Life of pie

Monday, November 13

Today was all about pastry and pie crusts, learning the difference between a tender or "mealy" crust with a flakey one, which depends on the way the fat is cut into the flour as you may know, and preparing crusts healthfully and vegan and non-vegan with wholewheat flour and butter or olive oil or coconut oil (my favourite so far) or pressed nut (sesame seeds, almonds, etc). We were baking "blind", which sounds dangerous at first, but means making pie crusts with no filling in it, as one step prior to filling them and baking them. In order to do this, we put down parchment paper over the entire crust and dried baking beans on top to weight it down, and then put it in the oven for a short period.

Then we learned to make a galette, which is a round flat form pasty that is filled with something that is sweet or savory and then the edges are pulled up in a pinwheel, box or other attractive fashion. We used vegan pasty (coconut oil) and apple filling for our galettes. On Wednesday, we will have a three-hour pastry test where we will be provided with the ingredients for a fruit galette and have to create it by memory. The teacher will be marking everything from how we mise-en-place our stations, organization, adherence to sanitation and proper culinary techniques, and of course the most important elements are appearance (is the dough rolled out evenly and is it a good colour and consistent in colour... are the apples cut evenly, consistently and attractively placed... is the galette dough folded over in a consistent and attractive manner... is the dough evenly cooked), taste and texture. Lots to think about with the clock running! I don't have any photos of the galette I made as I been having problems uploading photos to my blog from here but will do it one day and surprise you, or perhaps like a book, the imagination is a much better and more interesting tool when reading. Here's a link to one type of galette in case you're intrested to see what one looks like if you haven't had a close encounter with one as yet...

http://www.joyofbaking.com/AppleGalette.html

Chelsea Museum Art Auction

In the evening, I signed up to assist with an art auction at the Chelsea Museum. We catered the food so I was involved in the last minute preparation and plating of hors d'oeuvres and serving. The hors d'oeuvres were impressive and included a sweet potato soup with ancho sauce and another sauce that we served in tall shot glasses and passed around, a lentil walnut sherry pate on crackers/mini toasts, a white bean and sage paste with tapenade on mini toasts/crackers, rolled crepes with smoked trout, cream cheese and a variety of fresh vegetables and cut into bite-size pieces, and mini shish kebabs with a marinated small onion, cherry tomato and mushroom. The guests loved them and were impressed that they were delicious, nutrititious, natural, made without procesed foods and mostly organic. There were hundreds of people in the museum space, looking at the auction pieces and mingling prior to auction. It reminded me of a art gallery scene in Sex in the City or in a movie with all the eccentric, crazy, creative, snobby and rich types in one room. An interesting glimpse into the inner circles of NY gallery life, which probably hasn't changed much over the years, except for the artwork and what people are wearing, though in some cases this hadn't changed...