2013 Governors Ball Menu Is a True Oscar Winner

After all the Oscars are handed out at this year’s Academy Awards, those in the know will head to the Governors Ball where 1,500 lucky guests will dine on what must be the ultimate petite plate dinner, all thanks to Master Chef Wolfgang Puck.

Just consider, for example, the skill to create and serve all the following to all the Stars:

Tray Passed Hors D’Oeuvres

Spicy Tuna Tartare, Sesame Miso Cone, Pickled Ginger, Bonito Flakes
Mini Kobe-Style Burger, Aged Cheddar, Remoulade
Vegetable Spring Rolls, Sweet & Spicy Dipping Sauce
Smoked Salmon Oscars, Dill Crème Fraiche, Caviar
Vegan Pizza with Pesto and Grilled Vegetables
Caprese Cone, Basil Flowers
Shrimp Fritter, Spicy Coconut
Steak Tartare, Parmesan Toast Sandwich
Duck Wonton, Orange Mustard
Kombu Chip, Edamame Guacamole
Smoked Salmon “Pizza” Cones

Sushi & Shellfish Station

Cocktail Platters
Truffle & Parmesan Grissini, Black Truffle Aioli Dip (v)
Winter Fruit “Caprese”
Bacon Wrapped Dates
Rosemary Spiced Nuts and Pineapple

Small Plates Cold
Japanese Baby Peach Salad
Chinois Chicken Salad, Wontons, Chinese Mustard Dressing
Kale Salad, Grilled Artichoke, Lemon Vinaigrette
Tuna Niçoise Style, Green Olives, Fennel and Caper-Anchovy Vinaigrette
Farro, Apple, Beet, Spiced Walnut

Small Plates Hot
Chicken Pot Pie, Black Truffles
Chestnut Tortellini, White Truffles
Snake River Farms New York Steak, Matsutake Mushrooms
Baked Potato & Caviar
Steamed Red Snapper, Thai Spice
Truffle Macaroni and Cheese
Lobster with Black Bean Sauce
Slow-Braised Lamb Shank “Shepherd’s Pie”
Beluga Lentils, Cauliflower, Baby Vegetables

Desserts
Created by Pastry Chef Sherry Yard
Crystal Vacherin
Melange of Berries and Crème
Sugar Chandeliers, Hand Piped Strands of Royal Icing
Cherry on Top
Chocolate Pudding, Cherries, Chocolate Crumble, Vanilla Cream
Mango Crumble
Mango Brunoise, Passion Mango Cream
Bon Bons
Raspberry Lychee and Milk Chocolate Marzipan
Snowball
Ginger Meringue Dome, Cassis Sorbet, Yogurt Whip, Lavender Macaron Confetti, Blueberries
Baked to Order Chocolate Souffle Cake with Shaved Espresso Ice
Huckleberry Macarons
Ribbons of Shaved Ice with Frozen Grapes
Chocolate Crème Brulée with Raspberries

Cookies, Candies, Chocolates and such…
Pistachio and Marzipan Pavé
Concord Grape Lollipops
Everyone’s Oscar Favorite Peanut Butter Chocolate Pop Rock Pop
Caramels || Violet Velvet Truffles || Chocolate Shortbread
The General Lee Cookie – Candied Walnut – Milk Chocolate Chip - Coconut
Yuzu-Lemon Bars || Blueberry Financier Pops

And the cuilnary winner is....

EVERY HARD WORKING CHEF AND STAFF MEMBER!

Your Culinary World copyright Ana Kinkaid/Peter Schlagel 2013

Hollywood, Brownies and the Oscars

Soon the bright spotlights of Hollywood will shine high in the sky and the red carpet will be rolled out below. Cinematic star after star will walk that carpet and then take their seat, hoping that the T.V. cameras will focus on them as the announcer calls their name to come and claim a coveted Oscar.

Yet there are stars who have not sought the limelight or the Award. Some actors, such as Marlon Brando, have even chosen not to attend the Academy Ceremonies to avoid having to accept their award in person.

Another such ceremony-shy celebrity was Katharine (or Kate) Hepburn.  Born into a socially aware New England family, she was not an actress who needed to be discovered, hopefully drinking sodas at Schwab's Drug Store lunch counter.

For you see, her mother, also named Katharine, was a strong willed feminist and a national known suffragist. Along with Margaret Sanger, she co-founded the organization that would become Planned Parenthood.

