It’s starting to get cool outside, the days are growing shorter, and leaves are beginning to collect in the gutter. Fall is quickly coming, and with the change of season, comes my strong nesting instinct. Days are spent thinking of all of the soup recipes I will try, and what new and exciting dishes filled with cabbage there are to explore; and my weekends are spent stock piling dumplings in the freezer. I love a good dumpling, so much so, I even tolerate a not-so-good dumpling on occasion. It’s all very zen. And in what ways is a bourgie zen? By stuffing, folding, and storing too many dumplings to count.

This task may seem daunting to some, but there is something gratifying about folding a little package almost from scratch, and something liberating about choosing and perfecting the fillings. The batch of dumplings I made definitely had an Asian bent– minced chicken, crisp savoy cabbage, and scallions, all seasoned with soapy cilantro, spicy ginger, and a dose of toasted sesame oil and soy sauce. But let the filling be to your liking: shrimp, pork, tempeh, or purely vegetable. How bad can anything be when it is bite-size, and wrapped in dough?

Then comes the zen, the zone when your fingers just go through the motions of making fold after fold of neat little packages. I put on a CD (Chelsea Girls by Nico, letting the drone of Nico’s voice be the soundtrack to making the decided folds in the dough). Just when it seems that I have been on my feet too long, the kitchen counter covered in a light dusting of corn starch from the wonton wrapper, I look over to my side and see the orderly piles of dumplings, and smile, knowing it was all worth it.

And let the freezing begin! Artfully arranged in freezer bags, the dumplings are good for a few months, but they never really last that long at my house. When you have a bag of homemade dumplings awaiting you, my fellow bourgies, you will no doubt find something delicious to do with them. Steamed, pan fried, or used in soup, homemade dumplings can quickly become part of anyone’s culinary repertoire. So let’s all chant the mantra together: “dumplings, dumplings, dumplings!”

Chow is a new, bi-monthly food magazine that is all about food as enjoyment. It demystifies food, making it accessible to even the most green of all food novices. Heavy on the “journalistic” aspect of food writing, it is filled with facts, and little-known details about the foods we eat everyday. But most exciting (for me anyway), is the latest issue contains an article about Snack Cakes for the 21st Century, with four all-new recipes for those little bits of goodness, minus the cellophane wrappers from our childhood, by me. That’s right the girl who professes to not enjoying baking, bit the bullet, tied on an apron, and got down and dirty with a pastry bag, all in the name of a little bit of food journalism. And I have to admit, I rather liked it.

For the two weeks time that I had to develop these recipes, I became all consumed with a little bit of vanilla cream. That’s cream, not creme, mind you. I’m talking about that gooey, sugary sweet filling for dozens of snack cakes eaten by kids and adults daily (come on, you know that you do). But the snack cakes for which the recipes are given, are for snack cakes with a sort of conscience. Now mind you, you won’t get thin eating my version of Ding Dongs, but they are preservative, and trans-fat free. These versions for Twinkies, Oatmeal Cream Pies, and Ding Dongs, are rich, decadent, and fun. Not everything that we eat has to be so serious, so organic, or so mature. If you’re out, and happen to see a copy of Chow, pick one up and let me know what you think.

I have an ice cream maker. It’s a little Krups one, and when I received it for a birthday present, I thought that I would be using it all the time. I had visions of myself as a modern day milkmaid. Churning rich vats of cream into sweet, fatty, wonderful ice cream, I would make up new flavors of ice cream that one couldn’t readily get at the grocery– vanilla with malted milk balls, strawberry with chunks of over-ripe peaches, and rich Mexican chocolate. But alas, there are two main problems with my dairy dream: I am slightly lactose intolerant (but that never stopped me before), and I am not one of those people who loves ice cream.

Ice cream is a good go-to staple from the dessert pantry for me, but rarely do I crave it. So the ice cream maker has sat in the cupboard, collecting dust and occupying precious space, only to be broken out and used a half-dozen times in the three years that I have owned it. That is until this week, and the simple but sinful, Fresh Blackberry Ice Cream. Perusing through my cookbooks, I was flipping through the pages of The Greenmarket Cookbook. This book, with recipes and tips from the famous urban farmers’ market, The Union Square Greenmarket, is filled with not only interesting recipes, but is also divided into sections by season, containing exhaustive lists chronicling which fruits and vegetables are in season when. Feeling a wee bit panicky about the imminent close of the summer season, and the necessity of bidding a fond farewell to all of the amazing stone fruit and berries, I was thumbing through the summer section when I found the recipe for ice cream. It sounded simple, pure, and summery, so off I went to the market to gather my lactose-heavy ingredients.

