Farming 101

Last week I spent five days in the far northeast of Washington State, with Rick and Lora Lea (farmers) at Quillisascut ("Farmstead Cheese and School of the Domestic Arts") in Rice (near Colville). It's a six hour drive from Seattle, which gives you plenty of time to contemplate your fate and gaze at the beautiful and varied terrain of eastern Washington. I went to the farm to attend a workshop: Farm Culinary 101. The goal of the program is to give culinary students and professionals a chance to experience life on a farm, and to make "farm to table connection" a personal experience (rather than the textbook concept it might be to a new student - and certainly was to me).

The photo above is of the kitchen and dining area of the building that houses the school. The house also has a big living room, a baking room, a walk-in cooler, and upstairs there are four rooms, each with three single beds, and two bathrooms (the upstairs is the student living area). There were 10 students, mostly women, so it was like living in a lively dorm. We were split into three teams, with every day filled with farm activities, demos, and tours of neighbor farms; also we cooked lunch and dinner every day (under the very patient and expert direction of Chef Karen, who teaches at Seattle Culinary). Practically every ingredient was sourced from the farm itself or from neighboring farms.



Above, Suncrest peaches from Cliffside Orchards, a neighboring farm that we visited.

The whole week was an intense immersion into farm life. My first day included starting the morning at 6, out in the yard, where Rick demonstrated how to skin and clean a (freshly killed that morning) goat. After breakfast I dug potatoes and weeded for a couple hours in the huge farm garden; after lunch we all met with a beekeeper for a lecture and then a walk to some beehives to look at the critters close-up. I was on dinner prep that day and the menu was pizza in the farm's wood-fired outdoor oven.

Other days I learned hands-on how to butcher and clean a chicken; made some goat cheese; did a couple rounds of morning chores (feeding the chickens and goats); observed milking of goats; baked bread in the wood-fired oven; did lots and lots and lots of dishes... and many more things. You can see a sample schedule here, but it's hard to convey how busy and involved we all were. One day I don't think I sat down all day except to eat.



Above, the "girls" (the milk goats).

Speaking of eating, the food was wonderful and much more abundant and varied than my usual diet (dessert for dinner EVERY DAY). The farm-to-table connection becomes very apparent when you realize that 10 of us (plus farmers and chef) are working all day mainly to feed ourselves or to stockpile food for less abundant times... such as this goat cheese we helped make, which has to age for two months before it is eaten:



I came home with a head full of images and ideas, a half flat of peaches, a quart of Snowberry honey, a loaf of wood-fired bread and a round of chevre, feeling both mazed and amazed. I'll be processing the whole experience for a long time... but I need to turn my attention in another direction now: Fall Quarter starts next Tuesday!

End of Summer

Summer quarter ended two weeks ago, and today I packed my bags and will head to the farm early tomorrow morning. Before I leave, I'll catch you up on the last few days at school. After we had finished our rotations, we were allowed to work independently the last few days. We were to choose two items to make for the Pastry Case, and one item for the Grand Buffet. I wrote about the apple cake that I made for the Grand Buffet a few posts ago.

I finished my celebration cake a day ahead of schedule, so I ended up making three items for the pastry case: hand pies, cream puffs, and my first attempt at baking a large batch of multi-day bread: twelve loaves of Pain Rustique. Here is the bread:



Can you believe we sell these one pound loaves for $1.50? I made the poolish (sourdough starter) one day, and finished the bread the next day.



I chose to make cream puffs because I wanted to practice making Pâte à Choux and also wanted to practice piping. As a bonus, I made some small-batch blueberry jam for the filling (end of the quarter, blueberries needed to be used up) and topped it with lemon whipped cream (cream with sugar, lemon zest and juice whipped in). We sampled a few of these and they were very tasty. Can't miss with blueberries and lemon. And cream.



For these hand pies, I made a batch of pie dough, then cut 3.5 inch circles, and filled them with two kinds of jam that were leftover in the fridge: peach, and tart cherry. I used a small star-shaped cookie cutter to make the vent on the top crust. These also were very good and sold quickly out of the case. A good item to file away for using up leftover jam or whenever you want an easy-to-make treat that looks fancy.

