Baking Pies and Best of ... Pizza!

Chefs are arriving back from Italy where I hear we had a terrific Terra Madre contingent. More importantly, Indiana was well recognized as being ahead of the game when it comes to producing and eating local ingredients. More as it comes (and we might even have a few guest posts.)

* How to Cook a Pie? Pastry Chef Joseph Alford will teach you how to make a perfect pumpkin pie in a cooking class at Pikk's Tavern, 12:00 p.m., Saturday, Nov. 22. $24.99 per person. Call Pikk's to reserve a spot.

** More turkeys: Jonah's Market is taking orders for fresh turkeys until Nov. 7. Planning ahead isn't too bad -- check your other turkey options, too including Joe's Butcher Shop, Goose, the Market, and The Good Earth for their order deadlines.

* Dine's Best of .... Pizza! Want to see who won our Best of... Pizza tasting for Indianapolis dine magazine? They've posted video with the top 10 high scoring pies. (Click on "Best of" video link.) Aside from the great shots of my arm (mmm, yummy), you'll should also note how low the overall scores were out of 100 points. (More on the losers.)

Monday, The Day Before Tuesday for Crawford's

So long, Silver Dollar rolls, at least from the 16th and Capitol location. We noted in July that the venerable downtown deli was closing its doors. Various news outlets are reporting that Crawford's deli will serve it's last sandwich tomorrow. (I loved them as a standby for great birthday cakes although Taylor's were always just a bit better.) More at IndyChannel.com. Miss their chicken salad already? You'll find the recipe on their website.

Crawford's Bakery Closing

Channel 6 and the Star are both reporting that Crawford's will close its deli and bakery at 16th and Capitol at the end of September! Apparently the lease is up on the famous landmark building and they're taking the opportunity to bow out of retail operations. They will continue to run their wholesale commercial bakery. Silver dollar rolls! Fabulous cakes! And their signature chicken salad? Well, the chicken salad recipe they'll give you. They say to keep an eye on their website.

Go Chef Cindy Hawkins!

Congrats to Chef Cindy Hawkins who graduated last weekend from Chicago's French Pastry School. Of 71 graduates, she was one of 5 who graduated with honors.

You can find desserts from her new company, Circle City Sweets, at Bugg's Temple and farmers markets around the city. She and Roger are officially a two-chef family now! What an accomplishment. Congratulations, Cindy!

Three Latest and Best

Hey, kids, I ran a half marathon today! Where were you?! (I hurt, but I finished.)

Best of...Quiche: After the protein-filled day I had yesterday judging Best of...Quiche for Indianapolis dine magazine, I'm feeling pretty healthy -- even though we did try nearly 30! There were some good ones (and, let's be frank, some pretty awful ones -- blind bake your crusts, people!) so look for the results in an upcoming issue. As usual, it was a great time and we were joined by pastry chef extraordinaire Joseph Allford. (For those of you who've asked, Joseph is teaching at the International Culinary School for Chef Marc Aguilara and loving it as well as making wedding cakes a few days a week at Rene's Bakery.)

Wines from CG di Arie: Thanks to David Davis of World of Wines for the invitation to meet the folks from CG di Arie in California's foothills. Sure, the owner invented Cap'n Crunch and pourable Hidden Valley Ranch dressing, but don't let that deter you. They're making huge wines with finesse from grapes you don't see much of in Northern California. My favorites? The soft, but yet robust Amador County Barbera, a polished and elegant Primitivo (Block 4 Estate, Shenandoah Valley), a Rose with some balls (Estate Grown , Shenandoah Valley), and a range of Zins and Syrahs from the elegant and technical to the flamboyant and delicious. Look for these wines at finer wine shops in the next few weeks.

Pear Cider, Ahh, Memories: We all know the power smell and taste has to bring back memories. Foraging at Marsh, the other day, I picked up Woodchuck Pear Cider -- and I was transported. It brought back the ramshackle Bay View Boat Club (down by The Ramp in South San Francisco for you know the area) where we used to spend hot afternoons after boat racing with sweet, cold pear cider on tap. Ahh, Summer.