So now that summer is coming to a close, I am only just now breaking out the Krups Ice Cream Maker. Smooth and rich, perfumed with the sweet-tart flavor of the fresh blackberries, this was an ice cream to be savored. Simply steeped with the fruit, the beautiful violet color of the blackberries melding into the heated cream as it cooled before refrigeration, making ice cream requires patience, but with patience comes rewards. All totaled the ice cream was about seven hours in the making, but after the wait I got a visually stunning, and entirely delicious treat to gobble up after a meal. But ice cream is an interesting food, it is almost taunting you, knowing that you can’t eat it it too quickly (brain freeze), or eat it it to slowly (melted mess).

Armed with my dairy digestive tablets, and a reinvigorated desire to produce crazy, or just plain scrumptious ice creams, I apologize to my little Krups Ice Cream Maker, for many a year buried in the back of my kitchen cabinet. Who knows what other creamy treats are lurking in the back of my mind? Only time will tell.

This is not one of those chunky, full-of-fruit ice creams, but rather the blackberries are simply muddled, left to infuse the cream, and then strained out. The result is an outrageously colored, and sublimely tasting ice cream.

Fresh Blackberry Ice Cream
from The Greenmarket Cookbook

2 1/2 cups heavy cream
1 1/4 cups milk
1 1/4 cups sugar (or for very sweet berries reduce the sugar to 1 cups)
1 vanilla pod, split and scraped
4 large egg yolks
2 pints fresh blackberries, washed and picked through

In a heavy saucepan, over medium heat, combine the cream, milk, sugar, and vanilla pod. Stir often until sugar melts and the mixture is steaming hot.

In a medium-sized bowl, whisk the egg yolks. Gradually stir in some of the cream mixture to temper, then scrape the eggs back into the cream mixture. Continue cooking over medium heat, whisking constantly until mixture reaches 140 degrees, about 10 minutes. Remove from heat, stir in the berries, muddle to release juices, and let stand until cool. Strain the custard through a fine mesh sieve to remove seeds. Cover and refrigerate until cold, 2 hours at minimum.

Process the cooled custard according to ice cream maker’s instruction. Enjoy!

They are here! After two weeks I finally have sourdough bread, and it is edible. In fact, it’s more than edible, it’s delicious– crisp, with a good crumb, and an even better crust. But it was not an easy road, filled with failed attempts, flour flying, and several unleavened– well, breadsticks.

The baguettes are beautiful, but I understand why most people just pick up a baguette on their way home from work. It is quite a process, a day-long task in fact. Making the bread from a sourough starter inhibits the rising process; it can take upwards of six hours from start to finish. But the taste, the subtle tang of sourdough, fresh from the oven, the bread still warm and steaming as I tore a bit from the crackly crust, can’t be beat.

I must admit, my baguettes, for all of their breaded beauty, are cheated on a bit. The first set of baguettes were made, following the recipe for sourdough baguettes as found in The Cheeseboard Collective Works. Now this cookbook, for all of its thorough instructions, exhaustive hints, and spirit of share-and share-alike, is not actually the best cookbook. I chalk it up to the fact that most of the recipes it contains, are for baked goods done on a large scale, replete with proofing chambers, pounds of flour, and seasoned bakers. When I made the baguettes, following the instructions verbatim, what I was left with was an impossibly tough mixture (carpal tunnel inducing upon kneading), and a dough that did not rise, producing a tough, bagel-like crostini. The family dogs were the only living things that enjoyed these lovelys; they were tough as rawhide chews.

After such a disappointing let-down the first time, I did some more reading on the subject of starters, and learned that some starters benefit from a bit of yeast. The starter, although living, is in fact too weak to make an enjoyable, leavened product. I threw caution, as well as the recipe to the wind, making the dough according to touch, viscosity, smell, etc. The baguettes you see although sourdough in taste, are made with a modicum (1/4 teaspoon to be exact) of yeast. These baguettes were truly a labor of love, and the desire to not fail again. I couldn’t let all of my faithful readers down. You wanted to see some bread– now you have it.

There has been much talk on-line about butter lately. These are food bloggers mind you, so the chat has been espousing its merits, not detracting from its creamy goodness. There are many different kinds of butter, in many different price ranges available in the market these days, but the Butter that deserves capitalization is Plugra.

