I've been sick for 3 days and think I should write a lot while I have the time at home. In fact there's nothing to help me procrastinate since it's also raining buckets. The only person who hates going out in a storm more than me is Princess Ruby, who clings to the sides of buildings and turns into every doorway to avoid getting wet. Ruby is a princess pug who is indispensable in the kitchen, because she spends all her time underfoot hoovering up anything that falls off the chopping board onto the floor.

After the spritz cookie project I decided to start a new project of making homemade caramels covered in chocolate for Christmas gifts. I mean I bought the candy thermometer, so I feel an obligation to use it at least one more time, ya know. Caramels. Dangerous amounts of hot sugar, which if you don't cook it to the right temperature it can turn out soft and runny and distinctly uncaramel-like, as well as being totally unsuitable to dipping in chocolate. I had my fears. I must have read the recipe a hundred times.

It's Sunday and I finally decide that it is sunny and dry enough outside to make caramel. I'm not taking any chances with atmospheric humidity wrecking my caramel. I measure my corn syrup and sugar into the stock pot and begin to warm it up and melt it. Ok so far. Then I re-read the recipe and see that the butter has to be softened and mine is still in the refrigerator. No problem. I'll just get it out cut it up and put it in the oven where the pilot light should soften it up by the time I need it. Whew! Disaster averted! I need to scald the cream with the vanilla. I get my incredibly expensive Tahitian vanilla bean out and split it in half. Scrape the seeds out and put them in the cream.

You know what else is great is that C gave me a jar of vanilla sugar. (Vanilla pods and sugar macerating together until the time you want some sweet smelling and decadent sugar in your tea or on you cinnamon toast.) Plus it seems like a very non wasteful way to get everything you can out of a vanilla bean.

So I turn on the heat under my new glass saucepan with my cream and vanilla bean goo and watch carefully for it to do that scalding thing, which to me means that it bubbles then it begins to foam and boil up a little. The only thing I didn't think about was my new glass saucepan. I got this thing out in the hall with a couple of other abandoned pots and pans. (The tenants in our building is so great about recycling their old stuff to the rest of us via the hallway) Anyway I forgot that glass gets very hot and tends to hold heat for a long time even after you turn it off . You can guess what happened, and I was powerless to stop it. I turned off the heat at what I thought was just the right moment, but the damn thing just kept on foaming, boiling and rising and overflowing. By the time it stopped I had lost at least a cup or more of my cream and God knows how much expensive vanilla goo. I tried not the think about that as I measured what was left. I tried to be philosophical and because I didn't have enough cream left for the recipe or more in the fridge, I had to go out on Sunday morning and try to find more cream. First two corner stores are out of cream. The second one attempts to convince me that half and half will work just as well. No? How about whipped cream in a can? Finally I accept my fate and make my way to the fancy schmancy Bi-rite grocery, where I know I will find what I need. I get twice as much just in case.

While I was waiting in their god-awful line I notice that they carry a lot of special chocolates by local celeb chefs, and they have a sign for boxes of chocolate covered caramels topped with fleur de sel. Cool. I really wanted to try these caramels. I searched through tons of s'mores kits and other twee items but alas no salt topped fancy caramels. Oh well, it really is time to stop procrastinating and get home and make my caramels, which are now definitely going to have salt on top of them. Ok so they won't be as vanilla-y. No one will ever know. I pour the new cream and the old cream into a regular metal pan whose heat I can control and the rest of the scalding goes well. The cream should be hot but you can re-heat it if it gets too cold.

Now the sugar and syrup are bubbling and boiling and the mercury is climbing. Finally it gets to the hard crack stage or 305° Then I begin to add the butter I had speed softened and stir it with the salt until it melts and mixes in. Only something seems wrong. Why is it so greasy? Why isn't it mixing in? Why don't I read the recipe? Let's just say I've been baking for almost 4 weeks and every recipe called for 2 sticks of butter. So when I saw the number two and the word butter; I somehow spaced the words in the middle calling for only 2 oz of butter! Shit, I put at least 4 oz more than is called for, and now I have one big gooey greasy mess going down the drain. While the pan was soaking I considered that maybe I shouldn't make caramel that day, the gods were not with me. But no; it's too beautiful of a day and my brother is coming to visit, and I've got to have some caramel for him when he arrives. So I gotta start over. Only now I don't have anymore corn syrup and even the gourmet store can't help me there. I get on my bike and pedal to the closest supermarket. I finally find the corn syrup and again I pick up more cream 'cos today you never know. My little bike basket full I hot foot it home hoping all the sugar has melted off my pot so I can start again.

