Stomping Grounds

After learning of our visit to Brooklyn a couple of weeks ago, my mother referred to the trip as “returning to our old stomping grounds”.  This phrase stuck out in my mind because of its truth.  Brooklyn is our old stomping grounds.  Manhattan is our old stomping grounds too.  The even bigger truth is Brian and I have lived in Westchester for nearly four years now and I’ve lived in New York just shy of ten years!  Time passage is a crazy thing.  It gives perspective on even the most insane and seemingly perilous choices made in one’s earlier life.  For me, moving to New York was the best decision I ever made.

I can remember packing my two suitcases in the cold Missouri winter of 2002, knowing I had a place to stay with a friend of a friend in Washington Heights until I could get my bearings.  I didn’t have a job or any close friends in the beginning, but sometimes you need to get on a plane and make some changes.  Within a couple of weeks I found a job working for a printing company doing some basic design work.  I’d thought I would get a job waiting tables (as I had done for many years), but even restaurant jobs in NYC were scarce at the time and there were literally lines down the block full of hopeful waiters and waitresses vying for a chance to serve. 

Being rescued at just the right moment (because I only had enough money to survive for about six weeks) I went back to the world of Photoshop and Illustrator, never looking back, eventually finding my way into graduate school and returning to my college love of 3d animation.  Though I make commercials to this day, and generally have a good time doing it, I still crave being in a kitchen.  There is nothing so satisfying to me as a Saturday night alone with my Kitchen Aid and some jazz playing in the background.  Simple pleasures are still the best.

Working for the printing company introduced me to two very key people in my life:  Izabella and Brian.  Izabella worked at the company and was head of the graphics department.  Her sense of style, humor, creativity and positive attitude made us instant friends.  We worked about a block from Union Square and used to go to the farmer’s market on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, purchasing too many plants, fruits and vegetables to cart home.  There was a deli close by too where we would procure our morning bagels with tofu spread (yes I said tofu spread…you wouldn’t believe how good it was) and happily munch away and gossip while taking care of clients design and print needs.  It was a good and simple life and I had enough money to live on.

I found an apartment with a guy named Danny on 215^th St. (Inwood…the tip, tip, tip top of Manhattan).  The commute down from the nosebleed section of the island seemed brutal, but the first year I was in New York I was never happier than when I was people watching on the subway, discovering J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter  books and ordering General Chicken from the local Chinese food joint to eat while watching Emeril Live on the Food Network.  Riding the subway opened my eyes to how many types of people there are in the world; different personalities, behaviors, dress codes, hair colors, attitudes and I ate it all up like a fried egg roll.  If you ever enjoyed people watching in the food court of a mall, try riding around on the subway for any amount of time and you’ll never want to go back.  The world is on the subway.

Other than the mega trek down to my job, I spent the rest of my time in Inwood Hill Park.  The northwest corner of Manhattan Island is covered by a huge park and wooded hills vast enough to go hiking and get lost.  Next to Central Park, it’s the largest park area on the island.  I would spend hours walking through the woods, taking pictures or drawing and attempting to be alone with nature.  Something I still do to this day.  You can’t live in the city without a continual need to get back to nature.  Weekend getaways were invented for a reason.

Brian “came onto the scene” as a client during the year and a half I worked for the printing company.  He would call to place poster orders for Axis Theatre’s latest productions and we slowly became friendlier and friendlier over the phone until one day I broke down and asked him to get coffee…to this day it’s the only blind date I ever had.  I guess I picked the right time to go for it.  Hilariously, Brian was also from Missouri (outside Kansas City) and had moved to New York for the same basic reason I had, looking for a chance to be creative in the most fantastic city imaginable.  Birds of a feather…

Over the course of our time together Brian and I moved down from Inwood (where he coincidentally was also living, yet another sign) to the Upper West Side into a cute, little (and I mean little) one-bedroom apartment not far from Riverside Park.  I could finally get to places much more quickly and I was enrolled at NYU by this time, getting my master’s degree and learning to navigate the world as a freelance animator.  The apartment didn’t have any kitchen cabinets when we moved in, and I remember making one of many Ikea trips to purchase cabinets we then installed ourselves.  The stove was one of those really tiny one’s with enough room to bake one thing at a time and only enough space for two pans on the stovetop.

I was a novice cook at this point and didn’t really think too much about it.  I was too busy with school and work to think about cooking except for the occasional experimental meal.  That kitchen didn’t have drawers either, if you can believe it, and I’m still not quite sure how the landlord got away with it…but we were younger and didn’t have much in the way of kitchen paraphernalia so it wasn’t an issue.  I recall making a particularly good red wine based pasta sauce with meatballs, and also a delicious tres-leches cake not too long after returning from a trip to Costa Rica.  Outside of that, my cooking and baking desires didn’t manifest until we moved to Brooklyn.