Her efforts were matched by her husband, Thomas Hepburn, who as a doctor also fought for the right of women to obtain safe and complete health care.

This was not, as you might guess, a household that produced passive Victorian daughters (or actresses). At every meal the six Hepburn children were encouraged by their parents to speak freely and debate any topic of interest. And while current events and individual sporting activities were often the subjects of dinner discussions, there was one topic and dessert that was enjoyed by all – brownies.

But not just any brownies - the brownies of Bertha Palmer, owner of Chicago’s Palmer House Hotel and female extra ordinary.

Like the senior Katharine, Bertha was an early advocate of women’s rights – both in the doctor’s office and at the ballot box. Her active support was vital to the success of the Women’s Building at the Columbian Exposition, right down the boxed lunches served there. 

Palmer knew, as many of the early American feminists did, that mutual conversation and supportive fellowship was critical to the success of a national suffrage movement. If the women gathered at the Fair’s Pavilion could be prompted to linger over luncheon, common ground through conversation could be found.

But how? What better than a great new dessert – one too good to put down (but not too messy to enjoy). And that was the task that Bertha Palmer set for her skilled pastry chefs at the Palmer House.

Their resulting creation was the brownie (see recipe below).  It was that same brownie that Kate’s mother served proudly to her progressive family, along with the story of its origin and purpose. These were the same brownies that Kate would later make for Hollywood friends as she passionately explained why talent and truth matters so much more than mere money or annual awards.

Let’s hope the Academy remembers this culinary lesson wrapped in sweet chocolate as they honor those who stand in the bright lights of fame brownies,  on rich red carpets beneath California's starry skies.

PALMER HOUSE BROWNIES (With Many Thanks to Feminism and Hollywood)

INGREDIENTS

• 1lb 2 oz Semisweet Chocolate
• 1 lb Butter
• 1lb 8oz Granulated Sugar
• 8 oz Cake Flour (King Arthur)
• 1 tbsp Baking Powder
• 4 Whole Eggs
• 1 lb Crushed Walnuts
• 1 cup Water
• 1 cup Apricot Preserves
• 1 tsp Unflavored Gelatin

DIRECTIONS

1. Preheat oven to 300 degrees.
2. In a double boiler, melt chocolate with butter.
3. Mix sugar, flour and baking powder in separate mixing bowl,
4. Add chocolate butter mixture and mix for 4-5 minutes.
5. Add eggs.
6. Pour onto 9-inch by 12-inch baking sheet.
7. Sprinkle walnuts on top of batter and press down slightly into mixture.
8. Bake for 30-40 minutes or until batter has risen ¼ inch and the edges are crisp.
9. Remove and cool for 30 minutes.
10. In a saucepan, heat and bring to a boil for 2 minutes the water, apricot preserves and gelatin.
11. Brush apricot glaze over cooled brownies with pastry brush.

Enjoy!

Your Culinary World copyright Ana Kinkaid/Peter Schlagel 2013

Tea and Tablets Hallmark the Last Episode of Downton Abbey 3

The last episode of Downton Abbey’s Season 3 saw the Crawleys (minus the Irish black sheep, Tom Branson, who is home with the baby) off to Scotland for their annual journey to field and flora.

Robert Crawley for one was glad to return to the embrace of tradition after having been forced to face the urgent need to modernize the economic base of Downton Abbey in order to survive the changing times. 

There will be tartan and tweeds, fishing and frank talk, shooting and stepping out at the ghillies’ ball.  

Yet always present is the fact that, just as Scotland is NOT England, the new century will be very different from the last.

Consider the arrival of Michael Gregson, Lady Edith’s amorous very married editor. Like a latter day Edward Rochester from the bildungsroman novel Jane Eyre, he is trapped in an undissolvable marriage to an insane wife.

In Bronte’s book, the heroine runs from a romantic relationship with a man so encumbered. A more modern Lady Edith struggles to understand the situation and seemed to finally accept the possibility of a shadow relationship.

Yet some things don’t/can’t change or there will simply be no order/no meaning in the English world of manners. One such tradition is the need to savor hot tea in all times of stress and strain – but a proper cup of tea.

And what is a ‘proper cup of tea’? NOT something brewed hours before sitting (and cooling) in an impersonal thermos. A correctly made cup of tea requires fresh hot water.  In short, it requires a fire either in a kitchen or where if one is outside fishing or hunting?

