Saucyman: Custarded

Thursday, January 22, 2009

Custarded

What would you order for dessert? - Wondering

I am pretty much a custard fella. Crème brûlée, pot de crème, and anything that can call itself a pudding especially bread pudding – I like bread pudding so much I will pretty much order anything that calls itself bread pudding - like pizza, even when it is bad or disappointing it is still somehow satisfying.

Every once in a while I will order outside my comfort zone. I enjoy a good pie, but if bread pudding can be disappointing, pie can be awful, it is nearly always better when made at home. Cake can be so very good or so very processed. Chocolate is good, but we (chocolate and me) don’t share a deep emotional connection but we do seem to enjoy each other when we cross paths. Lately, I have been ordering the Amelie from local patisserie Pix, a small a hazelnut and chocolate cake – with custard.

One dessert, Oeufs a la neige will get my dessert dollars anytime I see it on a menu. Literally translated as ‘Snow Eggs’, the dessert is a winning combination of sugar, eggs and milk/cream but here it is presented as a classic example of the separation of yolk and white. The whites are whipped and poached then floated on a custard made of egg yolks.

In an age of various kinds of sugar bombs, dessert names like chocolate orgasm, death by chocolate and death by chocolate orgasm, Oeufs aren't going to fare well against such competition. And rightfully so, if a person goes out to eat once a month and wants a strong, bold dessert; Oeufs ala neige isn’t really what they are looking for. I rarely go out to eat, so a restaurant isn’t going to survive on the likes of me ordering the obscure and esoteric dessert.

Even when made for dinner guests, when there are no other choices, Oeufs are a hard sell. Guests have told me they don’t like meringues and eat will eat the custard around the whites out of politeness or something. Without going into a discourse on not liking versus not even trying, not liking meringue is fair enough. There are enough bad, stale, airy meringues (not to be confused with the infectious, toe-tappin’, hip gyrating merengue) to make desserters understandably cautious. Instead of baking the whipped egg whites, the Oeufs are poached in either a flavored syrup or the vanilla scented milk that will make eventually be the base of the custard – the result is a different experience altogether – chewy, textured, sweet and airy the perfect contrast to the thicker custard.

Oeufs a la neige is a subtle dessert, a dessert’s dessert – just as how well a kitchen prepares soups and vegetables tells you more about their skill than their ability to cook a steak, Oeufs mere presence on a menu tells me the pastry chef has a sense of history and well-rounded repertoire.

0 comments:

Post a Comment

Basketball

Since the lockout ended, I have been largely silent about the great sport of basketball. Despite Brandon Roy retiring, despite my beloved Blazer’s sprint out of the blocks to a really good start, despite my home team playing a style of basketball than can no longer be described as Van Gundying (Jeff) up the sport’s fluidity.

I don’t know, some interesting developments transpired: During the lockout, analysts and beat writers, the very people who possibly think about professional basketball more than I do, had a light bulb go on over their collective heads and across the league they discovered what everyone else pretty much already knew, NBA Commissioner David Stern is a dick. Over the last decade Stern forced bankrupt municipalities to build new stadiums for billionaires’ new play thing, this heavy handed behavior garnered nothing but praise. The writers sighed and thought eh, “we live in the suburbs, we write for suburban middle managers, our values are if anything anti-urban” - with all the weight that word carries. But needlessly locking out players jeopardizing their tenuous employment in publishing, well that is something that we might complain about except they hate the players more - Oh the conflict.

But mostly I can’t get excited about any team helmed by Nate McMillan. We’ll make the playoffs with a pretty good but not best record, maybe get home court advantage in the first round and then fail to advance. This is true until McMillan proves otherwise, 11 years a coach out of the first round once - this record while coaching some pretty good but not great teams. Along the way Nate will overplay star forwards LaMarcus Aldridge and Gerald Wallace so there is nothing in the tank come playoff time and risk their health. And yo-yo Nicholas Batum’s minutes so the young player becomes a head case instead of developing into a consistent contributor.

So a predictable finish is part of the my own jejune response to the return of the sport of kings (not really, that's horse racing) maybe it's the sweet science (damnit google says that's boxing). My attitude goes deeper than a finish more predictable than one of McMillan's earth toned, triple pleated suits, if the lockout exposed a fault line in NBA coverage it's that broadcasters and writers are now PR agents for the teams - so who is left to advocate for the fan - thank goodness for blogs and the posting cyborg that is named Henry Abbott.

2nd round or bust