At least now, I fully understand the (method) of this recipe, something C is always harping on. "Read the method carefully before you start" That is something I promise to do better next time C. In any case, after two tries finally success! The cream, poured in very slowly and cooked with the butter and sugar smelled heavenly. I poured it into my pans. It's got to cool for at least 5 hours. My brother is here and we are going to the movies, yay!

On a side note:
I saw a cool way to line a square pan with parchment paper on Jacques Pepin. Cut the paper into a square. Fold the paper diagonally corner to corner first one way and then the other. When the paper is a triangle make a cut about 2 inches straight into the top of the triangle. Refold the other way and make the same cut on the other side. When you lay the paper in the pan the cut parts automatically miter into the corners of the pan. The other interesting thing about the recipe for caramel is that it says to pour the caramel into the pan but not to scrape the pan. I followed that instructions for the good stuff, but I hated to waste any caramel, so I scraped the rest into a small metal bowl to have something extra to try while waiting for the good stuff to cool. The stuff I scraped was definitely different. It was more like sugar daddy than caramel. Hard and chewy. Luckily the caramel not scraped was soft but solid, just like you would want it. More adventures in chocolate tempering to come but I'm being forced out the door to try to go see The Lord of The Rings final movie, so I gotta go!

Christmas was one sticky mess, I gotta tell you. It started innocently enough, with a small goal. It was a goal I had attempted before, but had never quite succeeded at. All I wanted to do was to provide my customers with fresh baked cookies every day from December 1st to Christmas Eve.

I don't think I've mentioned what I do for a living. Possibly I am secretive or possibly I don't think anyone will read this besides me or a few friends. In any case I have a store in the Mission district of San Francisco selling local handmade stuff.

Serving a small snack to shoppers. The idea seems good, but how to accomplish it without running out of steam before the end. So I got inspired by a childhood memory. Each year at Christmas, my mom would get out this gun looking thing. She would load it up with pale cookie dough and slowly squeeze out pan after pan of cookies, which we kids got to load up with colored sugars and candied fruit centers. The thing must have worked pretty well, because I don't remember any tears or tantrums over those cookie projects. I don't have a cookie press but I didn't feel worried. Surely one could use a pastry bag. After all wasn't a cookie press just a 60's invention to take all the joy out of making cookies by making it too convenient?

I began my search online for Spritz cookie recipes and then ones that could possibly work using a pastry bag instead of the cookie press. I found a recipe that said it was soft dough that would be usable with the pastry bag. Yeah right! I squeezed and squeezed and had a hell of a time getting it out of the bag. My arms were incredibly sore the next day. But I did hit on a strategy for having enough cookies until the very end. If I could make a few large batches of cookie dough and freeze already formed raw cookies in Ziplocs, I could take a few dozen out each day and bake them fresh before work. After the pastry bag fiasco, I didn't exactly want to make another batch of spritz, so I settled for my favorite, no fail, makes a lot, recipe of molasses crisps.

MOLASSAS COOKIES

4 C all-purpose flour
½ tsp. salt
2 ¼ tsp. baking soda
2 tsp. ground ginger
1 ¼ tsp. ground cloves
1 ¼ tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. cardamom
½ tsp. black pepper if you like them extra spicy
2 sticks of butter (softened)
1 ½ C white sugar
1 ½ C brown sugar
½ C molasses
2 large eggs

Preheat oven to 350° use silpats or parchment paper on your cookie sheets

In a large bowl whisk together flour, salt, baking soda, ginger, cloves and cinnamon.

In another bowl with an electric mixer beat together butter, sugars until light and fluffy. Beat in the molasses. Beat in the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Gradually beat in flour mixture and combine well.

In a small shallow bowl put ½ C white sugar. Form dough into small balls (the bigger the balls the bigger the cookie) and roll in sugar. Arrange balls far enough apart to allow for spreading.

Bake cookies in batches in the middle of the oven for 7 to 15 minutes or until puffed and golden brown. Cookies should be soft and slightly cracked on top.

The texture of these cookies varies according to baking time. Underbake them if you like a chewy cookie and give them a minute or two longer if you like them crispy.

