There are lots of things I love about being a pastry chef: working with my hands, not working in an office, the nutty personalities that kitchens attract, making people (hopefully) happy. But lets face it, I’m not saving lives–not even close. My job affords me few opportunities to actually feel like I’m helping people or improving the world. So, when I was asked to be a judge for Fierce and Sweet, the first annual bake off to benefit New York Cares, a fantastic organization that mobilizes volunteers to meet community needs, I was was more than thrilled to accept.

This past Sunday, I made my way over to  Williamsburg, where 20 bakers–pros, hobbyists and business owners alike–set up shop in East River Bar’s side yard, hoping to impress us four judges with their sweets, their stories and their presentation. With the recent demise of Gourmet magazine and the seemingly endless popularity of non-chef-centric food magazines that aren’t even foodie-centric, along with the rise of in-your-face “food” television that’s more about loud voices and cartoon-ish faces than food (Top Chef and No Reservations blessedly aside), I admit to having some minor trepidations about what these contestants would bring to the table. But after tasting every single baked good (no small feat, I assure you), I was duly impressed and relieved that so many folks clearly still love to bake from scratch, put their creative food brains to good use and really think about what they make and how they make it. Score one for real every day food. Here are few highlights:

Alison Robicelli brought us Chicken and Waffle Cupcakes, a waffle-inspired cupcake topped with butter cream and a healthy nugget of fried chicken that had been dipped in maple syrup. My first thought was genius! Someone decided that bacon was not the only meat that could find it’s way to the dessert table. My second thought was, but wait, how long has that fried nugget been sitting out in the sun? Had the chicken been fried to order, an impossibility at this event, my excitement would not have wavered.  Still, after hearing Alison explain that she and her husband introduce a brand new cupcake every week or two at their shop, I was impressed–that’s a lot of cupcake ideas, and from the sound of it, a lot of good cupcake ideas. I left her table wishing I could have tried her pear and olive oil cake with blue cheese butter cream, port wine reduction and candied walnuts instead.

Blogger Raissa Nebie, stage name “Draculinaria,”  won our vote for The Most Surprising Ingredient with her use of pop rocks to top off her almond raspberry bars. It might have been nostalgia that won us over, but it was also her full commitment to her story. She was inspired by her obsession with True Blood (full disclosure: she is not the only one obsessed) and the pop rocks represented the feeling of euphoria that accompanies a bite.  She and the two women working her table coordinated their black and red outfits, complete with blood-stained neck bites.  She was clearly in it to win it–and she did. I would love to see her at every bake sale.

After trying 20 different sweet items, there was only one that had me wanting a second bite: Viviana Vitale’s alfajores, a cookie that she had eaten growing up spending summers in Argentina. Unable to find satisfactory alfajores back in the states, she and her grandmother set out to come up with their own and we were lucky enough to have them at Fierce and Sweet. I loved most the shortbread-like cookies that almost dissolved in my mouth; they were sandwiched with dulce de leche and covered in a bittersweet chocolate that made it almost the perfect bite. I wish more people would get together with their grandmothers to get results like this.

I loved the heart-felt effort that clearly went into every bite, every display (among them a white, wooden sheep that held “coconut wool” cupcakes), and the ideas that people were willing to try out (dehydrated sweet potato cream, anyone?). While not every dish was as successful as others, I’m convinced that every entrant was. Hearing their stories, both personal and bake-sale-related, put me in very good company–the entrants and I share a love for feeding people, a most basic joy and one, on that day anyway, lent support to New York Cares.

I rarely order dessert when I eat out. Partly because I just don’t have that strong of a sweet tooth (maybe being elbow deep into sugar, chocolate, and cream all day more than satisfies my dessert cravings). But the other reason, is that outside of 4-star restaurants or spots that push the boundaries of cooking, I’m convinced the dessert menu won’t have anything that I haven’t seen before, and I just don’t crave sugar enough to try another ubiquitous molten chocolate cake, mediocre apple cake or too-sweet tart. The exception to this rule is ethnic restaurants, and the more foreign to me, the better, where the element of surprise alone is enough to get me excited about that final course, along with everything that precedes it.

