Lazy Bear: A Revelation for a Cranky Old SF Cynic

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I had the excellent luck last month to: A) meet a couple of awesome new friends at a shared table at brunch, B) become part of a dinner-going group with them and my friend A, with whom I went to Rome in December and who has brilliant connections and a serious take-charge attitude, leading to the four of us C) going to Lazy Bear for one of the most remarkable dining experiences I've ever had in my relatively charmed life.

I was extremely skeptical at first – Lazy Bear is a sort of private dinner club-turned restaurant that is super expensive and notoriously difficult to get tickets for, a combination that heightens my hype-dar immediately.  But I didn't want to be a party pooper and I had a little extra cash cushion so I agreed to go.  On the day of the dinner, a gorgeous sunny Saturday, I was loathe to get dressed up and go to what I was sure would be an overproduced and underdelivering San Francisco wankfest (pardon my French but I really was feeling very wary).  But almost from the minute I walked in the door, the first to arrive, my expectations were proven wrong.  

Let's Just Hope My Language Skills Are a Little More Authentic... Americanized Tiramisu and an Announcement!

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Things have been reeeeaaaaally quiet over here on the baking blog – lest you think I hadn't noticed my neglect, rest assured that it's been bugging me for weeks.  I started working full time in April and since then my free time has been less plentiful and often takes place outside the hours of good natural light so essential to food photography.  I also lived in an apartment with a shared kitchen stocked with other people's things, so I never knew what supplies I had to make a recipe.

None of this is an excuse, though.  I should have prioritized this blog more.  Baking makes me happy, as does blogging about it, but for some reason I haven't done either for the past few months.  It's been a rough year, but I'm finally starting to feel like there's a light at the end of the tunnel, which should mean more energy and time and love to put into baked goods.  The only catch is that I'm moving again, this time to Italy – I'll be living off savings and spending my days writing and yoga-ing and writing and hiking and writing.  Hopefully a new book will form in those months of having nothing on my plate but writing and pasta.  In which case, you may not see me here for a little bit longer.  That said, should I find myself in need of a break from the computer screen, which is pretty likely, and hiking isn't doing the trick, you can bet I'll share whatever concoction I whip up over there on this blog here – fair warning, though, I'm not bringing my nice camera, so it'll be all-iPhone pics, all the time.

I knew I wanted to share this big change in my life with all of you (especially those of you who have been SO patient while I post so erratically!), so when a recipe for tiramisu landed in my inbox, it seemed like serendipity; I decided (despite this disturbing typo in the recipe) that I wanted to make it to celebrate my upcoming move and announce it here on the blog that has seen me through so many changes in location and circumstance.  There were, as is customary in my life, a few things that went differently from the plan, but I got there in the end and the result was delicious – I can only hope my non-food-related life winds up so successful!

Battling My Sweet-Yeasted-Dough Demons: Paul Hollywood's Brioche

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For some reason, every time I decide to make something sweet that's yeast-based, whether it's challah or gooey butter cake, the elements contrive to work against me and the thing turns out to be a huge flop.  I end up nervously hovering over my dough, waiting for it to double while I curse the rain and wish I had ever seen what doubled dough should look like so I could be sure I'd recognize it when it happened.  And usually I give up and bung it in the oven after waiting an hour past the recommended time, and usually that ends up being a mistake and I can only guess that my dough was under-proved... I don't have this problem with savory breads (but maybe it's just that it's less noticeable when they're a bit under-proved, and they're just a bit denser which isn't such a big deal in my book), but the sweet doughs always seem to elude me.

So I'm not sure why, when Bloomsbury asked me to test a recipe from Paul Hollywood's new book, How to Bake, I chose brioche.  It's everything I'm crap at: a sweet dough, with more ingredients than your average bread, and a recipe that requires planning, patience, and 2 days to babysit your kitchen.  And yet, somehow, once I saw the photo of that fluffy, gorgeous, golden crown of deliciousness, I just couldn't get it out of my head.

The Idiot Baker (or maybe just a shlimazel)

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It started so innocently.  A naive shiksa baker with a lotta chutzpah, a missed slice of challah at a friend's recent wedding, a craving, a dream...

But then it that dream turned to drek.

First came a strange, knead-less recipe that, while it seemed to work well for Rebecca, and while it made a pretty braid on the cold cookie sheet:

nonetheless led to a dense, bloblike 'loaf.'  Not exactly a mitzvah.  Although we did eat it all.

Next, I decided to really roll up my sleeves and get to work.  So I went back to a long-ago bookmarked recipe for a gorgeous challah from Deb.  I figured it would be complicated, but I told myself it was worth the extra effort to get it right.  I didn't have to be such a schlemiel, I just needed to focus.

Week of the baking brown thumb

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I know it may seem like I’ve got this whole baking thing figured out (if you ignore all my posts about hair-tearing), but I do sometimes make mistakes.  Usually, though, they’re few and far between in the grand scheme of things.  But not last week.  Last week was the week of baking disasters.

Never let it be said I'm not a woman of her word: handmade wholemeal bread.

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My beautiful rosemary and sea salt topped loaf.

Well, I did it.  Last Sunday (as in, a week ago yesterday– yes, I know.  Sorry), with no big plans looming and the weather forecast to be a swath of grey with intermittent nubbins of snow, I rolled up my pj sleeves and got to work.  And, as promised, at no point did the beautiful KitchenAid mixer come into play; this was strictly a forearms and wrists kind of operation.