Wedding Cakes

This is going to be one looooong post, because I've taken pictures of everyone's wedding cake. We had a 3-day exam this week just on wedding cakes, where we had to make the cake and icing, the fill, ice, build, and decorate before 10AM today. We worked in hot, humid kitchens and had to battle the elements every step of the way. All of our cakes started sweating as soon as we pulled them out of the fridge, making it difficult for some of us to use our original decor plans. One of our fridges actually went on some sort of mini defrost cycle while our cakes were in it. Everyone has put in so much thought and effort into this particular exercise, I thought every single cake should be given its due credit here. The cakes are in in no particular order, but begin with mine.

I got high marks for the decor (molding chocolate belts, tempered chocolate filigree and ball, and painted pastillage flowers), but got sunk on the cake itself. It was built well, but I overbeat the meringue and ended up with a toughy, grainy cake. Not that it tasted bad, but it had a bad texture. The two layers are built out of four cakes that were stacked together, as were all the other two-tier cakes here. Things I learned....stack the cakes BEFORE icing them. I had put on four coats of buttercream on four separate cakes before I went "DUH!" and remembered to stack them together. Do not overwhip the egg whites in a sponge cake. Even decor chocolate will sweat in humid room. Next time I would pipe the filigree larger; they seem out of proportion with the cake. And I would use a less busy-looking buttercream border at the base of each layer. The shell border doesn't seem to fit.
I love the colors and design of this cake, although its maker was not happy with the consistency of the buttercream piping. The flowers are made of painted pastillage, the green belt of marzipan (which also sweats in a room with 90% humidity), and the branches made of colored buttercream.Everyone called this the Tiffany cake. Blue colored buttercream, piped buttercream on the sides, and pastillage flowers.
This was the only square cake, and the only chocolate sponge in the class. The edges were dusted with silver luster to give an interesting sheen to the cake. The chocolate bonbons surrounding the cake are meant to be served with each slice.
Pastillage flowers in psychedellic colors! She did a great job of creating a natural-looking cascade down the cake.
A fall-themed cake here with all decor made out of colored marzipan, except the base on which the pumpkins sit, which is made of tempered chocolate. The humidity was so awful that the chocolate never quite set, but turned sweaty and fudgy instead.
Close-up of the wonderful decor here...

Isn't this one just gorgeous? She spent hours piping the roses out of royal icing last night, and then the green leaves were piped on using buttercream. The humidity got to them, too, causing the buttercream leaves to start sliding down the side of the cake, drooping almost like real leaves.
From our class Philadelphian, a tribute to the City of Brotherly love. She had a lot of trouble with this cake, as the LOVE sign, made of pastillage, broke early this morning. She was able to ressurrect it though, and the cake turned out great!
This calla lily cake was just as stunning in real life, and it tasted good, too. The lilies and leaves are made of our favorite material, pastillage.This cake was the only genoise in the group, and unfortunately it did not rise well. The cake was half as tall as everyone else's. The lifelike fruits were made of marzipan.
This was one of my favorites, because the floral arrangement was so elegant and well-composed, and because the cake tasted the best. The roses were made of white modeling chocolate. She added a few drops of almond flavoring to the cake syrup, and a dash of salt to the buttercream. Small changes, but they made a huge difference when eaten.
Last but not least is this very feminine be-ribboned and be-laced piece. The bow and belt are both made of pastillage, and the "lace" was piped on using buttercream.

I'm normal after all

I've been trying to recall how this all began, one evening after class in the graduate student office a couple of weeks ago, and I think it goes something like this.

Lana walks into office to see M scratching his forearm and watching his hand intently.

Lana: Hey.
M: Look! Watch my finger.

Lana sees M's middle finger moving independently of his others.

Lana: Ummm...can't you do that without scratching your arm?
M: Well, yes, but it's involuntary. I'm hitting a tendon or something. You know, like what the doctor does to your knee in a physical?
Lana: I know what you mean, but I have to admit, it's never happened to me before. I mean, everyone says that your leg is supposed to kick out reflexively, but I've never felt that knee-jerk reaction before. I just kicked because it was expected of me. It happens for you?!
M: Uhh, yeah!
Lana: Wow, and I'd always thought that it was a myth or something.

