Friday, September 12, 2014

Return of the Blog

Can I just come back to a blog after a 2 year hiatus? I have a lot of good stuff to write about, but most of it you just had to be there for. I read through some of my old posts and scoffed at my old self, since I'm so much older an wiser now, but then realized that I needed to keep writing in the blog lest I be mistaken for that foolish child I was in 2012.

Here is a video of groggy morning me making that new omelette recipe, except fucking it up a little bit where the yolks should have been a bit runnier. Perhaps Honore de Balzac would disagree, it was his recipe originally.  In the background you can spot my messy apartment complete with wool socks hanging from a pull up bar. The original recipe comes from one of his novels, and is meant to be cooked in a cagnard, a porcelain affair with clawed feet on four sides to hold it above the stove. I used the opposite, a cast iron, and will continue to do so until I stop liking that crisp, brown crust that the oily iron imprints on the lattice of cohesion between the bubbles of foamed egg whites. I would reccomend whisking until foamy, but not too foamy, if you don't leave anything unbeaten, the whole deal will be very hard to flip. You want to cook the whites almost completely before you add the yolks, even if you add them "a bit at a time", you'll end up with cooked yolks 30 seconds after you add them. I say take 10 seconds to add them "a bit at a time" and then flip it. Don't stuff this omelette, the texture is a big part of the adventure. Salt the whites and I like cayenne powder in the yolks, but don't reach for the cheese unless it is grated pecorino romano. Some finely chopped fresh herbs might not ruin it. If that video reminds you at all of Henry's Kitchen, keep that information to yourself, or I might find a way to convince stu to take it off his youtube channel.

I am not going to try to catch up in one blog post, but I have been doing more over the past two years than just making that one omelette, I swear.  I'll tell a story next time.