Bagels Baby!

See? I am keeping my promise. Even though it did not involve a pinky swear, serious and binding between my 12 year old daughter and I, here I am, exactly one week later.

Winter has truly arrived in the Bay Area, gentle rains have been coming every other day or so, and if this is this year's repeat of El Nino (that yes, I am old enough to actually have experienced and remember), I will take it.

I love the Fall the best of all the seasons. Weird for a chef. Most chef's, and even other folk who are serious about cooking love Spring, with its bounty of green garlic, asparagus, peas, and the beginnings of everything else showing their gorgeous little heads in gardens everywhere. They don't call it Spring Green for nothing! It is, in fact my favorite color....but I digress.

Many chefs embrace most ardently, Summer, when sweet berries and stone fruit rule the Farmers Markets. But not me. Perhaps it is because I attended culinary school, not in CA but back east in Providence RI, where I experienced my first and most gorgeous of Autumns. In fact, Autumn even has a specific smell...most East Coast folk will agree, and everyone else, well they just think I'm crazy. But that is okay. I have always had a very sensitive sense of smell...one of the reasons that I excel at my chosen profession I imagine.

But Winter....I love cosy vintage cashmere sweaters. I love fires in the fireplace (Ugh...don't start, people who I know and love in Berkeley), I love Christmas lights, and BAKING. Baking is my therapy. The more stressful my life, the more baked products my friends and family can count on. Bread is especially special to me. My dad being a baker in the Merchant Marines, my Mama baking homemade white dinner rolls each holiday, drenched in butter. But me, my fav is a crusty and chewy country loaf, made with a natural yeast starter or biga (Italian).

My version of Tartine Bread

I have had my current sourdough starter going about a year or so, a gift from my dear friend and colleague, Mary. Her husband Bob is quite the chef himself, and he has been maintaining his starter for a long time.

Just about every weekend, I bake bread for the coming week. I became serious about it when I took on yet another additional role at PUSD, that of a culinary instructor. After lunchtime, three days a week, I jump right in and instruct a class of 20 Juniors and Seniors in the skills and techniques of preparing food. One of which, of course, is bread.  We are so spoiled in the Bay Area, so many great folks making damn delicious bread around here. But just over 3 years ago, my family moved from Berkeley to Oakland. And like I said in my post last week, the area that I would be able to afford is pretty much a good food desert. I could no longer walk to pick up my weekly bread at Acme. So I started working ardently, on making a great loaf myself.

I tried lots of different formulas, wanting to find a bread that didn't take two days of loving manipulation to bring to the table and alas, after 6 months or so of pretty mediocre breads, I resigned myself to Chad Robertson's Country Loaf bible, Tartine Bread.  You really do get what you give, especially with naturally leavened country style breads. It is, to be very frank, a process.

Proofing the bagels

So committed I was to it, working ardently each weekend, at first wanting to see if I could shorten the process. I'm a professional after all! I should be able to make this process my own.....Nope. The breads I turned out were decidedly ok, and they tasted good, but the rise was not terrific, the texture too dense and I am so damn picky.

One weekend, I remember vividly, I sighed, and decided to do Chad's formula by the letter, ALL 37 PAGES. It took a week, following his precise instructions, to get my starter really nice and active. I was religious in the feeding schedule. Every am, weighing in grams the 100 degree water and organic local flours I fed my baby with. After a week, the health of my baby really was evident, and so I began.

That next weekend, I turned out the most perfect loaf of bread I had every baked in my entire life! I was exhilarated and addicted. From that day, every week, with very little exception, I have been baking my family's bread.

Now, I have to admit, I have not been a fan of the Bay's version of bagels in the past. Too puffy, too cakey and not chewy enough for me. So when I walked into Beauty's Bagel Shop on Telegraph Avenue in Oakland, my expectations were to bite into another hyped up, but mediocre product. Instead,  I revisited my own love for bagels that I found when I lived back East. They make Montreal style, wood fired bagels by hand each day, all of their spreads, to an extremely delicious result. Lucia especially, loves bagels (as any future student of NYU should), and Beauty's, though not producing NY style bagels, is the closest I have found in the Bay to delicious NY style fixings for bagels.

I have been sitting on the NYT formula for Montreal Bagels for quite awhile, I don't know why I decided to try them today. But I am sure glad I did. They came out a lovely golden brown, and my NY loving daughter, is enamored of the fact that we can make her favorite breakfast at home in about 2 hours.