A walks into the office.

Lana: Hi, A. Hey, you know when a doctor taps your knee. Does your leg kick automatically?
A: Yeah.......
Lana: Wow, it's beginning to look like everyone has experienced this but me!
A: Wait, you've never had that done before?
Lana: Well, I have, but I just kicked because it was what was supposed to happen. It wasn't involuntary or anything.
A: You've been faking it all this time?!!!
Lana: Geez, now you're beginning to worry me. I always thought it was a myth. I'd never really believed...but maybe there's something wrong with me.
M: Yeah, like your legs have been broken all these years, and you just didn't know it.
A: I can't believe you've been faking it!
Lana: Hmm...one of my friends is a doctor. Maybe I'll ask him to try.

So, after a long day, I go home for a long night of grading. During a break, I told W about that conversation, and asked her if she'd experienced that knee-jerk reaction because, well, I still wasn't convinced that it was real.

W decided that it was time something was done to change me from a faker into a believer. I hopped up to sit on the kitchen counter while she selected a wooden spoon from the utensil jar. (She wanted to try hitting me lightly with a hammer, but I convinced her to use the spoon.) Amid lots of giggling, she felt around my knee and gave it a few tentative taps. I was very doubtful that anything would happen, considering all the (trained) doctors who had done this before. But W was pretty persistent. Then, she gives a gentle tap with the wooden spoon on one spot and, before I even knew what was happening, my leg had extended!

We laughed so hard we were in tears. Success, and by an amateur! And, I swear, I wasn't faking it that time. Thanks, W!

Atoning for my (bread) sin

Made the same recipe for the Basic Tassajara Bread as the last time, when I stuck an underproofed loaf in the oven because I couldn't wait any longer, and got a boxing glove as a result. The only changes made this time were that the bread was patiently proofed, and I remembered to decrease the salt. The reward for doing things properly was even greater than just this beautiful, jubilantly risen loaf of bread; I also learned about oven spring. By kneading the dough it over itself 5-6 times before rolling up into a log for the pan, you can "wind up" the dough so that it gets an extra helping push when it is placed in the oven. I ended up with the tallest loaf of bread I've ever made. The crack you see along the side marks where the top of the loaf pan was.

Petits-Fours

Spent yesterday and today learning about the fine art of petits-fours - any pastry that may be eaten in one bite. More specifically, we learned about petits-fours frais (fresh), meaning any pastry that may be eaten in one bite and has a shelf life of less than a day. Of course, after learning about them, everyone went into action and churned out their own project. By 2pm we had this lovely assortment. From the far back corner, moving towards the foreground, we had

- chocolate mousse cups
- linzer tortes
- chocolate florentine sandwiches
- almond biscotti
- chocolate cake with peanut butter buttercream
- praline japonaise gateau by yours truly (two thin discs of crunchy-chewy almond meringue sandwiching praline buttercream. the mini cake is closed and topped with more praline buttercream and chopped toasted almonds, then finished with a tiny pink marzipan dot)
- apple pie
- pomegranate mousse tart with a raspberry mirroir
- brown butter financiers dipped in chocolate and chopped pistachios
- more linzer tortes
- a choux basket filled with fruit and vanilla pastry cream
- old-fashioned gingersnaps
- raisin buttermilk biscuits
- more chocolate mousse cups
- citron bars
- salambos (choux filled with rum pastry cream and finished with caramel and chopped pistachio)
- and MORE chocolate mousse cups.

Here's a closeup of those cute little choux baskets, made by the same person who made the chocolate avocado chicken egg.
And a closeup of the mini tarts and cakes. They're all only about an inch across...in my case, it was a bear trying to ice a cake all around that was that small, especially since the almond meringue was so thin and sugary, it started to melt away into nothing as I was holding it. I had this problem even AFTER I had taken the precaution of freezing the meringue and buttercream sandwich so the discs wouldn't slide around while I was trying to ice it.