Gâteau Breton aux Pommes sur le Grand Buffet

On the last cooking day of summer quarter, the school hosts a Grand Buffet in the Atrium at Seattle Central. It's the same format as the daily small-plate service we've been running all summer, where plates are set out on long white-cloth'd tables, and patrons buy tickets (50 cents each) which they trade for whatever catches their fancy. The Grand Buffet is on a larger scale, however, and for this one day, each student is allowed to make one item of her choice (within reason, and using stock on hand). I chose to make Gâteau Breton aux Pommes using a Bon Appétit recipe. I baked this according to the recipe, except I also made the crème fraîche from scratch (much easier than it might sound: it's just whipping cream spiked with a little buttermilk and left out overnight to get slightly sour).



Here is the cake, just cooled, on a cake stand waiting to be sliced. By the way, these cake stands are wonderfully useful especially when slicing or decorating tarts and cakes. The base is very heavy cast iron, and the top rotates. I plated the slices of cake on a small pool of salted caramel sauce, with a spoonful of whipped crème fraîche on the side. Here are the slices on the buffet table:



Does a cake with a French name really taste better? I can't answer that for certain with this cake, as I did not get to taste it. It certainly smelled wonderful! Everything went out to the buffet and this cake disappeared quickly. I did get to taste a bit of leftover caramel sauce (deliciously brown-buttery stuff) and the crème fraîche (very rich and slightly tart, a good balance for the sweet cake and sauce).

Here's a view of the pastry tables at the buffet. This was just before the buffet started. The tables were refilled at least twice as items sold and new treats were plated. These plates were all sold for two tickets, i.e. for one dollar. No wonder the buffet is popular.



The day after the Grand Buffet was the last day of school for summer, and we spent it, as usual, deep-cleaning the kitchens. Now I have a month off until Fall Quarter. I'm going to spend a week of my summer break at Qullisascut Farm in Rice, WA, at farm school. Goats! Chickens! Cheese-making! Baking in a wood-fired oven!

Celebration Cakes

One of the summer rotations is "Wedding and Celebration Cakes." It was my least favorite rotation, partly because I'm not very interested in fancy cake decorating, but especially since the French chef who usually teaches cake decor (and who is an expert; he's even made a six foot tall replica of the Eiffel Tower... in chocolate) was injured and had to take the last two weeks of the summer quarter off. We pretty much winged it on our own, with a little guidance from the replacement chef. My team (four of us) spent 3 days making a huge wedding cake, only to find that all the marzipan was used up, and our chosen decoration (marzipan ribbons and bows) could not be done in fondant. The cake did turn out to be tasty (almond cake with tart cherry jam and vanilla buttercream filling), but we resorted to decorating it with fresh flowers.



Not bad looking if you don't examine it too closely, and it did sell very well by the slice so at least it wasn't a waste of time and ingredients. The part I enjoyed most on this project was that I got to make the tart cherry jam for the filling.

During the last 3 days of the rotation, we were allowed to build any "celebration cake" we wanted to make. Some people made fancy cakes from the same batter as the wedding cake, generally covered and decorated with fondant (one of my partners made a Despicable Me cake) but I decided to make something I thought would be good to eat (I think fondant is tasteless and sticky). I chose to make Carrot sponge cake, cut into four layers, with mascarpone-cream cheese filling spiked with orange zest and plain cream cheese buttercream frosting on the outside. To decorate it, I made a constellation of fondant stars...



... though I ended up using only a few of them, as I decided to place the stars so they'd look good when the cake was cut. Here's the finished cake:



And here it is cut into slices:



The slices sold for $2, except for two that I took home for myself and a friend to sample. The cake really was delicious, though if I made it for home, I'd leave it as two layers, and use the orange-mascarpone as both filling and frosting. The cake is very moist and doesn't need a huge amount of frosting. The orange zest and mascarpone were very good variations to the usual cream cheese frosting you find for this cake; they made the filling both lighter and tastier. Here is the cake recipe (based on one from my first quarter recipe packet).

Carrot sponge

Butter and lightly flour two 8 inch cake pans; line the bottom with parchment.
Preheat oven to 350F.

