Cream of Lentil and Chestnut Soup with Foie Gras Custards (Page 105)

RECIPE #1288

• Date: Tuesday, December 20, 2011 -- 6pm
• Location: East Lansing, MI
• Kitchen: Our House
• Dining Companions: Helen, Charles, Clara, and Matty
• Recipe Rating: B
  

I would have made this recipe long ago, as I love soup and I particularly love lentil soup. But I had real difficulty finding the foie gras the recipe called for. Duck foie gras is easy to find. That's not to say that I know where to buy it in the Lansing area, but I do know dozens of places from which I can order it online. This recipe, however, called specifically for goose foie gras. It used to be that goose foie gras was also easy enough to order online, but right now that it just not the case. The Book has suggestions in it for where to buy hard-to-find ingredients, and even the purveyor they suggested didn't have it. In the end I spent quite a long time scouring the internet for goose foie gras. Finally (at last!) I found one place that sold it. I put it my order, delighted that I would finally be able to make this recipe. The delight didn't last long. I soon got an email saying that in fact the goose foie gras wasn't actually available. With the end of the project looming, I had to make a choice. I did the only thing I could think to do: I used duck foie gras instead. In this recipe the foie gras is pureed with eggs and cream and served in a soup. Would one really be able to tell the difference between goose and duck foie gras in this preparation? I don't know. But I bought some duck foie gras and went ahead with the recipe. Now, weeks later, I am apparently still feeling bad about this substitution. Just last night I had a a dream that one of my friends was secretly doing the same project as me. He was also almost done, and he had found the goose foie gras!

To make this recipe I started by making some croutons. I deep-fried small cubes of white bread in oil. I then cooked French green lentils with cooked chestnuts, thyme, parsley, chives, bay leaves and salt in water. Meanwhile, I pureed the foie gras with eggs, egg yolks, salt, and cream. I divided the foie gras custard mixture into ramekins and baked the custards until set. I then removed the bouquet garni of herbs and pureed the soup, then strained and seasoned it. I whipped cream, then whisked it into the soup. I poured the soup over the foie gras custards and sprinkled with the croutons and some toasted almond slices.

I had mixed feelings about this soup. On the one hand, it had great flavors. The combination of lentils and chestnuts was very interesting, and both flavors complemented the foie gras custards well. It was texturally interesting to have a custard on the bottom of the bowl, soup on top of it, and crunchy croutons and almonds on top of that. But for me, it was just too rich! Foie gras is already quite rich, and baking it with eggs and cream only enhanced its richness. The soup itself wouldn't have been terribly rich without the cream, but whisking in a bunch of whipped cream made it pretty intense. I enjoyed eating a few bites of the soup, but even the small serving size was too much for me.

The recipe is here.

Only 5 recipes left to go!

This is the last recipe from the Soups section of The Book! I love soup (indeed there are always at least 3 or 4 kinds of homemade soup in our freezer!) so it was a pleasure to cook through this section. In no particular order, my favorite five recipes from this sections were the following:

• Chinese Egg Drop Soup with Noodles -- This was easily the best egg drop soup I have ever had. I made it with homemade chicken stock and that was definitely the way to go! I made this when I lived in Indiana, for a dinner with my friends Mike, Teresa, Tricia, and Cornelia, and everyone seemed to enjoy it!
• Congee -- This Chinese chicken and rice porridge was AMAZING. This recipe took a long time to make, but it was so very, very tasty! If I knew of a restaurant where I could order this item, I would be going there at least a couple times a week. Yum!!!
• Mushroom Barley Soup -- I made this one way back in the early days of the project. This was a wonderful, hearty soup, perfect for a cold winter day!
• Yellow Split Pea Soup -- I have avoided split pea soup most of my life, after being forced to eat it as a kid at summer camp. But this recipe made me see the truth: split pea soup can be delicious! This simple recipe produced a very lovely soup.
• Mango-Spacho -- This was definitely the best of the cold soups in The Book. I wouldn't necessarily have expected mango, chiles, cucumber, corn, scallion, garlic, red pepper, basil, cilantro, vinegar, orange juice, lemon juice, and lime juice to come together to form something delicious, but they did! It was a refreshing and surprising summer soup!

And just like that, another section is complete. That makes 17 completed sections and 4 left to finish! I can't believe how close I am to the end!

The semester started this week! We were in Boston all last week for a conference. It was great fun to be back in the city where my special gentleman and I met. We saw lots of math friends, and lots of non-math friends as well. I ate good food, went to good math talks, and hung out with good friends! It was a great trip! We flew back the day before classes started and life has been pretty hectic since then. So far the semester is going well, although I have been sick since before New Year's which has made the first few days back a little rough. I finally gave up today and went to the doctor. It's bronchitis. They gave me some antibiotics as well as cough syrup with codeine, and I am already feeling a little better! Maybe I shouldn't have waited two weeks to get myself checked out...

Matzo-Stuffed Breast of Veal (Page 452)

RECIPE #1287

• Date: Tuesday, November 15, 2011 -- 10pm
• Location: East Lansing, MI
  
• Kitchen: Our House
• Dining Companion: Matty
• Recipe Rating: B-

I would have made this recipe much earlier, but I had a very hard time finding veal breast. Finally I found a website I could order it from. I started the dish by making the stuffing. I cooked onion, carrot, and celery in oil until brown. I then ran some matzos under hot water until they were softened. I combined half of the cooked vegetables with the matzos, some parsley, egg, salt, and pepper. I reserved the rest of the vegetables. The veal breast I ordered already had a pocket cut in it, so luckily I got to bypass that step. I pureed together onion, garlic, vegetable oil, paprika, salt, and pepper, then rubbed the veal with the puree, including inside the pocket. I filled the pocket loosely with the matzo stuffing, then sewed the pocket closed using kitchen string and a huge needle. Sewing has never been my specialty. I certainly got by in Home Economics class and I even sewed some clothing for the county fair way back when I was in 4-H. But I wouldn't say that I am talented with a needle and thread. For me the hardest part of this recipe by far was sewing the veal pocket closed. My hands were slippery with raw veal and stuffing, and it took some strength and grip to get that needle through the veal. It was a challenge. My good friend Helen wrote a New York Times Op-Ed recently about how we should bring back Home Economics in schools. This dish would be an efficient addition to a Home Economics curriculum: cooking and sewing in the same project! Once my veal was successfully sewed shut I put it in a pot with the remaining vegetables, some thyme, and water. I braised the veal until it was tender, then sliced and served it with the sauce it braised in.