It was so hot in that kitchen, and we worked on these all day long. For the first time I had absolutely no desire or curiosity to try something I had made, or even to taste any of the beautiful things my classmates had made. I guess after having slaved over it for so many hours - everything had been done from scratch, from the buttercream to the discs to toasting the almonds - the tray didn't seem that appetizing. Oh well, there were plenty of hungry pastry and culinary students to gobble this tray up!

Pl(ants) hate me

Being a hopeless drowner of plants, I decided to experiment with hydroculture. I drown plants, so I want to grow them in water? Am I crazy? But supposedly, it's harder to root rot plants in clay pellets, which allow for more aeration, never compact, and wick the water up from the bottom as needed.

So I set about converting my basil to hydroculture. This involved very carefully washing all the soil off the roots, potting it in clay pellets, placing a plastic bag over it to keep up the humidity, keeping it out of direct sunlight, and waiting a month.

Amazingly, it survived. A lot of its bottom leaves went yellow and fell off (which is normal), but the top half seems relatively healthy, a few brown crispy edges notwithstanding. And I started to see new water roots peeking out the bottom of the pot. So I was pretty happy about it, until I noticed that a bunch of ants were building their nest in the pot. Ants!

This morning I noticed swarms of ants very obviously crawling in and out of the clay pellets. I submerged the entire pot in a bucket of water, and was horrified to see dozens and dozens of the little blighters swimming for their lives, amazingly, carrying their little white eggs and their big fat queen with them. Boyfriend squished the queen for me. I had to unpot the plant, drown the remaining ants clinging to the roots, pour boiling water over the clay pellets, scrub out the pot, and then re-pot it. This time, I set it in a moat. It's official. Plants hate me.

Ice Sculpting

Yes, we made like Bill Murray today, minus the chainsaw. The pic below is of our instructor showing us how to use the one power tool we were allowed to employ, a rotary sander.

Here's a close-up of our horsie.

And the finished product! There were 5 horses for 13 of us to work on. At the end of the class, we got to pick one horse to have shipped back to school for our Final Buffet (=final exam), and the class picked my partner's and mine! The others were nice, too, but they couldn't sell them, so they were wheeled out into the sun, tipped over, and left to melt. :(

Rabbit T

This extremely cute VW rabbit tube (it looks like one of those tubes they use to hold architectural plans, but shorter) arrived in the mail today. Did I ever tell you that I absolutely adore the VW Rabbit logo? When A and I went to test-drive the Rabbit and Jetta, I wanted to buy the yellow VW Rabbit road sign they had in the showroom.
Well, I have the next best thing!! An adorable Rabbit T!!!

Spicing Up the Kitchen

I bought what turned out to be a collectible set of spice jars (each jar has the name of a particular herb or spice, and a painting of the plant from which it comes) from Ebay about a year ago. They were hanging out in the china cabinet in the old apartment.

In this apartment, there isn't space for a china cabinet in the kitchen, but I finally managed to buy a wooden spice rack (again, on Ebay). The only problem was, there wasn't any hardware to mount it onto the wall. Well, I went browsing in Home Depot, convinced I would find something suitable, and I did.

Using the power drill set that Moocow is having me hold onto for her, and a screw driver, I attached some ring hangers to the back of the spice rack. Then, I hammered some heavy-duty picture hooks (a kid-safe, slip-free kind, so the rings on the ring hanger aren't going to slip or get knocked out) into the wall, with some help from a spirit level (I learned about these from CDT classes, a.k.a. workshop, in secondary school) and my roommate, so that it hangs perfectly straight.

It's great, being able to see my spices, and access them quickly. The scary thing is, I still have some spices and other seasonings in the cupboard! At some point, I may need a second spice rack!

