graduation food!

Hello all! It's 42 year-old baby's first college degree (culinary associate from Laney). I'll be back in the fall to continue pastry requirements—and probably back every semester forever, because I really like community college, and working in overnight caregiving.

With B and Eddie the Eagle, and my classmate, Chef Mei-Mei

Neither B nor I really like restaurants, so of course I was thinking about what could be fun to do at home. I had a kind of sentimental menu planned of uovo in raviolo (memory of Chef Martin being like, “IT IS AVANT GARDE!”) and tiramisu layer cake—but B had just watched the 60 Minutes thing on avian flu and wasn’t feeling the appeal of runny yolks, so I went with something vegan.

I had been wanting to make

Woldy Kusina

’s miso coconut pancit with miso mushroom bagoong since

bettina

reviewed it, and this seemed like a great occasion. The bagoong calls for coconut jam or maple syrup, and I'm not sure if I have tried the former before. I tried making this minatamis na bao recipe from Lalaine Manalo, and am glad I did! I had mine on the lowest burner setting for four hours (kept low while multitasking around the house). Mine wasn't quite to spreadable after that time, but tasted great.

From there, the bagoong and pancit recipes were both pretty straightforward to make, and I enjoyed both. I used the olive oil from charring a lemon in the pancit, and liked that with the richness of the coconut milk. The leftover coconut jam and bagoong have both been getting eaten by the spoon as well as spooned onto everything.

To go along with the pancit, I made the braised red cabbage with coconut green goddess dressing from In the Kusina. This recipe has a lot of beautiful components, including pickled raisins, toasted pumpkin seeds, and dill (which I forgot, but was happy to have some neighborhood bronze fennel around from a flower arrangement to use instead—and I know I'm never beating the superfluous garnish allegations, and the floral hobby is only going to egg me on!).

Other elements of this recipe felt strong, to my taste. Reyes sears the cabbage before braising it in a cup of apple cider vinegar. I'm a tough customer for this because roasted cabbage with just olive oil, salt and pepper is one of my favorite foods. I will keep Reyes's tip about searing the cabbage before roasting, but probably won't repeat the vinegar braise. The goddess dressing felt sharp to my taste when served raw, although I enjoyed it after heating the next day—and I really enjoyed Reyes's use of coconut yogurt in the dressing, which isn't a pantry staple for me, but might become one. In spite of these subjective palate differences, I think that In the Kusina might be the chic, vegetable-focused cookbook of my dreams, and I'm excited to keep cooking from it!

flan

Also over the long weekend to celebrate, I made this vegan flan from Dora's Table. The flan tasted great even though I did a terrible job of following directions, dumping everything into the pot and blending it with a stick blender (it was slightly lumpy but fine). I’m very beginner with vegan custards, and got anxious and added another 3/4t agar powder—the texture after overnight rest was good.

I got inspired for the plating by this hazelnut flan from Bruno Bertin. I used soy milk in place of dairy in the dehydrated milk leaflets--and considering that this is pretty much exactly what yuba is, I’m assuming that bean curd skin was the inspiration for dehydrated dairy milk garnishes. I used storebought unsweetened soy milk with 12g protein per cup. Might want to try sweetened soy milk next time for this purpose (as well as the powdered sugar dusting that I forgot to try).

My telepathic international best friend

Julia Tausch

mentioned that she spent today writing about bean curd skin, so stay tuned for that!!

I also attempted the foam from Bertin’s recipe, substituting soy for dairy milk, and sesame seeds for pistachio. It didn't foam very well, and not sure why—please jump in if you have ideas about foams.

Overall, I’m excited about a good-tasting vegan flan, and really excited about more sweet or savory uses for the milk skin, including for an upcoming floral assignment in unconventional materials.

flowers

Another attempt at Sogetsu lesson 2.11 with Matilija poppy, redbud and fennel. When I went back for more redbud that had been blocking street parking, it had been pruned. Oh well.

Third try at 2.11 with Matilija poppy, radish from the Berkeley Bowl parking lot, and mustard from the backyard (I forgot to pick radish leaves). I think this is the best of the three in terms of the lesson goal of showing the water between the two groups of branches. I'm probably going to be in my yellow and purple era for the rest of Matilija poppy season!

Realized that the oatmeal bowl fits a large kenzan perfectly.

reading/watching/listening

Still listening to Lawrence Jackson's Chester Himes biography in Libby, and just started Andrea Long Chu’s Authority.

Ran (1985) at the Roxie Theater.

Apoorva Sripathi

’s “I can't believe it's butter”