May 2007 Archives

Is anyone else over "Ah Ha!" moments? "Ah Ha!" moments, popular with motivational speakers, marketing professionals and guidance counselors, are fleeting and emotionally taxing. They may elevate your consciousness and deliver you to the other side of your problem, but eventually the glow fades, you're out searching for your next breakthrough and treading through the "meh's" while that elusive "Ah Ha!" hides behind every corner but evermore rarely reveals itself.

I think the masochist in me prefers the "Uh Oh" moment. There's just something reliably human about doing something you just know is going to be a mistake, and doing in anyway, tempting fate, and paying the price for it. Within reason, of course. I'm not talking about the car accident kind of "Uh Oh," but the I-don't-need-tape-to-stay-inside-the-lines-while-I'm-painting-this-wall kind of "Uh Oh." The "Uh Oh" is a reminder that you're still a stupid kid who's not to be trusted, and the satisfaction is in getting yourself out of your mess.

Case in Point: Last week I had a rather large pie order. A dear Acorn customer just got married, and ordered 16 pies for her party. She wanted fruit pies, and we agreed that she should have 2 varieties: peach-marionberry and something with rhubarb. I convinced her to let me make cherry-rhubarb. This is really zingy combination, a departure from the ubiquitous strawberry-rhubarb that I'm already tired of, and more interesting than straight-up rhubarb (which is still my favorite). Plus, the deep ruby filling, when it bubbles up out of crust, is quite sexy. I had Jillian, my kitchen helper, make the filling on friday based on the recipe I printed from my Pie files. Most of my recipes exist on my computer, but the crucial additions and modifications are written on the hard copies, grease soaked paper protected by crusty plastic sleeves. Every few months or more, I will take home my book and update the changes to my recipes on the computer. Then, I may or may not print them out again. Then I let my dog lick the plastic pages clean. The cherry rhubarb recipe was not in the book, which meant any changes I had made to the recipe were lost. The recipe spreadsheet on the computer looked rather dull. Didn't I add lemon juice? Well, it doesn't need to be any more tart, so, no. I don't believe that cinnamon should really go into any pie but apple, so that was out, as was nutmeg (peach and apple). Orange zest was a possibility. Jeff makes fun of my liberal use of orange zest in almost everything I cook, and in turn I mock his overindulgence of bay leaves. But the more I thought about what the recipe was lacking, the more I knew it was something I hadn't yet tried.

So, I've been on this big pepper kick. Ever since we started grinding black peppercorns in the spice grinder on a daily basis instead of using pre-ground pepper or the tedious pepper mill (is there a functional pepper-mill out there for less than $60? Every time I try to buy a cheap one, it reveals itself to be worthless,) black pepper is like a new flavor. Ok, I will own this as an "Ah Ha!" moment. A turkey sandwich with chevre, basil, sweet onion and strawberries, sprinkled with coarse black pepper was the move that emboldened me to approach hubris. It was as if I was the first person in the world to discover that black pepper works with sweet foods. "I know" I thought, "I'll add this to my filling and no one will know what is in there that makes the cherries and rhubarb ZING! so perfectly, and when I tell them, they won't believe it, but they will think me a genius!"

I added black pepper. And not just a little, but A LOT. And then..."Uh Oh." Maybe, just maybe, I should have maybe tried that on one pie, one pie that I would eat myself, instead of 10 pies that I am charging money for, 10 pies that are being used to celebrate the love and commitment of 2 people who found each other against all odds. Uh Oh. Maybe I shouldn't have done that. I tried the filling. It tasted...ok, for uncooked pie filling containing fruit that really needs to be cooked. Ok, for some goop with little black specks, and some big black specks (the spice grinder makes a fine-to-course melange, and I love it for that). But when you tried the goop with a big black speck, and bit into that speck, it tasted a little...hot. A little bit spicy. A little bit of a throat clear and loss of breath. Still, I wasn't fully convinced my crazy idea was a failure. For the rest of the day, I ruminated on my actions. Everyone I told responded, "you what? why? do you have a back up plan?"

So I made a back up plan. I got to the kitchen early on Sunday, baked off the peach-marionberries and one 'tester' cherry rhubarb. I waited. Every time I checked on the pie, I probed into the filling. It was good. Hey! this was going to work out! And then the aftertaste came. It was weird. Not awful, not inedible, but weird. If you like red-hots, which I don't, this would be your pie.