Living in the Cobble Hill section of Brooklyn was the first time I felt “at home” in my New York life.  Brian and I had a garden apartment below an apartment rented by some of our friends (coincidentally the one’s we visited last week, Joe, Marie and their sons).  The place was practically brand new and we were allowed not only to paint the apartment whatever colors we wanted, but also to landscape.  The patch of yard out back wasn’t very big, but I made the most of it. 

The first summer we were there was all about weed removal.  The previous tenants thought it nice to let the weeds grow as tall as they might for that sort of tropical jungle look.  I, of course, wanted something more resembling an English country garden.  I cleared out everything except for two lilac bushes I found hiding in the back.  It was a sign!  I grew up with lilacs in our front yard and to this day I still anxiously await their bloom and fragrance to fill the air.  In this part of the woods it won’t be long now.  Anyway, I put down a bunch of grass seed and made flowerbeds, first going to the nearby hardware store on Smith Street, which happened to sell quite a large variety of herbs and flowers.  I filled that small Brooklyn yard with as many varieties of plants as my mood swings would allow, and although the space was small, it spoke of a home and being settled, something I was really craving.

By this time I had opted out of freelancing for a more permanent gig at Transistor Studios, following on the heels of my friend Andrea to take a job as their 3d lead.  Andrea and I met while I was freelancing for a company called Brand New School and we have been good friends ever since.  Both she and her husband Nathan worked at Transistor (before they were even dating), but who knew down the road we would all become neighbors in Ossining and have kids together?  Having that sort of “settled” feeling brought about by a full-time position, my creativity began to wander in a different direction.  When you are required to be creative for others on a daily basis, I think it can be challenging to feel fulfilled as an artist when most of the decisions are out of your hands.  It was around this time I began to think seriously about baking and the creative release I got from making things in the kitchen.

For Christmas that first year in Brooklyn, Brian gave me my beloved Kitchen Aid.  This too seemed an omen and not long after I began to bake with more fervor. I discovered Martha Stewart Living around this time on a weekend getaway to our friend Randy’s house in Quogue.  A little late to the party I must admit, but sitting in the screened in porch looking out at the blue waters of the bay, the September 2005 issue on interior design changed my life.  The cover story on painting rooms and furniture in shades of grey somehow struck a very deep cord.  Martha’s show and magazine had me wanting to decorate every room and cook everything coming out of her kitchen.  This is when the baked goods really started to appear.  I wasn’t baking every week, like I do now, but when I was seemingly most stressed out in the rest of my life I could turn to butter and sugar and Martha for reparative therapy. 

The longer I felt unfulfilled at work, the more I wanted to bake.  It was in 2007 that I decided to go to the French Culinary Institute and take their “Essentials of Pastry” course.  It was every Saturday for 20 weeks, quite a time commitment, but I have never learned so much or enjoyed myself more than those whirlwind Saturday mornings with my friends Susan and Pamela, laughing at our mistakes and eating so many goodies.  Who knew we could turn out so many desserts in such a short amount of time?  It was with this course that I decided I needed to take pictures of the desserts.  I never had the skill set or knowledge to make such beautiful things before and here we were each weekend turning out two or three recipes for cakes, tarts, croissants, soufflé and on and on, carting them all home on a hot subway car in the middle of summer.  It was blissful madness and I needed to record every step!

As the class was wrapping up, Brian and I bought our house in Westchester and the rest, as they say, is history.  I continue to bake and garden with fervor and feel incomplete if I’m unable to pull a fresh, yummy dessert from the oven on a Saturday night.  My peaceful country walks now take the form of strolls in nearby Dale Cemetery, the closest, large green-space to our home (it’s old, beautiful and quiet). 

I find that I’m on a quest to get back to my roots, or distill from my youth what I felt the strongest connections to.  Hilariously, I hated to garden, or pull weeds as it were (chores, in my book, were evil), and going up the road to pick berries in the summer seemed such hard work…ahh youth.  The only thing I ever cooked before my stint at McDonalds (in high school) was in junior high home economics.  I recall a rather spectacular “fruit pizza” and some strongly vanilla flavored chocolate chip cookies; cookies so drenched in the vanilla's alcohol content that my friend Dana accused me of trying to get us drunk.  Well…maybe.

