Ms. Glaze's Pommes d'Amour

Crispy Sweetbreads, Pomelo, Citrus Veal Jus

"Do your yoga friends know you eat brains and thymus glands and crazy stuff like that?" He asks popping a crispy morsel in his mouth after expertly swiping it through sauce...

"Um, no, how's the new dish?" I ask with arms folded and one eyebrow raised.

"Clean. Crispy. Sauce is tasty. Great starter with champagne – is there champagne?"

(Hmmm...maybe he's okay after all...)

What is a pomelo? It's like a grapefruit on steroids but sweeter without the bitter aftertaste. Be forewarned the pith is about an inch thick. Veal sweetbreads are the thymus gland.They have a mild flavor with a slightly spongy interior. Cooked correctly they should melt in your mouth. 

I found out how delicious sweetbreads were only after I started cooking them professionally.

During a promotional photo shoot for Guy Savoy's website inbetween my cooking shifts, Guy himself sent me his ris de veau dish as a present (from my meat station, nonetheless). I couldn't very well send them back – they were covered in truffles! Total life changing experience. There is something to be said for tasting your food. 

I am picky about how they should be cooked and prepared. I like 'em extra crispy on the outside and tender inside. I do not like them roasted – too mushy for my taste. 

Here's the technique: soak the glands in ice water for at least three hours to draw out any impurities, changing the water twice. Blanch sweetbreads in a pot of simmering salted water for 45 seconds then shock in ice water to stop the cooking. Peel off the thin membrane that surrounds the gland. Cut into nice bite size pieces about 65g each. Store morsels wrapped in a slightly damp kitchen towel in the refrigerator until ready to cook.

Season morsels with sea salt and sear in a cast iron pan with salted butter continuously basting. Add more salted butter to the pan when remaining butter begins to brown. Baste, baste, baste. The sweetbreads are done when they are brown on all sides. 

For extra crispiness: drain sweetbreads on a paper towel when golden brown then cook one more time before serving in the same way. 

The sauce is simply a reduction of veal stock and pomelo juice squeezed from the pith after segmenting. I finished the sauce with a little butter for a gloss. Easy! Place pomelo segments around sweetbread morsels and garnish with micro herbs and chives.

Persian Saffron Orange Cake

My dusty pastry skills were recently tested when a Persian friend asked if I would recreate his Grandmother's orange cake perfumed with cardamom and saffron. Then he gave me his Grandmother's relic bundt pan to make it in. Then my mother gave me her 1970's Persian cookbook. No way out!

Why I am not a pastry chef is sort of a mystery in my family. My last name really is 'Glaze'. My first spoken word was "cake" (the precursor to "hotdog"). And I'm probably borderline diabetic considering my insatiable sweet tooth.

What went wrong...

I was briefly thrown into pastry chefdom at the age of 21 when the now famous but then unknown pastry chef, Elizabeth Falkner, left Ristorante Ecco. I was only the nighttime Garde Mangé cook (cold apps, salads, and pastry assembly) with no cooking school degree and little knowledge of baking.

Left an anthology of recipes, I picked up the slack. I learned two things: I prefer to see food cooking in front of my face instead of hoping and praying it will turn out okay before dinner service and I have trouble not taste-testing everything I create.

Was it Shakespeare who wrote: "Tis an ill cook that cannot lick his own fingers"?

Even so, true to my first utterance, I love cake. Unadulterated. Fresh and fluffy. Although there is a time and place for buttercreams and Italian meringues, I prefer it "as is" with minimal frosting. Maybe with a dollop of barely sweetened vanilla bean whipped cream. Or maybe not. 

I make cakes at home by hand, without electric aid, because it's a great arm and ab workout and lessens the guilt factor when I devour half in one go. 

It does take extra time, but then again, making cake is a labor of love...

I wonder if his Persian Grandmother knew that saffron, cardamom, and orange scented fresh cake brings a lingering sultry frangrance to the kitchen and, well, romance to the table? 

Wild Mussels! How to Clean & Debeard

Jeeps McGee, my trusty vehicle, starts up with a gutsy roar. The performance exhaust shakes me with thunderous throaty vibrations. My coffee cup perched precariously on the dash spills while disco competes for attention on a station I don't remember ever having set (was I really listening to this last night? Yikes!). My overnight duffle is happily absorbing the jus de chaussette I was very much looking forward to. Some happy New Year this is!

After an onslaught of holiday parties, I am throwing in the cocktail dress and pulling on the workboots. I sink a few bucks into Jeeps McGee's big belly and put San Francisco in the rear view mirror. Pescadero here I come...

Me and McGee are so in our element. We are noisily cruising down 280, bouncing up and over the curvy Skyline mountains down to Highway 1. I reach Half Moon Bay and my 33-inch flame tread tires screech left onto the Coastal Highway.

Ahhhh, the ocean....

Today is beautiful. The Winter sun crisp illuminating the Pacific on my right like a bright and blinding sequined serpent. The fields on my left bleak and mostly tilled under with random rotting pumpkins left unloved. Cypress trees, like tortured twisted shadows with desperate outstretched arms edge the endless blue. Weathered farms dot the coast.  

Artichoke soup, dungeness crab, and  olallieberry pie – here I come!

Citizen Cake Clam Chowder

It seems that I am the last to find out that both Orson and Citizen Cake will be closing their doors in SF. As the Chef de Cuisine who opened the last reincarnation of Citizen Cake I find this disheartening. All that work! My team was talented, the recipes developed iconic, and it was a lot of fun. We put our hearts into it.

This goes to show how hard the restaurant business is. I am sure that Elizabeth Falkner will reinvent herself soon either as the next American Iron Chef or in another venue. She is a creative powerhouse. For more info visit the Sf Chronicle post.

Kale and Fuyu Persimmon Salad, Blue Cheese Beignets

The secret ingredient in this kale & fuyu persimmon salad is hidden in the vinaigrette: the bizarre and fascinating citron known as Buddha's Hand. 

The fleshless fruit imparts a lovely fragrant sweet lemon essence minus the furniture polish aftertaste. Use the zest in just the same way you would a lemon. It can be candied, blended up in vinaigrette (pith included- it's sweet!), or displayed as a fragrant center piece on the dining room table. It also makes a sexy twist in a glass of champagne. 

Take the ingredients of this salad and use them simply or, if you feel like spending an hour on a dish that will be eaten in less than thirty seconds, you can follow my lead!?! I've sugared the walnuts with maple syrup, fried Cambozola blue cheese in beignet beer batter, and served the persimmon roasted in honey and sliced raw. Either way the flavor profiles hit all the right notes: sweet, sour, salty, and bitter plus the varying textures make for an exciting first course.