A Sweet, Petite Delivery

I agree to be part of the beta test immediately. There is no need to twist my arm.

The email comes from Veronica’s Test Kitchen. “I’m sending macarons,” writes the proprietor of the blogosphere’s most prestigious center of culinary science.

How could I possibly refuse?

Veronica is my hero. She can give Harold McGee a run for his money. Her keenly insightful kitchen experiments have taught me a thing or two about organization, attention to detail and using your powers of observation in the kitchen. Her macaron marathon was a tour de force, and now she’s taken the enviable step of opening her own patisserie, Petites Bouchees, offering exquisitely-crafted French macarons to the city of Richmond, Virginia and beyond. Veronica is turning her passion into a delicious vocation.

As I wait for the delivery, I decide to research the elegant pastel-colored sandwich cookies that can be found in most pastry shops in Paris. A macaron is a small, round biscuit, made from ground nuts and meringue that is crunchy on the outside and tender on the inside. They can be sandwiched together with a variety of Grenaches and cream fillings. Various sources cite the spelling as macaroon, or macaron. Wikepedia reports on the difficulty of preparing macarons, and dates their origin to the French courts of the 18th century. They are traced to a place called Nancy, a commune in the Lorraine region of Northeast France. Larousse Gastronomique tells me that macarons emerged in Venice, Italy during the Renaissance. The name is derived from the Italian word maccherone and the Venetian word macarone, which means fine paste. One story says that macarons have been made in a monastery in Cormery, France since the year 791. There is even an intriguing story of two Carmelite nuns who during the French Revolution became famous as the “Macaroon Sisters.”

I can see why Veronica has taken to this grand culinary tradition.

The package is due to arrive on Wednesday. I check the front steps several times but nothing has arrived. On Thursday morning, I am racing from the house to catch a train, and I spy the delivery box on the front steps. It must have arrived after dark. I return to the house, deposit the contents of the box in the refrigerator, and catch the next train to Manhattan. During the work day I am driven to distraction. Visions of macarons are dancing through my head.

In the evening I arrive home and immediately take the precious contents from the refrigerator. The macarons have been packaged in a sleek, slender cocoa-colored box. It is tied with a teal ribbon, decorated with brown polka-dots. Carefully, I break the plastic seal, slide out the box and slowly raise the lid.

My eyes fall on a dozen pristine macarons, meticulously-shaped and packed in neat rows. I pick up a macaron and take a sniff – the aroma is nutty, sweet and fragrant. The soft, pastel hues suggest the French countryside: Vanilla filled with a sunny Madasgacar Bourbon Vanilla Buttercream, sea-green Pistachio filled with Chocolate Ganache, and wheat-colored Hazelnut filled with Salted Caramel Cream.

I taste a stylish Vanilla macaron. The outer texture is firm and the inside is soft and chewy. The buttercream filling dissolves in my mouth like rays of sunshine. I taste a second … a third … a forth. I’m beginning to understand Veronica’s obsession with macarons. In a short time, I have consumed eight macarons. I take my responsibility as a beta tester very seriously. Of course, this is purely an experiment to determine which variety is my favorite. It’s a tie. I love them all!

Could life be sweeter?

Tres magnifique, Veronica! Merci beaucoup!

©2008 T.W. Barritt All Rights Reserved

Dinner with Veronica at The Little Owl

The first thing you notice about Veronica, the Chief Scientific Officer of the blogosphere’s top Test Kitchen, is the lighthearted curiosity that radiates from her eyes. She is always observing and discovering something new.

We are midway through the Harold McGee Lecture Series at the French Culinary Institute, and together we grab a cab headed for Greenwich Village for dinner at The Little Owl, a tiny bistro on the corner of Bedford and Grove Streets, which Frank Bruni of the New York Times described as an eatery of “irresistible earnestness and exuberance.”

