I have a variety of things to discuss in this blog entry. Eating on Jitneys is going downhill fast. I’m sorry. This blog has turned into a mess with no direction whatever. Eating on Jitneys my ass! I spent $8 on two bags of flour today. But am I really to blame? We have no bread at home that is not in the form of bagels and after looking at the weather forecast (gloomy) I felt it might be appropriate to bake some this weekend. And I am not really making much at home since I spend my entire day baking. So I am guessing that until post-June 20th (my graduation) this blog will kind of suck.

So what do I have to report? Well, first things first. I tried. I tried to like meat. I really did. I wanted to like it and I wanted to get my protein from something other than soy and wheat. But check out these photographs of my refrigerator. It isn’t working:


…and the only meat in there that is mine is salmon. Smoked salmon. Come on. But I have no shame. BBQ is upon us and this year, rather than concentrating on trying to love meat I will concentrate on actually perfecting the grilled pizza.

Hey, speaking of pizza. Ellen and I are making some tomorrow, and here is the dough proofing in the refrigerator:

Next thing of note: I have been eating enough sugar lately to make me puke. I obviously can’t get away from the world of sugar and sugar candies. I spent 6 years in high school and college vacations working at the coolest candy store on the face of the planet. Now I make these:

What would my old boss at the candy store think of this? He’d probably be very confused, as I was. Oh those French….
But here we go. Hard candies, Nougat, Lollipops, and Pate a Fruit. We get closer to penny candy:

Here is what happens when your dessert crumbles:

Like I said, I had many different things to report. One of these days I will get back on track. Spring is here.

It’s finally spring in Chicago, which means it’s 70/75. We don’t have real spring here, but I’ll take anything that is not 30, sleet, or that blasted “wintry mix.” I’m not complaining about 70. Trust me. That might be my favorite temperature. But there is something a little sad about our weather being either below 40 or above 65.

Anyway, in celebration of this warmth, and also in celebration of the fact that FVD is alive after a nasty fall on his bike, I thought a picnic would be an awesome idea. I am thinking snacks, magazines, beers, and FVD’s new Nintendo DS. I pitched this idea, but FVD looked at me like I had suggested we go frolic in a field of wildflowers, or something equally free-spirited. I quickly realized that the word “picnic” needed to be replaced. When I stopped to think about it, The word reminds me of puffy Easter dresses, lots of small children, really ugly shorts, and Canadian Geese.

So we are having Super-Adventure-Awesome-Funtime. I really want to go to Portage Park because I have never been there before and it’s pretty nearby. There will be pictures of this Alternative Picnic so stay tuned. In the meantime, Ellen is in Florida and eating Blueberry Pancakes and drinking coffee out of a Far Side mug!

And here are some desserts from school last week: Plated Desserts.

A couple of weeks ago I sat in during a Continuing Education Class at school taught by….dumdumdum…Christophe Michalak. Yes, the one and only. When I signed up for the class one of the chefs at my school told me that he is “totally hot in France right now.”

True. He also seemed to have an enormous prejudice against all-things-American. I mean, the guy knows what he’s doing. He also knew how to really style his hair. Here is a picture of his “pastry buffet”: it’s everything that the people in the class made during 3 days. I didn’t get to make anything. I washed dishes. But I did get to sit in on the class for free, get his recipes, and take notes…and pictures:

Here’s a good one. Chef Michalak told us to throw these marshmellow bears away because he was done with them. We took one look at them and knew we would not throw them away. We would, at the very least, take them to our class…and maybe take a little bite. Yes, here is Eva taking a little bite.

…buuuuut he needed them back the next day. And we accidentally left the bitten bear on the tray.  He already apparently hates Americans.  I’m guessing this didn’t help.

It was really cool to see his demos (even if he did have to use “shitty American pectin” and “no fresh raspberries??”).  I learned some things, and got a lot of cool pictures.

Both fortunately and unfortunately I am busier than I have ever been in my life.  Which is why the last few posts have been really few and far between.  I have barely even been cooking anything interesting, besides trying to replicate the most delicious deviled eggs known to mankind: the deviled eggs at The Velvet Hour.  If you live in Chicago, please go.  I can’t stress this enough.

