Bacon Coffee

There is now bacon coffee. Wow.

At first, the combination doesn’t sound too appealing. But immediately afterward, the culinary student in me says, “Why not? In other countries, coffee is used in meat marinades all the time.” I *have* to be sure to check this place out when I go to San Francisco. (Yes that’s right, I’m already sort of planning a trip!)

Pirate Radio Café
2781 21st St
(at Florida)
Mission
San Francisco, CA 94110
415-571-1911
http://www.piratecatcafe.com/menu.php

Wednesday…

It’s about that time of the week when plain old coffee just doesn’t do it anymore.

Now, you need something that has your familiar jolt of caffeine, but a little unexpected zing is in order too.

And that’s when we cue the bacon.

Say hello to the Maple Bacon Latte—a double espresso latte spiked with organic maple syrup and homemade bacon, sprinkled with Bac-Os—available now at Pirate Radio Café.

Think of this concoction as the Canadian Mountie of coffee drinks. It’s a beautiful marriage of two culinary powerhouses: De La Paz espresso beans and organic Prather Ranch bacon—providing an extra kick that’ll help you sail into the weekend.

While some might say that bacon has had its moment, it’s hard to deny this beloved smoked meat’s continued encroachment on the food world. Upon first sip, you’ll notice you’re drinking a creamier, smokier latte thanks to the homemade organic bacon and bacon-fat mixture that’s whisked into the milk and maple syrup, then poured over the double shots of espresso.

If you really want to go all the way, you can opt for the vegan maple bacon doughnut that’s custom-made daily by Peoples Donuts to complement the latte.

But that’s sort of like ordering a Diet Coke at McDonald’s.

Original post:
http://www.urbandaddy.com/sfo/food/5428/Pirate_Radio_Caf_Your_New_Drinkable_Bacon_San_Francisco_SFO_Mission_Restaurant

Raspberry Hazelnut Petit Fours

Genoise rounds with ground hazelnuts and Frangelico, Bavarian cream with fresh raspberries and Chambord, topped or ringed with fresh raspberries and chocolate mint leaves. The minis are for an event tomorrow afternoon, for a dessert table display. The “pretty” one is the chef taster. It’s usually the prettiest since I make it slightly bigger and have more time to play around with a single plating than I do trays of others. ^_^

News from Nottoway

Today I had a nice little sit down with the Chef near the end of my work shift. He’s pushing to really get the production rolling on the new bakery/cafe, which is understandable… the fire marshal has given the go-ahead and basically as soon as I can get product in there, we can start it up.

I’ve also been tasked with adding on some staple desserts to the lunch and dinner menus, probably three or four “basic” ones to start off. We can’t scare off the customers with my crazy experiments right away. ^_^ Have to reel them in with the comforting classics and then wham bam dazzle them with the “wow I never would have thought to do that but it’s AWESOME” desserts. My coworker has one of the desserts ready to go for that application, and it’s pretty amazing: pine nut shortbread, sour cream chantilly, and vanilla-caramel baked Granny Smith apples. Now I just need to think up a few more.

And on top of that, I need to organize a dessert tasting of things that will be in the bakery and restaurant on the menus… for the owners. I’m sure I should feel pressured about that, or in some way daunted, but I don’t. I’m more excited than anything. I want them to be confident in my abilities and feel happy to have me there, since I’m growing more and more comfortable and excited with going to work each day. It’s like the more responsibility they give me, the better off I feel. I’ve even taken it upon myself to redesign the typography and layout of the lunch and dinner menus for them, just to jazz it up a little and maybe bring the menu appearance itself up to the level of the food. I’m going to have fun making the dessert tasting menu card, I think. (font nerd)

In the middle of the talking, Chef goes something like “I’ve tasted your food enough to know you know what you’re doing. Now we just need to show them.” He doesn’t give compliments out lightly so it meant a lot to me for him to say something like that. Just the occasional reminder that he’s liking what I do there is a huge motivation to take everything even one step further. “Do a good job, and maybe you get something on your jacket.” A title perhaps? Oh yay! If that isn’t incentive, I don’t know what is.

The Imminent Garden

My dad is making a garden this summer and asked me what I might want him to plant in there. I’m not sure what all he has planned but I do recall something about heirloom tomatoes. I sort of forgot about giving him a short list of things to plant until today, when I was in Whole Foods and saw their seeds selection. I’m pretty excited about the garden being there when I go home to visit, as long as the deer don’t eat it all up. I also feel kind of bad he’ll be doing most of the work, but at least I’ll cook the produce to make up for it.