I guess I’m not exactly sure why I enjoy the things I do in the historical sense, but I know that communing with the garden is good therapy and that baking and offering food is the best way I know to communicate love and appreciation.  Since this past weekend was Mother’s Day and I was (as usual) not in Missouri, I baked a couple of favorites I know mom would enjoy, things that are as always inspired by our shared past and the things I love today.  The first was a simple and elegant cheesecake I found in The Fundamental Techniques of Classic Pastry Arts  cookbook from The French Culinary Institute.  I don’t make cheesecake that often because I’m generally drawn to “cakier” desserts, but just like last year I decided to make the cheesecake because my mother loves them so much.

There is a trick to cheesecake I discovered.  I’ve used the method of the water bath before, the process of placing your batter-filled pan inside a larger pan filled with warm water while it bakes.  This helps to keep the cheesecake from drying out and cracking…a very helpful tip no doubt, but I still have had problems with cheesecake baking up beautifully only to have the top sink down into a crater much like a deflated soufflé.  This rarely affects the taste, but the presentation is a bit lackluster.  Reading through the tips portion of the cheesecake recipe I found a recommendation about not over-beating the batter.  I thought this only applied to desserts containing flour to keep gluten from overdeveloping and making a tough crust or crumb.  Apparently you can whip too much air into the cheesecake batter, causing an excess rise while baking and leaving you with the aforementioned sad crater once the cake has cooled.  This time I tried mixing only until the ingredients were combined and I came out with the most perfectly constructed cheesecake to ever grace the racks of my oven.  Mystery solved!  Here is the recipe:

Cheesecake

Ingredients

For the batter:

Butter for pan

335 grams (11 3/4 ounces) cream cheese at room temperature

60 milliliters (2 ounces) sugar

35 grams (1 1/4 ounces) sour cream

2 large eggs, at room temperature

60 grams (2 ounces) heavy cream

Zest of 1/2 orange

Zest of 1/2 lemon

1/2-teaspoon pure vanilla extract

For the finish:

70 grams (2 1/2 ounces) sour cream

4 grams (1 tablespoon) confectioners’ sugar

14 grams (2 tablespoons) cake or cookie crumbs, finely chopped toasted nuts, or chocolate curls

Preheat the oven to 300 degrees.  Butter the interior of the pan.  Set aside.

Combine the cream cheese and sugar in the bowl of a standing electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment.  Beat on low to just blend.  Raise the speed to medium and beat for about 4 minutes, or until smooth and creamy.  This is important; otherwise the baked cake will have undesirable lumps of cream cheese.

Add the sour cream and continue to beat, scraping down the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula from time to time to ensure that the sour cream is completely incorporated and that the batter remains very smooth.

Reduce the speed to low and add the eggs one at a time, occasionally scraping down the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula.  The batter should be completely emulsified but not overmixed.  If it is overmixed, particularly at higher speeds, too much air will be incorporated into the batter and cake will rise as it bakes and fall as it cools.

Add the cream along with the orange and lemon zests and vanilla, beating to just combine.

Using a bowl scraper, scrape the batter into the prepared pan.  Place the cake pan in a larger pan on the middle rack of the preheated oven.  Add enough warm water to come halfway up the sides of the filled cake pan.  Bake for about 1 hour, or until set in the center.

Place the cake pan on a wire rack to cool completely before unmolding.  It can also be helpful to place the cooled cake in the refrigerator for about 1 hour to chill slightly before unmolding.

To finish the cake, combine the sour cream and confectioners’ sugar in a small bowl, whisking to blend well.  Unmold the cake by warming the bottom of the pan, either on the stovetop, with a handheld kitchen torch, or by placing it in warm water.  At this point, the cake may be stored, well wrapped and refrigerated, for up to 1 week.

Place a cardboard cake circle on the top of the cake to completely cover it.  Invert the cake onto the cardboard and gently tap to unmold.  Using an offset spatula, lightly coat the top of the cake with the sweetened sour cream, smoothing it to an even layer.  Coat the sides of the cake with crumbs, nuts, or chocolate curls.

Serve immediately or cover and refrigerate for no longer than 2 days.

This cheesecake is subtly flavored with citrus and topped with a frosting of sorts made from confectioners’ sugar and sour cream…amazing…I just wanted to keep eating the frosting by itself, to hell with the cake!!!  But I did manage to get a little on the top for decoration along with wide strips of lemon zest for that added bling.  There is no crust to this cake, but the recipe calls for using nuts or ground up cookies as decoration along the outer ring.  I had a few unfilled, but previously baked tart shells in the freezer, which I allowed to thaw and crushed up in the food processor.  It’s the simplicity of this dessert that is so deceptive.  This cheesecake is quiet, delicate, subtle and velvety delicious.

