Oysters Rockefeller (pictured above)

Nothing says “classy party” quite like a plate of oysters.  However, not everyone enjoys the slimy, raw mollusks as much as you do.  This classic recipe adds chopped greens, bacon and bread crumbs, then bakes the whole shebang for delicious, elegant bite.  If you shop with a keen eye, you can get 1-2 oysters for a buck, making them a reasonably priced treat after all.

Mini Beef Wellington Hors D’Oeuvres

Serving beef doesn’t have to mean breaking the bank.  Rather than serving this rich entree, try my bite-size version.  I ended up paying less than $1 per piece, but all the guests just remembered getting to eat great beef!

Rosemary Fudge

A lot of chocolate and a little rosemary goes a long way to producing memorable dessert bites.  Rather than splurge for artisanal  bonbons, try this bulk-batch recipe.  Your guests will ooh and aah at the sophistication of what would otherwise be regular fudge.

Dark Chocolate Tart with Gingersnap Crust

If you’re not an expert baker (I’m certainly not), but you’re somehow in charge of dessert, try this easy chocolate tart with a kick of ginger.  Thinly sliced candied ginger says “Celebration!” and the richness of this tart means you can serve small slices, stretching your dollar all that much further. 

I love the richness and elegance of beef wellington, particularly for fancy winter dinners.  Beef wellington, if you haven’t had it before, is a medium rare slab of steak, topped with fois gras and mushrooms, then wrapped in puff pastry and baked.  The dish can be an expensive proposition, so I’ve transformed it into economical hors d’oeuvres. 

Makes: about 30 bites
Total kitchen time: 25 minutes (longer if starting with rare tenderloin)

Shopping list:

• 2 1 lb. fully cooked beef tenderloins (available at Trader Joe’s seasonally)
• 4 Oz. pâté (chicken or duck will work fine)
• 2 12” square sheets of puff pastry, thawed but still cold
• Toothpicks, for serving

1. Preheat the oven to 425°F and set the top rack in the middle of the oven.
2. If you are starting with an uncooked beef tenderloin, season it to taste and cook until rare.  Allow the tenderloin to come to room temperature before carving, at least 30 minutes.  If using pre-cooked tenderloin, remove from the packaging and wipe all sides dry with paper towels.  Cut the tenderloin into long, 1” square strips.  You should get about 3 good strips per tenderloin; the rest can be saved for excellent next-day sandwiches!
3. Line a baking sheet with parchment or a non-stick mat.  Lay out one sheet of puff pastry and place the cut tenderloin about 1/2” from the top edge.  Spread a little of the pâté on top of the tenderloin.  Then, carefully fold the puff pastry over the tenderloin, rolling the meat and the dough until you’ve completely encased the tenderloin.  Press the dough down at the seam to seal it.  Using a sharp knife, cut the sealed portion of dough away and place on the baking sheet.  Repeat for a total of three “logs” per sheet of puff pastry.
4. Bake until the puff pastry is golden brown, about 10 minutes.  Remove from the oven and let stand 5 minutes before cutting.  Slice each “log” into 1” pieces, skewer with a toothpick, and serve!

We were able to save a little cash by using chicken pâté instead of expensive (and rare) fois gras.  We also left out the mushroom mixture you usually find in beef wellington – for our purposes, the mushrooms would be a little messy since they’d fall out the sides of the cut pieces.  Trust me, your guests won’t miss them.

When I attended the Seattle Chocolate Festival last year, my eyes were opened to a whole world of savory chocolates.  I tried basil, lavender, cayenne… even tequilla-flavored chocolate.  This rosemary fudge is surprisingly quick and simple to make, and is a wonderful twist on a bake sale favorite.

