Angstrom and I stumbled upon this place as we wandered the streets in the hours between when we arrived in New Orleans and when we could check into our rental. Drawn by the promise of oysters and seafood, I made a dinner reservation on a whim, a decision that ranks among my better recent decisions.

The oysters were fresh and delicious, the gumbo thick and rich, the crab rice and crab pasta impeccable, the thrice-cooked potatoes luxurious in their simplicity, and the carrot sticky toffee pudding with cream cheese ice cream just as good as it sounds.

Our waiter’s schtick included a joking reference to us not liking the oysters based on how quickly we devoured them, and I rode the bit through the meal, telling him each course was worse than the last as he collected my empty dishware from the table.  We both knew the truth, though: the meal was fantastic and anyone who has the opportunity to dine here should do so.

Pêche

800 Magazine St.

New Orleans, LA 70130

Pecherestaurant.com

Believe it or not, this tiny contraption my son is using makes an amazing end product, but not much of it.

I absolutely recommend instead getting an electric, old-fashioned style ice cream maker. These are easy to use and have significantly more cooling capacity than most frozen bowl style ice cream churns.  

Combining salt with the ice and water that surrounds the ice cream bucket makes a huge difference.  Whereas an ice bath made without salt will always be 32° F, adding 2 cups of salt to the mix lowers it to 22° F, helping your ice cream base to freeze more quickly (leading to smaller ice crystals and a more pleasant mouth feel).

Best of all, machines of this type are quite affordable, particularly when you can find them used.  Just be sure that all of the pieces are in good condition (e.g. show no signs of rust or corrosion and the motor works well).

The real key to fantastic ice cream, though, is the base that you use to create it. Using a high amount of fat, liquid sugars, and egg yolks all help to create a smooth emulsification and a luxurious result. I’m not going to say that this is an easy recipe to make, but I will say that it is straightforward.  With attention to details like heat level and custard temperature, you can make amazing ice cream at home very easily.  Here’s the basic ice cream base, and also a few variations that I can vouch for.

Basic Ice Cream Base

Of course, I did it on a Tuesday when I didn’t even get home from work until 5:00 and had to launch straight into dinner prep to get it all done before bedtime, so I don’t have any pictures.  But I’m writing it up anyway so I have a reference for what I did next time I go to make it (including a note to myself: take pictures!)

Then, in what must be the most first world of first world problems, I ran low on cherries to garnish my Manhattans.  Heavens to Betsy, whatever is one to do?

As it turns out, I have been stocking my freezer for a pandemic for years. So I dug into the back, where about 18 months ago, I stashed a rather large bag of tart cherries that I bought so I can make a cherry pie on a whim, and I figured, how hard can it be to make sugar-preserved cherries for garnishing?

I boiled a couple of cups of them in a simple syrup made from .67 cups each water and sugar.  The syrup turned red.  I poured them into a sanitized mason jar.  I added a couple of teaspoons of lime juice to cut through the sugar and also guard against crystallization as they sit in storage.

They’re good. Not perfect.  But good enough that I feel no need to buy artificially dyed cherries again– which ain’t half bad for version 1.0!

That sounds more impressive than it actually is; I’ve probably only made them a half dozen times in that stretch.  But each time, I’ve discovered something that didn’t quite work the way I wanted it to and come up with a piece of the puzzle on my next attempt.  And now I finally have a recipe worth writing down and remembering.

The yeasted dough is light and flavorful.  It takes a glaze or spiced sugar quite nicely.  It’s absolutely mouth-wateringly delicious sliced open and spread with a bit of jam, even if I still haven’t conquered a technique that lets me inject jelly into a pocket in the center.  In short, it’s finally worth writing down.

