Irish Cream Scones

Let’s get grounded again. Let’s get our hands messy: in the dough, chopping vegetables, making dinner. It’s good to have something to do with our hands. While we feed our stomachs, let’s feed our souls; nurture those places that right now are broken, anxious, scared, fearful. This is something you can control and actually glean joy from.

Tomorrow is St. Patricks Day - a holiday synonymous for most with green-colored food, garish decorations and costumes, Guinness, brisket and potatoes. What it should be remembered for is a man, who, believed in something so fiercely, he returned to a land (Ireland) he had escaped from as a slave, to spread a message that was so dear to him. Faith in the face of fear. Tenacity against the odds. May we all be bolstered by this memory as we don the green or sip that green beer.

Ireland, Scotland and England (Wales) all claim the scone as their own - where the tradition began of baking these mounded leavened buns is unclear. What also is not clear, is why so many scones, their looks looks so flaky and enticing on the outside, are dry, powdery and flavorless on the inside. The trick - managing the butter in the correct way so that it doesn’t melt as it is incorporated into the flour. As the milk fat in the butter evaporates as it cooks, it creates little pockets of air (small enough not to see, but big enough that the tongue picks up on the flaky texture).

Cream Liquor Scones
2 cups white flour (can sub 1/2 wheat flour if you would like)
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
3 TB sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
8 TB butter (or one stick), cut into pieces and kept cold
1/2 cup butterscotch chips
1 large egg
1/4 cup Irish cream liqueur (or sub heavy cream for this if you do not have)
1/4 cup milk

Glaze: 2 TB Irish cream
1/3 cup butterscotch chips

1. Pre heat the oven to 425F

2. Combine the flour and the butter using just your fingertips (or a kitchen aid mixer) until the mixture looks like cornmeal.

3. Mix in the rest of the dry ingredients

4. Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients and add the egg, Irish cream, and milk. Mix just until it comes together. Toss in the butterscotch chips (or any other decadent additions you would like).

5. Drop the dough by large spoonful onto a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper.

6. Bake for 12-15 minutes or until golden brown.

7. Let cool and crack on making the glaze.

8. Melt the chips and the cream together in the microwave in 30-second blasts. Drizzle over the scones. Enjoy with clotted cream or loads of butter.
   

The Best Part of Waking Up

There is never a morning, as I rise before the sun or with it, that I do not think of my first cup of coffee. I struggle to remember my very first real cup of coffee, but I have memories filled with grandparents and parents scenting the morning with a fresh brewing pot or of meetings in college concentrated at a coffee shop: homework getting done, enjoying friends, watching local Indie bands. 

This dark brew was more than a drink or a pick-me-up in the morning, it became a culture, a way to bring people together, something to look forward to or something to talk about. The lingering at coffee shops or simply around a table with steamy mugs, lend to times of being present, of offering solace or bringing joy, of deep conversations, deep thinking and productivity. 

Even as I travel, I know that solace can always be found in a coffee shop. I search them out as much for their comfort as for the experience of tasting the place. Coffee is much like food - it is strongly influenced by its locality. When I first moved to London, the coffee was awful: maybe it was that many Brits still used instant coffee (it being a tea society and all) or that the milk had a different flavor from what I was used to. The delight was finding out of the way shops serving such caramely, artisan coffee that I still have dreams about it. While In Italy, I cannot remember ever being served a bad espresso. It is dark, rich, sweet, joyful. 

As a foodie, I also care about what is paired with the food - whether that is wine, spirits or coffee. A bite of good food would be recklessly ruined with a sip of a bad drink. Which is why, this summer, The Wild Table found a local Billings roaster to supply all of our coffee for the shop (and my home). Revel coffee is owned by Gary Theisen: a coffee connoisseur, an artisan, craftsman and master of flavor. He carefully selects each bean he uses, and like a winemaker, conducts taste tests of many different roasting methods, types of beans, and brewing methods to determine the absolute best product. I have never experienced a roaster who is more joyful and passionate about his craft. 

This year, Revel was one of fifteen coffee roasters to win the Good Food Awards in the coffee category. The awards program is designed to recognize “American food and drink crafters who demonstrate a commitment to creating tasty, authentic and responsible products and in doing so, better the nation’s food system.” This should be reason enough to want to start your day with Revel @ The Wild Table.

Q & A with Gary:

If not in Billings I would live:
Though I love Billings, I think I'd like to give desert living a try.  I don't seem to mind the heat, and not having to shovel snow or mow a lawn sounds pretty nice.

My current food (coffee) obsession:
For coffee, it seems my obsessions change with the seasonal crops.  Kenyans and Yemens at the moment.  On the food front, I'm currently obsessed with crispy brussel sprouts and a rice noodle salad I recently tried at the Wild Table.

The craziest/weirdest food I have ever tried:
I'd like to say something like tarantula or balut - but in reality the 'craziest' for me was probably chicken sweetbread. 

