Pin-Up Pastries is Sweet

It's always exciting to see one of your friends do something fantastic. I've been friends with Erin Garcia, the owner and executive pastry chef of Pin-Up Pastries for quite a few years now. After working as a personal chef, and in many of New York's top kitchens, she's now running the show in her tasty new sweets shop.

Garcia's pastries totally hit the mark. What I like best about them is that they're not cloyingly sweet. By using high quality ingredients & amazing technique, Garcia is able to make satisfying deserts that don't overwhelm. Especially impressive are her macrons, which come in a variety of exciting flavors.

The store, decorated with namesake pin-up photos, is located at 13944 Ventura Blvd in Sherman Oaks. Check it out!

Live Cooking Demo Tonight!

I'll be making Penne Pesto with Chicken Breast live tonight on LuvChat.  Tune it at 8PM Pacific time to enjoy the shenanigans.  Show will stream in repeats after the broadcast. 

Baby Back Ribs

Finally. I've been thinking about making these for ages.

2 Tsp. Salt
2 Tsp. Brown Sugar
1 Tsp. Garlic Powder
1 Tsp. Onion Powder
1 Tsp. Chili Powder
1/2 Tsp. Cumin
1/2 Tsp. Ground Sage
1/2 Tsp. Coriander

Wash & dry ribs. Remove membrane on the backside of ribs by sliding a sharp knife underneath, then gently pulling the membrane & moving the knife. This is optional, but highly recommended. The membrane, being inedible, takes away from the rib eating joy. Cover both sides of the rack with rub, and rub gently into the meat. Cover, and refrigerate overnight.

Soak wood chunks in water for 1/2 hour. I used a combination of hickory, pecan, and cherry. Place on top of hot coals. When smoker reaches 250 degrees, place ribs on rack. Smoke for about 3 hours, adding coal/wood as necessary.

If desired, you can brush with BBQ sauce in the last half hour. You don't really need to.

Smoker

For the last three years, I've been using a small charcoal grill with a box attachment to do my smoking. Thanks to a sweet $59 deal at the Home Depot, an upgrade has been made. The box is still fairly small, I don't have a lot of people to feed. But, it's bigger than before, opening up a range of options.

I like the square design, with the coal/wood pot located on the bottom, a vessel for liquid above that, then two racks for smoking. Temperature is easy to regulate, thanks to 4 adjustable vents.

My first experiment was with chicken. After seasoning the box, I put a few lightly brined breasts on the top rack. I let them smoke for an hour- a simple, clean smoke flavor was the result. The next thing was a rack of baby back ribs, since I've been secretly plotting a rib smoke for about a year now. The planning and plotting payed off, the ribs were fantastic. Come back on Thursday to see how it all went down.

So, what's next? Well, I think I'm going to live my dreams and smoke a whole Boston butt. Pulled pork is a passion, and if I can pull it off, I'll be a happy happy man. After that, I'm going brisket, two different ways: Texas style and Jew style. That's right, friends, sometime this summer, I'm going to cure and smoke my own pastrami. Sweet.

Brisket

Passover is not my favorite holiday. I'm positively incapable of going 8 days without any kind of leavened bread. In a strange gesture of dedication, I try to live through the entire holiday without eating any sweet sweet forbidden pork. Generally, I fail. (But, in my defence, it's usually by mistake. Like the one year I went to a friend's house for Easter and realized the extent of my failure only after I had eaten a ham sandwich. I ham sandwich that was made AFTER the Easter dinner.)

What I do like about Passover, though, is the feast tradition. So, last night I made a little bit of awesome. The highlight of the meal was this brisket.

1 Brisket
1 Cup Beef Stock
1 Cup Water
2 Onions, sliced
2 Tsp. Sherry Vinegar
1/8 Cup Crushed Tomatoes
Fresh Thyme & Sage

Season brisket with salt & pepper, then brown both sides. Remove from pan, deglaze with water & stock. Add remaining ingredients, return brisket to pan. Bring everything to a boil, cover, and then transfer to a 300 degree oven. Cook for three hours.

Allow brisket to cool for about 20 minutes, then slice against the grain of the meat. Strain cooking liquid, and serve as sauce.

Health Freedom Expo

The Long Beach Convention Center played host to the Health Freedom Expo over the weekend. New age hippies flew on their positive energy powered magic carpets of healing just as quick as they could. Hucksters and snake oil salesmen rejoiced.

