chez pim

The biggest pot of curry I've ever made

This was the biggest pot of green curry I've ever made. Twenty pounds of beef, twelve cans of coconut milk, 10x my usual green curry paste recipe, half a large bottle of fish sauce. You don't really want a recipe, do you? I don't think so. Just trust me, trying to de-seed a kilo of green (only!) bird-eye chilli wasn't fun.

The cooking was fun though. This was my second time cooking staff meal at Manresa. The first time was Panang chicken, using 20 pounds of chicken thigh and massive amount of homemade Panang paste. This time we decided to do a green curry. I made Gang Kiew-wan Nuea, green curry with beef.

Urasawa dinner

Happy birthday me

My birthday cake from last night. Someone very sweet made me a cake (two, actually) with a "happy birthday" written in Thai. In Thai! How sweet was that? He googled it and painted the phrase on the cake like a picture. That was so sweet. Although he said, from the look of the cakes, it was clear he wasn't a pastry chef, wasn't it? ;-)

Can I ask you for a little present? It's my birthday after all. No, no, I don't want things. I've got enough things even for greedy little me. I want a vote for my William, my guy on the Gourmet Survivor game. He made very yummy looking Beignet for this round of the game. It will cost you $5 for a vote, but it all goes to Katrina relief fund at the Red Cross. Please, please, pretty please? I will be forever grateful. Voting ends Tuesday 10pm EST, so please please hurry!!

Thank you!

xx
Pim

In Through The Out Door: Lemon Curd Beignets with Raspberry Coulis and Peppered Melon Sorbet

(This post is by William, for the Gourmet Survivor game.)

Wow, thanks to everyone who voted for my potato Po'boy last week! I was a little worried when I saw the other contestants' imaginative Po'boy entries, but I squeaked through in second place. I'm glad to see that the classics are still appreciated out there. Or maybe you all are just sticking up for Pim. Either way, thanks for keeping me in this thing, everybody!

I'm sorry to hear that Kathy will be leaving us, though. I figured she'd sail through to the next round based on those amazing photos alone. Kathy, you will be missed.

That brings me to this week's food challenge: the beignet. A beignet is a French-style doughnut that has been embraced and adapted by the city of New Orleans. Just like the other kind of doughnuts, someone figured out a long time ago that you can put fruit inside of them to make them even more delicious. Our task from Adam was clear - to come up with a unique, fruit-filled beignet, and perhaps pair it with an equally tasty dipping sauce. After a moment or two of reflection, I decided that the perfect filling for my winning beignets would be: raspberries. I can think of three reasons why I may have come to this conclusion:
1 If I made a 'raspberry beignet', I could make ever-so-clever references to a Prince song (Raspberry Beret), and people would like me.
2 Raspberries are tasty.
3 Did I mention the thing about the Prince song? Why can't I get that danged song out of my head?

The case of a straying hand

The food world is abuzz with a brewing scandal. The subject at hand is the new book, the Seasoning of a Chef, by Doug Psaltis. The particularly contentious bit was the chapter on his all-too-brief tenure as a sous chef at the fabled French Laundry. Freshly out on his fanny after Mix, Psaltis took up the position, arriving in sleepy Yountville mid summer, before the end of fall he was out the door again.

Psaltis didn't have too many kind words about the restaurant's operation or his time there. He claimed that the walk-in at the French Laundry was a mess, the rank and file cooks incompetent, and Thomas Keller himself preferring aesthetics to taste. Nothing all that bad, as slandering comments go. Like most biographies, the stories all seemed heavily biased toward the teller himself. Nothing new or noteworthy there either.

It's all Rashomon, you might say. But then again, even in Rashomon, there were a few indisputable facts. A samurai and his wife traveled through a forest. They were met by a common thief. A fight ensued, the samurai ended up dead, and his wife disappeared. The four tales were all rifts off this factual theme.

The bone of contention here was mostly based on the story that Psaltis himself told, not in the book but rather belatedly on the thread discussing his book on eGullet. Psaltis claimed he slapped the hand of a runner who refused an order to remove his hands off the pass. For many, this story was highly disputable. Some wondered out loud precisely where Psaltis's straying hand hit the unfortunate runner. Others were caught mulling if this slap of hand -or wherever- contributed to Psaltis departure -voluntary or otherwise- from Yountville. So, in this case, it was the fact of the matter that was in dispute, not the retelling of the story from various points of view. Even my relativist self is demanding to know who is telling the truth. No, it is not all Rashomon to me.

Got a food blog? Tell my Rojo

(Click to go to My Rojo, username/pwd: tellpim)

You know, I've been around this food blogging thing so long I remember the time I had a manageable list of food blogs I read right there on my sidebar. It is great that food blogging has caught on so much that there are new blogs practically every week. This makes for a very fun, diverse, and interesting food blog world.

The problem is I have no good way of keeping up with new ones. And I so do want to. I've been accused of hanging out only with the cool kids, but that's only because I have no easy way of knowing about the new kids in town. There are great sites like Food Porn Watch and IMBB, which keep a feed of a lot of food blogs, not to mentionn Kiplog which is the definitive list (only links though, no feed there). I go to these frequently, but they are not precisely what I need either. People keep telling me about their blogs, both on email and in the comment sections of various posts, but sometimes I'm just too preoccupied with stuff to pay proper attention. My apology, but life does get in a way.

