The Big O

Oprah, that is... The curtain's been called, the lights are out, and she's probably relaxing poolside at her mansion in California by now, but I managed to get my foot in that door before it closed by landing a spot on a baking team for one of the final shows.

For William and Kate's wedding, Oprah hosted a royal tea party, where crumpets, cookies, and William's favorite chocolate cake were served. Chef Darren McGrady, Diana's personal chef since her wedding to Charles until her death, came to town, courtesy of Oprah's peeps, and through a few highly valued connections, I got to work with him to make all the menu items for the show. My pictures from the two-day experience don't do it all justice (and unfortunately, neither did the actual episode, where he hardly got any face time with Oprah and our goods were hardly glimpsed by viewers), but as they always say, the experience is what counts. Chef Darren was so charming and full of fun stories cooking for the Queen, Queen Mum, Diana, and the boys. It was a great experience, and I think I made some connections for a lifetime. That's "The Word" in this business of who you know and how you know them!

Check out our Flickr roll for more pictures from these day(s) of thunder!

Sweets & Snacks Expo 2010

For the first time in my life, I'm involved in a line of work that has conventions! I loved going to them with my dad as a kid.  He was a surgeon, and so I'd end up wandering around these medical convention expos with him, grabbing free socks and backpacks, emblazoned with some medical research or drug company's name. We always had a bevy of pharmaceutical company pens and Post-It notes in our house, along with our fair share of t-shirts bearing fungal cell structures and other medical oddities you wouldn't even be caught mowing the lawn in!

But now I'm in a field where I get to attend things like the Sweets & Snacks Expo, which was held at McCormick Place in Chicago on May 24-27. This is the candy and snacks industry's chance to justify the purpose of high fructose corn syrup, monosodium glutamate, and maltodextrose in your diet. I think I acquired diabetes by just walking in the door! Nonetheless, I had a great time and learned a lot about the snack industry, like how Frito-Lay is becoming one of the greenest snack producers in the world, with compostable packaging and by using recycled water and solar power in its plants. Or that there will now be a line of Fancy Nancy Sweethearts candy and that Pringles has gone multi-grain.

We are not big snackers in our house and tend toward simple tortilla chips and a good homemade salsa or a bowl of cereal to tie us over between meals, but it was fun to see all these vendors in one place and to bring home everything from chocolate-covered Peeps to chewy Lemonheads. As a cupcake baker always looking for the right topper, it was heaven on Earth! I also experienced yet another celebrity sighting, at least in the cupcake-baking world. Authors Karen Tack and Alan Richardson, of Hello Cupcake! fame, were in full cupcake-demo swing, showing conference goers how to make cupcake toppers out of anything from Kraft caramels to Nutter Butters. They are just as jovial in person as they come across in their books, and like the big cookbook nerd that I am, I returned the next day with both my Hello Cupcake books for them to sign. I also saw the mayor, who I've heard is not even really an eater, much less a snacker, but that was good PR for the city for him to show up, even if he doesn't so much as pop a Hershey Kiss in his mouth. More people attended this year's show than any other Sweet & Snacks Expo in history and there are more candies, sweets, and snacks being produced worldwide now than ever before. (So much for healthy eating!) In fact, at one time, Chicago was the biggest candy producer in the world; now it's Denmark. Not sure how that transition happened--maybe Denmark wanted to be known for more than just a breakfast pastry.

Take a look at my photos on the Spoonfoolery Photostream. You'll see some general high-fructose insanity, like the Native American headdress made entirely out of candy and a Mona Lisa mosaic constructed with Jelly Bellys. And then maybe you'll want to go eat a big salad because your blood sugar will have spiked just looking at this stuff!

I Met Gale Gand!

One more idol down, probably a hundred more to go!

I met Gale Gand, pastry chef extraordinaire, savvy Chicago businesswoman, amazing artist of the tiny food movement, on Sunday at a talk she gave in Morris, Ill., on feeding families. I've been collecting and cooking from her books for years and was aware she has three children. She gave us  many anecdotes on feeding your family, how to include them in the daily shuffle, and how to make sure they continue connecting the good food dots their whole lives. Here are some tips and tricks she gave us that day:

*Compartment plates help parents ensure there are examples of everything at the meal: veggies or fruit, starch, protein, grain, etc. This way, kids get a variety of everything they essentially need, and you don't have to push "clean plate club" on them. (This notion is actually no longer a popular one in child-rearing, from what I understand; Gale said in their house, "Trying something is better than finishing it.")
*Have a make-your-own-pizza night. This way, everyone in the family gets something they want, and they get to help make it too.
*Keep smoothie kits in the freezer. If you have a banana with a few too many brown spots or a couple of strawberries on the brink of growing fuzz, slice them up and chuck them in single-serving freezer-safe Ziploc bags so they're ready to go into the blender with a dollop of yogurt and/or milk at a moment's' notice. Kids love working appliances (with supervision, of course), so again, this is another tasty treat where they can be the chefs!