Land of Frozen Treats

The focus was on ice creams and frozen desserts this week, but instead of following the standard demonstration, then do, format, Chef T decided that we should work towards a frozen dessert buffet at the end of the week. We broke into two teams and each team had to come up with one plated individual dessert, an entremet (or centerpiece dessert), and an original signature sundae. We had to present 4 sorbets and 4 ice creams, include at least two types of fruits (roasted, poached, sauteed, flambeed, etc., it didn't matter), and could only use a total of 6 qts of cream, 6 qts of milk, and 80 eggs. We had to think about the attractiveness of our buffet, too, in terms of color, variety, height, shapes, textures, and flavors. Our team decided to use a theme to focus our ideas, and we chose Frozen French Classics. The picture here is what abou 60 manhours accomplished.

Our entremet, pictured below, is the ice cream version of legendary pastry chef Ferdinand Point's Marjolaine, which is considered by some to be the most perfect dessert ever created. Four layers of crunchy nut meringue alternate with chocolate, vanilla, and hazelnut buttercream. The sides are finished with chocolate ganache and sliced toasted almonds, and a perfect snowfield of confectioner's sugar is dusted on top. Our version, of course, was filled with chocolate, vanilla and hazelnut ice cream.
Red wine and chocolate always go well together, so for our plated dessert we made a Chocolate Merlot Bombe. A core of merlot sorbet is ensconced in a sprinkling of chopped nougatine (hard caramel and almond candy) and chocolate ice cream. A ganache glaze was poured on, and a crunchy butterfly cookie glued on top with some stiff ganache. The dessert was finished with wine-poached pears on the side and two sauces feathered together: creme Anglaise and a merlot reduction.
The signature Sundae was a play on champagne and strawberries. From the bottom up: a dollop of strawberry reduction, clear champagne sorbet/gelee, a layer of champagne-soaked savarin (a type of cake), strawberry sorbet, strawberry compote, champagne sorbet, and a deguised strawberry (fresh strawberry dipped in clear caramel. The caramel forms a hard crust, but water from the strawberry turns the inside of the caramel into a fruity syrup that bursts when you bite into it). This glorious concoction is topped off with a tulipe cookie "straw," made from the same cookie batter that was used to make the butterflies.
The rest of the cookie batter was used to make "ice cream cones" and cups in the shape of flowers, which can be seen in the foreground of the first photo. The grey bowl of stuff in this picture may not look appealing, but it was one of the best-tasting things on the table, and a much-needed palate cleanser after all our other decadent offerings. It was a granita made from combination of jasmine green tea and pineapple white tea. The yellow rose stuck into the bowl is made from lemon peel.

Each of the four ice creams and sorbets were scooped and presented in little vacherins, or piped meringue containers. They looked neat and clean, and held the melting treats in check during service. The rest of the meringe went to making white meringue cookies, which, when dipped in tempered chocolate, echoed the black and white color theme and made a striking visual statement. We made chocolate, vanilla, pistachio and hazelnut ice creams and our sorbets were apricot, lime, champagne, and merlot. The merlot sorbet tasted like Christmas, having been cooked with cinnamon, cloves and star anise.

For added crunch and a little glitter, we also made little diamant cookies, which are tender shortbread cookies that contain almost no flour, just confectioner's sugar, butter, and a whole vanilla bean. Simple but decadent.
This molded chocolate Eiffel Tower left our guests in no doubt about our theme, and it also added height and visual appeal to our buffet.
We ran into lots of problems with the champagne sorbet, which refused to solidify. The champagne probably didn't have enough sugar in it, and we didn't compensate for it with adding more to the recipe. In any case, seeing as we had to find a way to serve our fourth sorbet, we hollowed out some oranges and set them in a bowl of ice, making a pretty, primary-colored display.