This dish was OK. The meat was indeed tender, as a good braised piece of meat should be. The meat didn't seem to pick up much flavor from the braising liquid though, which wasn't too surprising as it was braised just in water with a few veggies in it. My real complaint about the dish, though, was the stuffing. It's true, I am biased: I am not a fan of soggy bread (or in this case, soggy matzo). But even my special gentleman, who is a soggy bread eater, was not wowed by this stuffing. The flavor of it was fine, but the texture just wasn't appealing. The stuffing didn't add anything positive to the dish and I found myself wishing that I had just braised the meat unstuffed. Stuffing the veal breast certainly wasn't worth all the extra work of preparing the stuffing and sewing it in there. All that said, the meat was pretty tasty and tender and we ate it all despite our hesitations about the stuffing.

The recipe is here.

Only 6 recipes left to go!

Happy Holidays! We have had a crazy holiday season, full of food, travel, family, and good friends! My special gentleman and I ate 5 holiday meals this season, which was a lot! It all started last Tuesday:

Christmas Dinner #1 -- December 20th -- East Lansing, MI. It might be a stretch to call this a Christmas dinner, but it definitely felt like a holiday meal and we drank out of our glasses with Christmas trees on them, so I'll call it a Christmas dinner! Our good friends Helen and Charles and their daughter Clara are moving to France for a year. It's exciting for them but sad for us, as we spend a lot of time with them, and in particular, we eat with them often! Helen and I share a deep love of food. She is a history professor and one of her specialties is the history of food and nutrition! Plus, she is an excellent cook. In honor of their upcoming travels, we had them over for dinner for a French feast. I made cassoulet, lentil soup with foie gras custards, carrots Vichy, bread, and salad, and Helen made a French chocolate mousse cake. It was a lovely evening with yummy food and an excellent way to start the holiday season.

Christmas Dinner #2 -- December 23rd -- Fond du Lac, WI. Late last week we headed up to Wisconsin to celebrate Christmas with my parents and my extended family. We had a big Christmas dinner at my aunt and uncle's house. My aunt and uncle made turkey and mashed potatoes, I made roast asparagus, glazed carrots, and salad, and my cousins Anne and Sarah made dessert (Better than Sex cake and Apple Dapple cake). It was a feast! There are about 20 people on my mom's side of the family, and we all had a lovely day playing cards, cooking, drinking, eating, and opening gifts! It was a sad day too, as it was our first Christmas without my grandpa. But it was wonderful to gather together and we talked about him often throughout the day and felt his presence.

Christmas Dinner #3 -- December 24th -- East Lansing, MI. On Christmas Eve we drove from Wisconsin back home to Michigan (about 7 hours). In the evening, Helen, Charles, and Clara came over to celebrate Christmas Eve with us. I had made dinner ahead and put it in the freezer so that all I would have to do when we got home was reheat the food and throw together a salad. We had braised veal shoulder, potato and caramelized onion soup, focaccia, salad, and some Christmas cookies. Then we exchanged a couple gifts and sang Christmas carols. My special gentleman and I bought ourselves a piano for Christmas so my special gentleman and Charles took turns playing Christmas carols on the piano and we all sang along. It was a lovely. Later in the evening my special gentleman and I went to church (with more carols!). It was a great Christmas Eve.

Christmas Dinner #4 -- December 25th -- Westerville, OH. On Christmas morning we drove from Michigan down to my special gentleman's parents' house in Ohio. The drive isn't too long -- only about 4 hours -- but we had the kitties with us, and they do not like the car! Indiana has a good attitude about bad situations. He just laid in his carrier and looked pissed. But poor Michigan howled the entire time. Eventually we made it though, in time for Christmas dinner with my father-in-law's extended family. Twenty or so people descended upon my in-laws' house for a big holiday meal! I ate a lot of beef brisket and Uncle Phil's famous no-bake cookies. Merry Christmas!

Christmas Dinner #5 -- December 26th -- Gahanna, OH. The next day we celebrated Christmas with my mother-in-law's family. We all descended upon her brother and his wife's place and had a big meal with twnety or so members of the family, including ham and all the fixings. Yum!

We have been in Ohio since Christmas Day. It has been fun spending the holiday with my special gentleman's family. The are 7 adults, 2 dogs, 2 cats, and a baby all staying at my in-laws' house. It's a little chaotic! Our cats seem both overwhelmed and intrigued by all the activity in the house. It has been a fun trip though. My brother-in-law Wes lives in Cambodia so we don't see him too often, but he is here for the holidays. And the newest addition to our family, our niece Hannah, is always entertaining!

We still have one more holiday meal ahead of us. I am cooking for New Year's Eve! I am taking the opportunity to make one of the few recipes I have left from The Book -- a fresh ham. Exciting!

Happy Holidays!

Shrimp, Crab, and Oyster Gumbo (Page 120)

RECIPE #1286

• Date: Wednesday, November 9, 2011 -- 7pm
• Location: Charlottesville, VA
• Kitchen: Mike and Tim's House
• Fellow Chefs: Mike and Matty
• Dining Companion: Tim
• Recipe Rating: C-
  

My special gentleman and I visited our friends Mike and Tim in November. Mike has been a part of this project since the very beginning, cooking and eating lots of recipes with me. Now that I am near the end, he wanted to cook something together again. It was fun to cook at Mike and Tim's house in Charlottesville. They just got married this summer so they had a bunch of never-been-used cookware that they got as wedding gifts. They took it out of the boxes, and we got cooking! To start, we peeled and deveined a bunch of shrimp. I cooked the shrimp shells with crab legs, onion, carrot, parsley, peppercorns, bay leaf, salt, and water. I removed the crab legs when they were cooked and continued to simmer the stock. I then strained the stock. Meanwhile, my special gentleman removed the crab meat from the crab legs. Mike, my special gentleman, and I then made the roux. We cooked a mixture of oil and flour for 45 minutes, stirring constantly (that's when it is useful to have a lot of people in the kitchen -- it's no fun to stir constantly for 45 minutes!), until a dark brown roux was formed. We added onions, bell pepper, and celery and cooked it for another 20 minutes. I then combined the roux with the stock and simmered. I added the shrimp, then the crabmeat from the legs, then some lump crabmeat, then oysters. I stirred in scallions, cayenne, and salt, and served the gumbo over white rice.

