i want to be the berkeley bowl when i grow up

When I grow up, I want to be the Berkeley Bowl - the produce section. I want to give people the beauty and deliciousness of fruit and vegetables and fungi. When I see the rich reds of the pluots and the island of mangoes, I feel like I'm in heaven. So I want to be this heaven, of ten - ten! - different kinds of pluots, a whole row of varied heirloom tomatoes, four kinds of limes, endless apples, banana blossoms, hawaiian plantains, jujubees, chickpeas in the pod, black velvet apricots, mango nectarines, purple carrots, and kumquats!... I will be so bountiful and bring joy to so many. I haven't had a real dream for the future in a long while, but today I realized that when I grow up, I want to be the Berkeley Bowl.

California sunset

Cambria, California. A few minutes ago.

Truffle attempt - 4th of July at home

Hello from UCLA! (and now, belatedly, New York)

Instead of making a 5th pie, I wanted to make something very chocolaty for my dad.  Cake was too intense after making so many pies, which left truffles.  I've only attempted them once, with help, using the Bittmann recipe in the NYTimes
(there's a video; it's insanely easy).

But I thought I'd try a variant I saw in the Tartine cookbook (now in my possession! I, uh, am an Indian giver (no offense to native americans))
The recipe:
It calls for adding in unsalted butter along with the melted Valrhona chocolate and cream.  As usual, chopping the chocolate isn't easy, but it much better after a few dozen seconds on the microwave.  Here's a shot of the mixing:
After this, I divided the bounty into three batches, one for plain dark chocolate truffles, one to add in strips of candied ginger, and another for cardamom.  Then the bowls went into the fridge to solidify a bit before forming the balls.  But they came out as solid chunks, which that is not supposed to happen.  I blame the butter for hardening the ganache too much.  So I gave up.  Until the morning I needed to go to the airport, that is - ganache into the microwave, and then into balls, to be rolled in cocoa.  I only made a few, and didn't get any pics.

I think I convinced someone at home to finish them for me, because I eventually got a pic of the final product:  looks mmm chocolaty.  Think there was too much cardamom in that batch, but ah well.  Next time more interesting flavors, and possibly liquid centers?  And maybe no butter in the ganache - though at room temperature, this recipe may have held up better than the simple recipe, if only I'd have taken them out of the fridge sooner.  It would be good to compare the flavor of the variant recipes as well, because the Tartine book argues that the butter adds something more than unfortunate solidity.  Luckily I wasn't there to eat them, because they're so addictive (see: Trader Joe's truffle box, 2007).

Fourth of July pies

Over the fourth of July weekend, I was back home for a week in Nebraska. I started making pies and crust and just couldn't stop. I almost abandoned the record-breaking quest for five pies in five days, but a little encouragement pushed me beyond my cop-out truffle production to throw together a pumpkin pie at the last minute. Two of these made up my main contributions to the fireworks extravaganza, as post-show rewards.

July 4th: Strawberry rhubarb
The rhubarb was imported to Nebraska from my local grocery store in nyc - brilliant red stuff. Rhubarb at home had already flowered and were green and likely pretty tough. The success here was the crust, which was very easy to handle; the method and the ode to Tartine's recipe deserves its own post later. Pie verdict: definitely runny, and the rhubarb was a bit too chunky. It was really good, but not exactly the consistency I'm looking for - perhaps the rhubarb needs to be cooked a bit before baking, as in some recipes.


July 5th: Hand-picked cherry
Our old cherry tree at home was ripe to be picked. So for the first time in maybe eight years I found myself in hot sun inside poking branches, reaching precariously for cherries. I got a few gallons of fruit off of it, some of which went into the pie. It's insanely easy to make, but I didn't get the thickener balance right here either so the final product was a bit soupy. Delicious!

July 6th: Bourbon pecan
By now, this is my standard pie - roasted pecans combined with absurd amounts of corn syrup, some sugar, maple syrup, and eggs, and of course a generous amount of whiskey. Plus some orange zest. Even though the pre-baking of the crust was abandoned after huge balooning, the final product was pretty good. Not my best, but who can complain about lots of sugary custard and nuts?

July 7th: Blueberry-boysenberry
Blueberries weren't as cheap in Nebraska as they were in nyc (3 pints/$5!), but my blueberry enthusiasm carried over enough that someone got a few pints for me. And there was a lot of huge frozen boysenberries in the freezer. Along with a trusty berry pie-making table in a cookbook at home (x berries -> y amount of thickener) it was quite easy to make. And I even got a little creative with the top, though I haven't succeeded in closing the sides, as you can see... but I like how it gives the excess space to bubble out without mucking up the top. The finished product was gorgeously solid and mmm so good. I'd make another right now, if it wasn't so hot in our non-AC kitchen.

July 8th: Pumpkin

This was a last-minute pumpkin pie, thrown together with leftover dough and a new recipe from the Tartine cookbook. On the day before flying back to nyc, I was going to quit the run of pies, except my brother expressed a surprising preference for pumpkin (surprising because his preferences rarely extend beyond explosives). I like to make my pumpkin pies by making caramelizing the sugar and cream, but that is of course really time-consuming. Finished product: definitely passable pumpkin pie.

Needless to say, everyone ate really well that week.

berkeley campanile carillon

Keeping with the video posts lately, here is a brief recording of Berkeley's Campanile carillon playing The Beatles' "Hey Jude," recorded during my trip to the Bay for the Cognitive Neuroscience conference this April. It was a really beautiful day in Berkeley, starting on the steps of the Campanile and ending, of course, at the Bowl. I have great memories of the carillon concerts at Berkeley - especially the pieces I recognize. The Beatles are a bit out of the ordinary - see this one, and the carillonist here - but I remember some Satie in particular.




I'll be in California again soon (yes, southern), eventually driving up the 1 to Berkeley, SF, and the Peninsula.

Reading: Robert Musil, The Man Without Qualities, Volume I: A Sort of Introduction and Pseudoreality Prevails

Fireflies

My first night back home, the fireflies were out like I've never seen before. Here is an attempt at capturing them on video (with music taken from John Adam's Grand Pianola Music).




and here:



and here and here as well. Like the brief flash of human consciousness...

Olympic swim trials!

Pictures and notes coming. Last night we went to the evening semifinals and finals at the Olympic swim trials. I was just as mesmerized by the dropping water screen as the swimming.







Patriotic audio version dubbed over with Four Tet, "Les Soucoupes Volantes Vertes."