So lately I have been spending most of my waking moments either at school baking and cooking or thinking about baking for the farmer’s market.  I even dream about this stuff.  Flavor combinations, packaging, logo design…etc.  If anyone reads this blog anymore (and I promise it will get great again), please tell me: what is your favorite spring/summer/fall flavor combination?

Lastly, does anyone know anyone that owns chickens in the city?  It’s totally legit.  In Chicago, you can even have “unlimited chickens” as long as you are using them for eggs or playmates.  Ahhh eggs.

I really didn’t want this to turn into a pastry school blog photo show-off…but honestly, that is all i have been doing lately. That and scrounging for food. So here are pictures of pastry school, and explainations of what it’s like to be someone that loves grocery shopping that hasn’t had time or means to go grocery shopping in three weeks.

First, the sad stuff. Literally, I haven’t been grocery shopping in three weeks. I accidentally went to Costco with FVD two Saturdays ago which was probably the biggest mistake of the New Year. Costco…sucks if you don’t have at least 4 people in your household. I bought some Diet Coke because yes, I like Diet Coke. I am no longer ashamed. I also bought Orange Juice. Everything else just seemed like a rip-off. Also, driving to Costco on a Saturday is definitely the worst possible idea that could ever happen.

On to other topics. Since I have been working and in school I have had about 1-3 hours of personal time a day. I usually like to spend those hours showering, checking email, having some red wine, and watching TV. That sounds lame but when you only have a very small amount of free time in your day and it is 1 degree outside, please try and tell me that that is not what you would do too. Come on. Because of this lack of time, you might wonder…Eating on Jitneys…what are you eating? Well, I ask myself that every night while I’m walking back from the train. I have realized that it’s all about stocking up and hiding food from yourself. If I hadn’t bought that sweet potato 3 weeks ago or hidden those toasted (whole!) almonds from myself this summer I would be starving tonight. Being busy leaves to to make small egg sandwiches (scrambled eggs inside toasted bread, spread with mustard and cream cheese and sprinkled with diced artichoke hearts) and have boiled sweet potatoes for dessert.

Speaking of dessert…here are some pastry school pictures. I tried not to include these, but I am so proud:

Lately I have been trying to steer clear of Trader Joe’s. I got really into doing all of my shopping there for about 6 months. But whenever I got home I tried to find something to eat and realized all I had bought was bagels, cheese, mustard, and wine. Maybe some toilet paper. Oh, and cereal. You get the idea. It’s cheap for some things, like wine and cheese, but other than that all you can find are in a pre-packaged form. And their produce selection sucks. Do you really have to put three tomatoes in plastic packaging?

So since yesterday was the first semi-acceptable temperature in the past few weeks I decided to do a biking tour of some grocery stores in a four mile radius of my apartment. I had planned on going to a lot but my bag filled up and I had to go home. Here are some of my finds:

The canned items came from Al Khayyam in Albany Park. They were CHEAP, as well as pretty healthy. For example: the ingredients for the Baba Ghanoush are grilled eggplants, ground sesame seeds, citric acid, sea salt. Not bad. I wouldn’t go out of your way to come here. But if you happen to be riding up towards the 4700 N. block of Kedzie on a Sunday afternoon and are in need of either Middle Eastern canned foods or flavored tobacco for your hookah, you are in luck.

After leaving Al Khayyam, I headed east on Lawrence to Harvestime. This is my new favorite grocery store, for the time being. Right when I walked in I found those dried figs in the picture. They have a ton of produce for such a medium sized grocery store. They also have lots of international options while also selling…say…Diet Coke and Oreos. Not that I like Oreos, but if I did I would not only have the option of buying Italian, French, Mexican, Polish, or Lebanese cookies. I could also buy some Oreos. Their deli looked ok, but honestly I didn’t look too closely. I was more concerned with their cheese selection which looked just fine to me. Not quite Trader Joe’s cheese prices but very very close. They also have a humongous selection of spreads for very decent prices.