I'm all for stepping out of Western thought and finding a balance in life. I'm clearly for a whole food approach to eating. Traditional medicine can be a very effective tool in treating many ailments. There are many things about wellness I don't understand, so therefore shouldn't judge. Good. Fine. I get that.

I also get that, as a whole, we can be way too concerned for out health & well being. Instead of looking for long-term, sustainable ways of living, we look for the quick fix, the magic bullet. So people head to places like the Heath Freedom Expo to spend money on complete crap.

There were many devices for sale that make your water "pure". A ctually, I take that back. Some made your water "pure", while others infused it with positive energy. There was even one device that would cleanse you AND the planet. All you had to do was pay $300, and stick your feet in the magical tank.

In addition to healing through water, you could also heal yourself with berries. Berries! One better than the next! Antioxidants! Don't get me wrong, I love berries. I'm sitting next to a giant basket of strawberries (bought from the farmers' market because some bastard keeps stealing my garden berries) right now. They're fantastic, they taste great, and yes, they are very good for you. They don't however, create miracles. So when someone tells you that drinking a special juice made from them will cure cancer/headaches/insomnia/low sex drive/memory loss/the recession, you should laugh at them, not buy their berry juice. Because here's the thing: NO SINGLE FOOD SOURCE CAN CURE EVERYTHING.

Some of the vendors really believe in what they sell. And that's fine. The mind/body connection is a real thing, and if you have the funds & think your ion water is helping, be my guest. But you should realize that a lot of the products being sold are scams & pyramid schemes (I'm looking at you Mona Vie), so use caution. Most of what was for sale at the Health Freedom Expo will do you no good. Spend your money elsewhere. (You can spend it funding an awesome cooking show...mmmm, funding.)

There was one pretty awesome thing for sale at the expo- Kangoos. They are ski boots with cleverly shaped rubber attachments that make you walk/job like a kangaroo. Really fun to use, and very low impact on your joints.

Steamy Buttered Asparagus

I am not a member of the Cult of Asparagus. It's good, for sure, but not as good as french fries. Still, the stuff is pretty damn healthy, and it does taste like springtime (though not as much as now peas).

1 Bunch Asparagus
2 Tbs. Butter
Lemon
Salt

Remove woody bottom from asparagus. This can be done by either: holding both ends and snapping -or- looking for the part on the stem where the color changes from a pale white green to a deeper shade of green and cutting just above that. Clearly, the second one will leave you with more to eat. With thick asparagus, you should also use a vegetable peeler to peel the stem.

Steam asparagus until just tender. Don't overdo it. Don't. For thin asparagus, 2.5 minutes should do it, thick asparagus 5 minutes.

Add butter to a warm pan, and heat until it just begins to turn brown. Toss in steamed asparagus and a pinch or two of salt. Cook 30 seconds. Squeeze lemon, toss again, serve.

Strawberries

Sure, you can find strawberries year round, but, even more so than most fruits, they really shine when they're in season. For those of us in California, the season is here. Be patient in cooler climates. Strawberries are coming your way soon.

The two most common varieties of strawberry are camarosa and albion. There isn't much of a difference in taste between the two. Albion is a new variety, quickly becoming the most popular choice for California farmers. All of the vendors who sold them seemed really proud to be doing so. I had a pretty good sampling of both camarosa and albion, and, though I found the albion to have a slightly more balanced flavor, both were very enjoyable.

The only other variety I was able to find at the farmers' market was one called a '269'. It was billed as "softer and juicer" than other strawberries. It was. However, the flavor was also softer and less complex than either the albion or camerosa. Make your '69' jokes now. Be my guest.

Look for berries that are a deep brick red. There should be no traces of green or white at the top- this indicates a berry that was picked before full ripeness. Avoid bruised berries, unless you're going to eat them immediately. Then again, you should eat them right away- strawberries loose flavor when refrigerated. The best thing to do is pick some up at a farmers' market, and eat them the same day.

I lie. The best flavor comes from growing your own. However, strawberries are fairly difficult to grow, and yields are small. But you should experiment anyway if you have the space. What you should NEVER do is steal another person's strawberries. Especially if they plan on eating the two small ripe berries in their berry patch right before writing a blog about strawberries. Because that will make a person mad. Mad I say!