So, the other day, when  a chef-friend and I decided to go to dinner after listening to legends Daniel Boulud, Pierre Gagnaire, and Grant Achetz talk about the restaurant industry at the Star Chefs Congress, we opted for a kind of food that neither of us gets to eat that often: Persian, and settled on the blandly decorated Ravagh Persian Grill. One look at the menu and we knew we wouldn’t be disappointed–not only was the large folder of options jam-packed, it was jam packed with all kinds of things I’d never heard of, a sure precursor to an invigorating meal. The sambuseh, fried dumplings, were crisp and hot with a rich, earthy filling of mashed chickpea, but it was the spicy/sour herbed chutney that came with them that I couldn’t get enough of. Ditto for the torshi, a small side dish of mixed, chopped pickles that I could have easily eaten all on its own. Neither my food-genius friend nor I could figure out the delicious, predominant spice that made it so distinctive. Add in the lamb kebobs, kashk badamjoon, and barberry and saffron rice that we ordered and we could barely fathom dessert.  We’ll at least look at the menu, we told our waiter. Surely there’d be something on it I’d never tried.

Which only made our disappointment that much greater. Our waiter handed us a small, postcard-sized, full-color, glossy booklet filled with industrially produced fancy “French” desserts: chocolate mousse encased with a striped sponge cake, hollowed out citrus halves filled with sorbet, all things that were manufactured in a factory somewhere, with lots of stabilizers and little love, which were then packaged up and sent who knows how far. This was it?

You don’t have any Persian desserts? we asked incredulously, trying not-so-hard to disguise our disappointment. It just didn’t make sense.

Well…, our waiter offered. We do have a few Persian desserts but we don’t put them on the menu because usually it’s only Persian people who want them.

Turns out they had three desserts and we decided on the one that sounded the “weirdest”: faloodeh, which our waiter described as rose water ice cream with rice noodles, fresh limes, and cherries.  How do you not order that? The ice cream was actually closer to finely shaved ice flavored with so much rose water that eaten alone, it was like a mouth full of frozen perfume. But we’d neglected its condiments: fresh lime wedges and soupy sour cherries. Once we tempered the rose water ice with the sour fresh juices from both the limes and the cherries it was another experience entirely: refreshing, complex, acidic, addictive. And as promised, thin, opaque rice noodles had been folded into the rose water ice, giving the dessert a pleasant, slightly chewy bite. But then, I’m a sucker for the texture of all rice products.  We finished it, and must have been so visibly happy to have “discovered” this gastronomic find, that our waiter then told us about another item that wasn’t on the menu either but that had us both drooling. And before we knew it, he set down yet another bowl of food in front of us, a gift. This time we were back to savory: a sheet of rice (the rice that gets stuck to the bottom of the pot during cooking, turning it sticky, crisp, and chewy all at the same time) smothered with a tangy lamb stew. It ended up being our favorite dish of the night (after the faloodeh). Turns out that sometimes it does pay to ask about dessert.

Let me take this opportunity to invite you to check out the column I’ve been writing for a new web newspaper called The Faster Times. Below are the my last two columns,  both on my recent trip to Iceland.

Part 1

I’ve been in Iceland for just about 6 days now, which is hardly enough time to collate a comprehensive and far-reaching opinion on all things pastry in this island of near-midnight sun (It’s 9pm here and I can still see the sun just barely peeking out behind the mountains from my hotel room in Husavik.) But, in 6 days I’ve already driven round half the country and consumed 18 meals plus almost as many snacks, if you count cups of coffee. So here are just a few highlights from the sweets (and bakery) scene in Iceland, surely just the tip of the proverbial iceberg.

