Quote of the Week – 3/10/10
People always reckon that you are a genius with lots of time on your hands if you have baked something, but really it’s often only a matter of getting the oven on, and mixing together a few magic ingredients in a bowl.
- Rachel Allen in “Favorite Food at Home”
Photo of the Week – 3/10/10 – Celery Root Salad
I don’t remember ever having tried celery root before, so I decided to brave the gnarly root with this salad recipe I found in Bon Appetit. The recipe was good because the mustard dressing masked the flavor of the celery root, which was nothing to write home about when left on its own.
Is This the Breast Thing He Could Think Up?
Cow, Sheep, and Goat cheese are good enough for me.
Question: What would you do with an abundance of breast milk sitting in your freezer?
Answer: If you’re Chef Daniel Langerer from Klee Brasserie in Manhattan, you’d make cheese with it.
Here’s how this story started. Langerer’s daughter, lucky Baby Arabella, has a mommy who pumps so much of this life elixir that their freezer is packed with little plastic bags storing the overflow. Apparently it takes too much time and bureaucracy to donate the stuff to hungry babies, so Chef Daniel decided to do something to avoid the need to purchase another freezer. He began experimenting with the excess and came up with some home grown cheese. I think this may be taking the whole creative chef thing just a bit too far. I don’t really care if the old saying goes “waste not want not.” Baby Arabella looks to be wanting nothing.
The thought of turning breast milk into cheese turns me just a bit queasy. I admit to tasting a drop, not a cup, of my own breast milk back in the days that I nursed. For the curious, it tasted very similar to sweetened condensed milk. But that was enough of an experiment for me. I certainly had no interest in turning it into a New York cheesecake, even though I have the pedigree for it.
So if consuming my own milk made me feel just a bit squeamish, you can bet that I have no interest in tasting Mrs. Langerer’s milk. And yet Chef Daniel has used it in several gourmet recipes that he describes on his website. Customers are invited to ask for a taste when they visit his restaurant. How about some Maple Caramelized Pumpkin Encrusted Cheese with Texturized Grapes?
I wonder if there would be a corkage fee for women who breast fed in the restaurant.