Makes: about 2 lbs.
Total kitchen time: 30 minutes

Shopping list:

• 1 can sweetened condensed milk
• 2 sprigs rosemary
• 2 tea bags, a tea infuser, or cheesecloth
• 12 Oz. semi-sweet chocolate, finely chopped
• 2 Oz. dark chocolate, finely chopped
• 1 tsp. baking soda
• 1 tsp. gray salt, sea salt, or black salt (don’t substitute table salt)

1. Strip the rosemary needles off of the twig and pulverize them in a mortar and pestle to release their inner oils.  If you don’t have a mortar and pestle, put the rosemary in a plastic bag and rough it up with a rolling pin.
2. Divide the rosemary between the two tea bags.  Pour the condensed milk into a small saucepan over medium-low heat.  Add the tea bags and submerge, being careful not to let the rosemary spill out.  Bring the condensed milk to a simmer (you’ll see wisps of steam) then remove from the heat and let the rosemary steep in the milk for 15 minutes. 
3. Meanwhile, line the inside of a shallow 8”x8” baking dish with parchment or aluminum foil.  Try to get the foil as smooth as possible, so it doesn’t leave wrinkles in the finished fudge.
4. Remove the tea bags from the saucepan, pressing them against the side of the pan with the back of a spoon to release as much flavor as possible back into the condensed milk.
5. Add the chocolates and baking soda to a large glass or metal bowl and stir until the baking soda is evenly distributed.  Add the condensed milk and place the bowl on top of a pot of boiling water to form a double boiler.  Gently stir until the chocolate is almost fully melted.  Remove the bowl from the heat and continue stirring until the chocolate mixture is smooth.
6. Pour the chocolate mixture into the prepared baking dish.  Sprinkle the salt evenly across the surface of the chocolate.  Refrigerate until set, about 1 hour.  To serve, remove the block of fudge from the baking dish and cut into 1” pieces.

You can also try this recipe with sage, basil, or anything else that sounds good to you. 

To commemorate a certain special occasion that took place earlier this year, I decided to build the Eiffel Tower, in all its majesty, out of gingerbread.  This isn’t the first gingerbread Eiffel Tower in the world, but this may be the first one made with only 4 pieces of gingerbread. 

To achieve this marvelous feat of culinary engineering, I built a baking ramp with the same slope as the profile of the tower, so each face of the tower came out curved.  As a result, each side fit together perfectly – er, close enough for gingerbread. 

View Slide Show

The Christmas shopping season is upon us and that means its time to find the perfect  present for the food geek in your life.  The list below include some of my favorite socket stuffers for 2008. 

Space Invaders Cutting Board

This is probably my favorite item on the list this year!  This very clever cutting board uses dark and light end-grain “pixels” to represent those pesky aliens from the classic video game Space Invaders.  Also, it gives you an excuse to make the PEW PEW noise when cutting vegetables.  Now, if they could only build a Leisure Suit Larry cutting board…

$129.99 from ThinkGeek

300-Watt Cruzin Cooler

If there is a better way to drink and drive, I’ve never seen it.  This motorized cooler travels up to 15 miles on a single charge.  That’ll get you far enough away that you won’t recognize anything when you wake up naked and covered mustard outside a Dunkin Donuts off the Jersey turnpike.  With a maximum load of 210 pounds (you plus your chilled Chardonnay), it won’t haul your lazy ass up any steep hills, but you should be able to smoke those Rascal drivers on the quarter mile.

$399 from Smarthome

Infinite Circulon Portable Induction Burner

Folks, we’re living in the future.  This induction burner is a portable, heatless, electric cooktop, which must have been sent back through time from the year 2025, at least.  Induction cooking uses a yet-to-be-discovered principle of electromagnetics whereby a strong magnetic field in the thingamajigie causes heat due to some electrical resistance voodoo in the bottom of your frying pan.  The result?  Heat with 90% energy effeciency.  Now, if we can only reduce our dependency on foreign olive oil…

$244.31 from Amazon

Good Chemistry Salt & Pepper Shakers

Proudly declare your geekdom with these sodium chloride and  Pe +(Pe)r shakers.  After all, cooking is chemistry, so why not make your kitchen look more like a laboratory?  Order a whole mess of these things and keep them neatly arranged in a crystal formation. 

$14.99 from ThinkGeek

Salt: A World History

Just can’t get enough Salt?  I sure can’t.  This book discusses the profound impact that salt and the salt industry have had on world civilizations since, uh, a lot BC.  From the production and harvest of salt, to salt’s use as currency, to our modern-day culinary love affair with the compound, this book is a fascinating read.  And, when you’re done, you can use the pages to kill snails.