I’d heard about skyr before coming to Iceland, but the only skyr I’d tried was Siggi’s, a variety made in upstate New York that I bought at Whole Foods. And Siggi’s skyr, a decidedly unsweet, thicker-than-Greek-yogurt, low fat yogurt-like dairy product is good, but I did not quite understand the full range of skyr until having it every day–sometimes twice a day–here in Iceland. One variety of skyr (prounced skeer) is the thick Siggi’s variety, which often showed up in my desserts (most recently and simply, blended with tiny Icelandic blueberries and drizzled with heavy cream, but also in a more modern approach: whipped and smeared on a plate and topped with rhubarb compote, rhubarb granita and lightly stewed slices of rhubarb). It was this modern dessert that got me thinking about ways to use skyr in my desserts back home. It is a perfect starting point and counter point for someone like me who likes her desserts on the less sugary side and pairs beautifully with almost any fruit. Its thickness only makes it easier to incorporate into into mousses.  But it is the other kind of skyr, the looser, slightly less sour kind that has really won me over, the one that’s been elevating my morning muesli to something I look forward to while falling asleep. Well, one of the things, but more on that later. This almost pudding-like skyr is similar to yogurt but without the sourness, and is impossibly creamy while remaining low fat, as skyr is made with skim milk. It, too, appears as a simple, classic dessert, usually with berries and a simple shortbread biscuit.

What else do I fall asleep thinking about? Vöffler, for one. These waffles seem to be everywhere, for breakfast and for an afternoon snack with coffee. And they’re not like any waffle I’ve seen before. In fact, they are more like slightly thick crepes that have the tell-tale, golden brown hatch marks of waffles. They are soft, with only the slightest bit of crunch on the edges, and are served the way crepes and waffles are served in the rest of Scandinavia: with fresh whipped cream and jam. I like the the tender, egg-y vöffler with my afternoon coffee, without the cream and just a tiny bit of strawberry jam, but that’s just me.

Iceland has got me wondering why we don’t have better whole grain bread back in New York. Don’t get me wrong, I like a lot of the fresh, whole grain bread from the Union Square farmers market, and even a lot of the store-bought types ( I’m weirdly partial to Ezekial, despite its biblical background). But Iceland has got me thinking that maybe I’ve been settling. Maybe I’ve just gotten used to the somewhat dry, vaguely cardboardy-but-definitely-good-for-me bread, and maybe never realized how delicious whole grain bread could and should be. Every morning my breakfast-included hotels put out a spread that includes the aforementioned skyr, sometimes waffles, and always the best whole grain bread I’ve ever had. It’s not always exactly the same, but it has not disappointed yet: crunchy/flaky crust with a very tender, but sturdy crumb, always with flax seeds, usually with sunflower seeds, sometimes with millet or other grains. The point is, it isn’t dry. It’s soft and dense–but not too dense. And it has enough salt to bring out the flavor of all the seeds. But it’s that crust that really sets it apart. The crusts of whole grain bread back home are more like tough edges posing as crust. Crust should be crisp and flaky and actually leave crumbs behind when you bite into it, like when you eat a baguette. In the next 5 days it is my mission to find a recipe for Icelandic-style whole grain bread.  Another thing Icelanders have figured out that New Yorkers are only just beginning to appreciate? Currants, black and red. These tiny berries have been showing up everywhere: in my berry compote, on top of skyr, made into marmalade. Not only are they packed with anti-oxidents, they are deliciously tart and unlike any other berry. Sure, I’d known about currants before coming to Iceland, and even used them to make sorbet but sometimes it takes travelling to be reminded of just how much you love a simple, less common thing like currants. For now, I’m happy to mix red currant jam into my skyr, onto my vöffler and onto my generously buttered whole grain bread while looking forward to 5 more days of of eating.
Part 2
The second half of my trip around Iceland was much like the first. Each day we spent a few hours driving past green hills, numerous waterfalls, volcanic fields, glaciers, and even a vast black sand desert, on our way to the next overnight town. In between were few signs of life,  aside from countless free-roaming sheep and a multitude of sleeping horses. In fact, all forms of life in Iceland seemed to be more relaxed, and the laid back attitude was contagious.

My love affair with all things skyr grew, and I continued to have it every morning for breakfast. But skyr wasn’t the only object of my desire, I fell for all the dairy in Iceland, from butter to milk to cheese to ice cream–all of it tasted richer, better, than at home. Learning that hormones are prohibited and that pesticides are not used (the harsh climate makes them unnecessary) only encouraged my pro-dairy diet. Take into account the vast supply of clean, glacial water and unpolluted air (the country is virtually run on clean, geo-thermal energy) and how could I not ask for extra butter with my bread or order the local jöklais ice cream in Skaftafel?  I’m absolutely certain that the reason the cafe latte I had at Kaffitar in Rejkyavik blew me away so completely was the milk. And with 700 dairy farms, Iceland dairy products are almost always local.

