Goodbye New York

This past week has been a big one for Collin Murray and I as we had to say goodbye to New York. In between packing up a household and shipping it to another country, carting cats on the plane, and being sad that we had to leave and say goodbye not just to a great city but also to the wonderful friends that we met while there, it was a tough week that leaves us asking, what's next?

Collin Murray is all set, he begins a new job tomorrow and is sure to be excellent at it -- I say this not just because he is my hubby but because he's good a being a chef-y and I hope he knows it. As for me, there are too many possibilities right now. The next couple weeks will be spent getting our apartment here in Canada in a suitable living condition (like, wouldn't it be nice to see the stove and to easily open the fridge door? -- so many boxes, so much stuff!), and preparing for our wedding reception, after that, when life is in order, I'm not sure what is in my future. Of course, I will definitely be writing on this blog because my faithful followers are so lovely, but I will also writing for a couple of other projects that I'm working on and will be telling y'all about quite soon... And I will also surely be baking and cooking up tasty savory things too so there will be lots of recipes and pictures and fun times in the kitchen to look forward to. Y'all will have to be patient as The Tiffany Blue Chef figures out its new identity now that it no longer takes place in 'the city that never sleeps': really, we all have to get used to life not lived in New York.

I don't really want this post to be a goodbye to New York because I know I will be back but the reality is that on Thursday, we did have to say goodbye to New York and the wonderful experiences that Collin Murray and I both had while we were there. We didn't love every minute of it, there were some pretty tough times, some times that were pretty low and the city really did try to break us both -- it's not always glamorous let me tell you. However, there were some amazing times too, and lucky for us, there were more of these times than there were low ones. Plus, we met people in New York that we will never forget and never lose touch with; good friends, true friends and friends that we are truly grateful for. On that note about gratitude, I think that I can speak for both Collin Murray and I when I say that we were truly grateful for the experience of getting to live in New York. To be able to go to school there, to work there, to experience the city for as long as we did, it was a true blessing, there is no other word for it.

Food Styling and Photography Class Round Up

So all weekend long I've been at a Food Styling and Photography class and I have to say that my head is rather full. Who knew? Seriously. I could go on and on and on about all the stuff that we learned (like did you know that usually when frosted cakes are photographed for magazines that they are filled with mashed potatoes and have icing piped in between the layers, over the potatoes -- nothing is real people!) but honestly, it would be way too tedious. However, the biggest take-aways for me from the class were to use a tri-pod, to learn how to use my manual settings, to use calibrate my white balance (...see it is too confusing to go into too much detail), and that using natural light makes food photography so much easier.

Here are a few of the other shots from the weekend (to see them better, try clicking the pictures to make them bigger -- it makes a difference in the look of the photo, ask Rod...).

Sunny Raspberries

Seckel Pear

Lovely Eggs

Food stylist trick -- wax to make round things stay upright!

Roasted Chicken and Vegetables

Market Cabbage

Seckel Pears

Bar Suzette -- The French Onion Remix

I've gushed about Bar Suzette, the crepe stall in Chelsea Market before, but my friends, it is time to gush again. Until October 23, there is food market of sorts set up in near Madison Square Park and Bar Suzette is there churning out the most delicious crepes I've ever tasted. Really, all I have are these four words: French Onion Soup CREPE. Yes. It's true and it's scrumptious and you should not miss out.

Bar Suzette's Stall at the EAT Food Square in Madison Park

The basic premise of the crepe is this, onions are caramelized and then reduced in a broth that contains mushroom and beef stock, among other things to be sure, for SIX whole hours. When Bar Suzette crafts the actual crepe, a savory crepe is topped with fontina cheese, the onion mixture a sprinkling of truffle salt and few leaves of fresh thyme. Since the crepe is left on the hot crepe griddle for a minute or so after being topped with the cheese, when you bite into it, the cheese is nice and melt-y and tastes just like that fantastic first bite of French Onion Soup -- it's amazing.


Crepe folded, cheesed and getting a healthy dose of onions



Finished crepe being folded -- crepe maker's hands are lightening fast!

 Since Bar Suzette makes its crepes to order, sometimes there can be a little wait to taste your delicious crepe but hey, what's a couple minutes when the end result is a delicious crepe?!

Melt-y cheese + onion-y deliciousness = yum, yum good.

Bar Suzette's original location in Chelsea Market is still pumping out the crepes as always but their temporary stall in the Madison Square EAT Market will only be up till October 23. Stop by, say hi, and have a crepe -- Collin Murray and I promise you won't be sorry!

A Class on Food Styling and Photography

So as if I didn't have enough going on in life, I'm taking a food styling and photography class this weekend and all I have to say so for is that I thought I knew about taking photos but really, I had no idea. At all. None.