A Sweet Article for Cindy Hawkins

Hey, kids, check out the Star for a sweet feature on up-and-coming pastry chef Cindy Hawkins. If you know Cindy, you know she's currently posted at Bugg's Temple and still in The French Pastry School in Chicago. But her life is here -- along with husband, Roger, part of Chef Brad Gates' crew (who is himself, a pretty cool dude.) Oakley's regulars from way back will remember Cindy from her days as part of the front of house crew. Nice work, Cindy!

New Year's Resolutions

It's that time again! New Year's Day! Hope everyone ate their black-eyed peas, made some cornbread, and planned lots of good things for 2008. Sure, we all have those "lose weight, work out more" resolutions, but what about your food and wine resolutions for the New Year? I'll share mine if you share yours!

** Take the Introductory Level Sommelier Course and Exam in Fall 2008: Thanks to the lobbying efforts of Arthur Black, rumor has it the Master Court of Sommeliers will hold an introductory course and exam in Indianapolis in fall 2008. The two-day seminar concludes with a written test on regions, winemaking techniques, varietals, and more. Cost will be around $500. While most of us have no plans to take all four levels, should be a great experience for laypeople and professionals alike.

** Have a dinner party for Open That Bottle Night: Don't forget to mark your calendars. Feb 23, the last Saturday in February, is Open That Bottle Night, the evening popularized by Wall Street Journal wine editors Dorothy J. Gaiter and John Brecher. It's a great chance to get together, make a great meal, and finally open those mystery bottles that we think might be past their prime.

**Attend More Farmer's Markets: Continue to eliminate processed, convenience food from my diet. Eat more great local produce. And get to more local markets this year.

**Find a Great Bread Baker: Maybe this will be the year we finally lure a first class baker to Indianapolis to start a Goose-style neighborhood bakery.

**Interact with More of Our City's Amazing Food Professionals: If you think Indianapolis doesn't have some world class chefs and food knowledge, then you haven't been looking hard enough -- I've met three just in the past three weeks. We have some nationally known experts here doing amazing work -- from culinary education to cheesemaking to meat production to cheffing. Seek out, enjoy, and know it's getting better every day!

Drink More Great Wine: Life is too short to drink cheap plonk. Find something you like, learn about it, drink more, and love. Go to tastings, stick you nose in that glass, and let this be the year of the grape.

A: Macarons

Macarons are not birds and they're definitely not to be confused with macaroons, the chewy coconut cookies we all love. Macarons are French almond meringue cookies, that started as a drop cookie and morphed into a sandwich cookie. They're most popular today in bright colors with a layer of ganache as filling between the two halves. Want to find macarons locally? I haven't tried them there, but last time I looked, there were on the menu at Petit Chou in Broad Ripple. And the answer? 58% of you got it right!

Cravings: Chocolate Popovers

Maybe it's just the season. With Thanksgiving right around the corner, maybe it's the close proximity to all those childhood favorites. We indulge ourselves once in a year in orgies of turkey, dressing, cranberry sauce, and green been casserole and, mmmm, does it taste good! So, it should be no surprise when periodically, our bodies crave something -- chocolate, French fries, cheese grits (OK, that last one is just me.)

Yesterday, I had an inexplicable craving for chocolate -- and not just any chocolate but pain au chocolate, that is, chocolate and bread. With no time to make flaky pastry crust and still armed with a useful popover recipe, I did what anyone with a craving does. I improvised. Chocolate popovers anyone?

2 eggs
1/4 tsp salt

2 tsp butter, melted

1 cup milk

1 cup flour

2 ounces semi-sweet chocolate, chopped

Grease a muffin pan or popover pans. Whisk eggs and salt together, add milk, then melted butter. Add the flour. Whisk until blended. (Don't overbeat, they'll get tough.) Pour batter into muffin cups -- about half full. Put in cold oven, turn heat to 425, bake for 20 minutes, then reduce heat to 375 and bake for 10-15 minutes. Pierce tops to release steam making a 1/2 inch slit. Spoon chopped chocolate on top of each slit. (Some will go in and some will melt on top.)