I’m sure it was the butter that made the pastries so undeniably superior–that along with the influence the Danes have had on their bakery business.  The vinarbraud (or what the Danes call wienerbrød, which really means Vienna bread) was some of the lightest and flakiest I’ve had outside of Denmark, and was never tough or soggy or overly sweet (no syrup-y glazes), as is too often the case with mainstream pastry here in the U.S. It seemed that quality pastry, sweet and savory alike, could be found even at the gas stations, and that most larger towns had seriously good, proper bakeries. Sandholt in Reykjavik was one of my favorites.

Driving through the weird and cool landscapes surrounding Lake Mývatn, an area of active volcanism, I discovered hverabraud, a dark rye, incredibly moist and slightly sticky bread lightly sweetened with molasses. It’s baked for 24 hours underground by geothermal heat–I even spotted a few above ground doors leading to the underground “ovens.” Topped with plenty of Icelandic butter, hverabraud was my favorite afternoon snack, and one I’ll never be able to replicate here in New York City.

So what didn’t I like about Icelandic sweets? Kleinur, for one. These cardamom-scented doughnuts just didn’t do it for me. I found them un-crispy to the point of seeming stale, overly dense and just plain uninspired–and they were everywhere. And I’ve never been able to develop a taste for black licorice, which as in most of Scandinavia, flooded Iceland’s gas stations, grocery stores and candy shops. Too many times I’d fill a bag from bulk candy bins and bite into what I thought was a malt ball, a chocolate covered nut, a nougat, only to be disappointed by the assertive flavor of black licorice, or worse, its harsher, crazier cousin, salt licorice.  Still, only two dislikes out of an entire country of sweets isn’t too bad.

I so often find myself in the Union Square area struck with sudden and urgent hunger pangs. I’m usually shopping (at the farmers market, Barnes & Noble, Anthropologie) and so I want something quick, satisfying, cheap, and easy to eat on the go. Until recently, there was blessed little that satisfied these requirements. Falafel is too messy. A muffin or baked good from the market is just bread–not enough to keep my energy up. A generic sandwich from a generic deli? No thanks. Everything else requires a sit down. That is, until a group of geniuses opened Dogmatic.

Dogmatic is a self-proclaimed “gourmet sausage system” and what a system it is. Each sausage (choose from pork, chicken, beef, lamb or turkey–all are locally sourced from sustainable farms) is a mere $4.50 and comes “wrapped” in a sort of chewy-in-a-good-way mini-baguette that is locally baked in NYC. Yes, I did say wrapped. The bread is not split down the middle like a lowly hot dog bun, but instead hollowed out with a big, heated spike which effectively toasts the bread from the inside out which, as the website points out, helps keep the sausage hot while not burning your hands. Each sausage comes with your choice of sauce (cheddar jalapeno, horseradish mustard, truffle gruyere, chimichurri, sun dried tomato feta, mint yogurt) and if deciding on a combination is just too much work or outside of your skill set, they’ll happily suggest one. Or, you can go with my absolute favorite, lamb sausage with mint yogurt or a close second, chicken sausage with sun dried tomato feta. The sausages come packed in a foil and paper bag–perfect for eating on the go, or reserving the un-eaten half while you have a look in the bookstore. Oh, and vegetarians can opt for grilled asparagus.

I want to tell you that their “handmade” sodas are fanstastic all the time but I can’t. One day the lemon-lime soda was perfect: not too sweet, not too strong, very refreshing. Ditto the ginger soda. Another day, the ginger soda tasted like the ginger syrup had sat around a few days too long and the strawberry soda tasted weirdly spicy and not all that strawberry-y, so drink at your own risk. And don’t ask me about the sides (mac ‘n’ cheese, tomato basil salad, cole slaw) because not only do they not sound like anything special but they can’t be eaten with one hand, so they’d just slow me down.  Why bother? A single sausage is the perfect size anyway.

