People who love to cook are the best people.

All the days spent in the kitchen last week. I had applied to audition for the Great Canadian Baking Show but i missed the deadline as I lost my real job and I lost focus for a bit. The days got a little mixed up and foggy.  But I’ve regained my focus again.   They said they’d keep my application for cooking show on file for the future but I’d bet my severance its in the trash now. Actually it all started after I watched the kids Master Chef one evening last week. The kids that lost the main challenge had to take on one of the most difficult challenges yet. They had one hour to make and bake a sleeve of French macarons. I was stunned as these are tricky sticky wickies to make. I was absolutely amazed that these kids actually knew what they were doing. Clearly they had practiced them before. Most of them turned out a product quite enviable except for the kid who put bacon in his. He’s still on the show btw. The little girl with the golden yellow braids broke down in tears when she was told she had to go home. I knew exactly how she felt. Those are the same tears that happen when my macarons spread all over the tray like jellyfish and ultimately end up in the bin.

I decided if those kids can bake macarons like that maybe I’m not ready for the GCBS so I set my mind to do some test kitchen baking. Not surprisingly I started out with macarons, which I’ve made many times before but they are as unpredictable as my golf swing. Sometimes beautious other times disastrous. There is just something torturing me inside, driving me to master these delicate, spongy little cookies that resemble pastel colored hamburgers. In fact when I was in Paris in 2008 I saw these strange colourful cookies everywhere and I wondered what was with those odd spongy sliders. We even passed Laduree on the Champs Élysées several times completely oblivious to the delicacy we were totally ignorant of. We returned home and discovered the macaron and have been trying to replicate them ever since with varied levels of success.

I have always used the French method because, well… these are French. After reading up on the various methods I decided to attempt the Italian method. Apparently it’s more fail proof because the batter is more stable and there is no waiting for a hard shell to form which makes sense because I don’t think Italians are known for their patience. In addition, you make a boiling sugar water solution to add to the egg whites which makes them more stable and kills off all those pesky salmonella  varmints.

I spent the entire Monday baking macarons. Another tip I read about was to measure ingredients in grams on a kitchen scale . As luck would have it I happen to own one such scale from my weight watchers days, not sure it was meant for measuring sugar. I proceeded to weigh all my prep bowls and did all the math for amounts. I felt very ‘Martha Stewartish’. The first two batches performed well then I broke stride by going out for coffee with a friend the batch following looked a tad odd.  Maybe it was too late. Maybe I was too rushed. Maybe it’s because I split the last batch up into two colours. In any case they baked very lopsided with mouths as well as feet. These cookies have a bubbly little ridge called a foot. The elusive but defining foot of the French macaron.

Another delicacy whose process has haunted me is the chocolate croissant. There’s nothing more decadent that those soft barely there flaky layers with a chunk of rich dark chocolate in the middle.  Melt in your mouth. I read up on laminating pastry on Wednesday night and picked up the necessary ingredients Thursday morning and embarked on the tedious process by noon. The process isn’t really tricky as much as it is time consuming and precise.  I bought European butter… who knew?  The exact right temperature of the butter is key in laminating pastry. Anyway, I followed the instructions exactly.  I mean what else do I have to do these days?  They turned out fabulously….we could be found good Friday morning with chocolate and crumbs all over our faces and clothes as we waited for the quiche to cook.  I figured while I had my nose and kitchen aid buried in the French cookbook I may as well make quiche.  I told my guys maybe ‘real’ men don’t eat quiche but great men eat ‘real’ quiche made by their wife and mother.

My son arrived from Vancouver earlier this week and asked if I would cook for a few friends if they came over to watch the playoffs on Saturday night.  There is nothing I love more than to cook for people and even more so to cook for my kids and their friends.  So I offered to make homemade pizza, wings and some brownies for the third period. Another day spent in the kitchen. More wet T-towels, am empty dish soap bottle, my apron embedded with flour, eggs, tomato sauce, chocolate, peanut butter….not to mention the extra pounds I gained performing quality control.  Hello?

Finally, mile high Lemon meringue pie.  I could have made ordinary lemon pie but I figured go big or go home at this point. I had noticed the thick shiny meringue I had produced while working on the macarons and decided to use the same method of melting sugar and water together and adding to the whipped egg whites.  This worked famously.  The biggest problem was cutting through the meringue come serving time.  Very sticky, mushy and messy but delicious.  Along with the ham, scalloped potatoes, ribboned carrots, bacon wrapped asparagus I decided to declare cooking week officially over.  We have tons of leftovers and I don’t want to wash another dish until the weekend, at least. I have other things to do.

This week, read and write, sew and mend, workout to work off last weeks test trials.  And besides who is going to eat all these delicacies.  I froze most of the excess.  My kids always say that the deep freeze is where good food goes to die.  LOL

This week will be spent in the basement instead of the kitchen.  Looking forward.