*Set a real table. That means dishes, napkins, silverware, and even candles. And have your kids help set it all up each night. If they know dinner truly comes with all the fixin's (no less than they'd see while dining out), then it makes the table a really fun place to come to every night. In Gale's home, each family member gets to make a toast (even with just water glasses) every night, and it's definitely something they all have fun with every time.
*Come sit at the table with your kids. One of the biggest mistakes parents make is to hover around the kitchen after the meal is made, doing dishes, loading Tupperware, and so on. If you don't show respect to the work that was put in and to the food that was made by coming and enjoying it with your family when you want them to, then it's hard to expect that same respect from your kids.
*Teach your kids kitchen tasks year by year. One year, they may only be able to pour an egg cracked in a cup into the batter bowl. But the next year, they can probably learn to crack the egg. The year after that, they might be able to count and collect the eggs for the recipe from the carton in the fridge, and maybe after that, read the recipe and get all the ingredients out themselves! If cooking is taught in graduating steps, it makes for less frustration for everyone all around.

*And finally, if you're a loner in the kitchen and would rather not have too many cooks in there with you, take your kids shopping so they can learn to pick out healthful ingredients for themselves, or include them in the menu planning so they can feel a part of it all in some way.

So inspired by Gale was I, that I came right home and made a recipe from Chocolate & Vanilla, one of her best. Cake in a Jar has to be one of the most comforting dessert experiences around. These can easily be made ahead and refrigerated until ready to serve. They're portable too and lunchbox ready, and there are no cake pans or cupcake tins to wash up afterward. Just stick the jars in your dishwasher and make it again soon!

I Met Thomas Keller!

I'm a cookbook nerd, and I'm proud of it. They are my bedside reading, I check them out from the library, I buy them used anywhere I can, and my shelves runneth over. Someday, I'd like to open a cookbook library inside Pomegranate--another way to get people to come, eat, relax, read, and enjoy hanging out in my home-away-from home.

Last night, I met the incredibly amazing and talented Thomas Keller of French Laundry, Per Se, and Ad Hoc fame. The man is a culinary genius and a gastronomic god. In my humble opinion, he is the greatest American food artist. Grant Achatz of Alinea and the whole molecular gastronomy movement trained under Thomas Keller, and people are lined up around the block to work at French Laundry for free. Keller's books are literally coffee table books--the kind where you photocopy the recipe you want to use and put the real book back on your shelf so that it never sees a splatter of anything from your kitchen! Meeting him yesterday was in one of my top experiences of all time (he's very debonair, a sharp dresser, and amazingly fit and lithe--how these guys who cook with butter 24/7 look like this is beyond me!). But going to French Laundry is one of my Top Ten Things in Life to Do Before I Die. My husband and I are hoping to go this summer, when I run a half marathon in Napa and to celebrate our birthdays. I figure the only way to justify a $500 meal and $90 bottle of wine is after running 13.2 miles through the wine country!

Anyway, if you get a chance to look at/pick up a copy of Ad Hoc at Home, it'll be worth it, because I do think it's his best yet. It's the more personal side of Keller, as he wrote it when his father passed away and included a lot of the recipes he and his friends and family have enjoyed over the years. It's also like one big textbook for the kitchen, with lots of tidbits of info about how to salt things; when to use oil and how much; and the differences between roasting, pan-roasting, and braising. There are fun chalkboard sections showing step-by-step processes such as deboning whole chickens. I, for one, am frightened by that task and regular cheat by buying mixed pieces already cut, trimmed, and packaged  to go at the supermarket.

Needless to say, I fell asleep reading it last night. And now that the title page is graced with his glorious John Hancock (even his signature is beautiful--like he deserves his own font or something), I may need to get a second copy that's OK to actually cook from!