This Sunday, June 28th, from 3pm-5pm, I’ll be signing copies of my recently published memoir, SPICED: A Pastry Chef’s True Stories of Trials By Fire, After-Hours Exploits, and What Really Goes On In the Kitchen, at Whisk, a fantastic new kitchen store on Bedford Avenue in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. It would be great to see you there!

The other day, I went to my dry goods shelf to grab a 5 kilo box of 64% chocolate pistoles, and found that it had been vandalized. Someone had written ñiñita chucha in black magic marker on the front of the box. Random scrawlings around a kitchen aren’t all that strange. I’ve seen everything from “te gusta maiz?” (you like corn?) written next to the employee toilet, part of a long-running kitchen joke involving an escort service ad and an ear of corn, to expletive filled notes imploring coworkers to keep a given area tidy, to random cartoon renditions of male genitals, to altered labels on my pastry items (tart turned into a fart, buttermilk becomes simply butt milk, you get the idea) Suffice it to say it doesn’t take much to entertain a bunch of kitchen workers.

But ñiñita chuca was the first bit of graffiti to show up in my present workplace which had been, up to that point, generally free of expletives, shouting, practical jokes and general bad behavior. In other words, it’s been a bit atypical as far as restaurant kitchens go. When I casually asked the Spanish-speaking chef what ñiñita chuca means, he answered just as casually, um, it’s like, cute little pussy, in Guatemalan slang.  Huh? My relationship with the Spanish-speaking contingent with whom I shared the basement prep area had been pretty good up to that point so I found it unlikely that one of them would call me a pussy via a box of chocolate, and anyway, after years in kitchens, I’ve done my best to make sure I don’t come close to giving off a pussy vibe. So I gathered the three of them around, held up the vandalized box and asked, as non-accusingly as I could (I didn’t want them to think I actually cared about the grafitti, I just wanted to figure it out), why did someone write cute little pussy on my chocolate? The butcher, and the oldest of the three, looked a little surprised at the words that had just come out of my mouth but simply shook his head as if in exasperation, while the youngest started to giggle. He’s from Guatemala, he explained, pointing at the third, holding his stomach as he laughed, as if it all made perfect sense. And that was all the explanation I got.

I’ve noticed a pattern. Every time I post something of, shall we say,”questionable” taste, (kicking animals, the smell of poo) I lose a subscriber. So, for the record, my intention is not to glorify the smut and dark side of the kitchen, but to relay what I find to be the bizarre, sometime outrageous and often funny things that go on behind the dining rooms in some of the fanciest restaurants. You might not like it, but it’s all part of my workplace reality. So, as a disclaimer for anyone out there with a weak stomach or easily offended sensibilities…here comes another one.

I hired Jane (I will call her Jane) to fill a part time pastry position I had open in a 3-star NYC restaurant. She was far from ideal, but I’d been searching weeks to find someone and she was the best of the sorry lot. (Despite high enrollment rates at local culinary schools, it is still incredibly difficult to find quality kitchen employees.) I suspected she was going to have a bit of trouble fitting in with the tough clique of cooks when, early on,  she almost bragged that her ex-boyfriend had tried to push her out the window (cooks have precious little sympathy for sob stories and even less if they suspect said stories to be exaggerated or self-serving). Even I began to lose patience when she pointed out a tattoo she’d gotten the night before (her 12th she proudly pointed out) “on a whim.”  I don’t even care about the ink, she explained, I just like the way it feels. It was only a matter of time before the cooks unleashed their antics on her.

It was on one of my days off, of course, when Jane came in one morning to the pastry station and found that the cake decorating turntable (a sort of lazy susan on top of a pedestal) had been vandalized in her honor. The night before, the cooks had–quite  creatively and most likely drunkenly–turned the turntable into a “Wheel of Sodomy,” complete with chocolate feces and raspberry sauce blood.

Most people have a romanticized idea of my work place. They envision me happily mixing doughs, lazily measuring out ingredients, casually enjoying an espresso with my most recent creation, fresh out of the oven, all within a cozy room that smells like sugar, spice, and, well, everything nice. It’s a nice picture, and perhaps represents 5% of my day to day reality. I’ve written plenty on some of the ubiquitous and unpleasant stenches that crop up in every kitchen, but the other morning I was reminded, once again, of an unfortunate circumstance that often befalls the pastry chef. In at least three of the high-end restaurants in which I’ve worked, the pastry area is inconveniently located too close to the employee bathroom.