4 eggs
3/4 cup mild-tasting vegetable oil
14 ounces sugar
1/2 tsp salt
9 ounces bread flour
1 Tbsp cinnamon
3/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp baking powder
1 lb peeled carrots, grated finely
4 ounces chopped walnuts

Whip eggs until frothy, then gradually whip in the oil.
Mix in the sugar and salt (on low speed if using a mixer).
Sift the dry ingredients and add to the egg mixture.
Fold in the carrot and walnuts until evenly distributed.
Divide batter evenly between the cake pans and bake until done, about 40 minutes. Test doneness with a wooden toothpick or skewer; it should come out moist but not sticky. Let cool 10 minutes in the pan, then turn out on a rack to cool completely before frosting.

Mascarpone Orange Frosting (recipe via Nigel Slater)

250 g (8.8 ounces) mascarpone
200 g (7 ounces) cream cheese
150 g (5.3 ounces) powdered sugar
zest of one orange, finely grated

Beat the cheeses and sugar in a mixer until smooth and creamy, then beat in the orange zest. This will make enough to fill two layers and cover the cake.

Out Standing in a Field

In Summer quarter, Pasty students at Seattle Culinary have a one-day field trip to farms in the Skagit Valley (the area around the Skagit River, near Mt. Vernon, WA). Culinary students go every other Monday (half the class goes on alternating Mondays). There were about 35 of us yesterday; eight Pasty and the rest Culinary, shepherded by Chef Greg. We all rode in a chartered bus and it felt a lot like field trips I remember from grade school, but with less noise and more smoking.

We went to two farms. The first was Hedlin's Family Farm, near La Conner. The farm has been owned by the Hedlin family for more than a hundred years. Dave Hedlin, a third generation farmer, told us that his grandfather immigrated from Denmark, and started the farm in 1906. The grandfather was originally a shoemaker. He started the farm by growing oats, which Dave said were very lucrative at that time, because they were that era's diesel fuel: oats powered the horses and horses powered the machines back then. After the First World War, the farmers expanded their crops to include fruits and vegetables, and eventually to seed production. The farm grew from the original 60 acres to more than 500 today.

Fourth-generation farmer Ky took us on a walking tour of the original farm. Their farm supplies more than 80 CSAs (Community Supported Agriculture farm basket shares - click here to read more about those), six farmers markets, and several restaurants and co-ops, in addition to having their own roadside farm stand and selling to wholesalers. Their practices are primarily organic. For example, they practice crop rotation (three years of grass alternating with three years of vegetables) and in the grass years, they trade the grass with a local cattle farmer who supplies them with manure to further enrich the soil. They are working on GAP certification (Good Agricultural Practices, a USDA certification and inspection program) but have not yet completed the paperwork (there's a lot of paper required, according to Ky).



Seed production is now a big part of their business model. Ky said that the Skagit Valley is renowned for seed production, and that they and other farmers have contracts with some of the big-name seed production companies like Syngenta. The photo above shows some flats of cabbage starts that they are growing for the seed company. The company gives them seeds; they don't grow their own. Ky explained that this lets the seed companies have full control of their seed production. The seed company even enforces which farms grow which seeds, and how close different varieties can be grown to each other (so that they can avoid cross-pollination).

The Hedlins grow a lot of wheat (Norwest 553 hard red) and barley. They also collaborate with Washington State University in growing small batches of different varieties of grain, in a project to breed varieties that will grow well in the Skagit climate. This cooperative work benefits both the farm and the school both short term (trade of soil and labor for grain income) and long term (emergence of hardier, more valuable grains).

Hedlin Farm has several huge greenhouses, where they grow "spray free" tomatoes and peppers. Pests are controlled mainly by using insects, though I also saw pheromone traps. The tomato greenhouse below had some small wasps for aphid control, and bumblebees to pollinate.



You can see some other sustainable practices at work in the greenhouse photo: deep layers of cedar chips to retain water, and black plastic-wrapped containers to keep the soil warm. Ky said the tomatoes and peppers are not certified organic, because they use some soil fertilizers, but with that exception they are organic.

The farm had two of the biggest compost piles I've ever seen - easily 50 feet long by six feet square. The original farmhouse is still on the property and still in wonderful condition. It survived a flood in 1918 (most of the La Conner area is six feet below sea level). They are about a mile from the Skagit River, and the area is crosshatched with systems of dikes and sloughs. The soil is naturally high in clay and acidic - they have to put a lot of work, manure and compost in it to get the PH up.