Finally, I think I figured out how to have it my way. I found a new aggregator that I really like, and so far has been working very well for me. Some of you may have heard of it, Rojo. I've been looking for something that looks better than Bloglines, Rojo seems the answer. It's styling yet practical, unlike Kinja which is all looks but no play.

So, now I'm going to do something rather new. I am giving you access to my Rojo. If you have a blog, or know of some I should read, tell me. Get into my Rojo and add them to my feed. That way I get to see them, and also people who read my blog will have access to them as well.

I'm hoping that soon I will be able to make my Rojo public, the same way I could with my Bloglines subscription. When that happens I will just replace my Blogroll altogether with this new tool.

The site is here: Rojo.com
username/password: tellpim
Add your blog there, you could even mark it with the tag tellpim so I know that it's new.

Go ahead, tell my Rojo.

So we made the Po'boy

So today is the day. Round one of Gourmet Survivor game.

What Gourmet Survivor game, you asked? Well give me a minute while I am offended. What kind of loyal Chez Pim reader are you? Feh. I am hoping that you are the kind of loyal Chez Pim reader that will give me $5 when asked nicely, especially when it's for a very good cause.

The good cause I'm speaking of is the Red Cross Disaster Relief Fund, to lend a hand in the wake of hurricane Katrina. I know, I know, this is such a frivolous blog why should you help? Well, you should because once in a while life is not just about shoes. No, really, even I know that. I assure you this will not be a permanent condition, but just for a short while, let's get a wee bit serious and give if we can, pretty please?

Today is challenge #1, making a Po'boy. <Brad Pitt's Fight Club voice> The first rule of making the po'boy is knowing how to spell it properly.</Brad Pitt's Fight Club voice> It's Po'boy, not Po'Boy or Po 'Boy, or po'Boy, or any variations on that theme.

Upper case P, lower case o, the little tick thingy, no space, lower case b, o, and y. Po'boy

Get this people? You see how many other contestants got it right? You go see for yourself. Ha. For this alone you should vote for William et moi-même.

Gourmet Survivor II: Po'boys For a Good Cause

(Guest blogging for a good cause by Gourmet Survivor Contestant William)

These things can happen quickly. I participate in one little bitty scavenger hunt and before I know it, I'm blogging on one of my favorite foodie sites! I only hope I can keep up with Pim's high expectations. I'd hate for her to come over here and kick my butt. She might damage her Vialis.

As Pim mentioned in her earlier post, I'm taking part in the Gourmet Survivor contest being hosted by Adam over at The Amateur Gourmet. With your help, I'll be blogging my culinary adventures here every week based on challenges that Adam sets for me (with Pim's excellent coaching, of course!). My first task: to cook a traditional New Orleans Po'boy.

How does one perfect the lowly po'boy? Initially, I considered creating the most gourmet interpretation of the po'boy that I could imagine. Visions of delicately fried summer squash and roasted-chilli-and-corn remoulades danced through my head. Then I said to myself, "Hey, idiot: how is that a po'boy?"

After apologizing to myself for calling me an idiot, I realized that I was right. Here's the thing: po'boys are good, old-fashioned comfort food. The perfect po'boy isn't about the ingredients, it's about how it's created. It's about potatoes that are enticingly golden brown on the outside and meltingly creamy on the inside. It's about the smell of roasted garlic and fried potatoes permeating through the house. It's the sights and smells and flavors that make a po'boy what it is. Comfort food.

Sugar High Friday: Vanilla Crème Fraîche Ice Cream

This is my first time at this party, Sugar High Friday: Cooking up custard. There are so many memes these days, I would have to be really diligent to do them all. Even though diligence is a virtue I have in rather short supply, I had to do this one, and not the least because Elise kindly gave me a jar of homemade Apple Butter when we met. You see where I'm going here: give me things and I will be nice to you. Ha.

Well, not really. I adore custard, and I happen to have a recipe that I worked out all on my ownsome. So why not show off? I'm not just a pair of pretty shoes, you know?

I have a recipe for crème fraîche ice cream. Ice cream, as you probably know, is basically frozen custard, comprising mainly of eggs, cream, and sugar. This particular one came about because I was frustrated by overly sweet vanilla ice cream that I saw everywhere. I love crème fraîche, and thought that replacing some of the cream with tangy crème fraîche would help make things a little less sweet. I began experimenting with different recipes, and ended up with this one that I thought worked the best. It's my basic vanilla ice cream recipe now. I love it, try it and let me know what you think.

And you know what, if you didn't have an ice cream maker, you could make this custard and serve it in a pitcher to accompany your crumbles, tarts, or pies. That's plate licking good too.

Who is this guy?

Who is this William guy and why is he on my blog? And more importantly, why is he doing insane things like eating my blog, holding a nutella under an umbrella, or holding a pepper that looks like J.Lo's pride and joy?

Well, this is all part of an ingenius scheme by none other than our Adam, that Amateur Gourmet who just couldn't leave it well enough alone. He has, yet again, come up with a crazy game for his blog readers to participate, and this time he is doing it for a very good cause. He's raising money for Katrina aid, and I'm helping him.

You can help too, you know. In fact, we are hoping that you would.