Here are my notes:

Gorgeous finished product

*I halved the recipe, as 18 bagels is too much for my little family. Thusly I used just one whole, organic, free range egg and no yolk in my formula.
*I used roughly 1/2 cup of my sourdough starter, in addition to the yeast. I love the depth of flavor.
*I used extra virgin olive oil from Soul Food Farm.
*I used locally milled organic wheat bread flour from The Bale Grist Mill in St Helena.
*I found that 15-20 mins in the 450 degree oven, with a pizza stone was plenty of time to achieve a deep rich golden brown.
*I used parchment paper on the 1/2 size sheet pans to keep the bagels from sticking to the pan in the oven, as they are very sticky when they emerge from the honeyed boiling water.
*I decided not to roll my bagels in any accoutrement, as we prefer the bagels flavor to come though, although, next time I may caramelize a few onions to put on my husband's bagels

Back to San Francisco Values!

Good Sunday Morning!

A sunny morning here in the North Bay following a cool night. Perfect weather for many winter crops. As my almost three year old watches "toons" on NOGGIN, I drink my Costa Riccan coffee and reflect on the events of this quickly waning year.

In April this year, we moved our little family back to the Bay from Arizona, where two years ago, we thought the grass might be cheaper (if not greener!) with a new home and a new start.

We were on the edge of a dot com layoff, the birth of our daughter, and the deaths of both of my parents. It felt like the world as we knew it was caving in and we needed a fresh start. Life in Arizona was like living in the old wild west, with lots of silicone and spray on tans thrown in.....being from the culturally diverse Bay Area, we soon found it wasn't for us no matter how nice the new house was!

So we traded our new dream home and affordable mortgage in Arizona for our nearly hundred year old, everything needs updating or repair, double the price, city home here in the North Bay. But we are counting our blessings and embracing the San Francisco Values that we took for granted before!

I am overwhelmed as I look around at the cracked plaster, the old carpet, the 50's ugly brown and green electric kitchen and two bath house with no insulation and only one toilet that works, the plumbing that is largely cast iron and the non-grounded two to a room electrical outlets and wonder how we will ever afford to do all this....but somehow, we will. We are not newbies to old houses after all.

And for a Chef to have to deal with an electric stove and just one outlet in the kitchen is a real experiment in patience! I unplug the microwave who's main function is to heat my daughter's "gok-o-witz" (chocolate milk) in the morning...to plug in the coffee maker (a real must for a 5am daily rise) and unplug that to plug in my fancy toaster! Never mind that I have a garbage disposal but no under sink electric to support it.....and even if I did, do I really want to risk adding to the sludge coating the cast iron pipes before we can afford to re-pipe?

As Thanksgiving is past, I am starting to think about the nightmare of trying to do my annual holiday bake with such an arrangement....but somehow, I will manage....I always do. I close my eyes and remember my dual fuel range that I gave up with our new home; and wonder if I will live to regret leaving it. Will my Quarsemali, Christmas Crescents, Date Pinwheels, Mincemeat Stars, Sprtiz and Giandulia Truffles be edible if forged from only electricity? I will let you know.

Every week here, I will update you on seasonal recipes, menus and food related goings on in the Bay Area and Napa Valley. I will also include one or more recipes and will welcome feedback about your thoughts and recipe results. I am also happy to post benefits and happenings for you.

One of my real fortes is to research and find great ingredients and really, I attribute that skill to much of my success in all things culinary. I use mainly organic ingredients and local products whenever possible and will site these products by name and places they have been available to me.

Date Pinwheels

Date Filling:
1# pitted and chopped dates
1/3 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup orange juice
1/2 cup walnuts, finely chopped

Cook and stir first three ingredients until boiling and thickened slightly. Cool, stir in walnuts.

Cookie Dough:
1/2 cup butter, unsalted, slightly softened
1/2 cup brown Sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar, superfine
2 cups all purposed flour, sifted
1 whole egg
1/2 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp salt

Cream together butter and both sugars. Add egg and vanilla, beating well. Sift together flour and salt and stir into creamed mixture. Chill well.
Divide dough in half.

On a lightly floured surface, roll one part of the dough into 12x8" rectangle, about 1/4" thick. Spread half of the cooled date filling over the surface, being patient and careful not to tear the dough....it is helpful to use your clean fingers.
Beginning at the long edge, roll up like a jelly roll. Wrap in waxed paper and chill in freezer overnight. Repeat with the remaining ingredients.

Slice each chilled roll into 1/4" thick slices. Bake on greased cookie sheet for 8 minutes at 400 degrees. Cool cookies on a wire rack and store in a tightly lidded tin or cookie jar.

Makes 5 dozen cookies