I’m there to learn what makes Veronica, an established and successful food blogger, tick. Veronica, an avowed carnivore, is there for the signature pork chop entrée which has made The Little Owl a favorite on the New York restaurant scene.

From the time I first started reading her blog, I could sense Veronica’s passion for observation and documentation. She meticulously chronicles each ingredient, the techniques in each recipe and the results she creates in her Richmond, Virginia Test Kitchen. As we share a salad of arugula and peaches and an appetizer of meatball sliders with gravy, I want to know to what she attributes her precise attention to detail.

“It’s the engineer in me,” she explains. “The Hungry Hubby says I have an analytical and logical mind.”

As we talk she is examining the salad and makes a discovery. “Figs! I love figs,” she exclaims with delight. Then, she notes, “The peaches seem a bit raw, but it is refreshing.”

Casual readers of Veronica’s Test Kitchen might not realize that she first came to the United States in 1996 from her homeland of the Philippines with just a large suitcase and a carry on bag to take a job in the Information Technology sector. Although her father ran two restaurants at home she had actually never learned to cook from family members.

“When I came to the United States ten years ago, I was even afraid to boil water,” she laughs.

Our entrees arrive, and Veronica immediately begins to study the grilled pork chop that sits atop a bed of butter beans. “It’s so big,” she marvels about the oversized bronzed chop. She starts to dissect the dish. “How is it seasoned? This looks like cumin,” she comments. She takes a bite. “Oh my God, it’s so tender!”

In the spirit of scientific exploration, she samples my crispy chicken and I test her pork chop. Both dishes meet with resounding approval.

So what prompted a self-taught cook to enter the uncharted territory of the blogsphere and set up shop?

“I was looking for a recipe for Duck Confit on the Internet, and I came across a blog.” Veron tells me. A compulsive note taker, she saw the blog format as an ideal way to chronicle her observations in the kitchen.

“It gives me accountability,” she says.

She opened “Veronica’s Test Kitchen” in September of 2006 and by late October of last year, she was already tagged as a Typepad “Featured Blog.” To date, the Test Kitchen has had more than 40,000 visitors.

Veronica has certainly found culinary soul mates, first through the comments that readers left on her site, and later, with professionals in the field who respond to her questions about different techniques and dishes.

“Your blog helps you reach a vast amount of people who are as passionate about food as you are.”

While her focus is always on precision, accuracy and results, Veronica is never shy about documenting failures, because she feels there’s something to be learned from each kitchen project. She admits to being somewhat obsessive about the details, and even went so far as to create a spread sheet to document a recent croissant challenge (“That was the engineer in me coming out.”). But, she tries to keep a healthy perspective.

“I like the scientific part of cooking. Immediately I think, what’s the equation? Sometimes it clouds the artistic side, so I’m trying to find a balance.”

I ask what her favorite dish is, and she gives me a sly look. I realize I should know better than to ask. It is, of course, duck, the subject of many posts on her blog. “Anything crispy on the outside and juicy on the inside – I’m there!” Recently, however, she’s developed an infatuation for tarts.

We are presented with dessert. Veronica gets a warm brownie cake flavored with espresso and I get the raspberry beignets with Nutella. I can’t resist asking about “The Hungry Hubby,” a constant presence in her blog posts. She explains the origin of her spouse’s nickname.

“I made some brownies and took them to work, so he complained that he was left “hungry.” Afterwards, he started posting under the nom de plume.

Recently, they shared a week of “boot camp” training at the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, New York.”

“I took him to boot camp because he’s my lifesaver,” Veronica explains. “He preps very well, he’s got awesome knife skills, and he’s got hands that are impervious to heat!”

She is still working on her written accounts of boot camp, but says it was a rewarding experience. “We’re having withdrawal symptoms. The Hungry Hubby says it was the best vacation ever.”

So what’s next for this intrepid chef, explorer, and correspondent on science in the kitchen? At some point in the future, she might like to teach cooking or open a pastry shop. But for now, she’s intrigued by a high-tech infrared thermometer that Harold McGee has been using as part of his demonstrations at the French Culinary Institute.