Enter the fabulous Kelly Kettle. Created in Ireland by an avid angler named, yes, Kelly over a hundred years ago, it is the perfect (and an in-the-known) answer for how to obtain hot water without burning down the surrounding forest or grasslands. 

Simply fill the outer lining with water and then light a small fire in the core cylinder and in an amazingly short time one has fresh piping hot water for tea (or warming toddies).

But no tea is complete without sweets. Once again, what’s possible is a comfortable home setting, doesn’t transfer with equal ease and grace to the Scottish moors. Yet tradition must be maintained. And the Scots, of course, have an answer. Just have a tablet.

Not a tablet of medical or digital fame, but one of absolute culinary glory. What we are referring to is a heavenly Highland treat that is neither a piece of candy nor a slice of fudge but something wonderfully different.

Made simply from sugar, butter and condensed milk cooked slowly to a ‘soft ball’ stage (235 degrees), it is compact, delicious and an ideal companion to an outside cup of tea.

For you see, with tea and a sweet in hand, any subject can be discussed (at least in the world of Downton Abbey’s third season) from unhappy marriages to alternative relationships.

Shocking, but so very English.

And the resolutions? Well now, they’re to be revealed in Season Four, possibly this Fall or Winter. The next Season is currently being filmed with Lady Mary, it is rumored, moving into the central role.

So until then, enjoy a heartening cup of tea with one ‘tablet’ of sweet delight and cheerfully chant “patience, patience – soon, soon”, but with an English accent, please. 

Your Culinary World copyright Ana Kinkaid/Peter Schlagel 2013

Downton Abbey's Charlotte Russe Offers a Lesson in Compassion

While watching the fifth episode of Downton Abbey, Season 3, many of the show’s observant viewers noted that when the American Isobel Crawley hosted a thoughtful luncheon after the death of Lady Sybil, Ethel Parks, the disgraced housemaid, served a final course entitled a “Charlotte Russe”.

No dessert could have been more appropriate, especially after Lord Robert Crawley burst in, shocked that his family was being served by the former prostitute.  Christian charity was one thing, but in his eyes, the family’s reputation was quite another matter.

Yet, perhaps his mother, Violet Crawley, the Dowager Countess of Grantham, knew quite a bit more about both life and culinary history when she remarked dryly on seeing the Charlotte Russe, “It seems a pity to miss such a good pudding.”

For you see, the Charlotte Russe is one of those grand dishes that comes with an equally grand pedigree. Its creator was the legendary French Chef Marie Antonie Careme, who history remembers as “the King of Chefs, and the Chef of Kings”.

High praise that, and yet, it is totally true. He not only cooked for the leading powers of his day (Talleyrand, Napoleon, George IV and the Czar of Russia), he defined the toque as the classic chef’s hat, clarified the four “Mother Sauces” and established “service a la russe” as the accepted form of table service in polite society.

It was while he was working for the shy Czar Alexander I of Russia that he created the Charlotte Russe. “Russe”, of course, refers to Russia. (Can you say, “Make your employer feel important by naming something after his country”?)

But who is Charlotte? Charlotte was the sister-in-law of the Czar and was married to George III of England. (Yes, ‘that’ George of ‘Lost the American Colonies’ fame). After the fall of Napoleon, for whom he had worked earlier, Careme had been employed by King George’s son, the Prince of Wales (and future George IV).

While serving the English Prince, he had observed and had come to admire the quiet nobility of this former princess from the tiny German state of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, who managed both a mentally unstable royal husband and a family of 15 overly ambitious children(!) 

At the same time she also mentored the careers of Bach and Mozart and supported scientific discovery in the field of botany. The world famous Royal Kew Gardens exist today because of her keen support and insightful interest.

But her contributions do not stop there. Truly a woman ahead of her times, she founded orphanages and hospitals for expectant mothers. She supported education for women, especially for women “to whom life had not been kind”.

So you can see why Careme named a dish after this remarkable Queen, for he had seen enough of life himself to understand its many hardships and the need for rulers to address them.

Whether it was intentional or not, Julian Fellowes, the author of Downton Abbey, could not have picked a better dessert for the 'fallen’ housemaid, Ethel Parks, to serve. She was exactly the kind of women Queen Charlotte had sought to lift up and support. Even the other Downton ladies joined Isobel in her defense. Or as the grand Lady Violet note, neither a pudding (nor a life) are, should be foolishly wasted.

