A Life in Baking, Pastry, and Libations.
With the brisk chill of autumn approaching, our appetites crave hearty comfort food. It's an awkward time for pastry as summer fruits drift slowly out of season but fall crops have yet to come to fruition. The nights may be chilly but the days are still too long for the cinnamon-scented warmth of pumpkin pie... Continue Reading →
With our predilection for picture perfect food, the boniato has been slow to catch on in North America. It's a turnip-shaped tuber with tough, gnarly, purplish skin that is never devoid of dirt, no matter how hard you scrub. Once cooked, the creamy colored flesh tastes sweet and buttery, faintly reminiscent of chestnuts. The boniato... Continue Reading →
Newly anointed Executive Pastry Chef Ghaya Oliveira of Restaurant Daniel (formerly of Boulud Sud ) is the brains behind this underrated feat of dessert lusciousness: the grapefruit givré. In case you're wondering, "givré" is French for "covered in frost." Buried in a frozen grapefruit shell, below a crown of halva and a caramelized orange tuile, lies a... Continue Reading →
The dessert was a corn semifreddo paired with polenta cake, popcorn shoots and blueberries. Halfway through service, one of the restaurant’s owners proclaimed that the dessert was disgusting and 86ed it for the rest of the night. The chef blamed the owner’s boorish behavior by explaining that he didn’t understand the concept of using savory... Continue Reading →
Pairing cooking and jazz is not an original concept. Eleven Madison Park’s Daniel Humm credits Miles Davis as the inspiration that guided the restaurant through its revamp and subsequent evolution to 3-star Michelin status. Charlie Trotter likens himself to “the Miles Davis of cuisine” in that the legendary trumpet player claimed to have never played... Continue Reading →
When an unexpected bumper crop of yellow tomatoes appeared this year: https://twitter.com/thesugarchef/status/370300505571864577 I could think of no better use than tomato sorbet. Wait! What?! Tomato sorbet for dessert? Yes. Tomato sorbet is not a new concept as it's been featured in Johnny Iuzzini's cookbook, Dessert Fourplay, and has been a mainstay in the Jean George... Continue Reading →
Buttery. Salted. Caramel. 