This recipe was very disappointing. There were lots of things wrong with it. For one thing, the roux barely thickened the stock, so the soup was runny with no body. The seafood flavor was intense, but the dish had no depth of flavor to it. It was somehow simultaneously pungent and bland, as the flavor of the dish was strong but incredibly one-note (and that note was: shellfish!). Tim and my special gentleman dutifully ate it (although neither enjoyed it), and Mike and I both gave up on it after a few bites. It was sad to see so much effort and nice seafood go into a dish that was so lackluster. Mike seemed particularly offended by this gumbo, as he is from Louisiana originally, and has consequently eaten a lot of gumbo in his life! The dish certainly disappointed, but we still had a fun evening, cooking and eating together!

The recipe is here.

Only 7 recipes left to go!

With my surgery and the end of the semester, the last couple weeks have been hectic, to say the least. But things are calmer now, so I have time for some blogging (and even some cooking!). The surgery went very smoothly. As I mentioned, I was quite nervous about it. Here is a picture of me in the hospital, a few hours before my surgery, clearly terrified:

I got up to pee one last time before they hooked me up to the IV and whatnot, and my special gentleman took a picture:

Those fancy legwarmers I am wearing are actually some device designed to prevent blood clots during surgery. They hooked up to a machine, and massaged my legs to get the blood moving. It was an odd sensation!

Shortly after this picture was taken then put my IV in and got me ready for surgery. I don't remember anything after I was wheeled into the operating room. Presumably they told me they were about to knock me out, but I have no memory of it. When I woke up in the post-anesthesia care unit apparently I said over and over again, "I don't remember anything." It's true -- I don't. The surgery went well though. The surgeon removed about 90% of the wall they were trying to get out. The last 10% was blocked by some blood vessels that he didn't want to cut through, for fear that it would cause excessive bleeding. So he left it, but it shouldn't be a problem. Here I am a while after the surgery:


My face says it all. I wasn't feeling too great! The pain was bad that first day, but rapidly got much more bearable. My recovery at home was very peaceful. Some friends made me chicken soup and goat cheese biscuits (thanks Helen!) and brownies (thanks Kendra!) and my special gentleman made me many batches of Jello and rice with cheese. I laid in bed and watched terrible movies and even worse reality TV shows. My kitties took their jobs as nurses very seriously. They kept close tabs on me during my recovery. Here they are, both lying on my legs in bed:


I spent several days in bed, and my littlest kitty, Michigan, spent most of that time in bed with me. He knew I couldn't move very well, so he would climb on top of me and settle in for a nice nap. He loved it:

A week after my surgery they removed a balloon which they had put in during the surgery. Since then, I have been feeling good! I gave my final exam the day after the balloon came out so last week was crazy with office hours, meetings, exam writing, proctoring, grading, assigning course grades, etc... It was a little rough because I still wasn't feeling great but now I am officially DONE with the semester! I submitted my grades late Sunday night. My students did really well, which was satisfying. They were a great group, and I am going to miss teaching them. But I am still happy the semester is over and I have a few weeks before I start teaching again. I am also very thankful to be feeling good again. I no longer have any pain, and the nausea from the medication they have me on is now minimal. I am up and around and the last few days I have even been doing some exercise!

And somehow, it is the nearly the end of December and Christmas is only a few days away. A few weeks ago I announced to my special gentleman, "I am going to do a shit job with Christmas this year." He said in response, "You don't need to do anything for Christmas this year if you don't feel up for it." It was exactly what I needed to hear. I gave myself a pass. I didn't do my usual Christmas baking (No biscotti this year! Only one batch of cranberry bars!), I barely Christmas shopped -- buying only a few things for a few people. I didn't really decorate the house. I didn't have the time or energy to invest in the season like I usually do. But I am definitely feeling the holiday spirit. I am loving this Christmas season, even if it has been unusual this year, and I am excited to spend the holidays with family and close friends! Happy holidays everyone!

Veal Stew with Lemon and Creme Fraiche (Page 460)

RECIPE #1285

• Date: Friday, November 4, 2011 -- 5:30pm
• Location: East Lansing, MI
• Kitchen: Our House
• Dining Companions: Matty, Baldwin, Charles, and Clara
• Recipe Rating: B
  

I have wanted to make this recipe for a long time, but I had a lot of trouble finding the veal breast and veal shoulder it required. None of the butchers in town could get them for me, and even my usual internet meat seller didn't have them. Eventually I found an internet source for the meat I needed for this and the one other veal recipe I have left (which also requires veal breast). It was an expensive purchase, but the meat arrived via overnight shipping, and I was glad to have it! I made this dish when our friend John was visiting. John, like my special gentleman, is fun to cook for because he loves to eat (and he eats a lot!) and he appreciates food. Charles and Clara joined us for a small feast which included this stew, some goat cheese biscuits, broccoli with caper brown butter, puff pastry cheese twists, and a caramelized pear tart.

To make this stew I started by cutting the veal breast off the bone and cutting the meat into pieces. I also cut the veal shoulder into pieces and stewed the meat with the bones, onions, parsley, thyme, bay leaf, and peppercorns in water. When the meat was tender I removed it and strained the broth. I cooked carrots and leeks in the strained broth, then removed the vegetables and reduced the broth. Meanwhile, I cooked some mushrooms in butter. I made a roux of flour and butter and whisked in the reduced broth, then simmered it. I carefully added a mixture of egg yolks and creme fraiche to the sauce, as well as lemon juice, and I cooked the sauce to 160 degrees. I seasoned the veal, the vegetables, and the sauce, then combined them to form the stew. This stew was pretty tasty. The vegetables and veal were nicely cooked but I didn't love the sauce. It had a nice consistency, but I didn't think the lemon flavor complemented the veal as well as a meatier, or wine based sauce would have. My personal preference would have been for the stew to have a higher ratio of vegetables to meat. As it was, it was very meat-heavy. All that said, it tasted good and certainly everyone seemed to enjoy it.

