Sometimes it's just fun!

On November 7th we had our last catering job of the fall wedding season. Then, on November 8th, we were to serve little nibblies to three hundred and fifty wine enthusiasts in support of the Destin Charity Wine Auction Foundation.

We were beat. We were blackened-crispy around the edges. We wanted a deep breath, a long deep breath but the Sunday event was important, for a good cause and, besides, I'd been committed to it for months so there was no way 'round it. Not only that but I'd submitted our menu very early in the season in a moment of madness, forgetting (perhaps a result of the same brain chemical that allows women of child bearing years to forget the agony of the previous birth in order to further the population) how we'd all feel at the end of the season.

The week before, while also working on the twenty-seven dishes for the two hundred guest wedding on the 7th, we planned furiously and bought five hundred empty, perfectly formed egg shells. We tested them with two eggs per half cup of cream, with two yolks and one egg per half cup of cream, with one teaspoon of white truffle oil, with three quarters of a teaspoon of white truffle oil, in water baths, out of water baths, in cardboard egg cartons, in cardboard egg cartons with the bottom points cut off. At 325 degrees, at 300, at 280... we tried and tested every conceivable combination of temperatures, water and timing.

Then we thought it was perfect but plain, it needed something. We tried whipped cream: plain. We added porcini dust, salt and pepper and the magic started to happen. Topped that with a few truffle shavings and voila, White Truffle Flans in eggshells with Porcini Whipped Cream and Black Truffle Garnish.

And somewhere in between all the food for the wedding and the trials and tribulations of flan creation, and even though only one dish was required, we produced enough Sweet Ginger Sorbet and Chocolate Tuiles for the aforementioned three hundred and fifty wine sipping guests we'd be serving. Because there should always be dessert.

We knew what lay ahead of us that week. It would be a forced march, a siege, a tighten up your belt and suck it up sort of thing. But we could do it, we'd done it before, we were professionals. Then the gods gave us a gift, such a precious gift, who'd have expected it? The final email from the coordinators confirmed it: the event didn't begin until 3:00 PM. We could sleep in, we'd have time to bathe, we could, well, we could meet before at The Red Bar in Grayton Beach for brunch and Bloodies. All the food would be cooked, right? There was nothing to do but pack it up, drive to the venue, set up and smile.

Sunday, November 8th, was a spectacular day. Crisp and clear, sunny, breezy, lovely. We chose the porch of The Red Bar 'cause that's the best place to be and the breezes battered our umbrella a bit but we ate as though we'd not eaten for days (had we not eaten for days?), drank our Bloodies and headed to the event. Smiling.

There were three of us there, plenty of staff to smile and serve, hand out cards and explain the little eggshells and warm peppercorn insulation they sat in. So, we set up and ... well, after all, it was a wine tasting! There were wines to the left of us, wines to the right of us, wines everywhere and we were diligent in our research, taking turns to wander around, using our little sorbet cones to sample.

Oh, did I mention the view?

Ok, we bought a couple of bottles too!

When a plan comes together

Last fall I started looking around for a partner because I felt I'd taken my wee company as far as I could on my own. I considered just hiring somebody but I didn't believe I had the money to do it and, besides, I wanted the somebody else to be as invested emotionally and financially as I. So I wanted a partner, a person who'd take over the kitchen/production part of the business and allow me the time to focus more on what I'm good at. Well, what I'm better at.

I searched the archives of a catering forum I belong to (catersource.com) for information on partnerships and the one bit of important information I came away with was that partnerships are like marriages and they shouldn't be ... arranged.

I pursued a sushi chef I know, whose integrity (both personally and professionally) had always really attracted me but he had different ideas for his future so that was that. Forgetting what I'd learned on catersource, my desperation had me dialing the number of another chef, whose superlative skill with vegetables, frugality and uncompromising standards had provoked my admiration, even though I knew that he hated a monster chunk of catering reality: the schlepping. He said he'd think about it but the next time we spoke we both wisely pretended the first call had never happened.

Then a surprising thing happened. In February, Angus, the man who'd been working with me as my gig chef for almost two years, suddenly expressed an interest.

"But you don't like risk," I said.

"My wife thinks it's a good idea too."

"But you don't like risk," I repeated.

"Not gonna think about it."

In March we consulted an attorney and even paid her for a written agreement but there really is no formal relationship yet. The informal relationship is as follows: We both work our butts off week after week and get paid less than we deserve, in anticipation of wonderful future things to come.