The moral of this entry is: go explore your grocery options. Especially if you live in Chicago. We have so so so many great neighborhood grocery stores in this city. Exploring is fun, and it’s for your own good. I realize that sandwiches are tasty and all, but sometimes it is nice to come home with dried figs and fancy italian pasta in your bag for the same price as that same old box of Annie’s Macaroni and Cheese.

Sidenote:
If my posts become more sporadic it is because I am spending all of my time doing this…

First off, I am the proud owner of eatingonjitneys.com. I took the $15 plunge last week and haven’t looked back once. Not once! You don’t need to update any bookmarks, though. Because of magic.

Now, down to business. While in Pittsburgh with FVD over New Years I went to a restaurant that was library themed. It was called…The Library. I wasn’t expecting too much but it was great! They did a good job with not overkilling the theme. The tables had book pages under a layer of envirotex. Their menus were made of old books, but they didn’t tear out the pages. The books were still there! We got a Golden Book Encyclopedia for the drink menu and felt lucky.

The menu also utilized the Dewey Decimal System. Holla!

Each meal is inspired by a book, such as Wings of Icarus, One Fish, Tofish, Where the Wild Things Are, Peter Pan Fried Provolone, and the Hunter S. Thompson.

Dark Green, Bright Red. A scallop dish that was really good, but not as good as the scallop dish that Ellen and I made. I’m just sayin’.  

Animal Farm (Turkey, Bacon, Cheese, Fried Egg. Pickle.)

Salmon Salad Sandwich (really tasty but actually not certain how this pertains to a book. Nevertheless, Salmon, Dill, Cucumbers, Almonds, Dates, Yogurt.)

They call their sweet potato fries “Edgar Allen Sweet Potatoes.” Aww. We were really excited about our food before, during, and after the meal. I would call that success.

Anyways, this Stone Soup business crossed with going to The Library crossed with some conversations with my brother crossed with reading a lot more lately have gotten me seriously thinking about the possibilities, rather than impossibilities, of Imaginary Food Menus. I don’t want to give too much away, but for now, think about it. Streganona style.

The longer I don’t write something the harder it is to start. So many holiday meals have passed since the last entry but obviously I was busy. It was the holiday season. Duh. So to start things off, I thought it most appropriate to document for you the most memorable, and possibly most tasty meal of all: Stone Soup.

Two of my brothers and my sister came over the weekend before Christmas for a dinner party. Many themes for this dinner party were discussed, from 19th century prisoners’ diets to imaginary foods. Eventually, and I’m not sure how but it happened, we settled on Stone Soup. Imaginary, meager, cheap, and fun.

We went to the store and picked out the meagerest ingredients possible. Don’t you kind of love when you go to the grocery store and you look into your basket to find that you are buying eggs, milk, bread, and butter? Now imagine looking down and finding this in your basket (cabbage, turnip, jimaca, a single large carrot, beet, and something simply labeled “root”):

I suppose I can ruin the secret of Stone Soup. Keep in mind that it can be whatever you want it to be (like so many great things). At first, I imagined Stone Soup to be water and stones, boiled for hours. But more and more roots vegetables were chopped and some onion was sauteed (along with the rocks and single shell) and from this, unbelieveably awesome tastes were created. I am not shitting you when I say that this was the tastiest soup of the year.

Ingredients

Stones
1 head cabbage
1 jimaca root
1 other various root
1 turnip
1 beet
1 very large carrot
1/2 onion
1 clove garlic for each stone
water
pinch of salt and pepper

First of all, you need to boil some water with some stones. They should boil together for…at least a couple of hours. The longer the better. I mean, you do need that amazing stone taste. I would assume?

While this is boiling, have a drink. Or a snack! It will take a while. Whenever you are ready, start chopping and slicing vegetables. If you want to get crazy, use cookie cutters on the roots. We did.

