In the early morning light

Rittenhouse Square in the first blush of the morning mist.

The courtyard behind the Thinker.

I need to get Aperture 3. The way things are currently, everything is named so confusingly that it’s hard to find a picture. I admit that it’s entirely my fault since I didn’t bother to read the manual when I started using it and so it snowballed from there. Does it have a portal to Photoshop? That would be incredibly cool but probably disallowed by Adobe.

Snow Day

Well, the weathermen were finally right. I’m glad for them. They can keep their jobs now and with the constant bloodletting in the latest business news, I’m happy when anyone anywhere keeps their jobs, even if it’s weathermen, a subgroup of some of the shallowest people on Earth.

I was on call today but I think the storm may have saved my bacon. No surgeon was coming in from the suburbs unless it really was an emergency and the likelihood of those happening in a storm are much smaller than they are in good weather. So how did I spend my day? Well, I read a chapter of my latest how-to book, read a few chapters of the mind-blowing Brothers Karamazov, watched TV, researched Christmas Eve dinner, made crespelle, and spent half the day with Andrea Bocelli. All in all, it was a good day. I printed out my latest novel and wrapped it so I won’t be tempted to look at it before Christmas Day. Later on as the evening began, I went out to my neighborhood restaurant to buy bread and a protein and then my corner store to get milk with which to make the crespelle and the hot cocoa I plan on drinking tonight.

As I write this and sip beaujolais nouveau, I have arrived to a conclusion or two: I have to write a sequel and use the scene that’s been killing me this past week (even if I hate sequels), true emergency cases are rare and I get my ass called in for stuff that really doesn’t need to go, people may lecture on and on about how to write a great novel and yet I have never heard of their work (see the link above). Is it more important to be known or be true to some kind of fuzzy ideal? I think art has to be accessible and you can labor in your garret forever on writing a “great” novel or you can allow yourself to have fun with it. People need distractions and art should never be so far away that only a few anointed people can appreciate it. There is only one Dostoyevsky every century (if that), don’t kid yourself into thinking that you’re it or that anyone should be. This is a paralyzing ideal.

Luciano Pavarotti was the voice of God, like a volcano or a coming storm. Andrea Bocelli is more accessible and I love him. That’s all. I was struck by a falling bunch of snow by the passing PATCO train and I should go lie down. I’m confused…

Subjects for the new BA headers are, in no order since they change: bottles at the Plaza Dorrego fair, a statue from the cemetery in Recoleta, the ceiling from Cafe Tortoni, and the ceiling and lights at the Abasto. These things have something in common, can you guess?

More later.

P.S. I have forgotten a lot of the Photoshop essential shortcut keystrokes. Have I really become that useless? Plusly, that program grinds my computer into the dust. Maybe I need a new one.

The last of the leaves

We not only have streets like this, but we also have the newest Iron Chef and five of his restaurants. And it’s a all a lot cheaper than the same in Manhattan.

The Plaza de Mayo in the morning

I thought I’d take more pictures. I ended up not even using the third CF card I brought along. Oh, well.

Well, this is it. My first challenge with the Daring Bakers.

The challenge was vols-au-vent, which are canapes (or larger tarts) made with puff pastry. They could be filled with whatever the baker chose, sweet or savory. Though I have a sweet tooth a mile wide, I broke with my usual tradition and made savorys with the last of the summer’s vegetables. I took them to a spa event I had organized to rave reviews.

Though in name the challenge was to make vols-au-vent, in actuality, the real challenge was to make the puff pastry that makes up the crust. Puff pastry is one of the most finicky things to make in the home since it requires cold, huge amounts of butter, prodigious arm stamina and nerves of steel. Early September is not the best time to be making this in Philadelphia. It’s still warm and could be disastrously humid. And it was warm that first weekend, which is when I made the pastry. But I knew my calendar was full, what with a trip on the horizon and dates and dinners and spas, so there was nothing for it. I had to make it that first weekend.

It was in the high 70′s and damp when I took that butter out of the fridge and the clock started ticking. I also have very cheap, very crappy, very 80′s countertops, so that didn’t help. Stone helps since it has a tendency to remain cool. I stayed in for most of that day, like a loser, since I could feel the heat getting to the butter. Originally, I had planned to make only half a recipe since I had plans for some of that butter and didn’t want to use a whole pound all at once. But, since it would be so much work, I said to hell with it and used it all. I used half pastry and half all-purpose flour and rolled that sucker like there was no tomorrow. A few of the bottom layers got kind of screwed up since I don’t think I’d done the original wrap quite right and had left a few thin spots in the dough. I used the bench scraper to keep everything more or less neat.

