Oat Rolls — With A Touch of Honey

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Oatmeal porridge, honey, and a preferment give these tender rolls sweetness and lovely developed flavor.
Oatmeal porridge, honey, and a preferment give these tender rolls sweetness and lovely developed flavor.

Admittedly, I have a problem with commitment.

Only when it comes to bread making, that is.

During the pandemic, when everyone who was anyone was fussing over their sourdough starter like a new puppy, I was not.

I just couldn’t bring myself to pull the trigger to tend to a starter that needed caring, feeding, and coddling, day in and day out. After all, I already had a husband who needed all of that. (Kidding, sort of.)

So, when it comes to my sporadic bread baking, I rely on packaged dry yeast instead, which is convenient enough to buy at any supermarket and to keep handy in my fridge when the urge strikes.

But along comes 2019 James Beard Award-winning “Outstanding Baker” and head baker at Chicago’s Publican Quality Bread bakery, Greg Wade, who shows how to combine both dry yeast and a preferment for even better results, as evidenced in his recipe for sensational “Oat Rolls.”

It’s all in his new cookbook, “Bread Head” (W.W. Norton), of which I received a review copy. It was written with St. Louis book collaborator Rachel Holtzman.

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Plant-Based Instant Noodles From the Noodelist

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Plant-based instant noodles made with a super-food ingredient.
Plant-based instant noodles made with a super-food ingredient.

Thuong Tan launched her Silicon Valley startup two years ago. It wasn’t centered on hardware or software.

But on noodles.

Instant ones that were plant-based, shelf-stable, and could be ready to eat in all of 5 minutes.

You see, Tan, has never been a big fan of rice or potatoes, despite her Chinese, Vietnamese and Finnish heritage. For her, noodles have always been where it’s at.

So, while working for Business Finland, the Finnish organization focused on funding, trade, investment, and travel promotion, she got the notion to start her own business, one that would bring her the same warm satisfaction as a bowl of her mother’s Vietnamese brothy noodles.

The Noodelist was born.

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Take Five with Pastry Chef Guillermo Soto Torres of the Four Seasons Silicon Valley

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Pastry Chef Guillermo Soto Torres with mini versions of his new holiday buche de Noel.
Pastry Chef Guillermo Soto Torres with mini versions of his new holiday buche de Noel.

It’s a good bet that Guillermo Soto Torres is one of the few — if not only — pastry chefs in the Bay Area with a degree in telematics, the interdisciplinary field that combines telecommunications, vehicular technologies, electrical engineering, and computer science.

He had hardly stepped foot into that scientific career, though, when he made a major pivot to use his knack for precision in a whole different way. He started working in a chocolate shop in his native Mexico, then began studying baking books. It wasn’t long before he jumped full bore into pastry making about 15 years ago.

That led to stints at Four Seasons hotels in Costa Rica and Florida, before coming two years ago to the Four Seasons Silicon Valley in East Palo Alto to become head pastry chef.

Earlier this week, the 36-year-old chef invited me and two other media colleagues into his hotel kitchen to watch and learn as he made what will be the stunning centerpiece dessert for Christmas Eve dinner and the Christmas Day buffet — the buche de Noel.

A flourless chocolate cake version done up in a shiny white chocolate glaze with crunchy, dehydrated raspberries.
A flourless chocolate cake version done up in a shiny white chocolate glaze with crunchy, dehydrated raspberries.

His version of the classic French yule log cake is comprised of a flourless chocolate cake on a base of crispy hazelnut feuilletine (crunchy crepe shards) that’s rolled around chestnut cream and an anise-flavored orange compote before it’s all enrobed in shiny white chocolate glaze and holiday garnishes. To serve all the expected guests on those two days, he will make 100 of them.

He talked about his favorite ingredient to work with, the one that’s he’s allergic to, the one dessert he could eat every single day, and the rather ill-fated day that he began working at the Silicon Valley hotel.

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Triscuit Sandies

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When a cracker turns into a cookie.
When a cracker turns into a cookie.

A tisket, a tasket.

A Triscuit, a…cookie?

Yes, leave it to the zany minds behind Milk Bar to come up with crazy crunchy, brazenly buttery cookies made out of pulverized Triscuits.

“Triscuit Sandies” are just one of dozens and dozens of fabulously fun recipes in the new cookbook, “All About Cookies: A Milk Bar Baking Book” (Clarkson Potter), of which I received a review copy.

In the intro, Milk Bar owner Christina Tosi writes, “For those of you who think a cookie is just a cookie, and all cookie cookbooks are the same, welcome, my friend, to our crazy, amazing love affair with the most unsung hero of pastry. Bake a few batches with me, and I promise, you’ll never look at cookies the same way again.”

Indeed, these recipes are full of novel ingredients and approaches, such as “Cheeze-Grits” (tiny, crunchy, cheesy cookies made with corn grits, sharp cheddar and Pecorino), “Peach Shortcake Cookies” (loaded with dried peaches and real shortcake crumbles), “Lemon Poppy Ribbons” (glazed cookies filled with microwave-made lemon curd), and “Cookie Cake” (using cookie dough with favorite mix-ins to create an 8-inch cake).

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The Last Harrah at Landmark Manresa

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Porcini and dry-aged beef served arrestingly at Manresa.
Porcini and dry-aged beef served arrestingly at Manresa.

It’s said that all good things must come to an end.

So apparently, must all great things, too.

When Chef-Owner David Kinch announced that he would be closing his Michelin three-starred Manresa in Los Gatos at the end of this year, it was a seismic jolt felt ’round the culinary world.

But after a glittering 20-year run, including the last three rocked by the turmoil of a global pandemic, he felt the time had come.

Although he will continue with his more casual concepts of Manresa Bread, the Bywater, and Mentone, come 2023 the South Bay will no longer boast a Michelin three-starred establishment. The property is up for sale. While Kinch says he has a few projects in mind to consider next, it’s a good bet that it will be a long time — if ever — that a restaurant exists in these parts that will draw discerning diners from all over the world in numbers like this one has.

I’ve been fortunate enough to enjoy several superlative meals at Manresa over the past two decades. While I’ve mostly dined outdoors since the pandemic hit in 2020, I couldn’t pass up the chance to dine indoors there one final time.

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