Thursday, July 16, 2009

hard to beat creme fraiche

Here it is at the end of my day and I'm finally getting to this. Time sure gets away from me. I'm sure I can remember the boxes of Christmas ornaments being covered with dust, every December, when I was a kid. Now they aren't in storage long enough to collect any dust.

Long day yesterday. Early morning start to get things off to GCM, and it was late before we got back after the Aville market. Things went well. Had the usual rain st GCM in the morning, but it was gorgeous last night at Aville. We bought some beautiful sour cherries last night along with raspberries and blackberries. We will be making triple berry danish for the GCM Saturday. I'm looking forward to that. Falls under the heading my dad always uses, "get in a car and you'll drive a long way 'til ya find stuff like that".

Last night at the Aville market, we had four people come up to our table and ask about raisin fennel bread. We made it last week, first time at that market. It was the last variety to sell out. I kept tellin' customers "raisin fennel is the sleeper here tonite, trust me". I was excited when four different people asked for it. This is a formula I got from Amy's bread in Manhattan. I think it is the table bread at a well known steak house there. They also have a restaurant here in Chicago. I'm hesitant to say their name, but I think it is on Dearborn and the north bank of the river. What they are serving there is a poor excuse for raisin fennel bread.

The parmesean polenta bread we made came out nice. Flavours were very mild, but the texture was very cool. A high percentage of corn gave the crumb a real "meaty" texture. I didn't give way to you fingers when the crumb was squeezed. I also think it could be sliced very thin. Interested to see what the response will be next week.

Oh, my french lady friend is up to eighteen macaroons each Wednesday. She has requested lemon be the next variety added.

We also made gibassier and tart bresanne for the Aville market yesterday. We did well with the bresanne, but we had a few gibassier left. For the bresanne we used eighty grams of brioche dough. We mixed it on Tuesday and it fermented overnight in the fridge. We rounded it up and after a few minutes, we pressed it flat, sugaring it heavy on both sides with vanilla sugar. Once it proofed a little we "docked" it with our finger tips. Placed a spoon of creme fraiche on top and more sugar. Finished proofing them and baked 'em. Awesome. Sweet, buttery, rich, tangy. We will see what they have to say next week. We actually sold quite a few in our store as well.

The gibassier didn't do as well as the bresanne. We made quiet a few more. They came out very pretty. The only comment I heard at the market was, "they taste really fresh". Once again, kudos to my guys/gals, they are really some talented folks. I think it's the fact that they are truly,truly interested.They want to make nice stuff.

A family was there from Paris. Mom, dad, three or four kids. Bought lots of stuff. Kept coming back to the table, pain chocolate, baguette, croissant de amandes, baguette. I later spotted them sitting outside at Ranalli's. I asked them "mon pain est bon"? They said "Oui, très bon. Ils devraient faire le pain comme cette maison arrière ! Put a big smile on my face.

2 Comments:

Blogger Laminatrix said...

Gibassier are so cool; must get some. Also want to try that parmesan polenta bread. You can get good coarse polenta cornmeal at Whole Paycheck, btw.

Meanwhile, your mention of Christmas ornaments reminds me of one of the funniest things you said in my time there: You sent Leobardo up to the crawl space to get the decorations. People were shouting up to him, in english and Spanish, "Bring this!" "Bring that box!" "Get the ribbons and the tinsel" until you finally said, "Bring down everything that isn't an Easter bunny." Still cracks me up.

July 17, 2009 at 1:17 PM  
Blogger Jory Downer said...

Gibassier is one of my favorites, although not the most popular. Very unique flavour.

Sent two different people to whole paycheck, neither came back with anything other than coarse cornmeal. The polenta bread was o.k. will be better the next time around! a week from wednesday in fact.

July 26, 2009 at 11:35 AM  

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