Bake for another 2 minutes more.

Eat. Unbutton top button on pants. (Easy to refrigerate or freeze, then microwave to heat.)

A Mad Baking Fool

Had a bit of a bake-a-thon this weekend. (It was a hot Saturday night, home alone, just me and my tart pan.) I don't eat a lot of bread or sweets, so whenever I'm due at someone's house, it's an excuse to bake -- that way, if it's any good, I can give it all away. Sure, it's embarrassing to show up with a week's worth of baked goods, but that's what friends are for, right?

Here was the talley:

Molasses Cookies: I've been craving these for months and the craving returns every time I dig around in my pantry and stumble over a jar of blackstrap molasses. I used this recipe from Gourmet/Epicurious and instead of just cinnamon and cloves, I used a freshly ground mixture of cloves, cinnamon, all spice and star anise. (I have a secret love for my spice grinder.) Balled up, rolled in sugar, and baked, these cookies came out near perfect.

This Apple Tart: OK, I'm embarrassed to even compare my tart to this gorgeous creation. Let's just say mine didn't look nearly as tidy. (I'm *not* a whiz with pastry crust.) Going into the oven, mine looked like a small, formless lump of dough and apples but looked much better coming out. However, I neglected to use parchment paper and one side of the entire tart was stuck to the pan in a burnt sugar glue. "A" for idea, but an "F" in execution. It fell apart as I tried to get it out of the pan. I doctored the glaze with vanilla and cinnamon, then kept it for myself. (Hey, apples are healthy, right?)

Rosemary Popovers: I was going to make madeleines but I don't have a madeleine pan (or plaque, as they're called.) And the jury is still out for me on silpat molds. But I *do* have this $10 coupon for Sur La Table, so I almost went up there with madeleines on my mind. Then I looked at a pan that holds 10, a recipe that makes 60, and the sheer amount of baking time involved and decided there would be a better time to make French sweets. Plan B: I ran across a popover recipe clipped years ago and never tried. (At the time, I just wanted an excuse to buy the cool popover pan.) I didn't have any fresh rosemary (don't tell Kirts, he's swimming in it and I was just too lazy to get some over the weekend), so I used dried herbs de Provence instead. I left this as a backup, and in the way these things often work, I should just have made them to begin with. Super quick, super easy, they transport well, smell great, and they look good -- even misshapen!

What I Learned in this Month's Dine Magazine

Absinthe is really legal? Apparently so, since testing shows that most commercial brands of absinthe carry legal quantities of the banned chemical (thujone) found in wormwood. Fans will tell you hand crafted absinthe, even by a trusted and experienced herbalist, can still be dangerous. But if you've been wanting to try a trusted brand, it should be easier to find. Who knew?

Blank of the Month Clubs: I've always loved the idea of ___ of the Month clubs. They're gifts that keep on giving year round. And today, they're moving past wine, chocolate, and flowers into the realms of coffee, olives, loose-leaf tea, and even cheese-and-wine (from our local Frasiers). Also, there's a nice mention of Artisanal in NYC, the cheese shop that's come up in many conversations in the past few weeks. I've heard more than a few foodies swear by them for mail ordering of hard to find and region specific cheeses. (On their website, you can search for and sort cheeses by milk type, country, and wine pairing.)