The recipe is here.

Only 8 recipes left to go!

I hate to fly. It's not the cramped seats, bad food, or near-certainty of delays that makes me dread it. I can easily cope with a lack of comfort. But I am terrified of plane crashes. I fly anyway, of course, but I genuinely hate it. And every time I get on an airplane, I wonder if I will make it alive to my destination. I prefer to have my feet on the ground, in an environment where I feel safe. I realize that the chances of the plane crashing are incredibly small. As a mathematician, I truly do appreciate how small the numbers are. But it doesn't really make me feel better. I am still terrified. It's not just flying. I dislike any situation where I feel a real chance of death, even when the actual likelihood of death is incredibly small. And I especially dislike situations where I have no control, like on an airplane. It's not logical, and it's not something that I appreciate about myself. Indeed, if I had the power to change any one thing about myself, I think that is what I would change: I would be less afraid.

I am having surgery tomorrow. As surgeries go, it isn't a particularly dangerous one. There is a wall in one of my organs that shouldn't be there, as well as a mass in there. The wall, in particular, is causing some problems. So they are going to remove the mass and cut out the wall. The risks are minimal, and the surgery will completely correct the problem. I think that if I could be awake for it, I would hardly be worried at all. But local anesthesia is apparently not an option. So I will be under general anesthesia. And although I fully understand that people are put under for surgery all the time, it still has me freaked out. I haven't been able to sleep the last couple nights, which for me is incredibly unusual. Sleeping is the one thing I do extremely well. But I have laid awake for hours. I keep picturing myself laying on a table, unconscious, with a breathing tube down my throat, and the surgeon lasering things inside my body. I had my pre-op appointment a few days ago. The surgeon went over the risks with me (pain, infection, accidental puncture of the organ, etc...). And as he talked about the increasingly unpleasant (and increasingly unlikely) things that could happen, I kept thinking to myself that the only side effect that I am actually worried about is death. Which wasn't even on his list since it is so tremendously unlikely. But just like sitting on an airplane, tomorrow I will have no control over what is happening. Indeed, I will be unconscious on a ventilator. And that has me very nervous.

I am trying to remind myself, as I do when I fly, that this is not a big deal. People have surgery every day. Indeed, people have much more dangerous surgeries all the time. My fear is not rational. I just need to relax, and it will be over soon. Twenty-four hours from now I will be recovering: watching movies, napping, and reading magazines. After a very busy semester, spending some time in bed recovering from surgery sounds delightful!

Poached Salmon with Truffles and Shrimp in Cream Sauce (Page 290)

RECIPE #1284

• Date: Saturday, October 15, 2011 -- 6pm
• Location: East Lansing, MI
• Kitchen: Our House
• Dining Companion: Matty
• Recipe Rating: B
  

I have been having trouble finding black winter truffles, and so I put off making this recipe for quite a while. The recipe indicates that fresh, jarred, or canned black winter truffles can be used, so against my better judgment I finally just ordered some jarred truffles online. I started preparing this dish by deveining shrimp, then cooking the shrimp (in their shells) in butter. I then shelled the shrimp. I put the shells and butter in a food processor, along with Cognac and water, and pureed until smooth. I then strained the mixture through a sieve. I sliced salmon fillets and curled them into circles, tying them with string to hold their shape. I cut slits in the salmon and put a strip of truffle in each slit. I seasoned the salmon and poached it in water and white wine. Meanwhile I started the sauce. I simmered white wine and shallots, then added cream and simmered longer. I strained the sauce through a sieve, then added minced truffles and the truffle juice from the jar and simmered. I whisked in some arrowroot and Cognac, then seasoned with salt and pepper. I added the shrimp to the sauce, as well as the shrimp butter (made from the shrimp shells). I seasoned the sauce then served it with the salmon.

This dish was OK. The sauce was very rich and flavorful. While the shrimp shells definitely added flavor to the sauce, the shrimp themselves didn't add much to the dish. Indeed I would have preferred the dish without them. The biggest disappointment, though, was with the truffles. The recipe indicated that jarred truffles were acceptable, and I purchased exactly what the recipe called for. However, the truffles weren't very flavorful and didn't contribute much to the dish. Incorporating fresh porcini mushrooms would have contributed a lot more flavor. I am sure that fresh truffles would have added tremendously to the dish, but my experience with jarred truffles wasn't positive. Overall the sauce was tasty and the dish as a whole was fine, but neither of us thought it was anything spectacular.

The recipe in The Book is very similar to this recipe.

Only 9 recipes left to go!

This was the last recipe I had left to make in the Fish and Shellfish section of The Book! Good seafood is one of the harder things to find in small towns in the Midwest (like those that I have lived in for the last four and a half years!), so there were many times when I thought I would never make it all the way through this section. But I did! I took every opportunity I could to buy and prepare seafood when we traveled to the coasts, and when we lived in Berkeley, California for four months in 2010 I instituted the All-Seafood-All-The-Time plan, which meant we basically ate nothing that didn't come from the sea! It all paid off because I made it through the 95 fish and shellfish recipes in this section. I didn't love them all, but there were definitely some wonderful stand-outs. In no particular order, my five favorite recipes from this section were:

• Oven-Poached Halibut in Olive Oil -- I used to say, "I don't like seafood," but this recipe made me stop saying it. This halibut was amazing! It's true, seafood in general isn't my favorite, but there are few things in life I would rather eat than this dish. It was so good, in fact, that it motivated me to choose halibut as one of the two entree options at our wedding dinner. This recipe was easy, and extremely delicious!
  