“I really want that thermometer!” she smiles, and I know Veronica is already contemplating her next kitchen experiment.

©2007 T.W. Barritt All Rights Reserved

The Harold McGee Lecture Series (Part Three)

It is the final day of the Harold McGee Lecture series at the French Culinary Institute and our hosts on this journey about using the scientific method in the kitchen are struggling with a little chaos theory at the front of the room. An important package containing essential oils for a segment on flavors has failed to arrive, and even the projector doesn’t seem to respond as Director of Culinary Technology, David Arnold repeatedly pokes the remote. Finally the equipment comes to life and we begin.

Today’s topic is Science and Modern Cooking, and Dr. McGee opens with a bold statement that initially takes me by surprise – the trendy term “molecular gastronomy” is a fad. As in empty. No meaning. Hogwash.

For a second, I wonder if the lecture hall’s audio system is faulty. The phrase just sits there for a moment between McGee and the audience resembling a collapsed soufflé. Why would the world’s most preeminent authority on science in the kitchen purposely deflate such a deliciously highbrow phrase?

It seems it’s a matter of sheer practicality, which I’m beginning to realize is Harold McGee’s preferred method. As he elaborates, I like what I hear more and more.

He explains that the phrase is really a marketing term that was dreamed up to attract participants to a workshop in the mid-1990s, but the fact is chemistry and cooking has been linked since the mid 1800s.

“Nobody who’s cooking is thinking about molecules,” says McGee. “They’re thinking about ingredients and flavor.”

He then presents an intriguing premise – the “MG” phrase has actually been shunned by the very chefs the media applies it to. “It’s much more about the individual and their vision,” he explains. McGee presents a number of position statements or “manifestos” by leading chefs that address the conundrum. McGee even worked with a number of top chefs to write a statement that sets the record straight about science in the kitchen. He offers a perspective by Ferran Adian of elBulli that I find particularly compelling:

“Cooking is a language through which all the following properties may be expressed: harmony, creativity, happiness, beauty, poetry, complexity, magic, humour, provocation and culture.”

McGee brings it all together for us in a mild-mannered but authoritative way: “Science is a piece of it, because it allows these people to enable their vision, but science is just a tool.”

We then plunge into a segment on new tools and ingredients top chefs are using each day in the kitchen. But McGee cautions that while ingredients like “hydrocolloids” are au courant, the processes they facilitate, such as thickening, gelling and emulsifying have been used by cooks for years. David Arnold starts up a vacuum distiller, a massive device with dials, rubber hoses and glass tubing that looks like it belongs in an emergency room. Nils Noren mixes up a concoction of cucumber, oranges slices and herbs into a green soup. David puts it into the distiller and it starts chugging. The exercise shows how pure, crisp distinctive flavors can be condensed and extracted from a mess of ingredients.

At lunch, Veronica and I return to Balthazar because there is a better selection of sandwiches on weekdays. But I soon learn that she has an ulterior motive. A recent convert to tart baking, she purchases a full sampler platter of tarts – including Cherry Clafoutis, Mango Souffle Tart and Apricot Frangipane Tart.

“You’ll help me eat all these, won’t you?”

Clearly, I’m there to enable her obsession, and I participate willingly. We return to the classroom and set out the tarts on a desktop, buffet style so we can evaluate the finer points of each. We both vote in favor of the impossibly fluffy, golden Mango Souffle Tart.

“You’re probably going to write that I force fed you all these tarts,” she says.

“I would never!”

During the afternoon Dr. McGee and company take us on a magical mystery tour of sensual perceptions. We study taste, smell and flavor, and I learn through a simple test that I am what the experts call a “hypertaster,” which means I have more taste buds than the Average Joe. We sample different parts of a tomato and discover that the savory taste is more intense at the core, and sniff banana slices to discover that some aromas from the fruit are actually the same as those that emerge from cloves. A strawberry has dozens and dozens of aromas that are released from one piece of fruit and meld to create that unmistakable essence of strawberry.

