In the Kitchen

What's New at Paulding & Company

December 2009

NEW! NEW! NEW! CLASSES AND EVENTS!!!!!

For kids: Incredible, Edible Presents!
A two-day Culinary Adventure for 10-15 year old gourmands, brought to you by Paulding & Company?s COOK! Programs.

For Grown-ups: Marvelous Mini Events
A plethora of affordable and delicious ideas for holidays and beyond!

For Everyone: Knife sharpening class
Learn how to keep your knives sharp, and go home with the tools you need to keep them that way.

Incredible, Edible Presents!

• Make gift-giving fun, environmentally friendly and delicious this year.
• Learn seven unique recipes that will inspire the chef in everyone.
• Custom label your creations ?start thinking about your own brand name!
• Learn new and creative ways to wrap your gifts (materials are provided)
• Take home recipes for using the products you make
• Celebrate the season and the completion of class with a hot-cocoa party (invite your family!).

Here are 4 of the homemade gifts we have planned, plus there will be a few special surprises that we'll keep quiet for now (just in case a gift-recipient happens to be reading this):
Luscious Lemon Curd
The World?s Best Scone Mix
Mean Joe?s BBQ Sauce
Pomegranate and Cranberry Chutney
?and more? (you can, of course, change the names!)

We always end our classes with a celebration and the Winter Holidays make this one easy? we're keeping it sweet! Family members may come join us from 3:30 - 4:30 on Tuesday afternoon (22nd), for hot cocoa and shopping! Some of the items we are making in class will be available for purchase, in case you grown-ups would like to get your last minute shopping done, too!

This class is open to fun-loving, flavor-craving adventurers from age 10 ? 15; groups will be divided by age, 10 ? 12 & 13 ? 15 (12 and 13 year-olds, if you come together and want to stay together, let us know). Register Now to insure a spot in this popular class!

December 21st 1:00 PM - 4:00 PM, and December 22nd, 1:00 PM ? 4:30 PM* (3:30 ? 4:30 will be our family & friends hot-cocoa party)

Class price: $150; Includes all supplies and instruction, plus 10 finished products (one of each + 3 more of your choice). (Register Here) You will have a chance, after registration, to order extras of any product.

Snacks will be provided during class.

The Marvelous Mini Event (for grown-ups)

Want to do something fun in the kitchen, but time and money are short? Have special friends you?d like to surprise with a stellar gift? How about a 2-hour ?mini? cooking event! We?ve devised several that you can bring a group of friends, family or co-workers to?each has a theme and some great skills to learn, and of course a sumptuous little feast is involved. The cost? Only $64 per person, with a 12 person/$768 minimum (the more people, the merrier!). You get your own personalized cooking class, scheduled when YOU want it! You can BYO alcoholic beverages (maybe some Prosecco to make mimosas with your brunch?...). Contact Terry for scheduling and menu choices; there are still some December dates available, as well as gift certificates! These events will be available throughout the winter.

I Brunch in Style
We?ll make our own English muffins from scratch, poach farm eggs and make Hollandaise sauce?and assemble the rest, with delicious house-cured (at Star Meats) English back bacon for Eggs Benedict, sautéed spinach for Eggs Florentine?or for $5 per person extra, our own crab cakes for a California Dungeness version of eggs Maryland. We?ll squeeze oranges and pour the OJ, and serve our freshly ground and brewed coffee and great selection of teas.

II Brunch in Another Style
Blintzes...the very word makes me hungry! Learn to make fresh ricotta cheese, and to make and cook delicate crepes. Construct a light and creamy filling with the cheese, wrap, and pan-fry in a little butter. We?ll make a delicious berry sauce and a sweeter citrus sauce, choose one or both! Round out the brunch with rashers of bacon, our strong, freshly ground and brewed coffee and great selection of teas.

III Bagels and Lox for Lunch
Have you ever made a proper bagel? Did you know it?s easy? It is! We?ll make our own, traditional water bagels?and put together a platter of lox, cream cheese, snipped chives, fresh vegetable accompaniments, and a citrus salad too. We?ll add our house iced tea, and as always, great freshly ground & brewed coffee, and a selection of hot teas.

IV Teatime
Assemble delicious finger sandwiches and delectable pastries, to share with a cup of strong English-style tea. The menu will include your choices from our list of tea sandwiches, scones, lemon curd, a fruit dish, of course we?ll serve both English style tea and freshly ground and brewed coffee to go with.

V Ramen and Japanese Tea
Join Tracy for a special treat?learn how to make your own dashi, prep all the ingredients to put your signature ramen bowl together, and make a delicious sweet, too?and serve it all with a bright and energizing tea from Japan. Of course, you may BYO sake, too.

Knife Sharpening Class

January 11th, join our favorite sharp fellow, Eric E. Weiss, in his quarterly knife sharpening class at the kitchen. Everyone needs to take this class?and it?s available as a gift of course! The $65 entrance fee includes your personal stone and oil.

Terry?s Hot Gifts List

My list is short, some of my favorite things that would be practical in any kitchen. My newest toy, a Cuisinart pressure cooker, tops the list and is hands down, the most useful thing I?ve bought this year. At around $100 in many places, it?s a great tool for modern life, truncating the amount of time needed to create braises, soups and stews. Tonight?s dinner in my house, a soup with leeks and kale from the farmer?s market, sausages from our favorite butcher shop, Star Meats, a jar of cannellini beans, some of my frozen summer dry farmed early girl tomatoes and of course turkey broth, made from the Thanksgiving dinner carcass, was cooked to perfection in 24 minutes. A rich, minestrone style soup, it should have taken 3 hours to get this good. Last week was pot roast?done in 40 minutes. Before that lamb shanks, which took 50 minutes. And every single thing tasted at least as good, if not better, than the ?original recipe? version. I love the electric version of this wonderful tool, which increases the cooking temperature to 250°F., makes things cook faster and yes, seals in nutrients. It?s very simple to control, and has a timer. You can sauté in it (although it doesn?t work well for searing meat), so starting the soup by softening the vegetables was easy. It has a ?keep warm? function at the end so the food is piping hot and ready to serve. There are some good cookbooks out there, but the little booklet that comes with the machine has good recipes to start with. I?ve not yet tried it for baking a custard, or some other less straightforward dishes?I?ve only owned it for about 3 weeks?but I intend to master this tool, then start offering some winter soups and stews classes that take advantage of it to cook dishes never before possible in a cooking class format.