Here's the reality: I sell the jobs, I create the menus, I do the client meetings and vendor days, I am FOH at our tastings, I work up the prep schedules, I write the pull lists, I design the events, I coordinate with all the other vendors except our suppliers, I manage the staffing, I update the blog, facebook and website and I pay the bills. But I haven't cooked a lick in months and, in the last six weeks (our slow, sultry mid-summer season), I haven't worked one gig.

I was at the kitchen on Tuesday, waiting for a potential client who'd called to say they'd be a little late. My partner and I were sitting at the table, waiting to put the pancetta and parmesan gougères back in the oven so they'd be freshly baked and heartily perfuming the kitchen when the family arrived.

"I'm bored with the menus," I said, apropos of nothing. He's a man of few words so he used none but gave me a sideways look. "I know, I update them all the time," I continued "but they feel stale to me."

"I guess you'll have to work on that," he answered, and got up to put the gougères back in the oven.

Friday I joined Mom and Dad for one of our cocktails-on-the-beach evenings we try to do once a week and they asked how it was going, though not with the same urgency they'd asked that question a couple of years ago. "I want to work on the menus, they're a little stale."

The thing about cocktails on the beach is that the gulf wavelets, the sun, the sweet breezes, the scotch, all conspire to soothe us, so a little time went by before I continued. "But, it's going great. We're booking well for 2010, Angus is handling everything to do with the kitchen and I'm doing all the other stuff. So," I continued, "I'll probably work on the menus next week. It's pretty cool having the time to do it."

And that's when Mom piped in. Mom who'd thought going out on my own was the worst possible decision, who'd fought with me about my reasons (I mean, really, artistic freedom?), who, with Dad, had given me the 5K it took to install the hood vent and return air systems in my kitchen, who had, in the last four years washed more sidetowels, aprons and t-shirts than anybody seven decades on the planet should have to wash, said, "Well, that was the plan, right?"

Parmesan and Pancetta Gougères

1 c milk
4 oz butter cut into cubes
¼ t salt
1/8 t pepper
1 c flour
4 lg eggs at room temp - maybe 5
¼ lb finely grated parmesan
¼ lb finely minced cooked pancetta

1. Set the oven to 400 degrees.
2. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
3. In a saucepan heat milk, butter, salt and pepper over medium heat and bring to a boil.
4. Immediately remove from the heat and add all the flour in at once; stir briskly for 1 minute.
5. Return to heat and stir with gusto until the mixture begins to film the bottom of the pan.
6. Remove from heat and allow to cool for three minutes, then add the eggs, one at a time beating well after each addition. You have added enough egg when the mixture forms a slowly falling "hook" when you lift a bit of it from the bowl with a wooden spoon. If it doesn't, beat the fifth egg and add a little at a time until the batter says that it's done.
7. Add the parmesan and pancetta and beat until completely incorporated.
8. Use the gougères mixture to secure the parchment to the cookie sheet by putting a smear of it under each of the four corners of parchment paper. Then drop the batter by spoonfuls (or pipe) about ½ inch apart. If you pipe them or if they have "sharp" points after loading on the cookie sheet, be sure to press the points down softly with a wet finger to keep them from burning at those points while baking. You can freeze them or bake them immediately. If you intend to freeze them, put them straight into the freezer; once frozen they can be stored for a couple of months in a zip-lock bag.
9. Bake them (from the freshly prepared stage or frozen) for 10 minutes at 400 degrees then reduce the temp to 350 and bake until golden brown, about 20 minutes.
10. Serve warm

Going Green

Back in the fall of 2008, I threatened the staff almost every day: "In 2009 we're going green," I'd say. Every few days I'd say it, expecting grumbling and resistance. "That's good," they'd say, "that's what we need to be doing." Sometimes "Yeah, good idea, Kim, let's do that." Or "It's about time, Kim, how are we going to start?" Or even, "Why are we still talking about it?"

One slow cooking evening after everybody had gone home, I went to Home Depot and bought four bins. I took them to the kitchen and found a Sharpie: Paper, Glass, Alum and Plastic.

The prep folks and my partner were already there when I arrived the next morning.

"See the bins?" I asked.

"Yeah, sure, we saw 'em. They take up space."

"Don't you think it's important that we do this?" I asked.

"Sure, yeah. We've got a kitty."

"Kitty?"

"You know, for the money, when somebody screws up."

"Any money in it?"

"Nobody's screwing up."

It's not easy to recycle where we live; the powers that be don't care and they don't pick it up. When our bins get full we take them to the containers at the Chamber of Commerce Annex, about ten miles away. Ten miles isn't a big deal, but you have to want to do it.

