My last cake baked in Ithaca was a Tiramisu Charlotte Cake, made for my fellow environmental engineers and professors at the senior’s banquet dinner. It’s just a tiramisu with lady fingers all around and a nice ribbon to make it ultra presentable. Been wanting to make it ever since I came across a picture of it at Happy Home Baking’s blog.

Texas BBQ: Slow roasted smoky meat, charred on the outside, juicy on the inside, served on waxed paper, best eaten using fingers. That’s the way to do it!

Top row: AtJMueller BBQ food truck located in the SoCo neighborhood on a really hot afternoon. Good fatty brisket and beef short ribs. 

Middle row: After waiting in line for 2h for Fraklin Barbecue to open its doors, we finally got a taste of the “best BBQ in Texas and the world” according to Bon Appetite magazine. Great dry rub seasoning and super tender fall-off-the-bone pork ribs!   

Bottom row: Feeling the heat in front of the wood fired smoker at Smitty’s Market. The brisket wasn’t fatty and tender enough, but good sausages! 

I’ve found a new standard to aspire towards: to make my macarons like those from La Maison du Macaron at 132 W 23rd St! Crisp but firm shell, moist fluffy cookie that has just enough “bite” to it, and delicious flavor-packed fillings!  

I had 3h to kill in NYC this afternoon before heading to JFK, so I grabbed lunch at Katz’s Deli at 205 East Houston St down in the Lower East Side. In his In Search of Perfection book, Heston Blumenthal goes to eat at Katz as part of his search for the best steak in NYC (and the world I suppose). I ordered what he ordered - a Katz Pastrami Sandwich. At $15.96 I expected the sandwich to be bigger, but you’re really paying for quality, and the meat is REALLY GOOD. It’s juicy, smoky, melt-in-your-mouth delicious! At the self-serve counter the guy slices a little bit of the pastrami while he’s preparing your sandwich and serves it to you on a platter. It’s like a teaser before the real thing comes, but I could really just eat the pastrami on its own. In fact I think the rye sandwich bread and the heap of pickles that comes with it dumbs down the awesome flavor in your mouth. 

I exercised restraint and saved half of the sandwich for my dinner on the plane. I bet everyone was jealous cus it still smelled so darn good. 

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Penang Tau Sar Piah takes a shit load of time to make. But these are totally worth it. Not only because they taste pretty authentic, but also because I made them for a friend who helped me save many many hours of my time and effort. The story goes: I trusted technology too much and only saved one copy of my final paper for a class on my USB thumbdrive. On the day that it was due, I go to school to print out the paper and tada! the USB folder shows NO files. FML. I am already mentally preparing myself for another 10,000 hours of work and trying desperately to recall as much of the paper as I can, when Ack uses his mad computer skills to help me recover a fairly recently-saved version of the paper. Not the latest version but good enough. THANK GOODNESS. Thanks Ack!!!! 

So the moral of the story is:

1. If technology can fail, it will. Make multiple copies of your work. 
2. ECE/CS majors rock. 
3. 4h of making tau sar piah is nothing compared to re-writing a whole paper from memory. And more enjoyable too.

Recipe here. 

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Puffy, sugar coated melon pan. Click here for Youtube video.  

“Italian” Dinner Party Menu

• Raw cut veggies with creamy dill dip
• Mushroom and chicken risotto
• Tiramisu 
• Unoaked chardonnay, Napa Valley 
• Grapes & jalapeno cheddar  

"Cooks are like musicians; there are those who read the sheet music and replicate it bar for bar, and then there are those who can riff and deviate to make a song of their own. This is the kind of cook many of us want to be, the jazzman with a frying pan."

Andrew Scrivani, the New York Times

Shrimp Risotto

Last week I went to Zaza’s for their lobster risotto. Pretty good I must say, but the Law of Diminishing Marginal Returns to Gastronomic Satisfaction kicked in really quickly. Too quickly. The portion was huge and after eating half the plate I was all ready to swap my dish with someone else’s.

Note to self: A successful dish is one where people wipe the plate clean and feel contented about their meal.  