• Louisiana Crawfish Boil -- This recipe stands out in my mind both for being delicious and for being a wonderfully fun experience to make and serve. We ordered 20 pounds of live crawfish, boiled them up, and dumped them onto the porch table (along with potatoes, corn, etc...). We sat around the table with a dozen or so good friends and ate crawfish until the sun went down. The crawfish were tasty and the evening was absolutely lovely. My special gentleman has been asking ever since when our next crawfish boil will be!
• Clam, Potato, and Bacon Potpie -- I am a sucker for any recipe with the word "potpie" in it! I do love pastry... Nonetheless I wasn't looking forward to this one, as I dread any recipe with the word "clam" in it. I have to admit, though, this was a tasty dish. The clams weren't overpowering. The filling was rich and flavorful and the pastry was perfect. My special gentleman ate this for breakfast, lunch, and dinner until it was gone. Yum!
• Coulibiac -- This salmon wrapped in pastry was so very, very delicious. It will forever stand out in my mind as the ultimate comfort food. On a difficult day this fall my special gentleman pulled the leftovers of this dish out of the freezer and it was exactly what I needed. Warm, delicious, and supremely comforting! It was a time-consuming recipe to make, but worth it!
• Bluefish with Lemon Caper-Brown Butter Sauce -- I made this recipe way back in 2006 with the Wednesday dinner crew. I was in graduate school at the time and a group of us would get together on Wednesday nights and make a big meal from The Book. Bluefish isn't a particularly well-reputed type of seafood, but in this recipe it really shone. The brown butter sauce with capers was delicious and the fish was perfectly cooked. Yum!

I must admit, I grew frustrated at times with the seemingly endless seafood recipes -- there are really many more than just the 95 in this section as there are seafood recipes in the Soups section, the Salads section, the Hors D'Oeuvres and First Courses section, etc... But now that I am done with them all, I value the experience of having made them. I can now throw a live lobster into a pot of boiling water without flinching. I can shuck a clam no problem. And most importantly, I think I can now appreciate seafood more than I ever did before.

I have now finished 16 sections of The Book, with only 5 sections left to finish off! Crazy!!

It has been a sad time for our family these past few days. My grandfather died late last week. It's impossible to put into words what an amazing man he was. He was so much to so many people: a father, a teacher, a coach, a mentor... a grandpa. He accepted people for who they were, without judgment. He was truly an amazing grandparent and I am shocked and deeply, deeply saddened by his death. We went to Wisconsin over the weekend for his funeral, yet it still doesn't seem real to me. It makes me sad to post this blog update as he was a faithful follower of my blog, but he won't be sitting at his computer reading this tomorrow. He won't be at Christmas this year. He won't be at the Sheepshead table with family ever again. And I am overwhelmed by a sense of loss and a feeling that everything is going to be different. It is a sad time.

Coulibiac (Page 308)

RECIPE #1283

• Date: Saturday, September 24, 2011 -- 6pm
• Location: East Lansing, MI
• Kitchen: Our House
• Dining Companions: Matty, Helen, Charles, and Clara
• Recipe Rating: A
  

The Book describes this recipe as perfect for "weekend hobbyists." The description scared me off a bit. Indeed, the recipe is a bit time consuming (the 3 and a half hour active time is no joke) but worth it! That golden brown pastry shell that you see above was filled with salmon and a delicious mixture of rice and mushrooms. It was a beautiful, delicious dish! But I am getting ahead of myself. I started preparing this dish by poaching salmon steaks in a mixture of water, white wine, and salt. I refrigerated the poached salmon and reserved the poaching liquid. I then made the dough. I proofed the yeast then added melted butter, warm milk, eggs, sour cream, flour, and salt. I kneaded the dough then let it rise until it doubled in size. I then cooked rice in the reserved fish poaching liquid. I cooked onions in vegetable oil and butter, then cooked finely chopped mushrooms in a similar manner. I mixed the mushrooms, onions, and rice along with dill, parsley, sour cream, lemon juice, salt, and pepper. I then divided the dough into two pieces and rolled out one of them. I sprinkled it with bread crumbs, then spread it with rice mixture and topped the rice with the salmon. I topped the salmon with chopped hard-boiled eggs, and topped the eggs with more of the rice mixture. I then rolled out the second piece of dough and draped it over the filling. I pressed the edges to seal, cut some steam vents, and decorated with some cut-outs. I brushed the whole thing with egg wash, and baked it until it was golden brown. I then served slices of the dish drizzled with melted butter.

This dish was fantastic! The bread exterior was flavorful and texturally perfect. The salmon was also nice. What made the dish for me though was the rice mixture, which simply tasted great. It was perfectly seasoned, and the ingredients came together in a wonderful way. The dill was pronounced without being too strong. The rice itself was flavorful from being cooked in the poaching liquid. It was a wonderful complement to the fish and hard-boiled eggs. This dish claimed to serve 6, but it would easily serve 8. We froze the leftovers, and when we ate the last slice I was terribly sad to see it go. This wasn't a quick and simple dish but the effort was worth it. Yum!

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And suddenly, it is the middle of November. The semester is winding down (Only three and a half weeks of classes left!), the winter weather is slowly settling in, and I am left wondering, as always, where the time went! The last couple weeks, in particular, have flown by. Two weeks ago our friend John was visiting. He's a mathematician in my special gentleman's field, and he came here to give a couple talks. He stayed with us for most of a week and it was great fun. I like having mathematical visitors stay with us, but occasionally people come who are bad guests: high-maintenance, or unpleasant. John, on the other hand, is the best kind of guest: fun, easy-going, appreciative, self-sufficient, and willing to go with the flow. The three of us had a fun week: scary movies, hard work-outs, a basketball game, a dinner from The Book, etc...

This past week my special gentleman and I headed down to Virginia. We were each invited to give talks at the University of Virginia (in two different seminars) so we opted to go the same week and travel together. Our friends Mike and Tim live there, so we stayed with them, gave our talks, and worked with people in the department. I also had the opportunity to do a little cooking! Mike has participated in this project since the very beginning. The first recipe from The Book that I cooked with Mike was back in February 2006. We made Tomato Sauce. It wasn't very good, but we had a fun time making it. It was only the 39th recipe I made. Since then, the Project Index tells me that Mike has cooked and/or eaten 113 recipes from The Book with me! He has been a great supporter of this project all along, so it was wonderful to have the opportunity to cook and eat one of the last ten recipes from the project with him. As it turned out, the recipe wasn't so good. But that seemed only fitting. Mike is the only one of my friends who often says things like, "Let's cook something from The Book! Pick something that sounds gross!" It's true, he likes the culinary adventure of trying the questionable recipes. Some of them have turned out wonderfully and some of them have not (Fig Pudding comes to mind). We always have fun though! In this case, it was especially wonderful to be able to make the last seafood recipe while in a town where a variety of seafood is abundantly available (unlike here in East Lansing!). One trip to the Whole Foods a few miles from Mike's house and I found everything I needed! So my trip to Virginia was not only research productive but also productive for my project. Multi-tasking!