A few weeks ago we suffered along with the rest of the country in triple digit temperatures and all three of our Saturday night gigs were outside. One of our clients had resisted all our efforts to convince them of the benefits of PLA and bamboo. "No," they said, "we want those clear plastic plates like they have at Sam's."

A little after nine pm my partner and I were sitting at our big kitchen table going over the Saturday schedule. He with a beer, me with a couple of fingers of scotch.

"It's going to be rough tomorrow," he said.

"Well, we've got a bunch of low-cal Gatorade and the five gallon water thermoses."

"And you've also got all that plastic."

"So?"

"You're going to bring it back to recycle, right?"

Oh my God, oh my God, we'll be like dishrags by the end of the night, like cooked spaghetti. We'll be dreaming of the kitchen a/c. We'll be hating the venue, the client, the weather gods, each other. And now I have to recycle. That's what I was thinking. "Yeah, sure."

"I'll take it up to the Chamber," he said.

"You will?" So all I had to do was get approximately 200 9" plates and 450 6" plates back to the kitchen and he'd take it from there. My hero, he was my hero, the wind beneath my ... whatever.

"It's sorta the whole money where your mouth is thing, Kim."

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. "No, yeah, you're right."

So we did and he did and we all felt a little noble.

There's still no money in the kitty.

So you wanna learn to cook!

Well, that's what she* said and then she decided to make a party of it. A Christmas party. And the thing about cooking classes as parties is that there's an inverse ratio between alcohol consumed and lessons learned. Which is really ok because there isn't a test at the end.




We learned about making Gougères.

We learned about making Fettucine.






We learned about making Kim's World Famous You Ain't in Alabama Anymore Sushi Roll**.

Ingredients
1 cup slow roasted pulled pork in the best possible BBQ sauce available
(Kim's World Famous BBQ Sauce comes to mind)
½ cup Carolina Slaw (recipe follows)
2 cups Sushi Rice (recipe follows thanks to Martha Stewart)
Mamenori Soy Bean Wrappers (There are many online sources for this product.)
Sushi bamboo rolling mat wrapped in plastic wrap
A bowl of water large enough to wet your palms
Endless Patience (thank or curse your parents)

Procedure
1. Place a half slice of the wrapper lengthwise on your rolling mat.
2. Wet your hands with water so the rice won't stick to them and scoop up a palm full of rice.
3. Spread the rice along the wrapper, to the edges.
4. Place a couple of tablespoons of the pulled pork (mixed with BBQ sauce) horizontally across the lower center of the rice, distributing it evenly.
5. Place a forkful of slaw on top of the pork


6. Begin rolling the sushi, rolling away from your body, using the mat to pull the wrapper and rice over itself. You may find that you're wrapping up the bamboo mat and, if so, stop that.
7. When the sushi is completely rolled, use the mat to squeeze the sushi gently but firmly into shape.


8. Cut into slices and enjoy.

And we might have learned about making Soufflés but, well, they so often come at the end of a meal and we didn't so much care about learning by then.

Carolina Cole Slaw

½ cup apple cider vinegar
6 tablespoons sugar
6 tablespoons vegetable oil
2.5 teaspoons dry mustard
1 teaspoon celery seeds
1 medium white or purple cabbage finely shredded
1 large sweet Vidalia, thinly sliced
1 large green red pepper, thinly sliced

1. Combine vinegar, sugar, oil, mustard and celery seeds in a small nonreactive saucepan.
2. Stir over medium heat until sugar dissolves and dressing comes to boil.
3. Remove from heat, season with salt and pepper and cool completely.
4. Combine cabbage, onion and bell pepper in large bowl and toss with dressing.
5. Can be made one to two days ahead.

Sushi Rice

1.5 cups Sushi Rice
3 T rice wine vinegar
2 t sugar
2 t Mirin (Japanese rice wine)
2 t Sake or water
1.5 t kosher salt

1. Place rice and 2 cups of water in a medium saucepan and bring to a boil over high heat. Reduce the heat to low and simmer, covered, until the water has absorbed, 12 to 16 minutes.
2. Meanwhile, combine the vinegar, sugar, Mirin, sake and salt in a small saucepan. Warm the mixture over medium-low heat until the sugar and salt are dissolved, about 2 minutes. Set aside to cool.
3. Transfer the cooked rice to a large mixing bowl. Slowly add the vinegar mixture to the warm cooked rice, folding as you would egg whites into a soufflé, until all of the vinegar mixture is incorporated into the rice. Cool completely.

*Thanks to Robyn Bomar for these photographs.
**Thanks to Chef Eric Levine for this inspiration.