Warm your soul with a Maker's Mark Tom &Jerry

I have been contemplating my first post of 2011 for a week now. So far I have laid around in my pajamas, grown out my beard, and made dinner for anyone who comes home; that does not inspire a great blog post. However, today the weather changed my routine and I was inspired to share. We are currently being covered in a blanket of snow that is expected to reach eight inches thick. It is wreaking havoc upon Kansas City and I can imagine my friends in New York who have just dug themselves out of two feet of snow rolling their eyes.

Surrounded by cold, I needed something to warm me to the core. A heavy fleece blanket and double socks were not cutting it so I went to an old favorite when snow is falling: a Tom& Jerry.
Tom & Jerry is a classic American Holiday drink. It is a wonderful marshmellowy take on traditional egg nog. It is usually made with Jamaican rum and some people add brandy. Maker's Mark, being my drink of choice, (more on that later) replaces the brandy in my version. It is so easy to make and really warms your soul quickly.

To make  enough drinks to warm your soul and a best friend or two, you need:
1 Tbs Jamaican rum, Maker's Mark (to taste), 2 cups of milk, 2 eggs, separated, 2 1/2 Tbs sugar, small pinch of ground cloves, small pinch of ground allspice, large pinch of ground cinnamon, 1 tsp vanilla extract, fresh nutmeg.

First, lightly beat the yolks, add the vanilla, rum, sugar and spices.

Second, in a separate bowl, whip the egg whites to stiff peaks.

Third, fold the whipped whites into the yolk mixture with a spatula.

It should be smooth and evenly mixed. This is called the base.

While you mix the base, pour the milk into a small sauce pan and bring it just to a boil.

If you are very traditional, their are special Tom & Jerry cups that you can buy; however, this is not a traditional Tom & Jerry, so I am going to use the snowman mug I made in 8th grade ceramics class. You can use whatever mug you prefer.
To make the drinks, fill a quarter of your mug with base. Add as much Maker's Mark into your mug as you would like, everyone can make it as strong as they like. Stir the base and bourbon together.

Next, fill your mug with the scalding hot milk.

Lastly, grate fresh nutmeg over the top.

Enjoy! (and stay warm)

Pastry Chefs have feelings too

I hope everyone had a great Christmas and New Year's with family and friends. The holidays were pretty low key at our house this year. Not only did I take over dinner making responsibilities but I was also prodded into baking cookies to give to neighbors and family friends. I say that I was prodded because to be honest, I really did not feel like baking. however, once I accepted the fact that my mom was determined that I was going to bake, I started planning with enthusiasm. Soon, my list of cookies was extensive and needed dwindling down. I narrowed the list to one or two from each category: cakey, crisp, soft, chocolate, traditional, and unexpected.

My mother wanted to bake with me, bless her, but I haven't learned to share the kitchen with someone who doesn't know what they are doing. So I would ask her to measure a cup of milk or melt a stick of butter, then she was relegated to dish duty.  With my mom's... ahemm... help, I baked off all the cookies.  After all of the cookies were baked and cooled, I mixed icing and began decorating. This is where my pastry skills were tested.

Being a perfectionist, I wanted to do most of the cookies over. One snowflake cookie had squiggly piping, one gingerbread man's eyes were too far apart, etc... I wasn't excited about everyone receiving my cookies and them knowing that I was a professional. I didn't want to ruin my reputation over some Christmas cookies; suddenly I regretted judging a fellow patry chef's cake pictures posted on facebook.



Here are the plates of cookies that were given out: (clockwise from the top left) piselle, mocha madeleines, stained glass tree& gingerbreadman, pecan linzer sandwich cookies, chocolate macaron, peppermint macaron, honey macaron, pumpkin pie macaron, chocolate blackpepper crisp, chocolate cayanne snickerdoodle.



A plate of cookies was not enough, so I also made mini gingerbread houses filled with candied ginger chocolate truffles. The roof was not attached, so you could lift the roof and pick a hidden truffle.

The day before Christmas Eve, as plates of baked goods began to be exchanged, I realized that if I was worried about people judging my cookies, it was nothing compared to angst they felt about handing over their treats. Some seemed apologetic as my mother accepted their plates, almost all stated their apprehension about giving a pastry chef their baked goods.

Here are lists of Do's and Don'ts when exchanging baked goods with a pastry chef.
When giving a chef your baked goods:

1. Do take advice from Julia Child and never apologize.  Be confident in your baking.
2. Do ask for feedback, once, appropriately. If you get a fluff answer, the chef was probably being polite. Appriciate that.
3. Do not assume that a chef makes something better than you. There are a lot of fruit cake recipes and yours might be better!
4. Do try different recipes to change things up.
5. Don't over-extend your self trying to impress the chef. The simplest food in  the world can be the best food when made correctly.
6. Do ask for baking advice or recipes the chef might know about.
7. Don't ask for a good recipe for dirt and worms. (true story)

When receiving baked goods from a chef:

1. Do not exclaim that whatever it is, is too pretty to eat. It was made to be eaten.
2. Do not rave about your expectation that everything will be delicious, a modest mmmmm will suffice.
3. Don't expect baked goods every time you see them, chefs have busy schedules.
4. Don't say that's too fancy for your tastes. keep an open mind!
5. Don't say that was too simple or you expected more from a pastry chef unless you'd like a throw down!
6. Do: say thank you and EAT IT

Midwest is Best!

