My turn has come.

If the one thing in the world you do not eat is tapioca, why did you order the coconut TAPIOCA brulee?

Learning

A well-floured couche. Tee hee.

Mini epis. A couple of baguettes. A lonely batard.

Playing with baguette dough. I am no baker. But it doesn't mean I don't wanna be.

Mater Pies

I still don't like tomatoes. I envy all you who do. There is just something about the taste that flips my stomach. Yet I find them beautiful, gorgeous.

Heirlooms are everywhere in the kitchen. I even grew some myself this year. This led to my interest in tomato pie. I asked The Exec a couple weeks back if I could provide him some pies for a side or an app or a salad. He said--and I paraphrase--"Sure, make it with bleu cheese and sofrito, and I will find a use for it ."

I made my usual cornmeal galette dough, but I subbed out a good portion of the butter for our house rendered lard and Greek yogurt for the sour cream. 86'd 2 of the 3 ounces of sugar in the dough. The next day I prepped my tomatoes, pulled out the sofrito, chopped up some basil, beat together 1 part bleu and 1 part Duke's, and rolled out my dough. I was going for a galette instead of the traditional pie. Lots of crust and lots of mater.

The Exec puts a slab of pie with a pork chop. I even tried a bite of the pie. How could I recommend you come in and sample it otherwise?

Mater Pies In Progress

Mater slices drying a little.

Pre baked.

Baked

Look at those layers. Thank you, Lard!

A slice.

Figs in Syrup

One of our servers has a huge fig tree. He picks them and bring them in to us. I preserved about 6 qts of them in a 2 parts sugar: 1 part water syrup with some thinly sliced lemons. Beautiful.

I also made a fig mostarda. This is a recipe I would definitely utilize with other fruit in the future. A nice accompaniment to a certain someone's charcuterie.

Sorbet Kick

I have been on a sorbet kick this summer. It is hot outside. Give me something cool, refreshing, and non-dairy based.

I ran a cucumber sorbet special earlier in the season. The fellow who supplies the wood for our grill likes to bestow vegetal tokens as well. He brought me a seam bursting bag of cukes from a farmer friend of his on John's Island. I though immediately that they were destined to become pickles. But pickles we didn't need at work and I didn't have time to do the job at home. Then my mind turned to sorbet. I did my usual quick interent search and came up with three or four mostly savory recipes. After a little compiling and figuring, I conjured up with my version. Accompanying the sorbet was a cantaloupe soup, pickled cantaloupe, Greek Yogurt, and some edible flowers that the Chef's Garden sent us gratis. (Edible flowers usually aren't my thing, but free and gorgeous do fit my MO.) Oh, and tiny little peppermint leaves that I grew myself.





Cucumber sorbet seemed a little much for our current clientele. Seemed pretty straightforward to me. Add a dessert "soup," which is just a chilled puree in this case, and the over-their-heads component seems to overwhelm some folks. What would people do if I went all Sam Mason and Johnny Iuzzini on their asses?


I conceded and left this one as a special. But I still hankered for a light, cold dessert to add to the menu. After local cantaloupes started coming in the door, I switched to using those as my sorbet base. 86'd the soup and the pickles. I stayed with the Greek yogurt and threw in a mixture of all the berries on our menu. I kept thinking of this as a better version of that lame fruit salad you get as a side at so many casual, lunchy places. We finish her off with cubes of cantaloupe compressed with elderflower liqueur.


Light, refreshing, local . . . simple.