The haul:
* Bronze Arrow Lettuce (heirloom)
* Rainbow Inca Sweet Corn
The purveyor page says the corn increases in color as it ages and makes a superb corn flour. I wonder how the color will hold up once baked… like in a sweetened polenta cake almost. Possibilities!
* Chioggia Beet (heirloom)
I was thinking these were candystripe beets but the site refers to them as “bull’s eye” instead. Either way they’re mild and sweet and I could probably candy a few slices to top some cupcakes or other dessert in which I use beet sugar as a sweetener. Bet that would be pretty! Or even make them into chips with taro root and purple potatoes… yum!
* Scotland Leek (heirloom)
Click the names for the product page, and the pretty pictures! Part of the reason I chose most of those is the striking visual appearance.

Good stuff, eh? I’ll probably end up buying another packet or two, or a fresh herb or two, each time I’m gonna go home to visit. Pretty soon they’ll have a whole grocery store in the yard!

San Diego

Today my plans for the San Diego trip are finalized. I get to stay in a hotel on the bay (probably not with a bay view, with my luck) right by the Gaslamp Disctrict. I hear it’s a great area for bars so I’m hoping with all that night life there will be some really interesting restaurants around.

I need to find bakeries, restaurants, farmer’s markets, and other foodie attractions to fill the five days that I’ll be there. If you’re reading this and you know me, you know how to get in touch with me with suggestions; if you don’t, there’s always a comment box here. Please, indulge my curiosity! ^_^

Edit: I’m keeping track of some places I want to visit in links all the way at the bottom of the site (Eateries to Visit: San Diego category). Yay me for being smart and using the blog to its fullest!

Bakery & Bookery

Just a quick update while I get back in the swing of things.

I had a meeting with the chefs at work today, and all the aforementioned talk of “oh we’ll consult each other about what’s going into the new bakery/cafe and tell you when you start production” has seemingly turned into “So what do you want to do in the bakery? Good idea. GREAT ideas, I like it! Bring me recipes!” It would seem I’ve just gotten a chunk more responsibility for when the bakery opens… and I like it! XD If I’m going to be doing all that work making mass quantities of sugary goodies, it may as well be something I’m excited about.

Also, I got three new books today. Yes, I splurged… just a little.

Chocolates and Confections by Peter P. Greweling
New Flavors for Desserts by Raquel Pelzel
Paris Sweets by Dorie Greenspan

I’ve yet to look through the latter two but I’ve browsed about halfway through the first. It’s completely amazing. The first 100 pages are all theory, technique, science, ingredient education, etc, and is well worth buying the book alone. The remaining nearly 300 pages have such delicious little confections in them, it’ll have your mouth watering in no time. Most of them have pictures (love!), and there is even taffy, hard candy, and things I’ve *never* seen before. I already have handfuls of ideas for the bakery, just from this book!

Oh and you know those little orange and lime and lemon segment candies, not the wedge ones, but the ones that look like actual slices with pith and zest and everything on them? I ADORE those… and there is a recipe in the book for them. =O That was what ultimately sold that book for me!

Orleans Mocha Tarts

Pastry cream flavored with chocolate and coffee extracts, topped with mocha ganache, and decorated with Fleur de Lis pie crust cutouts. (Yes I actually sat there with a paring knife and cut those out by hand!) This was my first time making pie crust by hand and from scratch, and it’s *so* much better than storebought.

Uncle Louie’s Cookbook

My Great Uncle Louie was a fantastic baker. A full-blooded Sicilian, he used to have his pick of bakeries to work at in and around New York. No one ever knew his recipes besides himself, and those recipes were good. The idea of keeping a recipe secret and to yourself, yet toiling away day in and day out in someone else’s shop, is strange to me with hat I know of how bakeries work today. Perhaps things worked differently then, or it might have just been the area. Perhaps my Great Uncle was just that good.

He would send us boxes of cookies throughout the year, especially around holidays if he wouldn’t be able to make it down to visit. Each little cookie was a marvel of Italian pastrywork: crumbly, buttery, fruity, sweet, delicious. There was an array of them, too… a little something for everyone. I most clearly remember the pink, green, and white Neapolitans: pastel, edible versions of the Italian flag. I also remember some sort of chocolate shortbread, and vaguely an almond biscotti. But I’m told by aunts and mawmaw that there were also thumbprints filled with strawberry or maybe cherry jam, glistening in the middle of that sweet-dough well; a fig-filled cookie that I didn’t get much detail on but probably far surmounts any store-bought Fig Newton; and an oblong cookie with sesame seeds scattered about its surface.