One of the more 'weird' food experiences is probably with Synsepalum dulcificum or "Miracle fruit".  Miraculin molecules in the fruit binds on the tastebuds and makes sour things taste sweet.  You can bite into a lemon or lime and it will taste almost cloyingly sweet with no pucker.

For coffee, the weirdest would probably be the various forms of coffee I've tried that have previously spent time in an animals digestive tract.  

The food (coffee) trend I can’t get into is:
Coffee that has been consumed and expelled by various animals haha. That and the coldbrew coffee trend - I have nothing against it, I just think that there's a lot more tasty options.

My favorite thing about my career:
Honing my craft in the pursuit of unachievable perfection.  Each coffee presents a new challenge on how it needs to be roasted.  Every step in any coffee's life can either preserve the quality that is present, or diminish the quality.  My job at Revel is to select coffees with the highest quality potential I can get my hands on and unleash that quality in the roasting process without influencing it in a damaging way.  It's ceaselessly enjoyable for me to hunt out great coffees and see what I can bring out of them.

If I had to eat one cuisine for the rest of my life, it would be:
Cuisine category: Asian   Food category if diabetes didn't exist: breakfast cereal.

I would rather own a horse or a boat:
"Never have a hobby that eats" is some advice I got a long time ago from an elderly dying man; or I heard it in a movie, I can't remember ... sage words nonetheless. 

My favorite kitchen (coffee) gadget:
My Veggetti - just kidding, I used it once and discovered I'm not a fan of zoodles and nicked finger tips. 

Two gadgets that can be used for both coffee and cooking that I think every kitchen should have is a Thermapen and a quality gram scale (like an acaia pearl)

But a true gadget just for food would be my Searzall torch adapter for sous vide meats, melting cheese, cooking the top of an egg while the bottom gets cooked on the pan because I don't want to risk breaking the yolk during flipping it and I'm really just a kid that wants an excuse to play with a blowtorch, etc.

My cocktail/spirit of choice is:
Though I really enjoy tasting and experiencing various spirits; beer or wine would be my first choice, though I really don't imbibe all that often.  Probably my favorite wine thus far was a 2010 Domaine Leon Barral Valiniere.  For beer, it's between this one ephemeral saison from a local brewery in Billings a while back, or last year's "The Dissident" sour ale from Deschutes.  

My friends and I like to:
Drink coffee, golf, go to the movies, and talk about theology, philosophy, politics ... and coffee.

Summer Days

Love people. Cook them good food. 

This has been our mantra from the beginning. 

Some days it is hard. Hard to cook. Hard to love people. 

But with a deep passion; something that has been built in me from the beginning, I long to cook good and love people well. 

When lines are long, the kitchen is hot, the orders are hectic, the dishes are piled high, this is not always easy.  Summer is a wonderful time of activity and tourists and visitors, and with all of our best efforts, sometimes we fall short. I apologize for longer wait times, missed second cups of coffee, or a dish that didn’t quite match up.

But we will always strive to love people through the mess, the chaos and the joy of long summer days. 

(Image courtesy of Penzey's Spices)

Minestrone

Pizza bread crisping in the wood-fired oven, earthy lamb "scotoditto" searing on the grill, espresso brewing. With the opening of the trattoria door, the smells are intoxicating. The rooms are cozy, soulful, slightly kitchy, welcoming. All manner of bits and bobs hang on the walls: pictures of family, movie stars, candelabras, crosses, plants, baskets, Mother Modanna. I am reminded of a toasty grandma's kitchen where home-cooked food is served alongside love, comfort and familiarity. 

La Botte Piena

Trattoria di Regina

Trattoria de Regina

It is one thing to travel in Italy as a tourist, it is quite another saunter into local trattorias and pizzerias with locals who know waiters, owner, chef, best dishes and desserts. They order without looking at the menu, chat with the owner like they are best mates - at which point he will even join the table and tell a funny story. I don't understand a word, but laugh because the mood is jovial and homey. I feel welcomed into someone's home and personal life - an extension of the family's body and soul is the restaurant, the kitchen, the food. 

One of Italy's most comforting dishes to me, and one that is served nearly everywhere in Italy, is the humble Minestrone: born out of the cucina povera, it was a dish that used all that could be found that was leftover (or as my mom likes to call "fridge soup"). Hearty, filling and cheap to make, minestrone means "big soup" to Italians and is usually filled with vegetables, wilted greens, beans, and sometimes small pasta. 

For a quick and warming meal that will make you feel like you are in Nonna's kitchen, try Minestrone - and experiment with different vegetables, beans or pasta  you may have handy. 

MINESTRONE 

2 carrots
2 stalks celery
1 onion
2 garlic cloves
2 large potatoes, cleaned, cubed
3 tomatoes diced (or 1 can of diced tomatoes)
4 cups chicken or vegetable stock
Parmesan rind
1 can kidney beans
1 can cannelloni beans
3 cups swiss chard or other greens, thinly sliced
1/2 cup acini di pepe pasta (optional)

In a sauce pan, add 2 TB olive oil. Dice the carrots, celery, onion and add to the pan. Cook on medium until the vegetables are soft and starting to brown. Add minced garlic and stir for 1 minute. Add potatoes, tomatoes, chicken stock and rind. Let this simmer for 30 minutes to allow the flavors to infuse. 

