve tasted this side of the Atlantic. 

Zoe and I split an entire plate of them, complete with all the fixings which, at Bull Feeney’s includes not just ketchup, but super spicy curry mayo and horseradish mayo.   We also ordered a Caesar salad with grilled chicken, but when the waitress asked if we wanted anchovies with that, my heart sank.  The question invariably means that there are no anchovies in the dressing which, hello, is where the anchovies belong.   Zoe and I answered no and yes simultaneously, and without missing a beat, our waitress offered graciously to bring them on the side.

I’m quite sure there is nothing more unappetizing than a whole anchovy filet.  Unless of course it’s several whole anchovy filets–which is what arrived in a metal ramekin alongside our salad 15 minutes later.  Anchovies belong in a Caesar.  But even I, an unabashed anchovy fan, can not bring myself to eat whole filets sandwiched between crunchy leaves of romaine lettuce.

Well, anchovies or no anchovies, the salad was delicious–and I told Paul that when he asked.  ‘You didn’t eat your anchovies,’ he observed.  I told him I would have if the anchovies had been in the dressing, where they belonged. 

‘But then it would be hard to order them on the side,’ he reasoned.

‘Then one should not be ordering a Caesar salad,’ I contested hotly, implying, of course, that a Caesar isn’t a Caesar with out them.

Well, as it turns out, a Caesar IS a Caesar with out them.  In fact, some intolerant diehards dispute the authenticity of dressings fortified with the oily filets.  And here I am, wrong again, having a nice little lunch of my own words.

But might I venture to suggest that there exists in this modern world, improvements on original ideas?  Even on original ideas that were good to begin with?  I submit a Caesar dressing, walloped with a healthy dose of MINCED anchovies as one of those improvements.  But I PROMISE that I’ll shut up about it.

 

 

Town Meetin’ time

There is no event more ill-timed, in my opinion, than the New England Town Meeting.  Ours is scheduled for the last Monday in March, and after four months of being stranded on an inclement rock in the middle of the ocean with just 42 other adults–some of whom you wouldn’t necessarily share dinner, much less an opinion–it’s just a bad idea to throw us all in a room together and demand that we decide the future of our town.  Everyone thinks those New England witch trials were borne of fanatic moral-ism–I think it has more to do with long winters spent with too few people.  We all tend to go a little nuts, and, quite frankly, there are a few people I’ve met over the years that I wouldn’t mind throwing overboard to test their buoyancy, if you know what I mean. 

That said, in theory Town Meeting, from afar, anyway, is almost festive.  Here on the island it’s a school holiday, so it gives the event the feel of something celebratory (albeit, deceptively).  This feeling is further promoted by the fact that several summer people often make the long trip out to the island to see how their property taxes will be spent in the upcoming year.  The meeting is an all-day event beginning promptly at 8:30 am, so work is put aside, townspeople are asked to contribute food, Louise brings her 100-cup percolater (and, if we’re really lucky, she also brings her fish chowder), and everything is piled up on a table just below the Town Hall stage.  People help themselves throughout the day and, in return, put whatever they can afford into a jar (that Louise has also brought) to benefit the fieldtrip fund the island school kids.

 This year, the Meeting warrant has a whopping 79 articles, and because our community is so small, and tempers can run hot, all articles concerning the election of town officials (roughly 25) are cast by written ballot.  That’s right: we write it down on a little piece of paper, walk up to the front of the hall, and place the paper in a wooden box.  This, in an effort to keep our voting anonomous–but it’s all for appearances; the votes for contentious elections have been counted up on notepads around dinner tables the night before. 

But secret ballot or no secret ballot, 79 articles is a lot of friggin’ articles, and most people figure, that even though we take an hour break around lunch time, we’re going to need some good food to get through, which is often, not such a great day. 

 Five years ago, on the eve of my first island Town Meeting, I was in the library and stumbled across a tiny book on New England Cookery.  I was thrilled to discover that there are special dishes just for Town Meeting time.  That particular TM eve was also Easter Sunday, which we were having at Alan and Kristen’s house.  We dined on baked ham and a vegetarian pasticcio a la Deborah Madison.  Kristen made a homey, but superb, lemon sponge pudding for dessert, and we ate it with heaping spoonfuls of softly whipped cream.  We shared the leftovers with the rest of the community the next day.

As it turned out, that was the only Town Meeting in the five years since that I’ve actually enjoyed, and so whenever I start to dread the end of March, I remember that Easter meal at Alan and Kristen’s, what it feels like to share a meal with good friends, and then to break bread again the next day with folks whom–though we may not always see eye to eye–we share a deep respect and concern for the tiny place we all call home.

This year I’ll be making smoked pork shoulder sandwiches on home-made oatmeal bread.  And I’ll be crossing my fingers that things go smoothly…