The second farm we visited was La Conner Flats, another fourth generation family farm in the Skagit Valley. They run a program called The Veg Trials, which is both a test garden for developing new and better plant varieties, and an outreach "farm to table" program. Seattle Culinary has a one-acre plot at this farm, where students go each week in the summer to work on the plot and learn first-hand about farming. It was near noon by the time we got to this farm and was very hot. I dug weeds and also transplanted some brussels sprouts seedlings. We had lunch and then headed back to Seattle. It was pleasant to be back on the air-conditioned bus - I'm not used to working outside in that much sun! I did not waste my time on the bus, though. I knit half of a dishrag:

Rustic Desserts

Lots of photos for you today. My "Rustic Desserts and Ice Cream" rotation was a busy one. There were eight people in my group for this rotation, and we all had to share one table for most of the time, so there was a lot of negotiating on use of table space, and some creative redeployment to any other space that might happen to be open (like the cheese room). We made lots of product; I'll show you my favorites here.

I started by making two pies, a Macadamia Nut Cream Pie, and Lemon Raspberry Meringue pie. The meringue pie was based on this recipe from Bon Appetit, except lemon instead of lime, and raspberries instead of blackberries. The Italian meringue on top toasted up beautifully using a kitchen torch, and had a great roasted marshmallow flavor. I used tayberries for the decor since we were out of raspberries that day. This pie sold very well and was delicious, and not hard to bake. The macadamia nut pie was good, too, though it does not look nearly as glamorous.



This is olive oil / orange cake, served on a base of sliced apricots that were poached in syrup infused with basil. I think if I made this again, I'd strain out the basil after poaching and put in some fresh basil, so it would look prettier on the plate. But in any case, it tasted good, and the cake was very tender and moist.



We had a ton o' peaches that were all ripe at once, so I made a lot of peachy stuff, including this shortcake (which, by the way, was priced at $1.50)...



... and a bunch (three 9 inch and a baker's dozen 5 inch) of peach pies:



I also made some ice cream. First a Bombe (this one is basically whipped cream combined with Italian meringue and frozen), with the cream infused with fresh lemon verbena leaves. It was decadently rich on its own, so I plated it simply with fresh tayberries.



Then I made some buttermilk ice cream, using raw sugar, which turned it a delicate pale brown. One of my rotation buddies made Anzac biscuits (coconut/oatmeal cookies) and assembled those into ice cream sandwiches.



I also made a terrific "slab pie" with a base of pâte sablée (very rich, short pie crust), then a layer of almond cream, topped with quartered fresh apricots and a little raw sugar, and baked in a hot oven until the apricots were roasted. I cut it into bars 2" x 3" and it was hugely popular. It is a recipe Chef Don used to make a lot at one of his bakery gigs, and I can see why it's a best-seller. I forgot to take a photo, though!

Plain, Delicious

For the last three days of my Petits Fours rotation we were dedicated to savory bites. Plain looking, compared to the sweet ones, but very tasty. We made a big batch of gougères (Pâte à Choux dough with cheese, minced red pepper, and a pinch of cayenne - basically fancy cheese puffs). I think these are a great snack just eaten plain, but Chef wanted us to fatten them up, so we filled half of them with whipped cream cheese, sour cream, smoked salmon and dill, and the other half with cream cheese whipped with minced jalapeno, New Mexican chili powder and cilantro. The squares are mini-tarts on a base of Pâte Brisée with the same filling I made last quarter in my Tart rotation: red onion, mushroom, thyme, with balsamic vinegar reduction.

Next week I'm on to a new rotation: Rustic Desserts, which also includes making ice cream and sorbet.

Petits Fours

So, last week Wednesday and Thursday, and Monday this week, I'm making sweet petits fours. "Petit Four" in French means "small oven" - in early kitchens, there was sometimes a smaller oven used to bake these small confections, while the main oven was used for breads and other large baked goods. In my former un-kitchen-schooled life, I'd always thought petits fours were just those tiny frosted somewhat stale cakes, but in fact, any tiny bite, sweet or savoury, can be a petit four.