A couple of notes that are important to getting this recipe to work correctly:

• flour type matters: For this recipe, all-purpose flour is the right choice. trying to use bread flour makes the finished doughnut a bit too chewy.
• knead minimally: A bit of kneading will bring the dough together. But too much develops the gluten too much. So, just so much and no more.
• the size of dough balls matters: It’s tempting to say close enough is close enough. But for the dough to cook predictably, so that you can have 3 or 4 doughnuts all in the pan at once and know that they are all done at the same time, you want to pull out your scale and weigh them out to 3 ounces each. Precisely.
• make the hole in the center bigger than the finished hole should be: Because as the bread cooks, it will rise and the hole will shrink. And the hole helps them cook all the way through, as they are exposed to more oil.
• make the discs flat for jelly nuts: Too thick and they don’t cook all the way through.
• the oil temperature matters: too hot and the doughnuts get overdone on the outside before they are done in the center. Too cold and the doughnut gets greasy. 375 when the doughnuts go in, this will drop the temp to 350 for cooking. Just what you want.
• temp the doughnut to make sure that it’s done: It’s easy to pull the doughnut too soon and then you bite into the center and find it’s still doughy. Use your instant read digital thermometer (I recommend Thermoworks’ Thermapen. If you’re left handed, it’s worth it to get the MK4. I get nothing for suggesting this. I just like their product). Aim for about 180 degrees in the center.
• Have your toppings ready for as soon as the doughnuts come out of the oil: You want to coat the doughnuts with the spiced sugar or the glaze while they are still hot and fresh, or the toppings won’t stick.
• let the oil recover between batches. The time you spend glazing or sugaring the freshly cooked doughnuts is probably sufficient. But double check the oil temp before you put each round into the grease.
  Yeasted Doughnuts

  Ingredients:

  • about 8 cups of all purpose flour
  • 2 Tbl Kosher salt
  • a couple good fistfuls brown sugar
  • A nice shake of cinnamon
  • A bit more brown sugar–maybe a couple Tbl
  • 2 Tbl dried yeast. The regular stuff. Not the instant stuff.
  • 2 eggs
  • 1 stick (8 Tbl) butter
  • 120 degree water– not quite 4 cups. Enough to bring the dough together.

  Technique:

  1. Combine the flour, salt, first instance of brown sugar, and the cinnamon together in a large mixing bowl.
  2. Pull out about a cup of the mixture and add the second instance of brown sugar & the yeast to it.
  3. Add about a cup of the 120 degree water to this. Stir a couple of times and let it sit for about 10 minutes to make a sponge.
  4. Meanwhile, beat the eggs in a small bowl and then beat the melted butter into it. Stir this into the large mixing bowl of flour etc.
  5. When your sponge has sat and is nice and foamy, stir it in with the flour, egg, butter mix. Heat your water back up to 120 degrees (check the temp!) and then stir in enough of it with a wooden spoon. When the dough comes together, pour it out onto a well-floured surface and knead just enough to bring it together.
  6. Wash and dry your big mixing bowl. Put the dough into it, coated with just a little bit of olive oil. Cover with a dish cloth and leave in a warm area for an hour or so while you go watch cartoons, read the newspaper, do some laundry, or whatever else it is you want to tend to while you’re letting the dough rise. The contestants on teh Great British Baking show always fret over their stuff during bread week. I always suggest to my television that they should have brought a crossword puzzle with them. They never listen.
  7. Divide the risen dough into 3-ounce pieces. Shape them into balls and let them rest for about 20 minutes while you make the glaze and the spiced sugar. Also heat up the cooking oil in a deep cast iron skillet. If you’ve got my stove, you want the oil to heat on about level 4, bumping it up to 6 or 8 as you approach cooking time. But you’re going to have to do some experimenting with your stove.
  8. Shape the doughnuts by gently pinching and turning to make a hole in the center. You know what they’re supposed to look like.
  9. When your oil hits 375, add doughnuts to the Fry 4 doughnuts at a time if you’re using my skillet. Your pan might call for more or fewer. I tried to figure out the magic time, but it was all by visual cues. And verified that they were ready by taking their internal temperature.
  10. Glaze or sugar the doughnuts as soon as they come out of the oil.
  11. Repeat until they’re all done. For my $0.02, the glazed are fantastic hot but the spiced keep better as leftovers. You can microwave them before serving for a second go-round.
  Glaze

  • Zest from a couple of clementines.
  • Juice from said clementines
  • Powdered sugar

  Spiced Sugar

  • Granulated sugar
  • Cinnamon
  • Cardamom
  • Nutmeg

https://www.communitykitchenpittsburgh.org/award.

Why should you support Community Kitchen for this money?

So, there’s been a lot of stuff in the news lately about the opioid crisis.  I’d like you to think in specific terms about how a person could be affected by drug use or the drug trade–and how Community Kitchen can help change their prospects.