Restaurant employees are a “family,” and these families are comfortable enough to, shall we say, do their business together. When you work upwards of 12 hours a day, and drink plenty of diuretic coffee to boot, well, let’s just say that when you gotta go, you gotta go (and the early hours leading up to a brunch service worsen this scenario exponentially), and where you go is often a short breeze from the pastry area.

And so, while there often is cake in the oven, its delicious and tempting smell too often collides with the stink of the freshly made poo coming from the nearby employee bathroom. The only thing worse is the odor derived from futile attempts to hide the smell by spraying disinfectant or deodorizer. Few things make me gag more than minted-poo or worst of all,  rose-poo. I’ve never liked that perfume-y “old lady” rose smell and I sure as heck don’t want to smell her poo.

Launching and promoting my first book, along with having my beloved sister-in-law and 2-year old niece visiting for a week (and for the record, I lucked out in this department), left me with little time for cooking, or shopping, for that matter. Luckily, my freezer is stocked with some arugula pesto I made weeks ago when I had an abundance of arugula on hand. I know, I know. Pesto is usually made with basil, but I prefer the slightly heated bite of arugula. Arugula is not nearly as sandy as basil (making it easier to clean) and there’s no need to pick the leaves off the stems, especially if you use the smaller varieties often available at places like Whole Foods. I also like to toast the pignoli nuts (also called pine nuts) to give the pesto an extra bit of nuttiness.  Pesto freezes beautifully in zip lock bags and defrosts quickly. If you’re really in a hurry just place the baggie in a bit of hot or slightly simmering water. Then, boil up your favored shape of pasta and stir in the pesto along with some cooked shrimp, chicken or veggies. It’s got to be one of the fastest and most delicious dinners around–and easiest. Does it get any better?  note: I use Parmigiano-Reggiano, but Pecorino, a hard, aged sheep’s milk cheese works, too.

1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil

4 large cloves garlic

4 cups loosely packed cleaned arugula

3/4 cup pine nuts, toasted

finely grated zest of one lemon

 4 ounces Parmigiano Reggiano, grated

1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper

1/4 teaspoon salt

1. On low-medium heat, cook the garlic cloves in the extra virgin olive oil until the garlic is light brown and softened. Use the smallest pan/pot you have so that the garlic is fully submerged in the oil. You can coarsely chop the garlic if necessary. Remove from heat and set aside to cool slightly.
2. In a food processor, place the arugula, pine nuts, lemon zest, cheese, black pepper and salt. Blend until a thick paste is formed. Stop and scrape down the sides of the processor bowl.
3. With the food processor running, slowly pour in the garlic and oil in a steady stream. Process until oil is fully incorporated and desired texture is achieved. I like my pesto a little bit chunky. Season with additional salt and pepper if desired.

Some cooks are just dirty.  Like Pigpen from Charlie Brown, they seem to leave a cloud of dust (and grease and crumbs and chopped herbs–you get the idea) where ever they go. Pigpens make their lives more difficult because the more mess they make, the deeper they fall into a disorganized abyss and with line cooking–any cooking–organization and efficiency is key. A good chef will ride a Pigpen, constantly getting on his case: wipe down the station…stop wiping your filthy hands on your chef jacket…work CLEAN, and hopefully, over time, a Pigpen can turn the corner into cleanliness–the first sign of a good cook.

One Pigpen I worked with was not only a sloppy cook, but personally disheveled, as is so often the case. His hair always looked unwashed, he didn’t take care of his teeth, and his chef pants were always falling low and his apron riding high, so that a healthy band of flesh across his back waved to everyone in the kitchen. None of this prevented his luck with the ladies. (That Pigpen line cooks are appealing to the ladies is something I still don’t understand.) But, it did provide fodder for his fellow cooks who, not only teased him for bing a Pigpen, but would take any opportunity to drop a single green pea into his exposed butt crack when he least expected it.