Our course completion certificates in hand, Veronica and I say goodbye on the steps outside the French Culinary Institute. She must return to her Test Kitchen, and I to my other daily endeavors.

“Back to reality,” Veronica says.

“Well, for us, that would be virtual reality,” I reply. “I’ll catch up with you in the blogosopher.” We hug, and I head for the subway. The last few days have been extraordinary for their many discoveries.

As Harold McGee says, “You never know.”

©2007 T.W. Barritt All Rights Reserved

The Harold McGee Lecture Series (Part Two)

When last we left our story, Veronica, the proprietor and Chief Scientific Officer of the blogosphere’s top Test Kitchen had successfully unmasked me at the Harold McGee Lecture Series in New York City using her superior observation skills and keen deductive reasoning. Meanwhile, I was desperately struggling to comprehend the scientific principles behind what makes an egg an egg…

It is Day Two and Dr. Harold McGee is the picture of academia with the sleeves of his blue striped shirt rolled back to his elbows. Nils Noren and McGee are drinking coffee out of Styrofoam cups and each are using a kitchen thermometer as a stirrer. It is a highly scientific approach to Sunday morning caffeination.

Veronica gives me a wave from the front row. I fear that she may be sitting a little too close to the deep fryer…

It is 90 degrees outside, and they have increased the air conditioning in the International Culinary Theater, but the subject is “heat.” McGee says it is complicated, but in reality, heat is an ingredient.

The concept is so simple that those of us (like me) with science-phobia might actually miss the point. Heat – or the energy of that makes atoms move faster – transforms everything we cook, and understanding its properties and the ways to manipulate it are key to success in the kitchen.

Nils and David Arnold launch into a series of exercises to illustrate the properties of heat. McGee pulls out something called a “thermocouple thermometer” which looks like an Iphone on steroids with wire probes extending from its base like tentacles. He also has an infrared thermometer which resembles one of Captain Kirk’s phasers. Nils and David are locked in a fierce competition. It’s like Iron Chef for science geeks. They each boil a pot of water using a different conductive technology. David uses a magnetic field burner, and his pot is simmering in just less than three minutes. Dave sears a steak, and Nils flips a steak repeatedly to see which cooks faster. Nils has the more evenly cooked steak. McGee takes the temperature at three different spots in a pot of boiling water to show how heat and cold circulate. By the conclusion of the segment, I’m convinced that I’m running a fever and that the heat conductibility of my kitchen equipment is inferior. When the lunch break arrives, I am ready to head straight to Sur La Table and buy new pots and pans.

Veronica suggests a more cost-effective alternative, and we walk to the Balthazar sandwich and pastry counter on Spring Street to pick up lunch and bring it back to the classroom. She can’t resist a cherry clafouti tart for dessert, which I help her finish. Afterwards, I learn that she had already had cherry clafouti tart for dessert last night and the leftovers for breakfast!

As soon as McGee has finished his lunch sandwich, I approach him to sign my edition of “On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen.” He neatly prints the inscription inside the cover with a fountain pen. I ask him how he moved from the study of literature to kitchen science. He tells me that he was an undergraduate in science, before switching to literature. It was tough to get jobs, and as he searched for something to write about, he found that “nobody was writing about the science of everyday life.”

I then ask if literature and science require similar skills. He says they are really different disciplines – “One is research, and one is expression.” He admits he always loved the research phase of his studies, digging into each new topic. I can see how he earned the nick name of “The Curious Cook.” He personifies the convergence of the analytical and the creative mind.