We decided to wanted a slightly stronger taste to the soup. I know, save the lectures….it’s Stone Soup. It should have little to no taste. We went through this. However, since this was our actual dinner, we decided to sautee some onion and garlic. It really is best if you take the stones out of the boiling water and sautee them with the onions. If you are really starving, add some garlic like we did.


That’s…pretty much it.
Here was the feast:

We also made Wassil and Cabbage Water (tastes how it sounds, yet surprisingly good):

Here we are enjoying the fruits of our labor:

After dinner, Lindsay provided Invisible Pie (it was so good) and she told the best story ever:

Next up:
tales of me and FVD’s trip to Detroit/Pittsburgh, and my first week of pastry school!

**Special Thanks to Gaper’s Block Drive Thru for mentioning this old blog today.

This is long overdue, but things have been busy. I made these Christmas cookies last weekend, but, despite the fact that I keep eating them as a dessert to my breakfast, there are still a ton of them left so I really don’t think it’s too late.

Even just a year ago I thought that Russian Teacakes were something that just my extended family made. Same with Thumbprint cookies. I don’t know where I was. I mean, how did I somehow miss the cookie tin in every single childhood friends’ house that probably was filled to the brim with every American childs’ favorite fucking Christmas cookies: Russian Tea Cakes? It’s not that it ruins the cookies, knowing they weren’t especially special to my family, but it does make me realize there might be more than just one recipe for them. However, Christmas makes me crave tradition like nothing else. And what’s more traditional than a Betty Crocker recipe? For Christmas cookies that your mom made? Right?? So I used that one, and here’s a picture:

Next came the Thumbprint Cookies: also a mistaken family secret. As a kid, I used to only like these without jam in the middle. I would eat them before my mom had put the jam in the center for…I have no idea what reason. Jam in cookies is so good!

Thumbprint Cookies
(adapted from Betty Crocker by my mom)

1/4 cup butter or margarine, softened
1/4 cup shortening
1/4 cup brown sugar (packed)
1 egg, separated
1/2 tsp vanilla
1 cup flour
1/4 tsp. salt
3/4 cup finely chopped nuts
jelly or jam

heat over to 350 degrees.
mix thoroughly butter, shortening, sugar, egg york and vanilla. work in flour and salt until dough hold together. shape dough by teaspoonfuls into 1-inch balls.

beat egg white slightly.
dip each ball into egg white; roll in nuts.
place 1 inch apart on ungreased baking sheet; press thumb deeply into center of each.

bake about 10 minutes or until light brown. immediately removed from baking sheet. cool.
fill thumbprints with jelly or jam (raspberry is best)

I also made these Swedish Christmas Cookies because I wanted to make something I had never tried before, in addition to the two family staples.

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My friend Emily sent me this cool link that I thought I should share…

Foodpairing

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I want to bake something this weekend. It’s cold and dark and snowy, and I have many things to do on the computer at home. Baking and working on the computer is a good combination as it forces me to step away from the screen and punch some dough around. Or, I could make cookies. I took the Red Line down to China Town last night because I could have sworn that Woks ‘n’ Things sold tartlet tins. Obviously, this must have come to me in a beautiful beautiful dream (I remember them being basically perfect) because the man working there had no clue what I was talking about. It’s a pretty great place, and I had gone all the way down there, so I decided to look around. I saw a big jar of cookie cutters for 25 cents each. Literally 3 seconds after I reached my hand in, said worked ran up to me with a package of 6 cookie cutters and said (VERY excitedly), “6 for only $1.25! What a deal?!” so I just had to. Then he started to whistle some Christmas songs, and I knew I had done the right thing.

OK, on to this contest. I want to bake something new, but don’t have much direction. Searching through cookbooks and websites is overwhelming when you don’t even have one main ingredient that you want to use. So I am asking you, trusty readers, to tell me what I should make. Bread? Cookie? I’ll choose one person’s suggestion, make it, photograph it, and I’ll either deliver or mail that person (most of) the finished product. If you read this about 4 hours ago I had claimed I would be making this tonight. However, other things took priority and I didn’t get a change to. So! If you want to be the winner, let me know what I should make and I will choose one. Hope you are all staying warm.