must eat everyday - chocolate toast

I know when you start a new blog, you are supposed to post every day, at least every week. I am sorry I have not been so attentive. I have a good excuse - a few actually. 

I went to New York for a little holiday, and I was planning to post from my hotel room about all the reservations we had made and all the bakeries I would trek through snow to try - instead I ended up in bed, with the real deal flu. I'll spare you details, but it involved my stomach, and every muscle and tissue in my neck and back ached. I was green most of three days, and blue inside at the thought of all the plans I was breaking. 

I got over it, but not quite 100%, by Monday. I gathered strength to do some shopping... I was determined that if I could not eat I could buy things to eat later.  With much wonderment we visited Mario Batali's Eataly. It was just as cavernous and circusy as I thought it would be. I got lost a few times in the aisles of tasty spreads, produce and meats. Cheeses, pastas, bad Italian espresso - they have everything. I was only interested in the candies and sweets though, and I picked up two jars of that delicious stuff up there - crema di nocciole. 

I need to eat it every day or I get sad. Other items were purchased, and I have many plans to tell you all about the wonderful things I saw at Mast Brothers Chocolate - but those are for another day.

On A Clear Day - A cookie

    

This kind of a day.

Quiet, a Monday. Perfectly clear and warm.

Buster and I spent the morning ambling about the neighborhood, sniffing at trash cans (him) and looking over fences (me).

I was thinking about how to drag moments out - how to make this Monday morning roll into forever.

Most people hate Mondays. For me its a day to sleep in, to spend the morning in bed long after Blaine has gone - and hold Buster until ten or so. We spend some time sunning ourselves on the porch and then we take an epic, slow, walk around the streets together.

I get to spend quality time on Mondays enjoying snacks and lunches with people I like, or alone - which I usually like just as much. I get to revel in a cookie made for a Monday:

I call this cookie THEO, after its main ingredient - theobromine. It's Monday perfect, consoling and rich at the same time. It's like a brownie, but in my opinion brownies are for Saturday nights - so it's not like a brownie. It's better, can't explain how you'd just have to trust me.

No, I did not eat all three of them. Not in one sitting at least.

THE Chocolate Chunk Cookie

    

There has been this cookie in my mind's eye. The one that is soft but only in the center - the edges don't quite give up that easily, they maintain some structure.

There must be chocolate involved. It has to be chunked, not chips. Chips are for, well... amateurs.

THE Chocolate Chunk cookie - it was a classic that needed a new look. It needed some updates, as it was starting to look like Peggy instead of Joan. She needed to show her best assets in order to get the respect she deserves.

After Christmas and New Years it was SO hard for me to get right back into baking so soon - because the last thing I want is all of ^ THAT hanging around in my kitchen. Last week THE Chocolate Chunk Cookie made it's appearance at breakfast more than once, sitting oh so cutely on the new plates my Dad got for me. It looks great next to the Porcelain Bialetti that Molly gifted me (she knows me so well...) and it's so photogenic don't you think?

I have happily decided to stop testing, and I think I have made it to the final draft of THE Chocolate Chunk Cookie. It's everything that I was thinking it would end up as - tender, sweet, buttery. This cookie has TWO kinds of chocolate so it's never boring you, as well as more brown sugar than white making it more complex - byzantine if you will. Salt for those with a "salt tooth", naked for the purists. 

If you ask me to make them for you I will, but I will draw up a contract stating that you take every damn one from my kitchen OR ELSE. I am like a Roger Sterling drawn to it's sweet, sweet curves - abandoning all appropriate behavior for a moment of bliss.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/greenbutton/

Tartine Bread

Tartine Bread, originally uploaded by nee-cole.

I have been caring for a starter since the beginning of December -it is something I have always wanted to do. As a baker, I have been mainly in the dessert and sweets realm, but what I really want is to be a boulanger. So I fed my starter everyday, and really cared about it. I bored the people at work with details of yeast culture development and gluten structure - it seems to have paid off.
My first loaves came out of the oven blistered and smelling sweet, they rose - which is a miracle in itself when you think of what this is - its just flour and water.
The structure was not where I want it to be, but I can see the points in the 24 hours rising time where I went wrong and maybe exhausted my leaven. I followed Chad's instructions dutifully, though I think the book is a little poorly organized - images for one step being on a different page than the actual step's text. Its a beautiful book and a beautiful start in my hopeful career as a boulanger.
Happy New Year Y'all