Plugra, meaning literally “more fat,” is just that. A spread with a lower water content, and higher butterfat, leading to a impossibly creamy, delightfully rich concoction for anything you choose to slather it on. Plugra makes me think of cows chomping on cud in rolling green pastures in the Swiss countryside, jolly milkmaids carrying pails of fresh cream to be churned into rich sweetcream butter, and portly bakers, rolling pounds of butter into silky smooth sheets of puff pastry. And no, it doesn’t matter that Plugra is actually made in the USA. Chilled slightly, then taken and smeared liberally on a crusty tear of bread, makes for a superb midday snack.

I can’t wait to try it on some warm, fresh-from-the-oven sourdough; but I guess that will have to wait. I tried making baguettes over the weekend. Let’s just say I had some of the longest, toughest, most unleavened breadsticks of my life. But I am not discouraged (frustrated yes, but discouraged no). I still have my starter, and it is back to the drawing board. I will learn how to work with this touchy starter, and I’ll show you dear reader its rewards as soon as I have some.

Well, it’s over. Ten days of wait and worry are over, and my starter is now complete. I fed it one last time, mixed, and waited. The scent was surprisingly not like a fruity, alcohol-based dessert, rather a tangy, tart, sourdough fragrance was emitted from the goo. I now have my sourdough starter indefinitely. Stored in the refrigerator, and fed monthly, this goo can be responsible for many loaves of bread, pizza doughs, foccacias, and even English muffins. I have yet to bake with it though, so I suppose that will be the true test of both my competence and the hardiness of my goo.

What looks like hummus, and smells like Banana’s Foster? Goo, that’s what. For the last few feedings, when I take the plastic cover off of the starter, I am overcome with a peculiar, fruity, grain alcohol scent. The scent mellows as I stir the starter, reserve 1/4 cup, add the 1/2 cup lukewarm water, and 2/3 cup bread flour. But upon leaving, the fermentation starts again, the starter turns from a lumpy porridge consistency, to a bubbling liquid. Let’s just say I would not want to consume any starter for fear of intoxication the likes that I have never experienced before. I mean, this stuff smells positively hallucinogenic! But, only one more day, one more feeding, and the process is complete.

At the risk of sounding too much like Rachel Ray, with her overly perky demeanor, abbreviations to drive you mad (e.v.o.o), and trenchant abuse of portmanteau words– I made s’marshmallows. What is a s’marshmallow? A delightful combination of homemade marshmallows, neatly affixed to soft graham cracker, then slathered in creamy milk chocolate.

It all started with my very first taste of homemade marshmallows. Sweet Adeline is a sunny, fairly new, bakery that opened near me. On my last visit, I tried their version of homemade marshmallows– pillow-soft, clouds of pure white fluff, rolled in confectioner’s sugar. They were delicious, so delicious in fact I decided to go home and make some for myself. A quick internet search led me to the Barefoot Contessa’s recipe; with only 1 1/2 cups of sugar (some recipes called for up to 3), I figured these wouldn’t be too cloyingly sweet. Well, I was correct about them not being overly sweet, but I had no idea what a sticky mess I would be in for.

Now I am not schooled in the ways of candy making, but I will give anything a shot once, especially if the final product is to be consumed with gusto after a meal. It wasn’t that anything was particularly difficult about the instructions, set gelatin to bloom in the bowl of a mixer while the rest of the ingredients are brought to a boil and cooked until 240 degrees is reached. The next step seemed almost simpler, slowly pour the syrup into the gelatin and beat at high speed for about 15 minutes. Certainly I can leave a machine to do the work for me; I am a member of this highly-automated society. It was just getting this sticky, now white, sugary dream out of the mixer and into the prepared pan that had me yelping for mercy in a confectionery confusion.

It seemed that every object that I touched, was soon to have large smudges of fluff on it. The mixture had so thickened during the beating, that pre-marshmallow now clung steadfastly to both the whisk attachment and the bowl. I did my best at extracting the mass from the bowl, but it was like The Blob– the more you touched it, the more it grew. Finally, the bowl was about as clean as I knew that I would get it. I quickly pushed the mixture into every crevice of the pan, doused the marshmallows with more confectioner’s sugar, then waited the requisite 12 hours before consuming.

