Before AND After

Saturdays are often kind of weird for my eating schedule. I generally go out for brunch and eat so much that I feel sick all day- and so I usually don't eat before I work. But that is a bad idea, and I realize this about 15 minutes before we open, and that is when bar-caddy snack happens. The bar-caddy is the thing that holds the olives, cherries, picked onions and lemon slices for cocktails. Bar-caddy snack is when I get a plate and a spoon and serve myself a little of each, and slice up an orange for good measure. This snack does not make sense on the plate or in my stomach but my brain likes it a lot.

Post shift staff meal was awesome last night- almost as good as the pre. Japanese curry (full of my favorite spice, MSG) with potatoes, rutabaga, peas and asparagus on rice. It was hot and healthy, and paired with a frozen drink. Shane needed to use up some creepy moonshine and a bunch of other toxic spirits, so he blended them in the kitchen blender with ice and some pineapple juice. It was a perfect end to a perfect evening. Wait a minute...

I would like to address a certain behavior that I will not stand for. You see, David is kind enough to make us the most delicious little chocolates to hand out with the check for every table. He puts these adorable little chocolates into adorable little frilly paper cups. In each cup, if you look, there are two chocolates. Or, if you are hostile, defensive and rude, you do not bother to look and immediately attack your server for not giving you the proper number of free gifts. Here is a sample of this kind of behavior from a group of 6 (grumpy, hateful people) that I (disliked) waited on the other night.

Me: Thank you so much for dining with us, here are some salt and pepper chocolates made by our friend David for you to try tonight. It has been a real pleasure!
Customer #1: You only gave us three!
Me (pretending to be cheerful): Well if you look in the little cups you will see there are two chocolates in each cup. Do you really think I would only give you three free chocolates???
Customer #2: What- am I supposed to use a knife to cut them up?
Customer #3: There are ONLY THREE?!
Customer #4: What is the point of this? Why do we have three chocolates?
Customer #5: THIS IS THE WORST NIGHT OF MY LIFE!
Customer #6: WE SHOULD BURN YOU AT THE STAKE!
Me (head tilted, patronizing smile): Like I just said, if you just use your eyes you will notice that there are two FUCKING FREE CHOCOLATES THAT ARE PROBABLY THE BEST CHOCOLATES YOU WILL EVER TRY per cup. What kind of a server do you think I am? Ha ha!"

It's the fact that people immediately assume that I am ripping them off with a free gift that bothers me. We aren't getting our fair portion of free chocolate, damn it! Believe it or not, I am not a mean, cheap con-artist most of the time. I don't understand why I need to prove myself as otherwise.

food and otherwise

Lookey lookey guys, I got a present for sprout sitting! Cloudberry preserves. They are almost gone. Do you see my farmers market booty? Asparagus and eggs to cook at home, and a Tastebud Farms veggie sandwich with wheat berries, rapini and chickpeas all wrapped up in a wood oven pita. The little robins egg was my dog walk find from last week. I think I will paint my new kitchen that color...

COOKIE PARTY!!!!

There was a stowaway yolk in one of the eggs I got at the farmers market. Does a double yolk mean that there would have been twin chicklets? It breaks my heart to think of it since twins are my fave, but I guess since they went into chocolate chip cookie dough it was a fair break. Yay! Cookies for lunch!
Here was Kevin's questionable quote of the day: "I don't like warm or soft cookies". Things like that keep me up at night, worrying about his health.


CHOCOLATE CHUNK COOKIES WITH CRYSTALIZED GINGER

2 sticks of butter (room temp)
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup brown sugar
3 large eggs (one with a double yolk, if you're lucky)
1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
1 tsp. baking soda
2 tsp. fleur de sel
2 cups AP flour
1 cup pastry flour
1 lb. 70% cacao chocolate, chopped.
1/4 cup crystalized ginger, chopped.

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. I used my kitchenaid mixer for this whole process and you should too, if you have one. Fit the mixer with paddle attachment. First cream the butter and sugars together until smooth and wonderful. Don't forget to scrape the bowl a few times throughout the process. Add the eggs one at a time, beat after each addition. Then add the vanilla. I usually add too much on purpose, but maybe I shouldn't tell you that. Put the mixer on medium-slow and add the rest of the dry ingredients in the order that I list them. If you only have AP flour, you can get away with it. Have a few glasses of wine and you won't give a damn about finesse. Otherwise, pastry flour really does make a difference. Drop small amounts of dough onto a cookie sheet and bake for 10 to 12 minutes. Here is my favorite trick: shape the dough into a small ball, but then twist the ball and pull apart- this splits the ball in half and leaves you with jagged sides. Stick the pieces back together, but with the jagged sides facing up. This texturizes your cookies and makes them look like models. I did not do this step today so please examine my photo to see what a smooth finish looks like. I'll tell you what- it doesn't look half as good as the textured finish. Again, this is minutia and should be ignored if you are drinking.

A Wee Snack

This is a tiny chocolate molten cake made in a mason jar by my new hero. This lady is a baker, a chocolatier and a food stylist. JEALOUS! Plus her website is beautiful. But most importantly, the cake was dreamy. It was so moltenous and delightful, I almost had to cut off Kevin's hand, lest he steal one more bite of it (supposedly we were sharing. Bad idea.). This cake was a gift from my personal chocolate dealer, David. His willingness to allow me to enjoy other chocolates is, I think, very brave. Though he has nothing to worry about- I'm a sucker for bacon caramels (duh) and will never stray. Except for these little cakes. Can you see the tiny glasses of milk looming in the distance? And the tiny spoons? And the elephant tray? Dream snack.