We can be thankful then that the esteemed Careme, in the cold snows of Russia, showed more awareness and compassion to the twists and turns of life by naming a dessert after this courageous Queen than did Lord Robert with his hot tempered moral lecture at the luncheon table.

Equally, the twist and turns of culinary history should often serve to remind us all within the Industry how even the simplest of actions, a kind word – a thoughtful gesture, can enrich lives beyond our knowing. And that, perhaps, is something to always remember, whether we serve upstairs or down.

Your Culinary World copyright Ana Kinkaid/Peter Schlagel 2013

Cheer the Super Bowl Ravens on with a Slice of Smith Island Seven Layer Cake

Millions will be watching America's Super Bowl Football Game but a lucky few will be cheering Baltimore's Ravens on while savoring a slice of Smith Island Cake.

And what, you are asking, is a Smith Island Cake? Only one of the culinary world's sweetest secret, unless you're from Maryland where the cake is honored as the State's official dessert. 

To find the makers of this amazing cake crafted from seven plus wafer thin layers, all individually baked, you have to travel (and only by ferry) to a tiny island, of the same name as the cake, located in cold waters of Chesapeake Bay.

Only 400 people live on the 8 x 4 mile island yet since the early 1600's those who have lived here have proudly called it home. And well they should have since the Island was famous throughout the world for the high quality blue crab, oysters and fish harvested by the Island's watermen as they were called. 

Yet it was not to last. As the East Coast of the United Stated developed industrially, toxic wastes were dumped into the Bay. Year by year the catch declined until it was too small to support a livelihood. The resulting hard times forced many to leave the Island.

But there were some who simply would not leave their island home. They fought the fear that poverty often brings with the resources at hand - baking pans and treasured recipes, both used in new and creative ways to break boredom and embrace a brighter future.

Instead of baking traditional two or three layer cakes, they baked paper thin layers of cake by spreading only a small amount of batter in each pan. Once cooked, they iced each layer and stacked them up to see how high they could go. 

The effect these brave kitchen cooks created was stunning. Today it is part of culinary history AND a major tourism attraction for the Island as hundreds come to savor both the present day beauty of the Island and its legendary tall cakes.

Perhaps the tenacity of those hardy early Island cooks will be with the Ravens as they take the field and fight to devour, layer by layer, the defenses of San Francisco's famed 49er's. 

Post Note, January 30, 2013: The culinary wonders of Maryland aren't just limited to Smith Island's fantastic cake. Here are some of our other favorites, all perfect for Super Bowl viewing parties:

Your Culinary World copyright Ana Kinkaid/Peter Schlagel 2013 

POST NOTE, January 30, 2013: Baltimore's culinary heritage includes many wonderful dishes in addition to the pride of Smith Island. Check out these food treasures: 

Berger Cookies - The official cookie of Baltimore, first created in 1835 by an immigrant German baker, this rich regional treat is a vanilla cookie topped with a thick layer of rich dark chocolate fudge. Its appearance is simple; its flavor is unforgettable. A cookie must for your culinary bucket list.

UTZ Crab Chips - High quality potato chips flavored with Chesapeake Bay crab seasonings since 1921 by this family owned company. The resulting taste is a regional treasure. An legandary game snack! 

National Bohemian Beer - Known in Balimore as the "Natty Boh" this brew is a premium German style beer similar to a Pilsner, known as the world's golden beer. Proudly brewed since 1885, it is the official beer of Baltimore and was the first American beer sold in canned six-packs. Many thanks!  

Pit Beef Barbecue - Baltimore's take on barbecue is crisp and crusty on the outside and rare and juicy on the inside. Often served piled high on a toasted bun.

Lake Trout Fish Sandwiches - The very popular everyday lunch sandwich of Baltimore. Made from Atlantic Whiting fillets, not trout, it comes garnished with ketchup and a horseradish sauce.

Chicken Boxes - Another lunch favorite of BMore. These carry-out boxes contain 4-6 chicken wings and either western, curly or regular fries. Sold in fried chicken shops and Chinese takeout restaurants (rice substituted for potatoes there). Often enjoyed with a "Half and Half", a combination of equal portions of iced tea and lemonade.

Your Culinary World copyright Ana Kinkaid/Peter Schlagel 2013