We started the class going over how a camera works and then talking about the different settings that you "should" be manually adjusting. I had never heard about white balance and aperture and all that jazz -- I turned my camera on, set it to automatic and then macro and just started shooting. Not anymore though. One of the instructors (there are three, two pretty famous food photographers and one food stylist) took me through my camera and taught me how to work it and what I need to do to improve my photos -- which was awesome. Then, we broke up into groups and "styled" our own shots. Though the instructors had their cameras set up, all the other students had brought their cameras to class too and so we all got to shoot a lot of great stuff today.

Here are a couple of shots that I took and styled today:

My group, shooting with our own cameras

Artichoke detail

Fig, cheese, and grape plate

Baby Artichoke

Our slightly melting oyster plate

Oyster Detail (I styled that!)

Tomorrow we are meeting at the Greenmarket and going to buy product to shoot in the class and then they are going to lecture more about tricks to help you when food styling...like using Windex and saline solution...and learn how to use photo shop. Yee-Haw!

Operation Wedding Cake: It's Done!

I've been an absent blogger lately but this is what happens when you have to write a business plan, graduate from culinary management, extern, and what's that last thing again, I can't remember...oh right, GET MARRIED!

So I had a plan for Operation Wedding Cake. It involved writing a number of posts and it also involved me being calm. The fact is, my plan for the wedding cake involved me making the cake over a number of days but it got compressed into a number of frazzled hours. As such, here is what is likely the last Operation Wedding Cake post: unless I decide I need to make our wedding cupcakes in which case you will see another post and I will be self-medicating...

For our wedding cake, Collin Murray and I wanted a small cake. We weren't going for tons of tiers or gaudy decoration and I promise you that I spent (along with some of my faithful pastry friends) hours trying to decide what size pans to use and in the end, I purchased a 7 by 3 inch, 5 by 2 inch and 3 by 2 inch set of pans to use in making the cake and I was pretty happy with the scale of them all together.

Pretty pans lined and buttered

When you paper a 3 by 2 inch pan, the parchment round is teeny tiny!

Collin Murray also insisted on having red velvet cake -- you may remember from this post, the man loves his red velvet... Me, I'm less fussy on it, it is not that I don't like the cake but I just would always rather have chocolate. The recipe that I used was from epicurious.com and I think it was rather good. The cake had a nice moist crumb and good flavor. I won't post the whole thing it, but I will include a link to it at the end of this blog -- I didn't change a thing!


One thing is forsure -- this was a RED red velvet cake recipe!

I made the cake the evening before I needed to decorate simply because I had to. Normally, you make the cake a few days ahead or ideally, you use a cake that has been frozen and thawed. I know it sounds weird, but in pastry school, our chefs taught us to make our lives easy with these little tricks and having a firm cake to work with, or a partially frozen or even just a cold cake (which doesn't affect the taste at all) makes the decorating and shaping of the cake easier. Since I didn't have time to freeze the cake or even really make it in advance, I had a hell of a time shaping the cake because it was so moist and fluffy.

I'm just glad the pans fit in our mini oven!

The cakes rose well and retained their lovely red color after baking

So cute (PS: don't you love the color coordination with the cake and the apron?!)

You will notice in the pictures below that the cake goes from being iced and stacked to being covered with fondant -- that there are no pictures of shaping or the covering, this is because I had a pastry chef melt down during this part of the process. For one, I forgot to trim the sides of the cake before I iced it; I cut my cardboard rounds too small so it was hard to ice the outside of the cake properly (usually you use the cardboard as a guide to help you evenly ice the cake) and I was just super stressed and fretting the whole time. It is hard to be a perfectionist with your own wedding cake on a time crunch.

If only it was that easy!

You can't see it, but there are raspberries in the middle of the cake!

Next time I make a wedding cake, I will require more counter space!

With that being said, I finally got all the cakes covered in fondant, I stabilized them with lollipop sticks in the middle and stacked them. I had pre-made all my gumpaste flowers so all I had to do was arrange them and I also had purchased ribbon that I was going to use to accent the cake. My plan had been to pipe on the middle layer with red royal icing but I simply just ran out of time and patience. I ended up finishing the cake off with a ribbon detail instead and I was really happy with that.

The finished product!

Though I don't have any pictures of the cake being sliced yet (our photographer has those), I will say that the end result was pretty tasty and looked good. Naturally, I'm not 100% happy with it but I would say that for my second cake ever, my first three-tiered cake, and my first cake without professional supervision, I think I did pretty well. And, if you are wondering where the penguins are, they didn't fit on top of this cake -- we will be using them for our reception wedding cake and I will be sure to post a picture of the finished toppers when they are in fact finished!

Gumpaste carnations made by moi!

 And finally, for the Epicurious Red Velvet Cake and Cream Cheese Frosting Recipes, click here.