When Uncle Louie passed away a few years ago, those recipes may have been lost with him. For years people had asked him to write them down, either to give to them or just preserve the tradition for future generations. For years he said he didn’t need to, that they were all “right up here,” with a tap to the forehead.

Now I have uncles and cousins and aunts contacting each other, trying to track down that cookbook so the recipes can continue to live on through at least one more generation of bakers. I’ll have to send something special and delicious to everyone involved to show my appreciation for their efforts. A thank-you note scented with cookies from nearly-lost recipes tucked into the same package would be nice, and perhaps a handpicked mix of mulling spices for this wintry time of year. I could only imagine how wonderful some homemade lemon curd would be to spread on some of those cookies as well. Looks like I’ll be busy after the holidays.

Jack Skellington Cupcakes

I have a friend whose birthday is on Halloween, lucky girl. This is the first year I’ve gotten to celebrate it with her, having just met her a few months ago, and she asked me to make her some Halloween/birthday cupakes. She’s a huge fan of Tim Burton’s Nightmare Before Christmas and wanted some of the design to revolve around that. I ended up not having as much time as I’d have liked to make and decorate them, but I did manage to sneak one special cupcake into the design plan. I also surprised her with her all-time favorite cake flavor: carrot cake.

Celebration Carrot Cupcakes

Adapted from the carrot cake recipe at Joy of Baking.

Yield: 24 standard-size cupcakes

1 cup mixed nuts (almonds, cashews, macadamia nuts)
3/4 lb fresh carrots (about 2 1/2 cups finely grated)
2/3 cup golden raisins
1/2 cup dried apples, coarsely chopped
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 Tbsp ground cinnamon
1 1/2 tsp ground ginger
1 1/2 tsp ground allspice
1 tsp ground nutmeg
1 tsp ground cloves
4 large eggs
1 1/2 cups granulated white sugar
1 cup vegetable oil
2 tsp pure vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F and place rack in center of oven. Grease or line two muffin pans.

Toast the mixed nuts for about 8 minutes or until lightly browned and fragrant. Let cool and then chop coarsely.

Peel and finely grate the carrots. Set aside.

In a separate bowl whisk together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, and spices. Set aside.

In bowl of electric mixer (or with a hand mixer), beat the eggs until frothy (about 1 minute). Gradually add the sugar and beat until the batter is thick and light colored (about 3 – 4 minutes). Add the oil in a steady stream and then beat in the vanilla extract. Add the flour mixture and beat just until incorporated. With a large rubber spatula fold in the grated carrots, raisins, dried apples, and chopped nuts. Evenly divide the batter between the two prepared pans and bake 12 to 15 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Remove from oven and let cool on a wire rack. After about 5 -10 minutes remove the cupcakes onto the wire rack and cool completely before frosting.

Spiced Rum Buttercream

4 cups confectioner’s sugar
1 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
1 1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract
3 Tbsp dark spiced rum
1 Tbsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp ground cloves
1 tsp ground allspice
1 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp ground nutmeg

In an electric mixer, cream the butter until smooth and well blended. Add the vanilla extract. With the mixer on low speed, gradually beat in the sugar. Scrape down the sides of the bowl and beater. Add the rum and spices and beat on high speed until frosting is light and fluffy (about 3-4 minutes). Add 1 or 2 tablespoons more rum if too dry. Cover the icing with plastic wrap to prevent drying until ready to use. Store it in a covered container in the refrigerator for up to 2 weeks. Re-whip before using.

Greek Pasta Salad

Not very often will things we make in the ktichen at culinary school make it onto this blog. Most of the time I’m just not that satisfied with how they turn out, or they aren’t exactly photo-friendly. Today is an exception.

Normally, pasta salad is something people cringe at the sound of. It’s too vinegary, tastes too much like pickled items, is cold or curdled or chunky… just generally unpleasant. Our pasta salad, however, rocks. It’s tangy, light, flavorful, even slightly sweet and creamy, and packed full of Mediterranean goodness. Al dente penne is tossed with a vinaigrette of fresh herbs (basil, mint, oregano, parsley), roasted red peppers, Kalamata olives, pepperoncini, and feta crumbles, and topped with sautéed capers and fried cheese tortellini.