And for all of the trouble, the toiling, and back breaking labor (alright, it wasn’t that bad), they were scrumptious. Enjoyed plain, or souped up to make a bite-size s’marshmallow, I can honestly say, I would make them again. I just have to figure out a way to enjoy homemade marshmallows, and still maintain my sanity.

It smells like a goo-lag in here! Sourdough starter, at least that’s what it smells like it is, is growing strong and taking over my house. The starter was up for another feeding, so I discarded all but 1/4 cup, added 1/2 cup lukewarm water, and 2/3 cup bread flour, and stirred. The proportion of rye flour is getting smaller and smaller, but the stink is getting larger, and more potent. The starter truly smells like a combination of sourdough bread, and grain alcohol. Mmm, fermented. We’ll see.

August. The hottest month of the year. Sticky, sweltering heat causing rivulets of sweat to cascade down your back landing in moist puddles in the crook of your spine. Early evening walks, when the heat breaks, and you are left with a dusk so pleasant, that you turn off the air conditioner and throw open the windows. These are the summer days I dream about, but here in the Bay Area, I don’t get them much. It has been downright cold. Not freezing, get out the gloves and scarf sort of weather, but cold, as in, better gather a sweater before going out, the bay fog clinging to the coast until mid-afternoon cold. And frankly, what is a bourgie to do when faced with such a climate? Well, she makes a batch of soup that’s what, casting guilt aside as she toils over the stove. Besides, it is not as if she must frolic outside, enjoying the beautiful weather.

Pea soup is such a versatile thing. I make vats of Split Pea Soup with Ham in the wintertime. Handfuls of dried, yellow-ish split peas, simmered for hours with a salty ham hock, makes a hearty stew-like soup to enjoy on a cold winter’s night. And in the spring and summertime, I make hardly cooked, fresh, shelling peas quickly pureed with mint, so clean and crisp to the palate. This combination of peas and mint is not a new one. In fact it seems that every cookbook I pick up as of late has their recipe for this light soup. For this incarnation, I picked up Fresh Every Day by Sara Foster. Foster, who now owns Foster’s Market in Durham, North Carolina, used to work as a chef for Martha Stewart’s catering company. She first tasted this soup, or so the intro to the recipe says, when Martha made it for the kitchen staff’s lunch with fresh English peas and butter lettuce from her garden. Isn’t that quaint, couldn’t you just die!?! Nevertheless, the soup is pretty darn good.

I served the hors d’oeuvre de rigueur with this shockingly green soup: thinly sliced radish lain on a baguette, slathered with sweet cream butter, with a sprinkling of coarse kosher salt. The ideal accompaniment to round out a light and nourishing meal. This soup was the perfect meal to have in prevention of my having one big pity party. Sure it’s cold outside, but that doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy the bounty of the season.

This recipe is adapted from Sara Foster’s book Fresh Every Day. The original recipe call for a fresh mint pesto to be served on top, but I made the soup without the pungent pesto, and just a hint of fresh mint pureed in the soup. Feel free to make the soup with frozen peas if shelling 2 cups of fresh peas is a bit too time consuming.

Sweet Pea Soup with Fresh Mint
from Fresh Every Day

Serves 6-8

2 tablespoons unsalted butter
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 large yellow onion, chopped
1 1/2 pounds (3-4 medium) Yukon Gold potatoes, peeled and chopped
3 stalks celery, chopped
5 cups chicken or vegetable stock
2 cups fresh or frozen peas
1 head butter lettuce, about 4 cups loosely packed
3 tablespoons chopped fresh mint
salt and pepper to taste

Melt the butter and olive oil in a large saucepan over medium heat. Add the onion and sweat until translucent and soft, about 10 minutes. Add the potatoes and celery and cook for an additional 5 minutes.

Add broth and peas, and bring to a low boil over high heat. Reduce heat and simmer until potatoes are tender, about 15 minutes. Add lettuce and simmer for an additional 2 minutes, or until tender. Stir in the mint, and season with salt and pepper. Remove from heat, and cool slightly. Working in batches, pour the soup into the bowl of a food processor, or a blender, and process until smooth. Pour processed soup back into the pot, check for seasoning, and serve.

And now, an update: Goo Day 5. As the French would say, my slop is appropriately de-goo-tante. For once in my life I am entirely following directions closely. After discarding all but 1/4 cup of my starter, I have mixed the remaining with 1/2 cup lukewarm water, and fed it an additional 2/3 cup bread flour. What I have is a gurgling, belching, semi-liquid matter, as I should have. Stay tuned for Goo Day 7: the feeding continues.