$10.29 from Amazon

Geek Shot Glass

If 1 out of 10 geeks suffer from alcoholism, does that mean the other 9 enjoy it?  If so, its probably because they one one of these sweet geek shot glasses!  Use them for your next happy hour, all-night coding session, or anytime you’re drinking with the other Matheletes. 

$3.99 from ThinkGeek

Star Wars Cookbooks

That’s right, there are multiple Star Wars cookbooks.  And you can have them both!  Learn how to make Jedi Juice Bars, Dark Side Salsa, Boba Fett-Uccine, and more delicious meals to eat by myself in my mother’s basement, er, I mean, to cook for dates.  With women.  Real life ones. 

$14.99 from ThinkGeek

Deni LED Cake Tray with Lid

OMG, OMG, OMG.  This has got to be one of the all time most superfluous kitchen gadgets I’ve ever seen.  Which means it’s perfect for the food geek in your life.  Just place your cake in the middle, then use the buttons to select between 2 and 12 slices.  LED lights on the outer ring shows you where to cut.  And, if that isn’t reason enough to buy this breakthrough digital portioning system, it even plays “Happy Birthday”.

$39.99 from Amazon

Cuisinart Brick Oven with Rotisserie

I’ve been drooling over these toaster ovens since they first came on the scene.  With a .9 cubic foot capacity, this little oven is perfect for smaller jobs like pizzas, casseroles, and shrinky-dinks.  Plus, the ceramic brick-lined interior promises even cooking, and the 500-degree temperature means you can tandori the night away!  The built-in rotisserie is another reason to keep your big oven off.  We are in an energy crisis, you know.

$279.99 from Amazon

Sylvania LED Fiber Optic Lighted Table Runner

Are your Star Trek: The Next Generation-themed dinner parties lacking a certain flair?  You’ve got the costumes, the 3D chess set, even a sage, black ex-comedian to dispense advice and lend a friendly ear.  But something’s still missing… a fiber optic table runner!  Fret no more, Ensign Billy.  You may now boldly decorate as no man has decorated before.

$85.99 from Smarthome

I had the recent privilege of attending a “Farmhouse Dinner,” a sort of underground dinner club hosted by a Seattle-area farmer and prepared by a local chef.  Underground dinner clubs are neither new nor rare in Seattle, but I will remember (and rave about) this meal until I’m old and senile. 

Usually terms like locally grown, organic, hormone-free, hell, even fresh have a distant, intangible relationship with the foods we normally eat.  When I stand in front of a pile of organic grapes at Whole Foods, I’m not necessarily moved by the extra care and attention paid to the grapes in order to earn that badge of superiority.  But, when you eat a meal knowing that all of its components were grown, raised, picked or slaughtered within a triangle bell’s ring from the dining room… there is a tangible relationship. 

Anyone could, presumably, go to the farmer’s market and grab a dinner’s worth of locally grown ingredients and invite some guests over – I’d even recommend it.  But that is child’s play compared to the dinners served at the farm.  Literally everything except salt, pepper, flour, coffee beans and wine came directly from the farm.  Everything.  That includes butter, cheese, pancetta, pickles, chilies, and of course all the meat and vegetables you can shake a fork at.  And if you’ve ever doubted that freshness makes a difference, I hope you get an invitation.

We ate 10 or so courses, beginning with thin crust, wood oven fired pizzas eaten casually with a glass of wine as the evening’s guests arrived.  We moved to the table to enjoy a divine beef broth and pea soup.  Next we tasted thinly-shaved pigs heart with pickled shallots, braised ox tail, tomato jam, fresh pickles, and an assortment of homemade cheeses.  Then there were several vegetable courses: the freshest, most vibrant carrots I’ve ever seen, a slaw of brussels sprouts and roasted peppers, and a superb roasted squash.  The main courses (yes, there were multiple) included handmade pasta with braised lamb shoulder and what I declare to be the best roast beef I’ve ever tasted.  I guess it helps when the guy cooking the beef knew the cow personally.

So, what’s the message here, that we should slaughter our own cows and only eat carrots that we’ve personally removed from the ground?  Of course not.  For most of us, its infeasible – both economically, and practically.  However, if you have the opportunity to experience the staggering impact of really fresh ingredients in a place where you are one degree of freedom away from the person who grew your food, don’t let it pass you by.  I guarantee it will be an meal to remember!