After I had finished the six turns and the laminated dough sat on the counter more or less dry and ungreasy, I wrapped it and threw it into the freezer. With nerves frayed and arms tired, I put some shoes on and went out. There has never been so much effort put into no immediate satisfaction.

Two weeks later, I took it out of the freezer, cut off about a 4th of it and put the rest back in. It was spa day and I had gotten up early to make the canapes. I decided against any creams or sauces or mousses or anything too heavy. I chose to highlight the summer’s produce and make a sham light filling since there was so much butter in the crust already. The previous day off, I had roasted and cooked the red peppers much like Jose Andres does in his book Tapas. I cut the CSA’s small yellow tomatoes in half. I filled each canape with a very small piece of aged rachlette (they’re invisible in the pictures), a strip of pepper, a tomato, and a leaf of fresh parsley. Boring, maybe, but Andres’ peppers have so much flavor that they enliven everything they touch.

The rest of the puff pastry sits in my freezer, awaiting its turn. Maybe I’ll make a tarte tatin when I come back from South America. I’m not in a hurry to use it. It cost me too much to make it.

Moral of the story: Puff pastry is a winter-only food. September in Philadelphia is still summer. To avoid emotional damage, avoid making it in the summer.

The Met's rooftop exhibit

I spent all day at home baking. I got a phone all from my realtor at about noon telling me he hadn’t gotten the seller’s disclosure yet so it may be best to wait to make an offer until it arrived, which, due to the holiday, would not likely be until next week. They didn’t have a ready seller’s disclosure. That tells me they’ve never had an offer before.

It turned out to be a false alarm because he called back later saying it had arrived so we were still on for 4PM. I was planning my day as I went along. It was a bit like being on call but without the pay. I went ahead and whisked a baking tray out of the freezer where I’d put the gougeres in case the meeting was cancelled and the treats could wait for a better time to come out. I turned the oven up, broke an egg for the wash, flicked them all with the egg and the leftover gruyere and 30 minutes later they were done. They barely had time to cool before I was stapling them into a parchment paper pouch and running out to the office.

Making food is the best way I know how to thank people and he’s been very patient with me, a client who isn’t paying him anything nor is she buying a lot of house. 

Writing up the deal took about 2 hours but I was so prepared that I wasn’t at all overwhelmed, just focused. When I get that way, it’s like I have surgical loupes on and can see or notice or think about nothing else than what I’m tracked on. It’s very intense but that’s how you keep from getting taken advantage of.

After everything was signed and copied, we parted ways and now in this pre-hurricane heat, I wait and begin to relax. If they sign it, great. I’ll move to close as fast as possible. If they don’t, then new listings start coming up next week and I have to constantly remind myself I don’t *have* to buy since I’m not selling anything. My new shifts are approved so I’ll be making back the money I was missing out on as well as having a day off every week. Twelve-hour shifts are long and painful, but they’re worth it.

I don’t think I shorted them by much. It’s a nice offer from a strong buyer in a crap credit market and slow real estate market. Their ace is they’re investors and don’t need to live there. But yet they have the property on the market for a reason, a reason which they will clearly not divulge. I did go for broke, though, and offered the max I care to pay. I’d really like living there, but I can’t (and won’t) pay anything more. That’s it. Take it or leave it unless rates drop precipitously (which they won’t) or the sellers do something about bringing down the payments like buying down the rate or something else. Maybe I should have offered less but I live and hope. I can’t do anything more about it now.

The gougeres turned out great, by the way. I should have chopped the thyme, but the choux pasty texture was perfect and the cheese just enough for flavor but not enough for grease. They were dry and crisp outside, moist and airy inside. I really have no use for the food after I make it (hence the freezer). The main accomplishment is making perfect choux pastry the first time out. Maybe I’ll make eclairs next.

When it gets cooler.

Someday, I’ll climb it.

Among horse-drawn buggies and fields full of cows and dried up corn husks, I managed to find a tree with radient leaves. They’re very few and far between this year. I also managed to trip, tear my pants, scuff my Italian shoes, bruise a knee, but I saved the camera.