My second recommendation is for a bargain?if they still have them; these sell out fast! Costco has had a wonderful set of tri-ply cookware for $199. It?s comparable to about $700+ worth of All-Clad, and looks just about the same. Over the years, they?ve had this type of cookware most often around the holidays?so if you are looking for a lifetime set of pots and pans, grab it while they have it. Tri-ply means that the pans have a stainless steel inner surface, a ?core? of aluminum that covers the entire surface, and then an exterior of various metals?-the most common (as in this set) being more stainless, or some of the less costly versions just use brushed aluminum. The advantage to this type of construction if that there are no ?hot spots,? as the sides of the pan are as thick as the bottom. Much preferable to ?wedge bottomed? pans.

I also heartily recommend the products you?ll find at your local farmer?s market this time of year. One of my favorite vendors here in the Bay Area is Big Paw Grub, a company with great olive oil (the oil we use at the kitchen!) and a selection of exotic and fantastic vinegars. Check them out at many of the local markets in Oakland?Grand Lake among them. These are great small gifts for those with discerning taste buds.

Finally, and our favorite of all, a cooking event or class is always a great gift for any and all who want to spend a few delicious and congenial hours together!

The Year in Review

Up and down like a yo-yo, we?ve had a great year most of the time?and like many others, we?ve weathered a lot of challenges. We held our first-ever, very successful summer camp for budding teen-age chefs, and we?ll be announcing next summer?s schedule just after the New Year. We restocked the kitchen with brand-new round dining tables and comfortable, more handsome chairs. We?ve updated our look, with some new prep tables and a new room format. We cooked with the executive chef of Valrhona Chocolates, bringing a decadent menu of appetizer-to-dessert chocolate fantasies to excited groups. We?ve hosted a Murder Mystery cooking class with our friends at Murder on the Menu (and you can have one, too of course!) We ran ?quickfire? challenges à la Top Chef with our team building clients. And of course, all year, we created great meals with great guests. Did I mention that we love our work?

For the second year in a row, Paulding & Company placed in the annual Crabby Chef competition?this year we didn?t win, but we did beat out most of the field of chefs, to take third place. Our avid crew (Terry and Tracy) made a few boo-boos in the process of not winning...Terry managed to violate the Cardinal Rule of cooking with someone else?s larder of ingredients, which is taste and verify. Especially with aging eyesight! Throwing a quarter-cup of white wine vinegar, rather than white wine, into our otherwise delicious stew, was devastating. Only as the smokingly fast, 20 minute competition was ending, did I realize my mistake, way too late to fix the dish. Our theme ingredient for this competition was a difficult but fun surprise?fresh pomegranates. Tracy?s crab chawan mushi with pomegranate reduction and pomegranate seed garnish, made to be the centerpiece of our braised dish, ought to have been served solo; with it alone, we might have won. We also suffered from missing the final bell with our third component, which simply didn?t make it to the plate in time?a buttery, pan-crisped crab-and pomegranate seed roll.

We hope that next year, everyone will come out to support our efforts?we?ll let you know, but the competition is always in October, and benefits a charity, for the last few years, a UC Berkeley?s youth camp scholarship program. Next time we?ll try to bring home the trophy again!

New for Next Year

We?re working on a video?with seniors at Berkeley Digital Film Institute?that we hope to have done for the January newsletter. The kitchen will be home to several scenes in an up-coming major motion picture. We?re deep in planning for our 2010 COOK! Summer Programs. We?ll have a new website to release one of these days. Of course, we?re always ready to work for you, and with you, on your next event. Bring us your kitchen event (or catered event) brainstorm, and we?ll transform it into reality. 2010 looks to be a very interesting year!

In the Market

Persimmons, pomegranates, pears, apples, grapes, Asian pears, late strawberries, pale tomatoes (not so great), winter greens?chard, kale, mustard greens, gai lan, great broccoli and cauliflowers, endives, radiccio, chicories. Baby greens and sturdy lettuce heads. Carrots, yams, pumpkins and winter squash. Blue lake green beans are still tender. Beets, potatoes, radishes, turnips, rutabagas, parsnips (which get sweeter the colder it gets). Dried fruit of all kinds, new crop nuts (almonds, walnuts). Citrus including the Satsuma tangerine, pomelos, grapefruit and oranges. Farm eggs. Cheeses and charcuterie. Need more reasons to go to the farmer?s market? Great gifts, all hand-made, of cloth, leather, pottery, metalwork, and jewelry. It?s also crab season locally-and the prices are coming down, way down from what I hear. Look up directions for cooking and cleaning and cooking a live crab on the web (we like this one because of the illustrations)?it?s easy and fun. Pair it with a little melted butter and some of the great coleslaw, from our big recipe archive for an unforgettable but simple meal. Use leftovers to make the crab cakes you?ll also find in the archives!

Recipe of the Month

A few years back, I hosted an extended family for a Hanukkah dinner-making party at the kitchen. Their Latke recipe was so delicious, I?ve been making them ever since. You may find them a delicious surprise?but don?t forget to add the apple sauce!

See the recipe »