December Events at Affairs

Welcome December! Time for all things chocolate, when our kitchens are full of that wonderful stuff, along with the usual fruits and nuts, peppermint candies, caramels, and whatever else we can think of to combine with chocolate. And that’s just the bakery! The ‘hot side’ of the kitchen is busy planning and cooking for private parties and lunches, while keeping the dining room happy with holiday specials like fresh pomegranate waffles and pumpkin pancakes. Hungry?

I’m here to tell you about two up-coming holiday events here at Affairs. These are festive gatherings, and you can reserve a spot for one or a table for eight, your choice. Either way, we hope you will enjoy our Affairs holiday hospitality.

Here they are! If you wish to join us, please call or email for reservations.

1

Holiday Chef’s Dinner

Enjoy a 5-course holiday dinner with some of Chef Gay Landry’s

favorite holiday traditions. Each course will be paired with

an appropriate wine from some of our best regions.

MENU:

Coquilles St. Jacques

scallops poached in crème sauce, dusted with white cheddar cheese, and roasted au gratin

Wine: Domenico De Bertiol Prosecco (NV)

Spinach Salad

with warm bacon vinaigrette, baked brie, and Gay's Cranberry Quince Chutney.

Wine: 2007 Bigi Est! Est! Est!

Ginger Fig Pork Tenderloin

pan seared and finished with ginger fig cream, a holiday favorite, by request.

Wine: 2007 Atalaya

Slow-roasted Beef Short Ribs

in pan gravy, with roasted garlic mashed potatoes and caramel pecan local butternut squash.

Wine: 2007 Windham 'Mr Higgins' Syrah

Gay’s Holiday Desserts

Wine: Samson Estates Hazelnut "Oro" Port (NV)

Bring a friend or two, settle in for one of Gay’s memorable dinners, drink some good wine, and have some holiday fun.

Reserved table seating, impeccable service, and a great time had by all.

Day: Friday, December 11

Time: 6:30 p.m.

Price: $75

Reserve Now!

Phone: 565-8604 or email: affairscafe@affairs-chocolate.com

2

Christmas Tea

Join us for a memorable holiday

afternoon with a friend, a mother or daughter, or all of the above.

Beautifully appointed tables are set for tea, with chef’s savories, pastries and desserts served on tea trays at table.

MENU

Cucumber Sandwiches

Bay Shrimp Salad Sandwiches

Egg Salad Sandwiches

Ham & Cheese filled Croissants

Miniature Beef Wellingtons

Mushroom and Mozzarella Puffs

Miniature Quiches

Miniature Monte Cristos

Fruit Picks

Affairs Dessert Hors d Ouevres

Chocolates and Spiced Nuts

Tea Service

Laughter and Friendship

By Reservation

Day: Sunday, December 13

Time: 11—2 pm

Price: $18

Reserve Now!

Phone: 565-8604 or email: affairscafe@affairs-chocolate.com

Hope to see you soon, and in the meantime, best wishes to you and yours.

Gay Landry

Affairs Café & Bakery

www.affairs-chocolate.com

affairscafe@affairs-chocolate.com

2811 Bridgeport Way W.

University Place, Wa. 98466

253-565-8604

Affairs emails are intended to keep you informed of weekly menus and special events. Access to this email list is restricted, and it will not be sold or shared. If you would like to discontinue your listing, please email back and I will make that adjustment. ….Gay

Same sauce, different decade.

No wonder it works. On a whim, I find on a Google search that my Squeezo Strainer is still being manufactured. It’s a (still!) all-metal, (still!) hand-crank device which takes whole tomatoes and pours beautiful fresh sauce out one end and skin and seeds out the other. Simple, and from that you can cook down the best tomato sauce you’ll ever eat which in turn makes the best pasta sauce and world’s best chili. The Bloody Marys are another story. Internet tells me that this thing was made first in America in 1907 by some kid from Italy hungry for sauce. Like I said, no wonder it works. No motivation like the savory garlic simmer of a pot of sauce.