This recipe makes a ton of cookies. I got a tip from C to roll the dough into logs and then cut off the cookies I needed each day. It saved the time it takes to roll them into balls, which was good. Of course, knowing me, I got obsessed with making them as small as possible, like the tiny cookies they serve at fancy restaurants. I think my all time smallest was ¾ of an inch! The problem with this was that people at the store kept asking me if the cookies were dog treats! I have my dog at the store every day and I guess they got confused by the small round dog treats Ruby gets, and the plate of sugary delights on the counter. Go figure! After those were gone C took pity on me and bought me a cookie press as an early Christmas gift. Suffice it to say I went a little spritz crazy! I made chocolate spritz and almond spritz, and any kind of spritz I could think of, to make it through to 12/24. I think the almond spritz were the best. Add a ton of almond extract and substitute almond meal for 2/3 cup of the flour. The raw dough tastes like marzipan. Yum! Anyway I made it through to Christmas Eve. I baked about 3 or 4 dozen cookies per day times 24 days. That's a little more than 1000 cookies! Martha would be proud.

Well Ruby and I have finally woken up from our Thanksgiving food coma. It was stressful doing all that cooking but really cool sampling the final results. Actually, I can't believe I'm saying this, but I really enjoyed the food more the next day than I did on Thanksgiving. I guess I was just too full from sampling everything and cooking all day to feel like eating it. Luckily hunger always comes back!

This particular party was billed as a bunch of professional and would be gourmet cooks doing the Thanksgiving thing. For the most part it was very very good. I did miss turkey, but Squab and Pheasant were a great experience. It was funny because C and I had it all worked out what we were going to do to make the birds, and then B calls and says that he's just been to Auberge Du Soleil and has several quarts of seasoned duck fat, so why don't we confit all the legs of these game birds. Like we have time for that! Still it was too good of a cooking opportunity to pass up. Luckily the legs of squab are really really small. I thought they could have used a couple more hours cooking to make them real fall off the bone confit. If I hadn't been making my savory bread pudding in the crock pot I would have put those little guys in there to cook. I'm telling you crockpot confit is the way to go. You season the meat like usual and then layer it in the crockpot, cover with the fat and set it on low for as many hours as it takes. It's a good method if you don't have lots of fat because the crock pot is usually narrow and tall so it's easier to fill up than a wide pot or pan. The great thing is that I am now the proud owner of 2 quarts of fabulous duck fat waiting for me to find a turkey and do the legs this week.

Hey, why is it so hard to find a whole turkey after Thanksgiving? I haven't found one yet and every day it gets less and less likely it seems. Plus I have a whole bunch of cranberry chutney that didn't quite go with the birds we had. It was way too much food and my freezer is full of the side dishes of thanksgiving waiting for tukey. Help! I know I can find one. I just have to get serious and go to a regular supermarket, there are sure to be lots of fozen turkey bowling balls there.

I was going to write tons of stuff about the food I made and the stuff I went through cooking my dishes, but now I am on to other cooking adventures, which makes all this seem like a long time ago. I'll just say that when you cook something special you've never worked with before, it's usually a one shot deal and you never cook that thing again. But I worked with a special fruit this holiday and I really think it is a keeper, and something I will use again now that I know how to cook it and tame it. This great fruit is Quince. I've always been intimidated by it because it is ugly, and hard as a baseball. I had read of it's legendary scent, but I couldn't smell it in those piles of unsightly lumps at the produce market. It wasn't until I got one home, that the perfume filled my small kitchen. Still I let it sit there for 3 weeks, because I was afraid I would cut my hand off if I wasn't extremely careful. Time was moving on though, and I had to make my quince soon or my quince cake for Thanksgiving wasn't going to happen. Interestingly the new issue of Saveur came the day I had finally decided to tackle it, and they had a recipe for a quince jam that made me buy even more quince, so I could do both recipes. This recipe was very different from the one that came with the cake recipe. It wanted me to cook half the quince rough chopped (seeds, skins, and all) in water for two hours. Then run it through the food mill. Skin, and slice thin the rest of the quince and add to the first batch. Cook again for 2 more hours. Run the whole thing through the food mill again and finally add the sugar and lemon zest. Cook for 2 more hours. I started it after work and didn't get done until 1 in the morning! Don't get me wrong it is very good. It is a very thick and firm jam that will be great spread on bread with a little goat cheese or machego, but the time, yikes! I also thought it was a bit sweet. The other quince recipe couldn't have been simpler. It only called for quince slices in a stock pot with water, lemon, cinnamon, honey and sugar, then simmer for 2 hours until it turns its signature pinky orange color. WOW! This batch was stunning. Sweet tart and almost candied. The only hard part was setting each slice of fruit on paper towels and blotting it dry for use in the cake. The cool part is the poaching liquid left over. That will be very useful in future cooking projects. So quince is cool and not as hard as I thought. The great thing was taking the opportunity to try two very different recipes for the same ingredient, and seeing what works best. It's much more likely that I will use this fruit again now that I know which way works best. I gotta go to work now, so more later...