Now my special gentleman and I are back at home. No visitors this week. My special gentleman and I are each making short (separate) trips to Canada in the next week or so to give talks, but other than that we are in town until Thanksgiving! I'm not sure I am quite ready for the craziness of the holiday season yet, but I am starting to feel more prepared. One of my absolute favorite times of the year is the few days between when finals end and when we head to Wisconsin/Ohio for the holidays. I love going to see our families, of course, but in those few days we spend at home before we leave I work by the fireplace, bake cookies, write Christmas cards, drink hot chocolate. It is an absolutely lovely way to start the winter break. I look forward to that time every year. It's hard to believe it is only about a month away!

Scallop Mousse with Ginger-Infused Veloute (Page 74)

RECIPE #1282

• Date: Saturday, September 24, 2011 -- 6pm
• Location: East Lansing, MI
• Kitchen: Our House
• Fellow Chef: Helen
  
• Dining Companions: Matty, Charles, and Clara
• Recipe Rating: B
  

I had a free Saturday in September and I decided to do some serious cooking. I picked two time-consuming recipes from The Book (this one and another) and invited Helen, Charles, and Clara over to share in the fruits of my labor. I started this recipe by cooking leeks, shallots, fennel bulb, carrot, celery, star anise, and ginger in butter. I added some white wine and reduced, then added fish stock and reduced again. I added heavy cream, salt, pepper, chives, parsley, cilantro, and tarragon, and let the herbs steep. I strained the sauce, then added ginger matchsticks and reduced it again. I seasoned the sauce with lemon juice, salt, and pepper. While all that was going on, I also made the scallop mousse. I pureed scallops, egg white, salt, and white pepper in the food processor, then added cream and processed it some more. I divided the mixture amongst ramekins, which had been buttered and lined with waxed paper. I put the ramekins in a baking pan with boiling water coming halfway up the sides of the ramekins. I baked them until a toothpick came out clean. I inverted each mousse onto paper towels, then a plate. Helen helped me sauce them, and sprinkle them with herbs before serving.

I put off making this recipe for a long time because pureed seafood products really don't appeal to me. So the word "scallop" next to the word "mousse" set off red flags for me. However, this dish wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it would be. The sauce had an excellent flavor. There was a lot of depth to it, which wasn't terribly surprising given all the additions and reductions that went into it. The flavor of the mousse was ok too -- a little bit too much like scallop-flavored whipped cream for my taste, but it wasn't bad. No one had any major complaints about this dish. My special gentleman said he would have rather just eaten a seared scallop with the yummy sauce rather than the scallop mousse, but there was not consensus at the table on that point. Although the dish exceeded expectations, I won't be making it again. No one was terribly wowed by it.

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This was the last recipe in the Hors D'oeuvres and First Courses section of The Book! This is one of the longest sections of The Book, with 110 recipes in it. There were definitely times when I felt like I would never make it through this section. But here I am! The section is complete. Below, in no particular order, are my favorite five recipes from this part of The Book:

• Sweet Potato Chips with Lime Salt -- It's hard to go wrong with deep-fried potato products, but these chips were exceptionally delicious even within that genre. The lime salt was a wonderful complement to these ultra-thin chips. So very, very delicious!
• Parmesan Walnut Salad in Endive Leaves -- Despite what my dear friend Mike says, I am happy to admit when my grading of a recipe was wrong. In this case, I clearly made a mistake by giving this recipe an A- when it truly deserved an A. This is a beautiful, delicious hors d'oeurve which I come back to again and again. I have made this dish for several baby showers, bridal luncheons, Easter dinners, department parties, etc. I passed this recipe on to my mother-in-law, and now she makes it for special events too. It is super simple to throw together and super delicious. Definitely worthy of an A!
• Arepas with Yucatecan Pulled Pork and Pickled Onions - These little cheesy corn cakes topped with pulled pork and pickled onions were out of this world! I made these and another appetizer when we had our crawfish boil last year and these just flew off the plate. Absolutely delicious!
• Coconut Shrimp with Tamarind Ginger Sauce -- Seafood is not my favorite, and shrimp is certainly not something I usually crave. But these coconut shrimp were amazing! The breading was awesome, they were perfectly fried, and the dipping sauce complemented them wonderfully. Easily the best coconut shrimp I have ever eaten. I made these for New Year's Eve at my in-laws house, and everyone loved them!
• Candied Walnuts -- I made these walnuts for a Tuesday dinner back in graduate school. They were fantastic! I love the sweetness and crunch of good candied nuts. The combination of powdered sugar, cayenne, and salt really worked well with the walnuts. And deep-frying made them extra crispy. Yum!

There have been sections of The Book where it has been difficult to identify five truly outstanding recipes. In this section, however, I had the opposite problem. There are so many delicious recipes in this section that several things I make frequently (like Pita Toasts and Cheese Straws) didn't even make my top five list! It was tremendous fun to make the wide variety of hors d'oeuvres and first courses in this section. And although some didn't turn out so well (the Scallion, Mushroom, and Shrimp Custards come to mind), for the most part they were very tasty!

And now I am one step closer to finishing the project! I have now completed 15 sections of The Book, with only 6 left to finish! And truth be told, I am a little behind in my blogging but I have already finished another section. So really I only have 5 sections left to go! I can hardly believe it.