Finally, because we found ourselves standing around with nothing to do at the end of Thurday, we decided to make a second entremet. For those of you who've never seen before, the mountain pictured below is a croquembouche. It's the most popular wedding cake in France and is made of a mountain of choux buns glued together with caramel. They're usually hollow on the inside but ours hides a solid cone of caramel bavarian, and is about two feet tall. It sits on a molded nougatine base that was rolled out flat, cut, then shaped on a cake pan while still warm and pliable. Just one side of the choux buns were dipped in a dark, contrasting caramel, and glued on with whipped cream. I think it looked better than it tasted, but it was fun to make it. Dipping those little buns was also an unexpected opportunity for me to learn about sugar burns when drop fell on my thumb. At first I ignored it because it only felt warm, but very quickly it got hotter and hotter and hotter until I could feel it all the way to the bone. By the time I had wiped it off hastily with a paper towel, a blister had begun to form. Nasty stuff.

All in all, I thought we put on a pretty impressive buffet for a first attempt, although with hgindsthere are definitely things that we could improve upon. We'll find out on Wednesday which team won.

Baking at Night: The Not-so-mini Cheesecake

When baking at night, one should most definitely have a cup of tea, wake up, and read the recipe properly.

I've heard and read all sorts of good things about Nigella Lawson, although I have never watched her show. Her book, How to be a Domestic Goddess, is turning into something of a classic. I liked her writing style, many of her recipes looked very interesting (although, where can one get quinces or white currants in the U.S.?!) and, of course, there is a little bit of a domestic goddess wanna-be in me.

I decided to try her mini-cheesecake recipe and whip up a batch for A's birthday. The ingredients are very simple, and it seems like there's surprisingly little sugar in it, although it's been years since I've made a cheesecake.

The recipe instructs you to press the graham cracker crust into the bottom and up the sides of each cup in the muffin tin. One heaping teaspoonful in each cup, for a total of 24 mini-cheesecakes. For the life of me, I couldn't stretch that heaping teaspoonful to cover the bottom and the sides. I assumed there were mistakes in the recipe, as I had read several reviews saying that, in the U.S. version of her book, a lot of the quantities were incorrect.

So I put a lot more than 1 teaspoon of crumbs into each cup, and ended up with 12 mini-graham cracker crusts instead of 24. "Wow," I thought, "she has the quantities completely off!" Well, I should have paid more attention to the recipe. I mean, sure, regular-sized muffin cups are "mini" compared to your average 9-inch cheesecake. So, when I saw read that 2 12-cup muffin pans were required, I assumed that meant 2 regular-sized muffin pans, since there are normally 12 muffin cups to a pan.

Well, they were supposed to be MINI-muffin pans. I'm sure a heaping teaspoonful of crust crumbs would line the bottom of one of those very well. And yes, I would have ended up with 24 mini-cheesecakes, instead of my 12 not-so-mini ones. In my own defense, most mini-muffin pans I see around have 24 cups, all in one pan.

So, now I have to figure out how to mail these rather fragile-looking cheesecakes to the birthday boy. It will have to go via priority or overnight mail, I think. Any suggestions for packaging?

Pan Seared Salmon in a Cider Vinegar and Dill Sauce

I did manage to get to the supermarket today before the fresh seafood section closed, and I bought a small salmon fillet. I seasoned the fillet with some freshly ground black pepper and sea salt, and some fresh dill and extra virgin olive oil. Then, I started to pan fry it in my saute pan.

My little, tiny portion was too small for my big, new saute pan, though. The small quantity of cider vinegar and honey sauce I mixed up disappeared from the hot pan in a flash, and I ended up blackening both the fillet and the pan more than I wanted to. In terms of taste, it wasn't bad (and the salmon was still succulent), but next time I may marinate it in the cider vinegar, honey and dill for a while so it picks up more flavour. Or, perhaps, I should use a smaller pan and/or more sauce.

I don't think I've given up on this idea quite yet. I definitely think this is something I can work with. And, of course, farm fresh, organic mesclun and tomatoes will improve any simple meal.

That isn't all the cooking I did tonight, though. Not by any means. I made a creamy beet and dill soup (yes, I had tonnes of dill and beets from the CSA), which I finished after dinner. Being full, it didn't make much sense to plate up the soup just so I could take a picture of it. I'll post that when I do eat it.