The tray above holds the efforts of four students. I made the green triangle cakes in the center and the round ones with the red decor. The green cakes are pistachio swiss roll, layered twice with pistachio German butter cream (for that you make pistachio pastry cream,and plain butter cream, and beat them together) with ground pistachios sprinkled on top and a garnish of a couple of pistachios (in case you missed the whole pistachio theme). The round ones are black tea-infused sponge soaked in blood orange syrup and nested in black tea mousse, sitting atop a pâte sucree wafer. The garnish is orange peel, candied with blood orange syrup and dried out in the oven overnight. Very tasty, both of them.

My partner and I also attempted macarons, the batter of which was approved by Chef, but which failed mysteriously during baking. You can see some well-baked macarons in the photo, but they were another student's effort.

Now that we're making enough product, we are back to selling. In summer the Pastry Case is open, but I haven't worked there yet. We in the Petits Fours rotations are responsible for manning a table in the Atrium (an area in the building that's between the two restaurants. The restaurants are not open in summer, but Culinary and Pastry all have tables set up Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays, and people can buy tickets and then graze the tables and get small plates of whatever's on offer for the day.

On our table below, there are some savory petits fours, some rustic desserts, and in the distance, some plates of our sweet petits fours. Also in the near foreground you can see a silver-colored thing, which is a portable freezer holding ice cream and sorbet, that the people on the rustic dessert rotation made. Today's flavours were "drunken apricot" (apricot with rum), apple chardonnay, pineapple passionfruit, and raspberry. The buffet is popular but not frantically busy, I am happy to say. The prices are very low - tickets are 50 cents, and for example, a (large) scoop of ice cream is two tickets, and a plate of 3 petits fours is 3 tickets.

We're on to savory petits fours as of yesterday. I've made mushroom-onion tartlets based on one of the tart preparations I made last quarter, and my partner is making puff pastry pizza rolls. We also made gougeres (pâte a choux puffs with cheese) that we filled with smoked salmon cream cheese, but I didn't get a photo of those yet. Maybe tomorrow.

Summer Quarter

It's summer! The pastry program runs for five quarters. You can start the program in any quarter... except summer. That's because summer quarter has the same class schedule and program for all students, no matter which quarter they just finished. This year we have nine first quarters (my fellow students), nine second quarters, and 12 third quarters. It's a pretty easy (and easy-going) schedule for summer: there is a theory class Monday through Wednesday from 7:30 to 8:20, and bake shop rotations Monday through Thursday from 7:30 until 1:50. Classes run for 8 weeks.

Once again, the bake shop work is done in rotations. They are: Wedding and Celebration cakes; Sandwich bread, sandwich making, and preserving; Rustic desserts (like pies and cobblers) and ice cream; and Petits Fours (both sweet and savory). We also have one field trip to the Skagit farm, which happens on the Monday of one's Sandwich rotation. Each rotation is six days, and we always work with at least one (and up to three) partners.

Unlike the Culinary students, who spent the whole first week in the classroom, we started working in the bake shop right away, though our formal rotations didn't start until Wednesday. On Tuesday, we made a huge batch of Royal Icing (egg whites, powdered sugar, and an acid (we use lemon juice) to make the icing whiter) and practiced various kinds of decoration by piping onto cake pans:



My first rotation is Petits Fours. I have one partner, a second quarter student. We're both pretty quiet and serious so are getting along very well. On Wednesday and Thursday we did prep work for two kinds of sweet petits fours: Pistachio petits fours for which we made pistachio sponge cake, pistachio pasty cream, and butter cream (into which the pastry cream is incorporated); and a fancy little cake called "Rising Sun" that involves black tea and blood orange infused sponge cake, black tea mousse, and a fancy candied orange lace decor. We'll put the cakes together on Monday, then I hope we will have time to make some macarons. For this rotation we spend three days on sweet PF, and three days on savory ones.

I have no finished cakes to show yet, so in the meantime, here is a view of the Chocolate Room in the bakeshop (yes! a whole ROOM for chocolate work):



This photo is looking into the chocolate room from the main baking kitchen. There are stainless steel counters and to the right, out of view, another long steel counter, the cool/dry storage for chocolate, and a blast freezer, among other specialized bits of equipment.