Still, Zaza’s risotto was very good, but it’s rather pricey ($19 or sth), so I tried my hand at making it so that I can eat it more often!! Everyone should eat well, especially during exam period, don’t you think?

 

On all those reality TV cooking shows like Hell’s Kitchen, everyone seems to be afraid of making risotto because apparently it’s easy to screw up. But seriously, I don’t think its that difficult, but maybe I did screw up: my shrimp risotto looked a little more watery and less creamy than the one at Zaza’s, perhaps a bit undercooked, but pretty decent taste-wise. I used Thai culinary stock because it was conveniently leftover in the fridge, it gave the risotto a nice spicy touch! 

Arborio rice is used for risotto and it’s really cool because it absorbs a lot of water during cooking, and the starch is released to give a rich creamy texture! 

Recipe adapted from Cooking Light. 

Shrimp Risotto (Serves 1) 

• 2 c Thai cooking stock (or whatever broth you like)
• 1 tbsp butter
• 1/4 onion chopped
• 3/8 c uncooked Arborio rice
• a couple of grape tomatoes, halved
• 6 large shrimp with shells and heads
• salt and pepper 
• chopped herbs to garnish

1. Remove heads and shells from shrimp. Simmer heads and shells with Thai cooking stock and keep warm over low heat. 
2. Melt butter in saucepan over med heat, fry onions for abt 2 min. 
3. Add rice, cook 30s, stirring constantly. 
4. Stir in 1/2c cooking stock, cook 2min or until liquid is nearly absorbed, stirring constantly. Repeat with rest of stock, 1/2c at a time. 
5. Stir in tomatoes, cook 1min. Stir in shrimp, cook 4 min or until done, stirring occasionally. 
6. Remove from heat, season and garnish. 

A Toast to the Last Day of Class

After 16 years of formal education, I attended what may well be my very last lecture as a full-time student. As chance would have had it, this lecture was from the Introduction to Wines class, and the topic of the day was Champagne and sparking wines - stuff that’s enjoyed only during momentous occasions, occasions just like this one. 

I will miss being able to just sit in lecture and soak up the information that’s being thrown at me. It’s easy, just listen, register, remember. Besides this there’s very little stressful brain activity involved. You’re among 400 other students, no one is paying any attention to you, no one’s putting you on the spot to say something profound. Every so often (especially when the alcohol hits your brain) you can kind of let your mind wander without serious repercussions. After all, all the notes and video recordings of the lectures are online, study guides are readily available, and there’s only 2 multiple choice exams. Miss something in class? You can always catch up later. 

I will miss copying writing notes, a somewhat less mindless activity because I have to think about what the prof is saying, and then write down only what I think is important. Like how the foamy bit on top of the sparkling wine is called the mousse, the thing that fills my mouth when I take a sip. The bubbles in the sparkly are called beads (wine geeks have such fancy terms), and fine beads create a very soft, almost creamy texture in the mousse.  

I will miss how students are encouraged to voice their own opinions and ask all sorts of questions. They will be respected and discussed/addressed in the name of learning more about the subject matter. How will this translate to the workplace? One thing I’ve taken away from the Wines class is that no one should tell you what should taste good and what should not taste good. You have your own tastes and preferences, so you make your own judgments and it ends at that. But at work it’s not just about you, your decisions and actions have repercussions on others. If people do not share the same opinion as you, if they do not care about what you think, then what do going to do? Decision-making is no longer as straightforward and (if I may say) frivolous as “I like how this wine tastes and therefore I think it’s good”. 

I’ll miss the wide range of classes Cornell has to offer, including this one. The appreciation I have for wine now is incomparable to the meager amount that I started off with. “An institution where any person can find instruction in any study” may almost be true for this university. I’ve enjoyed my time here, hopefully I’ve learnt some useful things over the course of 4 years. At the end of the class, Prof Mutkoski proposed a toast of wonderfully sweet and floral Brachetto d’Acqui to all of us seniors. Happy graduation and may we go on to do great things in life!