My other inspiration came from a shopping trip to Dean and Deluca for gooseberries.  I read in the Martha Stewart Pies and Tarts cookbook about small gooseberry tarts that sounded fun…this also made me think of my mom because we would pick and freeze gooseberries in the summer to make pies.  Well, gooseberries aren’t quite in season yet, but rhubarb is!  I almost forgot our old friend rhubarb.  May and rhubarb are synonymous and when I saw those deep ruby stalks on the produce shelf I knew I had to had them.  And, if you are going to make a rhubarb tart, might as well get a new pan to go along with it, right?  I ran over to Sur la Table where I had been eyeing a 14x5 inch rectangular pan for some time and snatched it up for this occasion.

I returned to the French Culinary Techniques book for the pate brisee recipe I had been studying when I made the grapefruit tart a couple of weeks ago, again trying to get back to basics with my pastry skills.  This dough calls for using cake flour and yields a well structured but delicate crust for your tart shell.  The recipe is as follows:

Pate Brisee

Ingredients:

250 grams (8 1/4 ounces) cake flour

1/2-teaspoon salt

1/2-teaspoon sugar

125 grams (4 1/2 ounces) very cold unsalted butter, cut into small pieces

65 milliliters (1/4 cup plus 1 teaspoon) very cold water, or 1 large egg mixed with 1-teaspoon very cold water, plus additional ice water, if needed.

Sift the flour, salt, and sugar directly into the bowl of an electric mixer.  Cut the butter into 1/2-inch cubes and add it to the flour mixture.  Turn the machine on low and mix the ingredients just until the butter pieces are approximately 1/8 inch (pea-sized).  Gradually add the cold liquid to the dough, mixing until it is soft and shaggy.  Scrape the dough onto a lightly floured work surface and work it by hand until it is homogeneous.

Gather the dough together, form it into a disk, wrap the disk in plastic, and refrigerate it for at least 30 minutes or up to 24 hours before rolling it into the shape required.

The filling I obtained from Martha Stewart.  She has a recipe for small, Raspberry Rhubarb Galettes:  freeform tarts for those both scared of pans or for those seeking a beautiful rustic looking dessert, or both.  As I said, I wanted to try out my new tart pan, so I used half the pate brisee dough for it and the other half I made into four 6-inch tarts.  The recipe for the galettes is as follows, but if you want to make the tarts more decorative using fluted tart pans the crusts can be “blind baked” for 15 minutes at 350 degrees before adding the filling and following the rest of the recipe’s instructions.

Raspberry Rhubarb Galettes

Ingredients

1 recipe of Pate Brisee

All-purpose flour for dusting

1 1/2 pounds trimmed rhubarb, cut into 1/4-inch pieces (about 5 cups)

8 ounces (about 1 1/2 cups) fresh raspberries

1/4-cup cornstarch

2 cups granulated sugar

Coarse sanding sugar, for sprinkling

Divide dough evenly into 8 pieces.  On a lightly floured surface, roll out each piece to a 7-inch round, 1/8 inch thick.  Transfer rounds to 2 large parchment-lined rimmed baking sheets, arranging several inches apart.  (If rounds become too soft to handle, refrigerate until firm, about 20 minutes.)

In a large bowl, toss to combine rhubarb, raspberries, cornstarch, and granulated sugar.

Cover each round of dough with a heaping 1/2-cup rhubarb mixture, leaving a 1-inch border.  Fold edges over rhubarb filling, leaving an opening in center; gently brush water between folds, and press gently so that folds adhere.  Refrigerate or freeze until firm, about 30 minutes.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Brush edges of dough with water, and sprinkle with sanding sugar.  Bake until crusts are golden brown, about 30 minutes.  Reduce heat to 375 degrees, and bake until juices bubble and start to run out from center of each galette, 15 minutes more.  Transfer to a wire rack, and let cool completely before serving.

We often had rhubarb pie as a kid.  Again, I don’t remember it being my favorite because of the subtle, tart (or incredibly sour if not enough sugar is used) flavor of the stalks, but I still associate it as being one that my mom loves and one I remember her baking from my childhood after trips to Jack and Jerry’s farm (a story shared in April 2010.) 

The fact that I’ve lived in New York long enough to have grounds to stomp is astounding.  It means I’ve been here for a good long while.  I could swear it was only yesterday that I left the countryside in Missouri, gooseberries, rhubarb and all, to begin a whole new chapter of my life.  These sorts of trips down memory lane are sometimes scary, melancholy and potentially treacherous, but when I think about the people, places and things I love I find inspiration.  I hope in another ten years to have a decade’s more happy thoughts of family and friends and lots more fond memories related to sharing baked goods. It’s just who I am.