Makes: about 9 cones
Total kitchen time: 1 hour

Special equipment

• 9 coronet molds (or large pastry tips)
• 1 Silpat Nonstick Silicone Baking Mat
• 1 pastry bag
• 1 4” circle pastry ring (optional)

Shopping list:

• 1 lb. parmesan cheese, very finely shredded
• 1/2 lb. lox (smoked salmon fillet)
• 1 shallot, finely diced
• 2 tbsp. chives, finely diced
• 1 tbsp. lemon juice
• 2 tbsp. butter
• crème fraîche, to garnish

1. Preheat your oven to 350°F and place the top rack in the middle of the oven. 
2. Prepare the silplat on a baking sheet.  Place the pastry ring on the silplat and gently sprinkle with an even layer of the shredded parmesan.  The layer should only be thick enough so that there are no large holes.  Repeat, leaving at least 1” of space between circles.  You’ll probably have to make parmesan rounds in 2 batches.
3. Lightly salt the parmesan rounds and bake for 5-7 minutes.  Keep a close eye on the rounds – once the cheese is completely melted and just barely starting to brown around the outer edges, remove the pan from the oven and rest it on the open oven door.  The heat from the door will keep the cheese soft and warm as you shape the rounds into cones.
4. Working one by one, roll each round of cheese onto a coronet mold and place on a stack of paper towels to dry.  The cheese will be hot to touch, and you may want to use an offset spatula to help lift the first edge of cheese off the silplat.
5. Once all of the cheese rounds have been formed onto the molds, let them rest for at least 10 minutes to cool.  Wipe any grease off the silplat, then return the cheesy molds to the baking sheet and bake 2-3 minutes more, until lightly browned.  Its important to keep the molds in for this step, otherwise your cones will deflate into triangles.  Place the cones on paper towels to drain until ready to serve.  Can be made the day before and refrigerated.
6. Using a knife (not a food processor) finely chop the salmon lox.  In a large bowl, smash the butter with the back of a fork until it is lightly whipped.  Stir in the salmon, shallot, chives and lemon juice.  Can be made up to 4 hours ahead and covered and refrigerated.
7. When you’re ready to serve, pipe the salmon mixture into the cones carefully using a pastry bag with a wide tip (or no tip at all).  The cones will be very fragile, so you may want to recruit a second pair of hands for this part of the operation.
8. Finally, using a small, decorative tip, pipe a dollop of crème fraîche on top of the salmon.  Serve on a platter, or standing up on a plate full of holes!

If you’ve been paying close attention to my timestamps, you’ll notice a gap in recent posts.  You’ll have to forgive me, I was on a “business trip”.  Since I don’t make my living as a food blogger, occasionally I have to spend time doing actual “work”.  In this case, that work involved spending a week in Barcelona, then, due to an AirFrane pilot strike, spending 4 days unexpectedly in Paris.  Oh, and I got to bring my girlfriend, Rachel.  Oh, and due to the overwhelming romance of Paris, we’re engaged now!  Isn’t work just the worst?!

Here are some food shots from the trip.  I’m pretty convinced there are no bad meals in Europe (♫ and the streets are filled with chee-eze ♫).

-Scott

I had a chance to chat with Fran about the store and the Seattle chocolate business in general.  It’s easy to tell why Fran’s customers adore her – now a grandmother, Fran exudes such warmth that, just for a minute, I forgot she wasn’t my grandmother!  For the past 26 years, she has been pursuing her passion for perfection, a theme that is especially prevalent in Seattle artisans.  The business is run by her daughter (CEO) and her son (Chocolatier), who was recently invited by the Valrhona company to make his own blend of chocolate for the store. 

The first thing you’ll notice when you enter the new Seattle location is an absolutely giant pointillist portrait hanging on the wall. The subject is Fran’s granddaughter, but it is the medium of this image that is fascinating.  The picture is actually a life-size photograph of a collection of chocolate truffles, ranging from dark to white.  Mmmm, chocolate pixels… That’s good geek food!

Fran’s Chocolates
1325 1st Avenue at Union Street
Seattle, WA 98101 
www.franschocolates.com