Wild Yeast

After finishing Michael Pollan's most recent book Cooked (and possibly my favorite book ever!) I was inspired to be a bit more adventurous in my own home cooking. At the Lab it is easy to take advantage of all of the tools and ingredients we have available but when I leave there one day I will no longer have access those luxuries. So, I have decided to be more active in incorporating things such as bread baking, fermenting, and pickling into my own routine.

To begin, I started with cultivating a sourdough starter at home. Now many of you know this is not the fist time I have made a starter and it is definitely not the first time I have baked a loaf of bread. But after reading Pollan's section on bread, I began to really understand how the simple ingredients interact to create profound results. I followed his method for creating a starter and preparing the bread dough and was stunned with the results. My starter smells fresh, yeasty and slightly acidic and is happily bubbling away. My bread had a magnificent crumb and rose beautifully without the addition of any commercial yeast. 

In the past of have been known to bake bread occationally, but it is now something I would like to do weekly. There is nothing better than a warm slice of fresh baked bread to start your day.

When the McGuire's Come to Town

Pictures are worth 1000 words. Here are some of the photos we took during my parents week long visit to Copenhagen.

 

Happy and hungry on our way to Noma! 

Chistiania

 

Tivoli

Saunagus

StrEAT Helsinki

The weekend after my trip to Norway I got on a plane with 2 of my colleagues, Guillemette and Edith, headed for Helsinki. Our trip was sponsored by the Lab because were were about to embark of a food filed weekend at Helsinki's first street food festival and talks.

The festivites started on Friday with a ticketed event at a huge conference center. Somewhere between 8-10 speakers from all across Europe, the United States, and even South Africa were there to give a talk on street food, alternative food movements, and food trucks. 

Some of the speakers included:
Chris Ying/ Lucky Peach Magazine (USA)

Geetika Agrawal & Caleb Zigas/ La Cocina (USA)

Lucas Castiglione/ CapeTown Food Trucks (South Africa) 

Cynthia Shanmugalingam/ Kitchenette (UK)

Eric Demby/ Brooklyn Flea & Smorgasburg (USA)

Lunch was provided by several food trucks parked in the conference hall. There was a sampling of cuisines- tacos, fish sliders, and curry-wursts. The tacos were by far the best!

Since out time is Helsinki was short, Guio and I decided to forgo the second half of the lectures and ventured into the city instead.

Helsinki is not particularly beautiful but it was still quite nice. The city definitely felt more eastern European than any other Scandinavian city I have been to. There were lingering remains to the soviet era interspersed with the slightly more typical Scandinavia architecture.

Friday evening there was a dinner party in what used to be the meat packing district. The space was beautifully renovated into a hip restaurant space.

A friend of the Lab, and Ediths former Chef (an now the bearer of a Michelin star) Sasu catered the event. Two delicious courses and dessert.

First we has a deconstructed tostada- a crisp beet tortilla, fermented pea 'guacamole', coleslaw, red cabbage, and a piece of lightly smoked haddock. 

The second dish was a pulled reindeer sandwich with lingon berry ketchup, garlic mayo, and crispy root fruit chips on a gluten free bun. The vegetarian version had a delicious mushroom seitan instead of reindeer meat.

Dessert was juniper ice cream with crushed blueberry meringue.

~

Day 2

Saturday morning Guio, Edith and I went back into the city for the street festival portion of the event. There were around 40 food trucks in the center of Helisinki cranking out a wide variety of delicious delicasies- from BBQ to cupcake to raw oysters to some traditional Finish pastries- they had something for everyone. The streets were packed with people, queues stretching around corners, close to an hour wait. 

Since Guio and I had sampled some of the food trucks the previous day, we decided to skip the lines and experience real Helsinki. We went to Hakaniemi Kauppahalli, a traditional Finnish food market full of fresh and prepared foods. It was an incredible place. So many new foods, real people, and a place that looks like it hasn't change a bit over the last 40 years.

After wandering the aisles several times, Guio and I decided to have a smoked/cured salmon degustation, tasting one of each kind (6 in total). We also got some blinis and got a piece of traditional potato flat bread. As we were making out way to the exit, hands full of food, we couldn't resist picking up a bag of homemade sauerkraut and two fermented pickles. We found a sunny spot and enjoyed our odd assortment of extremely delicious food al fresco. That meal totally hit the spot. 

After lunch we went to the event Edith organized called Dealicious. It was a food swap- no money involved- as a way to get people to think about the value of food. 

We brought some grasshopper gaurm and walked away with chocolate chip pumpkin muffins and some red beet salad. 

Later that afternoon Edith's dad picked us up and drove us out to her house in the countryside. 

Guio and I got to stay in this adorable little guest house which also houses their wood burning sauna!!

It was a lovely evening of traditional Finnish sauna and a delicious and relaxing dinner.

~

 The next morning Edith had to do some packing so her dad to Guio and I on a tour of her town which is the second oldest town in Finland.

After our tour we picked up Edith and went to visit Malmgård, a beautiful organic grain farm. After talking with the owners about their heritage wheat's, barley's and rye's we got some samples to take back to the lab for further experimentation.

It was then back in the car and off to the airport, but first a quick stop at a truck stop for some lunch.

I had some viili- a Finnish fermented ropy dairy product similar to yogurt but much more slimy in texture. I also had an odd assortment of things I could find inducing a roll, an apple, and some carrots.

Guio and Edith dad decided they could not resist getting a hamburger. Look how happy they are!

To continue with our junk food trend, Guio and I just had to sample this finish jelly donut with pepto bismal pink icing.

Helsinki was great- real people, good food, and EXCELLENT sauna.