I had about 5 hours to make 8 more pies. Had I used up all of my frozen sour cherries for the first batch, I would have been screwed. You can't buy frozen sour cherries in supermarkets. But I still had some cherries, though not quite enough. I had plenty of rhubarb. I also had strawberries. First, I had to mix a new batch of pie dough. That takes about 30 minutes from start to finish if you're working fast (weighing and forming discs of dough eats up time.) Then I had to let the dough rest, make the filling, roll out the dough, fill the pies, form the pies, and give them another rest. While I was doing all of this, I was thinking "Well, here's something I can put on the blog" and then "You know, I don't think the pepper idea was all bad. I still can make it work!" And in lieu of everything I had just learned and put myself and the wedding party through, I went back to the pepper. But this time, it was white pepper. And it was moderate. It was less than moderate, it was a hint. It did just what I wanted the black pepper to do--it brought out the Zing! without more sweetness or tartness. It made it more cherry-y and rhubarb-y. I guess that's why we use pepper in the first place--"Ah Ha!"

I waited for a full report from the bride before writing this post. She says both pies were devoured and enjoyed, and I don't think she's lying. She also says there was the detection of some spice and heat, but no one could figure out what it was. Maybe I'll go even lighter on the pepper next time. In the meantime, I have 8 black pepper-cherry-rhubarb pies, unbaked and frozen in the kitchen (Uh Oh!). They will either be thrown away or given away, but I can't sell them in the cafes. If anyone wishes to try my great failure, but ultimate triumph, send me an email--robin.rosenberg@comcast.net-- I expect they will go fast!

Noelle Archibald, our most "extracurricular" team member, appears on the Judge Mathis show at 1pm today, on Channel 49 (on cable, I think this is channel 13). In a dispute with a former band member from Show Me The Pink, Noelle promises she plugs the Half & Half, so this is some important daytime television. We will be broadcasting it at Half & Half today for anyone in the neighborhood who forgot to set their Tivo.

Desperate for something--anything--to get back to some form of presence on The Web, I was set to do a post titled "Uma, we found your nametag" in lieu of the shrinky-dink ornament our own Jeff Kriksciun found outside the Half & Half yesterday:

There is something sweet and yet sad about the newest addition to our front counter collection. My guess is that someone out there is has lost the nameplate to their beloved bike, Uma Thurman, which just so happens to be the name of a semi-talented actress who was once married to the unholy Ethan Hawke, who needs to stop publishing literature.
Note to Self: Host a Half & Half Arts & Crafts Hour, featuring Shrinky-Dinks. Participants will create unique Half & Half-inspired tchotchke for us to sell. I just have to figure out what's in it for the participants. Personal satisfaction? All the deviled eggs you can eat in one sitting? --lemme hammer out the details.

So yes, the shrinky dink thread was going to be it until I got an 11th hour phone call for some lunch catering from good old Mary at the ILWU Local 5, located upstairs from Half & Half. Would I be able to fax over a menu for Democratic Presidential Hopeful John Edwards? Well, no, because my fax machine is at home turned off and our menu changes just about every day, but hey, we can make John Edwards and his staff great sandwiches! Mr. Edwards, I learned, really loves turkey. Although the Half & Half was featuring "Blue Monday," a turkey sandwich with avocado and buttermilk blue cheese, I was working in the kitchen, where we were making chicken salad sandwiches for the Acorn. Luckily, we had some turkey, and a kitchen full of sandwich possibilities. In the end, John Edwards feasted on roast turkey with pickled onions, avocado, swiss cheese and oregano aioli. No doubt he is mindful of his diet but I hope he tried my ginger-molassas cookie. I do believe it's the best in the country.
Had I a little more time, I might have come up with a different turkey sandwich for Mr. Edwards. Probably a chutney and sharp cheddar. Possibly with asparagus and lemon aioli, in honor spring and this year's stellar asparagus crop. At Half & Half, we always name our sandwiches, which is an endless source of both stress and amusuement for me (my naming system is complicated and obtuse therefore I name 95% of sandwiches myself). Usually the sandwich is created, and its name becomes what the ingredients evoke to me. Today, the Sandwich became the Man. I look forward to seeing what this new, oregano-aioli inspired John Edwards can bring to the table.