The afternoon is devoted to a variety of topics, including the rather technical ramifications of the process called “sous vide” which is vacuum sealing. We also examine how the cell structure of potatoes and vegetables can be manipulated by holding them at various temperatures for defined periods of time. As we near the end of the day, we have sampled beef cubes, scallops, green beans and potatoes cooked at a variety of temperatures. It’s kind of an endless parade of appetizers. With that in mind, we close by sampling grapefruit juice which has been clarified by adding gelatin and freezing and then defrosting the mixture. It is sparkling, smooth and crystal clear and all of the bitterness has been eliminated. It is served with a “splash” of gin. I ask what the proportions are and one our Iron Chefs says, “We just eyeballed it.”

Later, Veronica and I head for the Little Owl in Greenwich Village for dinner, so I can hear the story of her life as a food blogger. That however is a story for another post!

©2007 T.W. Barritt All Rights Reserved

The Harold McGee Lecture Series (Part One)

The alarm pierces my sleep at 5 a.m. and I must come face-to-face with my fear of science. I earned a whopping D+ in high school chemistry. The “plus” was awarded for showing up and staying awake. After all these years, I still shudder a bit when people talk about chemical reactions …

But when the opportunity arose to return to the French Culinary Institute in New York City for a three day lecture series and crash course in culinary science with the legendary Harold McGee, I had to do it.

Fortunately, there’s no letter grade. It’s not even Pass/Fail. I just have to show up. I suppose that’s the perfect definition of “adult education.”

I make the pilgrimage into New York and arrive at FCI to register. I offer my “everyday name” to the woman in charge and take a seat on a slightly uncomfortable folding chair. It is a medium-sized classroom with not enough chairs for the students present. It’s all looking frightfully low-tech, with none of the Mr. Wizard pizzazz I’ve anticipated.

There seem to be 15 to 20 participants consisting of current FCI students, culinary professionals and talented amateurs. There are braids, Lacoste shirts and “kitchen-inappropriate” flip-flops. One woman is cramming from McGee’s classic tome “On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen.” One guy has an unlit cigar clenched between his teeth.

Shortly before 9 a.m. we are led into the International Culinary Theater where Harold McGee and company await. McGee is a tall, slender bearded man with closely cropped hair and a furrowed brow, wearing a tattersall button-down shirt and khakis. There are raw cuts of meat on the workstation and a blender is running. He is joined by Nils Noren, Vice President of Culinary Arts and David Arnold, Director of Culinary Technology. Arnold wears a lab coat instead of an apron. The last time I saw him at FCI he appeared to be trying to blow something up inside a microwave oven.

Arnold makes introductions and state unequivocally that this series is not about “food science” but “culinary technology.” I’m curious about the differences and what drives McGee. From the moment he speaks, he makes his motivation clear – this is all about “the application of science to become a better cook.”

McGee’s face beams as he describes in a mellow voice the joy of pursuing curiosity in the kitchen. He promises “controlled chaos” and “creative chaos” in the 50 experiments and demonstrations they will perform over the next three days.

He opens with an overview of the evolution of science in the kitchen and takes us through a long and checkered history of culinary explorers and kitchen discoveries. Today, it’s all perceived as somewhat avant garde but, he makes a case that the early origins of science in the kitchen can be traced back to the 1750s, where one expert named Francois Marin made the statement that modern cooking “is a form of chemistry.” Today, chefs like Ferran Adria and Heston Blumenthal are setting up their own laboratories and revisiting the principles of science in the kitchen.

McGee dissects it down to several concepts that even I – with my miserable scientific pedigree – can understand. Thinking like a scientist in the kitchen is all about being curious and seeking understanding, being skeptical and questioning common wisdom and playing with your food to discover new answers.

And play, they do with a focus on specific ingredients and their properties. The team dives into an experiment to determine if searing meat actually seals in the juices. They prepare skirt steak several ways to test the theory, and the theater smells like a Beefsteak Charlie’s. McGee maintains that you must craft kitchen experiments that focus on one factor at a time, observe carefully, and keep a log book of results. The whole focus should be to think carefully about the question you want to answer.