I have never been ashamed of my midwest roots, in fact I am proud to be from Kansas City. I did not move to New York because of a lifestyle choice, I moved because that is where the best culinary school in the country is located. I vehemently defended Kansas City and the entire Midwest when I met someone from either coast who looked down upon my native city. Infact, I turned the tables on them. Kansas City is not a podunk town with nothing to offer; it has a unique, big small town culture. Most notably, it has its own BBQ style and over 100 BBQ restaurants. It has more fountains than any city in the world, except Rome and it also has the nation's only World War One monument.

Ironically, it was my mother who helped me realize what Kansas City lacked. The night before I graduated, I was out to dinner with family and my mom asked me what I would miss about New York. A familiar anxious knot formed in my stomach. It was not a test anxiety knot, this knot was the same knot I had four and a half years earlier at 3am while I was walking to the car to drive to the airport to move to New York. In that moment, I fully realized that I was moving half way across the country away from everything I had ever known. The same feelings arose in the reverse situation. That dose of realtiy clearly outlined what I was leaving behind: ethnic neighborhoods.
Having many cultures living so close together makes New York City the embodiment of America's "melting pot." As a chef, that translates into ingredients. The large assortment of unique ingredients easily available to me would soon be reduced to a grocery store designed to cater to a large population of meat and potato eaters.
Don't get me wrong, six months into Northeast living and rich culinary school food, I was craving some good ol' homestyle meat and potatoes! However, being a foodie, I like to have options. I can't travel down to a Chinatown and pick up fresh bamboo shoots for authentic Chinese in Kansas City. I mourned my loss of readily available diversity.

Two weeks after graduating, I don't feel at home, but I don't feel like a visitor. I merely exist amongst the boxes and bags of stuff that I have not unpacked. I get to lounge around my mother's house in pijamas, I haven't shaved, (a rare treat, since I had to be clean shaven everyday at school) I haven't seen any old pals, my only required task for the day is to make dinner while my mother works and shops for Christmas presents.

Yesterday, I broke the lounging habit, spending the day with my brother and his girlfriend. We went to one of my favorite places, the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. The museum boasts an immense collection of Asian art and artifacts. It is most famous for the giant shuttle cocks that scatter the lawn as if a badmitten playing giant with bad aim carelessly did not retreive them. Being overshadowed by a giant play thing is usually part of the thrill of seeing the shuttlecocks, but it was too chilly to justify a march across the lawn. I was thrilled to be inside and look out a window.
My favorite part of the museum is the Beaux-Arts architecture of the main building.  Walking down hallways and passing through exibit rooms that never change and exploring new additions captured my attention and imagination like it did when I was 11.

At dusk we headed to the Country Club Plaza because my brother's girlfriend wanted to do some shopping. The Plaza is a couple of blocks of expensive mega chain stores set inside decorative Spanish style buildings to honor our sister city of Madrid, Spain. At Christmas, every line of each building is outlined in Christmas lights, enhancing the gingerbread effect. The lights,the wandering groups of carolers, horse drawn carriages, and bell ringers make the expirience wonderful. The Plaza embodies Christmas for me; it is steeped in Christmas tradition. Every year we drove down to the Plaza just to walk around, admire the lights, and window shop. By the time my brother, his girlfriend and I got in the car to drive home, it really felt like Christmas, but most importantly, it felt like home.

Here are a few pictures I snapped on our walk through the Plaza:

Lighted horse drawn carriages are a fun way to see the Plaza.

The ice makes the fountains more dramatic.

The Spanish flag flies in honor of our sister city, Madrid.

A beginning or an ending? It's both!

I have been going to school at The Culinary Institute of America (C.I.A.) in the beautiful Hudson Valley since 2006. In true intinerant fasion I stopped along the way to work or take a trip abroad, however I finally graduated with a Bachelors of Professional Studies in Baking and Pastry management. Unlike many of my fellow graduates who have jobs in New York City or moved to New York City in hopes of finding a job quickly, I am moving home, to Kanasas City. I don't have any plans except to enjoy Christmas. Past expirience has taught me that plans are of little use because I always end up doing something else that came up suddenly.

My path to graduation was long and indirect because I couldn't resist the opportunity to briefly do something else; I have recently embraced that as my modus operandi. When we began discussing career paths in 7th grade, I felt compelled to follow many careers: teaching, cooking, clowning, translator, secret agent. Cooking, which lead to baking, won out, however on a bad day in the kitchen I might day-dream about running away with the circus or herding grass fed cattle onto greener pastures. (Secretly I hope there is time for me to do both.)

I love the science of baking and the art of pastry work, but it is not what I am going to do for the rest of my life. I'm thrilled that I attended the C.I.A., (thanks Dad!) without the various opportunities it provided for me to expirience all aspects of the Hospitality industry, I might never have discovered my passion for growing AND eating vegetables. A sort of jagged idea of how all my interests will come together is forming in my brain, but the most important imformation to remember about me is that I am 23, convinced I am invincible and I'm ready to take over the world. Watch out!