Saturday, May 14, 2011

Foraging Ethics


I have a secret cattail grove. I'm not telling you where it is. But, our area hasn't seen any precipitation since 2010 and plant life is not flourishing right now. But my cattail grove is doing fine because its spring fed. As I harvested last night at the grove I wondered if I could do some transplanting of cattails further up stream. I'm posting this because I'm not sure about the ethics of transplanting. I mean, at what point does foraged food become harvested/cultivated food? And if nature hadn't already moved the cattails upstream, what makes me think I should. Just a question I'm pondering because I could up my production. But what would that do to the other flora? And would there be an impact on fauna?

Saturday, May 7, 2011

Torta de Mil Hojas


My Chilean intern wanted a special cake for his mom for Mother's Day so I made them a Mil Hojas (1000 layer cake). Puff pastry layered with dulce de leche.
Curious Kumquat

Thursday, May 5, 2011

Chocolates All Around

I've been busy as always the past month, but in particular, now I'm selling chocolate bon bons.
This is my first collection of flavors and I'll grow it over time. But for now I have a traditional muscovado ganache filling, green cardamom and jasmine, rosemary salted caramel, Moroccan olive and saffron, ancho, matcha green tea and sambuca with foraged mint.

For Easter I did some eggs which were fun.

And just last week we had our professional bike race in town so I whipped up a chocolate sculpture.

Now things will settle down a bit and I'll get a few cookbook reviews posted (PIE 11 and The Art of the Cake).