I also did some baking for A's birthday. My gargantuan little brother is turning 18!! He really loves cheesecake (and, can I blame him?), so I made him some mini cheesecakes. That turned into a bit of an adventure, though. Stay tuned for confessions, notes and pictures!

Quick meal

To allay Moocow's worries that I'm not eating properly. I've been so stressed, I haven't wanted to do anything but cook, but I haven't had much time. And I haven't really wanted to eat what I've made. Tonight, I wanted to take my new saute pan for a spin by making pan seared salmon fillets with a honey-cider vinegar sauce and dill (something I made up), but the seafood section at the supermarket was closed by the time I got there.
Instead, I bought some of this sweet apple chicken sausage and sauteed it with onions and the cider vinegar and honey to bring out the apple flavour.
I used the dill to make a creamy dill cucumber salad. I was supposed to press the cucumbers under a weight for a couple of hours, to get some of the liquid out, but I couldn't wait. It still tasted fine. There's nothing quite like fresh dill!

Rooibos Pretoria

This is another sample tea from the mountain of samples I bought recently from Upton Tea Imports. After a long night at the restaurant, and an even longer week, I really wanted some tea, but I didn't want to be kept up from the caffeine. That's where rooibos comes to the rescue.

It isn't really a tea, since it isn't made from the tea plant, Camellia sinensis. Instead, it is made from the South African red bush plant, and is naturally high in antioxidants, low in tannins, and caffeine free.

This blend, according to Upton Tea's description, contains "hibiscus, rose petals, blue mallow blossoms and sunflower petals." You can see some of the flower petals in the picture above. Isn't it pretty?

Rooibos isn't known as red bush tea for nothing. It tends to produce a warm, red liquor, and this one was a bright, golden mahogany. The dry tea smelt citrusy and peppery, but the tea itself had scents of vanilla (rooibos always seems to taste slightly sweet and vanilla-like) and the barest hint of rose. It was also warm, smooth and round, and incredibly comforting. I think this is a perfect herbal tisane for fall and winter enjoyment.

Drops Pattern Archive

This is for Moocow, Greenwithenv and Kea!

I was browsing new patterns that had been added to Ravelry's extensive database when I came across a whole tonne of Drops knitting patterns, all of which appeared to be available for free. Of course, I went to the Drops website to check this out, and it turns out that their patterns are being translated into English and being made available on this site. Thousands of patterns!

Some of the designs are truly beautiful. There's something for everyone: women, men, children, traditional-styled, classic or trendy, it's all there!

One caveat: most of the patterns have been translated into British English. There are some differences in knitting terminology - and, of course, in measuring units! - between American and British English, so be aware!

Carbohydrates and Protein

I don't know when this turned from a largely-about-crafting blog to a food and cooking blog. It's sad, but I've been so busy I just haven't had time to knit. A girl has to eat, however, and all the fresh vegetables I've been getting from the CSA have challenged me to cook and eat to keep up with them!

The wonderful thing about food is, even though I just had carbohydrates and protein (and fibre, thank you) for dinner tonight, it was far from bland. I made scalloped potatoes with mushrooms, and green beans with shallots.

I used a quick recipe from Cook's Illustrated for the scalloped potatoes. This is made with the slightly non-traditional method of half-cooking the thinly sliced potatoes in the cream and broth mixture on the stove (I used my dutch oven), first. Then, it gets finished in the oven. Again, the recipe suggests slicing the potatoes with a food processor, because it's faster. As if I didn't know!

The recipe calls for fresh cremini and shiitake mushrooms, bay leaves and thyme (from my garden). The potatoes and onion came from the CSA, and the baking dish is a Chantal that I just bought today. I wanted one in a bright, apple green, but they didn't have any more at the discount store I went to. It's a good thing that I bought this dish, though! The recipe says to bake the potatoes in an 8 x 8-inch dish, or a 1.5 quart au gratin dish, but I don't think they could have possibly fit into something that size. I know I used the correct amount of potatoes, since I weighed them with my digital kitchen scale.

It turned out perfectly! The potatoes were exactly what I was craving tonight.