I suspect that, like me, each generation is somewhat ego centric, convinced of living in not only the center of the universe but the peak of importance. Or perhaps it was just me, my generation being so sure of our revolution of thinking and social change. In the midst of it all, 1979, I cut the order form from Mother Earth News, mailed a check to Troy, N.Y., and awaited my Squeezo. I was immersed in the cutting edge of sustainable earth, self-sufficient gardening. I lined my 100 quart jars of perfectly canned tomato sauce up next to jars of apple sauce, pickles, chutneys, salsas, beans, and corn, alongside bins of dried plums, apples, strawberries, and tomato rings, fanned bunches of dried herbs overhead. Potatoes, beets, peas, and squash safe in the root cellar.

Decades later, two states to the north, I share the Squeezo each year with my neighbor. I pulled 120 lb of roma tomatoes off of 8 plants this year, a good number for me and my new climate. I’d get a better harvest if I moved the whole garden. That little seedling that came home with my 6-year-old on Arbor Day is now 50 feet high and casts a mean shade. But my 12 quarts of sauce is plenty, and the last of the green tomatoes are ripening in a basket in my kitchen. What I thought was the only way to live turned out to be just one way, but my style remains. The certainty of my 20’s turned out to be the shape of things to come. How naturally today I turn to Google to research my Squeezo, the internet being a concept unheard of in 1979 and irrelevent in 1907. And still, how naturally hungry we all are for a great tomato sauce.

I have one issue left of Mother Earth News, August 1983, the end of my attempted self-sufficient farming. Tonight, no great surprise to find the publication online, with some great tips on ripening green tomatoes. Nothing really changes, just the messenger.

Day 4.

Friday, Day 4. The plan was to arrive at work early enough to complete the wholesale orders we were behind on. This involves no hard work, but a critical amount of time in order to melt, temper, clean, remelt, and temper two different kinds of chocolate. Needless to say, my 7 a.m. arrival turned into 8 a.m., which means the double americano with a bit of steamed milk went with me directly to the chocolate room. It is my belief, backed by years of formulated logic and calculation, that chocolate and wine are best tasted first thing in the morning. Without going into the chemistry of my theory, this is the time of day that your palate is the freshest. My wine purveyors are happy to schedule a 9 a.m. tasting with me, since most self-respecting bar managers are still asleep at that time. Same for chocolate, although my tasting days are thankfully over, given the accessibility of approximately 700 lbs of chocolate on any given morning. Today, however, I plopped myself down at the dipping table, palate clean, senses honed, and stomach growling just slightly miffed about the long-digested ear of corn. Those little drops of chocolate that fall around the pan when you're moving chocolate around are pretty easy to just pop right in, and the wonderful flavor of chocolate and perfect mouth-feel of cocoa butter cries out for another. I will admit right here to being addicted to chocolate, so of course the doors flew open and caution be damned. By the time the orders were filled, I had moved in to the office for my usual morning chores, grabbed a couple of cookies left over from last nights library capital campaign committee meeting, and by the end of the second one remembered my beautiful garden. That's always the way it is, the deceit of the body hides the truth from the mind until it's too late.
Lunch, atonement: That hot tub of carbohydrates kept me going until around 1:00. I put a potato and a golden beet in the oven to roast, same oil and salt treatment as in Day 1. I sliced my biggest carrot into coins, added a dot of goat cheese to the plate, sliced the hot potato, and ate them happily sitting in my garden under the big cedar. Carrot and goat cheese turns out to be nice. I turned off the oven and left the beet in there while I went back to work to deliver a cake to Harbor Lights. Happy Birthday Brian.
Dinner: It was the herb garden that gave me the idea to ask Amanda for an egg. I drove the 4 blocks over, and was rewarded with 6 eggs and a glass of wine, a Beringer Sauvignon Blanc, refreshing. Amanda explained that eggs of free-range chickens have twice the protein, and besides that she's now feeding them flax which ensures a dose of omega 3.
Back home, omelet in mind, I picked a 4-inch zucchini, one roma tomato, a leaf of sage, a sprig of fennel, a leaf of basil, a sprig of thyme, and a few strands of chive. I call it a Farmer's Omelet. Here's what to do: Get everything ready first. Stir up a couple of eggs in a dish with a fork. Put in a teaspoon or so of water, the steam from the water as the eggs cook will make them fluff. Slice the herbs. Cut half the tomato into 1/2" dice. The roma has less juice than regular, and won't mess up your omelet.
Melt a bit of butter and some canola oil in a hot egg pan. Clarified butter instead of the combo is the best, but the last thing I need hanging around the house is a squeeze bottle of clarified butter. Slice the zucchini very thin, and throw it around in the hot oil with some salt. When it takes some color, throw in a little sherry or wine and cook it off. I used some Madeira, a nice one left from a wine dinner, and poured myself a little glass while I was at it. It's Friday night. Pour the eggs into the pan, and turn and shake the pan to keep it off the bottom. Lay the tomatoes in and the herbs over that. I love flipping omelets, just do it over the sink unless you feel like cleaning the kitchen. If it doesn't flip, turn it into a scramble. Oh, I put a dot of the goat cheese in too. Love that.
You're done. Life is good. A chicken pecking around under the beans would be great, remind me to check how Daisy feels about that.