Imagine being the person who got hooked on opioids after a serious injury led a doctor to prescribing you some heavy duty pain killers.  Your supply runs out, one thing leads to another and next thing you know, you’re out of a job, out of a house, out of money and hooked on heroin in a scenario that you always imagined you’d be immune to.

Maybe you get nabbed on drug posession and you do a stint in jail.  We’ll just gloss over that year, because it really sucks.  But coming out isn’t the grand release that you thought it would be.  You’re stuck in a halfway house.  Nobody wants to give you a job because of your record and your gap in employment history.  You’re going to meetings and doing well.  But, when your stay at the halfway house comes due, your prospects for something better are not coming up the way you thought they’d be.  And, because your conviction was for drugs, you can’t even qualify for federal financial aid to go back to school to learn new skills.

Restaurants are booming in Pittsburgh, but culinary schools are not.  Restaurants have a shortage of workers.  This means that they are paying more to keep the workers they have and always trying to recruit new people to work their lines.  And, most restaurants will give people with convictions a second chance.  If only you had any culinary experience, maybe you could land one of these jobs.

That’s where Community Kitchen Pittsburgh comes in.  With scholarships for all students to offset all training costs, Community Kitchen provides students with a 12-week, intensive program of classes and support to gain the skills they need to land a skilled entry-level position as a prep cook.  They offer help to find housing and a job, and support services to help overcome the other barriers you face.  Students prepare school lunches, meals for homeless shelters, and food for catered events while they learn the ins and outs of working in a commercial kitchen.

All of this adds up to real support to help people who find themselves in situations they never imagined would happen to them, pick themselves up and move forward toward a brighter future.

Support Community Kitchen Pittsburgh with your vote today.  Click https://www.communitykitchenpittsburgh.org/award.

She says, when you follow a recipe, you follow each step; no variation, no substitutions.  Otherwise, you’re not cooking that recipe.

I say, recipes are strong guides.  But, you might be short of something or in the mood for a little twist.  So, make educated substitutions and alterations to fit your needs.

This topic came up again last weekend when I made one of my mom’s pound cake recipes for dinner.  Or did I?

I’ll let you decide.  Either way you decide to make this cake, it is both easy to throw together and a treat to eat!

My mom’s pound cake (with my variations)

• 2.25 cups flour
• 2 cups sugar (brown sugar)
• 0.5 tsp baking soda
• 0.5 tsp salt
• 1 tsp vanilla (rum.  and let’s face it, I didn’t measure, I just tipped the bottle for what looked right)
• 1 cup softened butter
• 1 cup sour cream (I didn’t have any.  I had 0.75 cup plain, full fat yogurt.  I figured this would give the acidity the baking powder needs for leavening.  I added 0.25 cup heavy cream so I’d have the 1 cup and also for fat content)
• 3 eggs
• (cinnamon)

1. Combine all ingredients in a bowl and use an electric mixer to blend for about 3 minutes.  Pour into a greased and floured bundt pan and bake at 325 degrees F for 60-65 minutes or until the top springs back when touched lightly in the center (took closer to 70).
2. Let cool in the pan for 10 minutes then invert onto a plate.  Pour butter glaze over it while it’s still warm.

Butter glaze

• 0.25 cup melted butter
• 1 cup powdered sugar
• 0.5 tsp vanilla (rum)
• (up to) 2 Tbl water to adjust consistency
• (nutmeg)

So, this is where following the recipe exactly steered me wrong… I added the 2 Tbl water all at once and it got way too thin.  Add the water slowly, a bit at a time.  It should be thick enough to drizzle over the cake and run down the sides, but not gloopy.

Some of it will run into the center and pool around the outside of the cake.  My siblings and I would run our fingers through this before dinner to taste the frosting; and at dessert, my grandfather would fish it out to spread on top of his piece (and share with us as well).

This really was a nice cake.  Even my mom had to admit it.  “But if you put my cake and this one side by side,” she said, “someone would have a hard time telling they came from the same recipe.”

The personal stuff is quite a bit more fun, particularly when the kids decide that they want to cook with me.