I also used up the big bag of green beans from the CSA, adding fresh garlic and shallots.
And here's one with no cooking involved: the salad I had for lunch today. Red and green (they're called Green Zebras, and I love them!) tomatoes, fresh corn cut from the cob, and heirloom beets. There aren't that many weeks of the CSA left, so I am really enjoying the colourful and flavourful fall harvest. I wonder if I'll still be having as much fun cooking once winter comes around?

Forays into French Bread

Last week I went into school on my day off to learn about baking French bread. I have made bread before, but have always shied away from baguettes, epis and batards. Having read many recipes, blogs and threads written by "breadheads," I was convinced that any attempt I made at making French bread in my humble home kitchen would result in an inedible disaster. Well, let me tell you now, if you have been as discouraged by the overwrought discussions as I have, let it stop you no longer. Good French bread can be done at home - I have been wasting all this time worrying for nothing! While these loaves were made in the school ovens, they are just bigger versions of our home ovens. Out of the three ovens we used, only one had an automatic steam capability. Steam is important in the first 10-20 minutes of baking time in order for a proper crust to form. For the rest of the ovens we placed a pot of boiling water inside and misted the walls with a spray bottle before we closed the door (although I think ice cubes and warm water would be more effective at making steam...) As you can see, the bread turned out beautifully. While it won't have the exact same crust as that of a French bakery, it's plenty crunchy and much better than anything you can get in the store (unless you live next to a really great bakery). Plus, it freezes well. So fear not, bread lovers, and bake away!

Fiber health

Last week my brother-in-law-to-be came into town for work. We all used to work together at the same company, so one evening (after dinner) he regaled us with updates on our former coworkers, and one in particular. This individual had been out on medical leave for an entire month, and when asked about his illness, he proceeded to share the gory details about his anal fissure surgery and the diverticulosis that necessitated it. I won't go into his level of detail, but suffice to say that it's a scarily common result of eating a low-fiber diet. My SO was so disgusted and scandalized, he has decided to turn over a new leaf and make fiber a priority in his diet. He had imagined that his thrice-weekly "Green Drink," consisting of two cups of frozen spinach and a cup of grapefruit juice, was an all-powerful fiber and vitamin tonic. This was quickly disabused with a trip to a nutrition web site, where, to his dismay, it showed that he was only getting about 1/2 his recommended daily fiber. This epiphany is a huge relief to me as vegetables are not his favorite food. It's even hard to get him to eat green beans without first scattering some bacon on top.

Anyways, while squash is another of his disliked vegetables, I decided I couldn't resist anymore. I've been subsisting on a diet of greens salads with my SO, but with summer over and temperatures starting to drop, I just HAD to have ratatouille before it was too late. So I bought the smallest eggplant, zucchini and yellow squash I could find, threw in a plum tomato, and voila, my beautiful rainbow-colored, late-summer lunch. Ahhh....

Showy Teas

I couldn't resist trying this tea out tonight, especially since I'll be up a while doing some grading. This is one of the teas I ordered a sampling of from Upton Tea Imports: Special China Green Peony Rosettes. I've always been curious about these "display" teas. They may be interesting to look at (some of them even have a red or pink flower in the middle, though not this one), but are they any good?

These teas are tied into a bunch - and sometimes subsequently rolled/folded into a ball - by hand. They are normally good for multiple infusions (a good tea for an all-nighter, perhaps?). Prior to brewing, the leaves had a deep, almost grape-like fragrance.

The rosette takes a little while to bloom. Upton Teas recommends steeping for 3 - 7 minutes. I may have over-steeped just a bit, because the tea developed a little bit of bitterness, but there wasn't any unpleasant aftertaste. The liquor had a deep, muted vegetal taste that reminded me of fall. It was also surprisingly smoky, which wasn't what I was expecting, but then I looked back at the catalogue description: "...Sweet aroma, with a delicate, smoky nuance." It was a fun experience, and I think I'll give other display teas a try, but I don't think this particular one is to my taste.