For previous posts: http://affairschocolate.blogspot.com

Day 2.

Wednesday, day 2.
Breakfast: My usual double americano with a bit of steamed milk accompanied a nice bowl of strawberries sitting at my desk. By noon I was famished. As soon as the restaurant was calm, I drove home to prepare a midday garden feast.
Lunch/Dinner: My Food Diary is an online database designed for tracking calories and nutrition for healthy weight loss. It confirms my lack of protein and carbohydrate, so I decide to add 2 servings of grains. Dinner became long-grain brown rice, a steamed ear of corn with a bit of butter and salt, and green beans. While munching a carrot appetizer, I seared the beans in a hot pan with a little oil and salt, this being my favorite treatment with the addition of garlic. When I told my friend Amanda my plan, she pointed out that I would never make it because I didn't plant garlic and onions. The onions I can live without, but she could be correct that lack of garlic could very well be my demise. For now, so far, it was delicious.
A bedtime snack became imperative. 10:00, I took the flashlight out to the garden and picked 3 small zucchini, doing my best to ignore and avoid the slug population. Hate em, but can't stand the killing part. Slice the squash thin, heat a pan with a little butter and oil, and fry them fast and hot with some salt. Plate and eat immediately. Trust me that this is better than popcorn. Crazy, you're thinking. Try it, but don't even think about buying zucchini. Find someone with a plant or two, believe me they will be happy to give you some. When you get it, run home and cook it. Amazing.
Salt, you wonder? Yes, I've salted most of the vegetables I'm cooking. I'm using kosher salt, a wonderful flavor for less quantity sodium. And my liberal salting is tempered by the rest of the menu content. There is salt in almost everything you purchase at the grocery store, and that doesn't even touch the massive quantities in fast food. Did you know there is salt in the milk you buy? There is salt in every baked cookie, cake, bread, cracker, and cereal. As a pastry chef, I can tell you that salt is not instrumental to either taste or chemistry in any of these items with the exception of bread. (Note that my bakery does not use salt in any pastries that do not use yeast.)
Great flavors, my garden put to work, and Food Diary gives me a happy face for consuming 13,160 units of vitamin A. And yet, the last two tablespoons of almond butter somehow made their way onto a cracker and up the stairs with me. Good night.
Previous posts: www.affairschocolate.blogspot.com

Return to Back to the Earth

Monday: By the end of the day I had harvested a sizable basket of potatoes, beets, carrots, zucchini, beans, and tomatoes. On my back porch I keep a commercial size prep sink pulled from the restaurant equipped with a high-powered pre-wash wand that I use as a garden sink. The potato was huge and beautifully thin-skinned, an obvious meal for one. That's when it occurred to me. I had purposely planted conservatively, with the exception of cucumbers, mixed salad greens, and cherry tomatoes which I supply for the restaurant. I began to realize that if I was going to do justice to my garden I would need to eat a lot of vegetables, and maybe only vegetables. I love a challenge.
In 1972 I read my first copy of Mother Earth News. Being a dreamer and an idealist, I purchased with my then husband a 40 acre parcel and joined the "Back to the Earth" movement. More on that later. Today's experiment will be salted with some age-appropriate realism, but the values of eating local, small-is-beautiful, and a love of the earth is still there. Self-sufficiency has been tempered to recognizing the need for sustainability, with the burden on all of us as a culture and not just on my old 40 acres or my current .3 acre. Gary Snyder said, begin to change the world by beginning at home. My mother said 'Look in your own back yard.' I'm interested in how this all comes about, and suspect that global change, reduced like a balsamic reduction sauce, is individual. Besides, I'm curious, frugal, and determined. Let's eat that garden.