Lobster Newburg (Page 340)

RECIPE #1281

• Date: Monday, September 5, 2011 -- 12pm
  
• Location: East Lansing, MI
• Kitchen: Our House
• Fellow Chef: Matty
• Dining Companion: Helen
• Recipe Rating: A-
  

I put off making this recipe for a long time because it just didn't sound good to me. Lobster is already so rich that lobster plus heavy cream plus butter plus egg yolks just sounded excessive. But we figured that we would be decadent on Labor Day and eat super-rich lobster for lunch. As it turned out, I was wrong about this recipe. This was by FAR the best lobster recipe in The Book. And although I am not, in general, a huge lobster fan, even I agreed that it was tasty. I started by boiling some live lobsters. Then my special gentleman split them and removed the meat. I simmered some cream, then cooked sliced mushrooms in butter. I added the lobster meat, paprika, salt, pepper, sherry, and hot cream to the mushrooms. I then slowly cooked a mixture of egg yolks, more sherry, and more hot cream to 160 degrees. I added the custard sauce to the lobster mixture and spooned it into the cleaned lobster shells. I broiled the the dish until golden. In a word: Yum! Yes, it was rich, but it didn't feel as excessive as I had imagined it would. The mushrooms were excellent with the lobster, and the cream sauce had a lovely consistency and flavor. The sherry and paprika complemented one another nicely. My special gentleman always applies the Better-Than-Butter test to lobster recipes and generally they fail. Most preparations he finds to be inferior to just serving the lobster with melted butter. In the case of this recipe though, it passed his test with flying colors. He admitted that yes, this dish was Better-Than-Butter!

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Happy Halloween! Life has been so crazy lately that this holiday seriously snuck up on me. I did manage to get my shit together enough to buy candy, but that was about the extent of my Halloween effort this year. It's a shame because I love pumpkin carving and toasting pumpkin seeds, but alas, I didn't get around to it.

The busyness of late has mostly been fun stuff though. My mom was visiting last week, which was great. Then yesterday my special gentleman and I hosted what the university calls a Fireside Chat. It's a program where faculty host some college freshman from the honors college at their home for dinner. We hadn't hosted one before, and we weren't exactly sure how it would go, but it was fun. We had eight undergraduates for dinner, one of whom is in my Calc 3 class, but the other 7 I had never met before. My special gentleman and I made beef braised in red wine, mashed sweet potatoes with caramelized onions, green beans with almonds, goat cheese biscuits, salad, puff pastry cheese straws, and flourless chocolate cake with raspberry sauce. The students seemed appreciative to have some home cooked food and an evening away from campus.

It was interesting to listen to them talk about college life. I talk to undergraduates all the time of course, but I don't often get to listen to them talk to one another for several hours. After they left my special gentleman turned to me and said, "That made me feel old." I understood the sentiment. They used a lot of vocabulary I had never heard before (blinky cup?). And at one point a student said in disbelief, "Who does homework on the weekend?" I thought to myself, "Your professors," as it is rare that a weekend day goes by when I don't work. But that was true in college too. I did tons of work on the weekends. Everyone did. Apparently that is not the case any more (at least not here anyway).

College seems different now than it used to be. As an undergrad, I rarely knew anything about the professor before the first day of class, unless I happened to have had a course with him or her before. Now students are extremely well-informed. They have easy access to not only student reviews of faculty members, but often also to past exams and grade distributions from previous semesters. Some consequently have very strong opinions about which professors they want for which courses, and who they are certain to avoid. In general access to information is a good thing, but it's amazing the sort of personal attacks students will make against professors on the internet. I have been fortunate enough to never have read anything particularly offensive about myself, but I have friends who have been really affected by nasty student comments. And once those comments are out there on the internet, they are there for anyone to read.

It seems more and more that university education is viewed as a service industry. Students pay a lot of money and they expect excellent teaching, which seems reasonable enough. Some also expect high grades in exchange for their tuition. That seems less reasonable. It's very different than the way I thought of college when I was in school.

All that said, the students we had over for dinner last night were lovely, and certainly none of them were trash talking their professors (at least in front of us!). Spending time with them just got me thinking about how the culture of college has changed in the 10 years or so since I graduated. I guess I am getting old!

Happy Halloween!

Boiled Lobster with Tarragon Vermouth Sauce (Page 337)

RECIPE #1280

• Date: Friday, August 26, 2011 -- 6pm
• Location: East Lansing, MI
• Kitchen: Our House
• Fellow Chef: Matty
• Dining Companions: Dave and Karen H.
  
• Recipe Rating: B
  

My in-laws came to visit in August, and since they enjoy lobster I took the opportunity to make this recipe! This lobster preparation was pretty simple. I boiled some live lobsters in salted water. Meanwhile, I made the sauce. I whisked together vermouth, tarragon white wine vinegar, and egg yolks. Then I set the bowl over a saucepan of boiling water and cooked the sauce, whisking. I added melted butter, salt, and pepper, and my special gentleman continued to cook and whisk the mixture until it reached 160 degrees. I stirred lemon juice and chopped fresh tarragon into the sauce. My special gentleman then halved the lobsters. We drizzled some sauce over the lobster halves and served the rest of the sauce on the side. This dish was pretty tasty. The sauce had a good flavor. The tarragon came through clearly and the vermouth added a nice note to it. My special gentleman always says that the problem with lobster dishes is that it is hard to create anything that is better than butter. Indeed, this dish failed his Better-Than-Butter test. It was good, but the lobster would have been even better just served with some melted butter. So would I make this again? Well, no. But I also don't really have any complaints about it. It tasted fine. It just wasn't better than butter.

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I haven't written in ages. This semester is absolutely flying by. I can hardly believe that this coming week is week 8 of classes. I am only teaching one course this term: Calculus 3. I like teaching. Occasionally I have had classes that were unpleasant, but for the most part teaching is very enjoyable. This semester, though, my students are an absolute delight. There are 41 of them, and I can honestly say that not one of them has been difficult to deal with, or unpleasant, or unreasonable. On the contrary, they are friendly, hard-working, and respectful. Hands down the best classroom of students I have ever had. Seven of them are also doing an honors option for the course, which means that in addition to the usual coursework, they also do projects outside of class on mathematical topics that may or may not be related to calculus. This semester I have students doing projects on Knot Theory, Game Theory, The Life and Work of Euler, Financial Mathematics, The Calculus of Tumors, and Proofs from Calculus. So I see those seven students frequently in my office, and we talk about a wide variety of mathematical topics. It's fun. There is also a group of 3 students who do their homework in my office during my office hours every week, so I have gotten to know them pretty well too. A lot of other students come by for occasional help as well, so I know quite a few of the students outside of class.