In the case of the seared meat, we learn a lot I didn’t realize. The “sizzle” when the meat hits the pan is actually moisture reacting with the heat and escaping from the meat. But the meat proteins are also squeezing shut. If that’s the case, the sizzle should stop, but there is continuous sizzle and moisture loss. They prepare the steak several ways – including cooking at low temperature and brining and we sample chunks of each. The “juicier” meats cooked under low temperatures actually have less flavor. So the conclusion to the experiment is that you do not sear meat to seal in the juices, but actually to make it more flavorful. My taste buds agree.

During the morning break, a woman with jet black hair, sparkling dark eyes and a sunny countenance approaches me and tells me she observed me registering my name and vital statistics with the registrar this morning.

“Do you ever go by T.W. Barritt?” she asks.

“Um…yes,” I say, rather startled. As someone who usually manages to travel in complete anonymity I’m not sure what to expect next.

She extends her hand and smiles. “I’m Veronica,” she says.

My jaw drops. Veronica, the passionate blogosphere chef who pursues culinary solutions in her Test Kitchen, was one of my first regular readers and commentators and there she is standing right in front of me in the flesh! I’ve often wondered if I’d ever meet her. We are both pleased at the sheer culinary karma of this unexpected encounter and agree to talk at lunch.

The rest of the morning toggles between scientific discovery and culinary myth busting. McGee debunks the idea that an avocado pit can keep avocado puree green and introduces a segment called “Rediscovering the Egg” where we learn about the reaction that occurs when egg proteins are heated and coagulate. We scrutinize the different consistencies of egg foams whipped in copper and glass bowls and sample “Thousand Year” eggs preserved in acid where the egg white has turned a purplish-brown and the yolk is the color of jade. I take a bite and the former egg white is the consistency of gelatin.

As we break for lunch, I’m beginning to get the picture. The science of the kitchen is all about poking, prodding and testing the boundaries of what we know, carefully observing the results and applying the knowledge to future culinary pursuits. It is extraordinary to have Harold McGee as our congenial and professorial guide through this journey of discovery.

Veronica and I head to a local sandwich bar called the Miro Café for lunch and immerse ourselves in getting acquainted. For two people who’ve never met face-to-face, we know quite a bit about each other. We exchange cards. She hands me hers with the distinctive animated logo of a passionate kitchen scientist immersed in culinary discovery. Our conversation is snippets of questions and recollections from past postings. At times, we are finishing each other’s sentences.

“How did the Hungry Hubby survived CIA boot camp?” I ask.

“I went to Balthazar for dinner last night,” she says. “You know I’m in search of the perfect duck confit.”

“I’m going to Ottawa next week …” I start.

“…to see Jill?” she finishes.

I learn that Veronica studied engineering – hence the scientific and systematic approach to food – and she uses the blog as a way to organize her thoughts and results. She is also considering the purchase of a microscope and wants to do more baking. The conversation is a delight.

“You’re the first blogger I’ve actually met in real life,” she says.

Back in Harold McGee’s Test Kitchen, we “explore emulsions” and their characteristics in everything from balsamic vinaigrette to mayonnaise, hollandaise sauce and ice cream. The theories are becoming clearer as I observe, taste and make notations. Emulsions are either added or already present and coat the fat droplets. Cream can be manipulated into butter and back into cream again. You can incorporate several gallons of oil into a single egg yolk. Somehow, translating science through food actually makes sense to me. The heck with the Periodic Table.

We wrap the session in an effervescent mood studying the effects of oxygen on wine. We watch David Arnold aerate red wine until it tastes soft and mellow, and sample Riesling to which he has added CO2. We taste champagnes from California and France to assess the tastes of each sparkling wine in its bubbly and flat state.

The next session will focus on specific culinary techniques and Veronica and I make plans to discover the local cuisine of Manhattan tomorrow so I can investigate more about her adventures in blogging.

©2007 T.W. Barritt All Rights Reserved