Tuesday: Day 1.
Breakfast: Strawberries.
Lunch: Carrots, lots.
Dinner: The potato. I rubbed it up with canola oil and sea salt, having decided that condiments were exempt. Same treatment to three good sized beets, one golden and two red, and baked them all in the oven.
This is a great way to cook beets. When they are done, you can take a slice from the stem end and pull the peel right off. If they are very fresh, they peel like a skin. Otherwise you may need a little paring knife. At this point, you can eat them hot or chill for a roasted beet salad. Mix them up with a bit of red onion and some peppers if you have them, toss with a little orange vinaigrette and top with some crumbled feta.
The potato was golden hot, slightly crispy-chewy skinned, and tasted like a fresh autumn morning. Not particularly earthy, a description often used on a potato, but a more fresh and clear taste. The oil and salt was flavor enough. One must take care not to over-complicate fresh flavors. I sliced it with a chef knife and ate it standing at the stove.
8 pm: Looking at my produce basket and feeling pretty good about how much I ate. Next to it is the peanut butter and the end of my loaf of multigrain bread. Seriously considering growing peanuts next year.

The Swing

(For Sale: A child’s swing, used)

I came to buy the swing.

You advertised a swing, Ma’am?

Oh yes, the swing – a lovely swing.

We bought it only yesterday it seems.

It was our son’s fifth birthday.

Put it right here, love,

Here by my kitchen window.

I want to watch my darlings

As they play and swing,

For all too soon

I fear, they will be grown.

Look at the baby now,

Reaching for the ropes

And trying out her tiny hands

To pull herself up on the seat.

And look! she’s swaying

Back and forth

Her plumpness holding to the swing

And vying gravity

To pull her to the ground.

And Scott, he takes such care of her,

To see she gets no bumps

If he can help it.

Is it my swing, Mother,

Because it came on my birthday?

No, Sweet, it belongs to all three of you.

Daddy and I only thought

This was a good day

To buy a swing.

There, Becky Dear, you hold the baby Joan

And swing and sing to her

As I have sung to you

So many times

When we sat, you and I

In the big rocking chair,

Singing and pretending

The chair was a lovely swing,

A lovely, lovely swing.

Mother, the man is waiting.

He came to buy the swing.

Oh yes, Joanie, the swing.

You ask what price is it?

Do you have little ones, sir,

Who will use the swing?

Yes, Ma’am, three of them.

Take it then – there is no price.

I ask only this:

That you put the swing

By a window

And watch your little ones

As they swing,

As they swing, as they swing.

Grace Abia Brown Shriner

1911 - 2007

Easter Brunch at Affairs

I love the way our holidays march us along the seasons to an always-changing cacophony of food traditions. Religious, patriotic, or just plain fun-distracting, every holiday has a chance for a meal with as many people as you can round up. Or not: A couple of wonderful New Years Eves were spent high in the mountains of California with one other person and the huge silence of a cold clear sky. An evening usually spent in the company of many became a turning of the earth's silent movement. In the case of the upcoming spring holidays, a crowd is more likely, and Affairs is getting ready to host quite a few of you and your families. The restaurant rings with that hum of controlled hyperactivity that is the beauty of a busy restaurant kitchen. By this weekend, the 10-day setup sheet will be hung on the wall to lead the ordering, organizing, delegating, and prep along the week's road to a successful April 12th. Beside the setup sheet is the Benny Pot, a betting pool for how many Eggs Benedict we sell. Our kitchen must harbor a bevy of latent gamblers, but even the most conservative are in for the fun of it. It's how we keep going, humor and competition feeding energy for some long stretches of hard work. This one's been going on in our kitchen for years, and has developed its own set of strict and wacky rules. No, you can't get in on it, so don't try to stack the odds from your seat in the dining room.
I love breakfast menus, and this time of year allows me to bring some of the first growth from my garden to the kitchen. You'll see some of my fresh herbs and chives on the menu. Here it is below:

Eggs Benedict

Traditional benedict, poached eggs and Canadian bacon on English muffin,

with our own fresh hollandaise. 14

Crab Cake Benedict

Try this take on a tradition: our popular Dungeness crab and scallops cakes, topped with poached eggs and hollandaise. 19

Affairs Famous Quiche

Our rich and tender quiche, your choice of Crab and Shrimp with white cheddar or Fresh Asparagus with Swiss cheese. 14

Tuscan Spring Omelet

Diced fresh tomato, sun-dried tomato, fresh cut basil, roasted garlic, mozzarella and parmesan in a three-egg omelet. 15

U.P. Omelet

Diced ham and bacon, spinach, tomato, red onion, and cheddar cheese in a three-egg omelet, topped with our house made country gravy. 16

Joe’s Special

A famous and hearty three-egg scramble, with ground beef, onion, garlic,

spinach, egg, and parmesan. 14

McGregor’s Herb Garden Scramble

Three large eggs scrambled with fresh spinach, fresh cut garden herbs from a real U.P. rabbit’s delight of a garden, and smoked mozzarella, topped with fresh snipped chives. 15

Ribs and Eggs

Slow-roasted fall-off-the-bone don’t-worry-about-your-suit pork ribs, finished with our maple ginger glaze and served with two eggs any style. 15

Standard Breakfast

Two eggs any style, with your choice of bacon, Black Forest ham, or country

sausage. 12

Salmon Crepe

Gay’s tender fresh made crepes, folded over our house smoked salmon, moist and light on the smoke, topped with a mornay sauce. 15

Strawberry Crepes

Gay’s tender fresh made crepes, filled with fresh sliced strawberries, with crème anglaise and a small mountain of whipped cream. 12

Lemon Chicken Salad

Grilled chicken breast, melons, and cucumbers, tossed with our lemon honey mustard dressing, served on spring greens. 15

Kid’s Breakfast

One pancake (buttermilk, chocolate chip, M & M, or huckleberry), one egg, and

one bacon. 6

Strawberry Mimosas or Orange Mimosas $6.50

Bruschetta

Good morning, everyone.
Besides the usual rolling cycle of relayed need, problems, and surprise that fills the early morning of every day that has the opening of a restaurant's door as its goal, I spent a bit of time this morning with a tray of bruschetta. Right now I can't decide if the truly wonderful thing about bruschetta is that it is simple, or if it is that it is so variable. There's nothing I like better about cooking than the whole surprise of it. That's all wound up in the 'something-from-nothing' challenge, that great feeling of having just made dinner for 3 from the last 6 items in the fridge. The thought of cooking from a recipe depresses me. Although I love recipes, I possibly have no respect for them. I change them, adulterate them, criticize and betray them. Don't get me wrong, I have the correct respect and chef's worship of science and technique, particularly where pastry is concerned, as baking lives and dies by weights and measures. But a recipe will put me in an abandoned state of misbehavior faster than a ten-year old with a slingshot.
Back to the bruschetta. At the final plate-up of a catering set to 'walk' at 2:00, I began the usual nervous banter concerning quantity. Any caterer with a cell's worth of morals obsesses on quantities to some extent, every job. What if we run out of shrimp? (always the shrimp, the mainstay of America's catered menu.) Bruschetta's the answer. I know you have these obsessions too, so here's what to do:

Chef's Bruschetta
French bread, the nice round one with the crust.
Slice it a bit on the angle, about 1/2" thick. Lay them on a sheet pan in a single layer.
Next you need oil. This could be olive oil: sprinkle it lightly over the bread. Or brush on a little pesto, it has plenty of oil in it. Don't use butter, it will brown too quickly.
Then your topping. This is where any concept of recipe is foiled. Use whatever you like, just be frugal. You want to see the edges of the slice, and you don't want so much topping that it will melt over the edge. Remember, this is your appetizer "amuse bouchee". The bread is the vehicle, the topping a small amusement. Today I used a smear of pesto, a few flakes of house smoked salmon, and a little piece of brie. Some of my favorite components are roasted garlic, sun dried tomato, fresh basil leaf, anchovy, Parmesan, creamy blue cheese, mushroom duxelle, salami, and my all-time favorite: the last 6 things in the fridge.
Bake in a hot oven, use the convection if you have it, until the edges start to toast.
Whatever you do, please enjoy.
Gay.