I really just enjoy this classroom of students. I am sure they have no sense of what it is like to be a professor, and what a big difference the attitude of the class can make in the professor's enjoyment of their job. So they likely have no idea how delightful they are. Yet I often feel like they are giving me a gift by being so diligent and easy to teach. I am very thankful for this class.

I have had a few health issues this term, and I need to have minor surgery in a couple months. None of it is dangerous or related to my brain tumor, and I feeling fine now, but for a while I was going in for a lot of early morning doctor's appointments and lab tests. And under those circumstances, I would have imagined that teaching my 9am class would have been stressful and unpleasant. But it has been quite the contrary. My interactions with my students have cheered me up on some personally challenging days. That is the sign of an excellent classroom of undergraduates.

Other aspects of this semester have been good too. I have been traveling to give talks, and will continue to do so in the upcoming months. Research is going smoothly. And now that I am feeling better my special gentleman and I recently started a serious exercise regime to kick our butts back into shape (Well, my butt really. He's always in shape.). We are doing intense 60-90 minute work-outs 6-7 days a week. It's insane. We are usually pretty busy, so on several occasions already this has resulted in us working out at midnight, drenched in sweat. It has been great though. I am feeling stronger and healthier than I have in a long time.

Fall is here in full force now and it is hard not to think that Thanksgiving and Christmas are right around the corner. And before I know what happened, I will be back from Christmas break and it will be a new semester, with different classes and new students. I wish that this term would slow down a bit though. It's a nice semester.

Salmon with Horseradish Crust, Cucumbers, and Salmon Caviar (Page 307)

RECIPE #1279

• Date: Thursday, August 25, 2011 -- 7pm
• Location: East Lansing, MI
• Kitchen: Our House
• Dining Companions: Matty, Karen H, and Dave
• Recipe Rating: B+

My in-laws came to visit last month, and I took the opportunity to make a couple recipes from The Book. This was one of them! I started by making a horseradish paste. I pureed horseradish and smoked salmon in the food processor. I added butter, mustard, cayenne, and fresh bread crumbs and blended. I seasoned the mixture with sea salt, then refrigerated it for a couple hours to allow the flavors to develop. Meanwhile, I peeled, halved, seeded, and sliced some seedless cucumbers (why they are called seedless when they still have seeds is beyond me!). I tossed the cucumbers with sea salt and drained them in a sieve for a couple hours. I seasoned pieces of salmon fillet with sea salt and pepper, then seared them on one side. I transferred them, seared side down, to a baking pan, then spread the horseradish mixture over each fillet. I sprinkled toasted bread crumbs on top. I then broiled the salmon until just cooked through. I warmed the cucumbers in creme fraiche. I served the salmon on top of the cucumber mixture. To garnish I sprinkled the dish with parsley, dill, chives, and celery leaves and placed some salmon caviar around the plate. This dish was quite good. The salmon was nicely cooked, and the horseradish spread had a lot of flavor to it. It had the bite of the horseradish of course, but also a nice kick from the cayenne. And the smoked salmon that was pureed into it gave it a subtle smokiness that went well with the dish. I had two minor complaints about this dish. One was textural. I didn't care so much for the pasty texture of the horseradish topping. Also, the breadcrumbs on top didn't get as crispy and delicious as one might have hoped. The ratio of horseradish paste to crispy breadcrumbs was too high. My other complaint was that I didn't love the cucumbers. Heating a mixture of cucumbers and creme fraiche sounded like a bad idea to me. While it turned out to be more appealing than I had imagined, I still think the dish would have been better without warm, creamy cucumbers. All that said, the salmon was very tasty, and everyone seemed to enjoy it.

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The last few weeks have been a blur. The semester is in full swing, which means life is hectic (in a good way!). Two weekends ago I flew out to Rhode Island for a couple days to give a talk at a conference at Brown University. It was a large conference (300+ registered participants) with 18 different special sessions, including one in Homotopy Theory (my field!). The unusual thing about this conference was that all of the many speakers were women! It was a celebration of women in math, marking the 40th anniversary of the Association for Women in Mathematics. There were a few men in the audience, but the vast majority of participants were women. It was an amazing sight. I had an absolutely wonderful time hanging out with the women in my field and also seeing women I know from graduate school, etc that are in other fields. There were 8 women speaking in the special session that I was a part of: 4 who are tenure-track Assistant Professors, and 4 post-docs. I really like all of them and it was wonderful to talk to the other tenure-track women about their experiences, and to pass on whatever wisdom we had gathered to the post-docs! We gave talks. We drank beer. We talked about math, and work, and other things. It was the most fun I have had at a conference in a long time. It was also the first time I have ever waited in line to use the ladies restroom at a math conference!

I heard a lot of beautiful talks over those two days, both in special sessions and plenary talks. But as I was listening to them, I noticed a disturbing pattern. A huge percentage of the speakers made a number of apologies or other self-deprecating comments throughout their talks. These negative comments (about their work, or their talk...) seemed crazy to me, as the people making the comments were accomplished women giving beautiful expositions of their work. For instance, one woman, in explaining her important research, said several times, "Sorry, these results might not be very interesting to anyone except me." It got me wondering, why do women tend to apologize for themselves? Someone advised me early on that I should never apologize. (Note: This was a piece of professional advice. It does not apply so well to say, one's marriage!) I wish I remember who said that to me, because it is a piece of advice that I carry with me every time I give a talk, or teach a class. I try not to ever say anything self-deprecating while giving a talk. I don't apologize for myself. This is not a gender-specific piece of advice. I think it is important for everyone to not put themselves down while making professional presentations. It seems, however, that women are more likely to do it. I have been thinking about this a lot lately, and I was delighted to find that I am not the only one, when I read this blog post this morning.

The conference was thought-provoking and inspiring in may ways. I certainly have never been in a room with so many female mathematicians! There was even singing (no, I am not in the video!). I hope that I get to participate in such a gathering again!