So I Quit My Job

This is some of the stuff I've been up to...

Eating...




The Cuban sandwich with the bites missing had a jalapeno relish; the pork was super juicy, and the sandwich was delicious. The weather has been amazing in San Francisco. On Friday's there are food trucks in the Civic Center/UN Plaza area. They travel around the city, if you have a favorite you can follow on twitter and facebook to see where they'll be next.




Baking...



The fruit tart was a recipe from a Food and Wine magazine I picked up this month, they were super easy to make. And the chocolate chip cookies, which I've made before, and the carrot cupcakes are from, my favorite, America's Test Kitchen.

Mayodaise and Time Clarifications

Photo from Bon Appétit

James and I decided to have a festive and indulgent breakfast this morning, or actually, perhaps I should say I decided to have a festive breakfast morning (Mother's Day! Yeah... I have a mother... I should eat steak), fueled by visions of the "fool-proof" hollandaise sauce featured in my recent Bon Appétit issue. You may remember my past hang-ups about hollandaise,  the fear and terror it creates in me, juxtaposed against my insatiable urges for the sauce. 
The process outlined in Bon Appétit claims you, yes YOU, can create easy, fool-proof hollandaise sauce in 5-minutes, using a blender and ... uh... one pan. Since James was able to do it the old fashioned method and it turned out fantastic, I figured perhaps this dumbed down version could be my personal introduction into the (previously denied) culinary world of cream sauces.

However, in case you didn't notice, the world has not imploded, pigs do not fly, hell has not frozen over and I found a way to fuck hollandaise up once again. Ok, check out the recipe:

Blender Hollandaise (from Bon Appétit)

Ingredients

• 1 1/4 cups (2 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, cubed
• 2 large egg yolks
• 2 Tbsp. fresh lemon juice, plus more
• Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

Preparation

• Fill a blender with hot water; set aside. Melt butter in a small saucepan over medium heat until foaming. Remove pan from heat. Drain blender and dry well. Put egg yolks and 2 Tbsp. lemon juice in blender; cover and blend to combine. Working quickly and with blender running, remove lid insert and slowly pour hot butter into blender in a thin stream of droplets, discarding the milk solids in bottom of the saucepan. Blend until creamy sauce forms. Season to taste with salt and pepper, and with more lemon juice. Serve immediately.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Pretty simple sounding, oui oui? Well, after the meal was consumed (errant sauce and all) I checked out the vid to see what differences in preparation must have occurred. And seriously, check it out: here it is.
  After I got over the excitement of realizing this was Eric Ripert's recipe, I watched him blend the sauce for about, oh... 10 seconds? Seriously: watch it and time it for me please. Ripert and the other dude even refer to it as "60 second" hollandaise. Ugh. You can't mess around with me and sauces! I need guidelines! Strict measurements! Hard and fast rules! The freaking printed piece called it 5-minute hollandaise! I blended that shit til I got mayo. Specifically, I blended that shit for 5 minutes. When I pressed that stop button and ventured a taste, that stuff was THICK. 
  
  
  Creamy, delicious, lemony mayo, but nonetheless, mayo. It was so good though, that I still poured that all over my plate and wondered how commercial mayo sucks so much.  
  
  
  
  Mayo: it's breakfast!