Add the beans and pasta. Allow the pasta to simmer for 7 minutes. Add the swiss chard - the greens will wilt in the hot soup. Cook for 3 minutes. 

Serve with pesto, bread and more olive oil. Buon appetito!

Castagnaccio

There is smoke on every hillside, puffs of white rising between thick groves of chestnut trees.  It could be viewed as celebratory bonfires after a successful chestnut hunt, or simply a way to clean up the spiny burrs that housed this flavorsome nut. These burrs grow in clusters on the tree; their spiny husks used to protect the chestnut inside. Once mature, the burrs will open and fall to the ground and the race of harvest ensues in order to beat squirrels, other animals and weather to the grounded nuts. Once the burrs are discarded, they are piled together and burned so that for the next year the new nuts are easy to spot on the forest floor.

Seggiano is situated beside Monte (mountain) Amiata, a dormant volcana, which provides the land with rich mineral deposits and beauty throughout every season. The chestnut trees that grow here are so bountiful and treasured that they have been given an IGP status in Italy – a title reserved for only the best produce grown in the country.

Monte Amiata

So, as smoke rises from the mountain, the surrounding villages celebrate with chestnut festivals in the streets: chestnuts roasting on open fires (literally), maron de glace in the shops (candied chestnuts that I just can’t. stop. eating.) and castagnaccio.

Castagnaccio, my Italian cooking class may remember, is a chestnut flour cake that is a speciality of this Monte Amiata region. Chestnuts were the staple food for Tuscan peasants and chestnut flour became widely used in cakes, breads and pastas as traditional flour was too expensive. This cake turns out weirdly flat and breadlike – in fact, in Italian the name literally means, “chestnut shit” or “chestnut mess”. The name is deceiving, as the flavor is subtly savory with a sweetness from the chestnuts and raisins and floral notes from the rosemary and pine nuts scattered on the top. Serve in the morning with a cappaccino or in the evening with a sweet glass of Grappa.

Castagnaccio

• 3 3/4cups (400 grams) chestnut flour
• 50g brown sugar
• Finely grated zest of one orange
• A pinch of salt
• 2 1/2cups (625 milliliters) cold water
• 100ml olive oil
• 1/2cup (100 grams) golden raisins
• 1/4cup (20 grams) walnut pieces
• 1/4cup (35 grams) pine nuts
• Sprig of fresh rosemary, leaves picked

Soak the sultanas in a little freshly boiled water (or hot tea) for about 10 minutes, so they plump up, while you prepare everything else.

Preheat the oven to 350.  Brush a 22–23cm springform cake tin with some of the oil and line the base with baking parchment.

Drain the sultanas over a measuring jug to catch the soaking liquid, then make up the liquid to 400ml with cold water.

Sift the flour, sugar and salt into a large bowl. Add the orange zest, then gradually beat in the 400ml water until you have a smooth batter. Beat in the olive oil and sultanas.

Scrape the mixture into the prepared tin, then scatter over the pine nuts – patting them in slightly with your hand so they adhere – and rosemary. Bake for 45 minutes. The cake will look very similar to how it did when it went into the oven but the top should be dry and slightly cracked in places and a skewer inserted into the centre should come out clean.

Remove the side of the tin and leave the cake to cool on the base on a wire rack. Peel away the lining paper as you transfer the cake to a board to cut into slices.

Serve the cake just warm, or completely cooled, trickling each slice with honey and a little extra virgin oil. 

The Good Stuff

Fake olive oil has been all over the news this year, and it is just as easy to pick up bad oil from the grocery store. So, I made a little infographic so everyone knows the tips and tricks to look for when buying a really good bottle:

Back in Tuscany

It has been five years since I have been in this place, but I could not feel more at home: sitting on a stone terrace, overlooking the olive grove, the town of Seggiano, and a Tuscan kitty named Beast by my side.

I have been in Italy 24 hours, but this is the moment I feel like I am truly here. The sky is robin-egg blue, the sunlight is streaming through the olive trees illuminating them silver, my feet are cool on the cobbled porch, and the only sounds are olive pickers rustling the branchesin nearby groves.

There certainly is a beauty to Tuscany that is unparalled: rolling hills descend into deep valleys and yet each hillside is covered with steep fields of wheat, vines or olive trees. And despite a scorching summer with extreme temperature and no precipitation, the grass, the trees, the hillsides are all green. 

The olives are just starting to turn from green to a deep purple - in a few days all the trees will be ready to pick, so in the meantime, we are bottling and labeling in a small warehouse in nearby Castel de Piano. These days of indoor work are not active moments, yet still fill me with a sense of awe as our small team of eight, bottles and labels hundreds of olive oil bottles by hand. These were completed today with the intent purpose of being shipped to the U.S., and I couldn't help feeling some amount of pride thinking that maybe my fingerprints will find their way to friends and family who pick up a bottle of Seggiano olive oil for themselves.