Faraday is about to turn 4, and tends to cook with me quite a bit.  He can clean mushrooms with a brush and pick leaves off of fresh herbs, but he’s mainly there for the tasting privileges that come with helping me in the kitchen.  I’ll take what I can get.

When we’re in the kitchen, he tells me, “You’re the chef and I’m the cook.”

“What’s the cook’s job?” I ask him.

“To do whatever the chef says.”

I’ve got him trained well.  At least in the kitchen.  Outside of the kitchen, I cease being the chef and he ceases to see his job as being to do whatever I say.

Angstrom is 7.6667, and starting to come into his own when he wants to help.  He’s usually more interested in reading, which is also a fine activity.  But, as he’s getting older, he is becoming an actual help.  I can give him a block of cheese and a grater and he’ll turn it into shredded cheese for us.  He’s also starting to get the hang of using the knife that I got him (perhaps a bit prematurely) for his 6th birthday.  I still keep an eye on him to make sure he’s got his thumb and fingers out of the way, but he does a fine job slicing mushrooms on his own.

He also has been interested in making sure I write down my recipes.  That can be tough because so often I am just reaching into the fridge to take what we happen to have and turn it into dinner.  We won’t necessarily have the same leftovers the next time, so the recipes may not be re-creatable.  Not to mention the fact that I so rarely measure.

But… I did make a very nice cheddar, broccoli, and potato soup the other day that he asked me to document.  So, because Janice asked what I’ve been cooking and Angstrom wants me to preserve my recipes, here is the best I can do on that front:

Loaded Baked Potato Soup

• Bacon Grease leftover from cooking a metric s*it ton of bacon for brunch.  Not all of it.  Probably about 1/3 cup.  Maybe a half of a cup.  A good knob’s worth scooped out of the custard dish of bacon grease with my favorite wooden spoon.
• Garlic, sliced thinly.  A bulb’s worth.  (bulbs seem to be about the right unit to measure in.  Never trust a recipe that calls for 1-2 cloves of garlic)
• Flour, sufficient to make a roux the consistency of wet sand.  Add slowly as described below.
• Stock.  I’m not sure if it was chicken or vegetable.  Either would work.  Probably about 2 cups; I had about half of one of the boxes from the supermarket leftover.  Lately, I’ve been partial to whatever brand is low in sodium and labeled “cooking stock”, though I really should make my own.
• Milk, about 3-4 cups, I think?  1%.
• Leftover roasted potatoes and broccoli, from the same brunch that you cooked the bacon for.  Probably about 4 cups combined of those?  All of the broccoli that was left and most of the potatoes.
• Cheese.  A mix of 3-year-old Vermont white cheddar and supermarket meunster.  There might have been some parmesan in the mix, too.  2.5 cups, shredded?
• Spices.  Definitely black pepper.  I probably used Aleppo pepper, too.  If you don’t have any, I highly recommend getting some right away.  Penzey’s sells it.  So does the random multi-ethnic grocery store I shopped in Temeculah, CA once.  So there are probably some other sources, too.  And I bet I used some nutmeg, but only a touch.
• Herbs.  Thyme, oregano.  Basil?  Whatever you like.  Sage.

Back in 1997, I had an idea that I could paint in words.  I’ve been spending the odd evening since sometime in 2000 trying to follow through on the concept.  Here are 2 of my more recent works; click on any thumbnail for a larger image:

All Your Life, You Were Only Waiting For This Moment To Arrive

Personal reflections in swirls of color; a blackbird emerges from the center, ready to take flight.

24″ x 30″, oil on canvas,

2018, available

Fuck You Warhol, You Never Even Liked This Town

Musings on Warhol’s tendency to settle for 65% of an idea (peeing on metal) instead of taking it all the way there (peeing on metal to make a picture) and also thoughts on how fervently the city Warhol rejected (Pittsburgh) has adopted him as their own.  The end result, a cityscape of Pittsburgh as viewed from the North Side.

24″ x 30″, oil on canvas

2017, on hold

Ceramic Face Bowls

In addition to painting, I sculpt in clay.  My work in this medium tends to consist of whimsical faces built into the side of hand-thrown bowls.  Decorations come from multiple clay bodies being built together; all work is unglazed.  Samples shown below are all approximately 6″ in diameter and 3″ high.

2017, stoneware, available