Best of Indy -- Pies: With pies, I didn't post a long analysis after judging like I usually do. Frankly, we had such a fun panel and we were all so sugar-fueled, all I remember of that day was just manic tasting, laughing, talking, and making some notes. I suspect all of my comments were gibberish after 34 pies. (I calculated later that I ate the equivalent of an entire pie *myself*. And was still hungry 2 hours later.) But really, how can an afternoon with judges like Krissy Tallent, uber-foodie Bob Whitt, and Pierre Giacometti not be a blast? We taste blind with a "reveal" at the end after we've turned in all our scores and we were pleasantly surprised that Peterson's pastry chef Joseph Allford blew us away with his two wining pies. (He didn't blow us away with his third entry -- a strange blueberry and banana concoction, but that's the life of a pie maker, I suppose.) Along the way, as usual, I learned a ton about baking, assembly processes, the qualities of lard and butter crusts, good fruit, bad fruit, and what works in the realm of fillings. The vast majority of the pies we had were just much too sweet (like chocolate crust, chocolate filling, and chocolate candy). One judge found a pastry tip in her piece of pie (oops!). And I also learned that pastry chefs who work with dairy toppings must have a pristine refrigerator. Toppings pick up all kinds of tastes and odors not great for your pie. All in all, it was a great day, and I may be making a trek up to Mama Bear's for that terrific berry pie this fall. That was one I could have eaten all on my own -- with no prompting.

Great Minds Think Alike! After my own visit there a week or two ago, it was such a treat to see the write up on Sandra Rice and Noodle, the fresh, new Vietnamese restaurant on Pendleton Pike. Sang Nguyen came out and chatted with us the day we were there making spot on menu recommendations. It's nice to see their interesting story and philosophy on food in print.

Q: What are the best bakeries in town?

While I recover from this *massive* wine-induced headache and la-la-la song earworm (which was so worth it -- every one of those Burgundies was *fantastic* last night), let's talk about bakeries. Inspired by a comment on another thread about good and not-so-good bakeries, I bring the question to you: What are the best bakeries in town? I know only one place that I'd go if asked to bring baked treats items at the last minute (Rene's in Broad Ripple, natch) but I know there have to be some other good places in town, right? So, dear readers, where else should we go and try?

Cupcakes from The Flying Cupcake!

I was cranky. But then I stopped in at The Flying Cupcake at 56th and Illinois and I am cranky no more. How could anyone who stops in to this delightful and whimsical bakery be cranky for long? Well, maybe the two well-dressed older ladies in front of me in line who shrieked in horror at the $2.50-a-cupcake price before leaving in a huff. Not me, having been to Sprinkles in California (where a cupcake will set you back nearly $4) and Magnolia Bakery in NYC (who prides themselves in a reasonably priced cupcake in the $2.50 range), I was prepared for what some in Indianapolis might call sticker shock. (As the nice guy who helped me said confidentially "Hey, we're not Marsh.")

Either way, I picked two cupcakes from their selection of 15 or so (including a red velvet cake cupcake with cream cheese frosting and red and white sprinkles and a chocolate cupcake with pumpkin icing and a spiderweb pattern on top!) (These were regular sized. Jumbo cupcakes will set you back a little more.) I also treated myself to a scoop of gelato -- one of 12 or so flavors they carry from Gelato DaVinci in Carmel. More treats may be on the way (according to news blurbs from the bakery's owners) but for now, cupcakes will work for me. They take special orders and can give special pricing for larger orders with a few days advance notice. What a nice change cupcakes would be from a traditional birthday cake -- especially for grown ups!

Miscellaneous Wine and Questions

Fresh Market @ 54th and College: The land is cleared. The construction hut is up. Where is our Fresh Market? Anyone have an ETA on the ground breaking? What's the hold up?

Corked Dorks: Cracked a lovely bottle of 2000 Von Strasser Chardonney the other night. It was delightful if not a little heavy and oaky compared to all these white Burgundies I've been drinking lately. Sadly, we were going to follow it up with one of my favorites, the 2001 Iron Horse T-Bar-T Cuvee R but it was *corked!* (To be fair, I suspected it might be past its prime.) The cork was synthetic so we didn't get the big wood hit, but much like sour milk or rancid dairy, one sip (plus a second to confirm with a bad face) was all it took to know this wine was gone, daddy, gone. One local sommelier at a downtown restaurant recently told us their loss rate due to corked wines is close to 10%. That's more than 1 per case which can get pricey for high end wines. It certainly makes a fine argument for screw tops even on the pricey bottles -- tableside presentation be damned.

Cupcakes Cometh! Christy "dished" this a few weeks ago, but as usual, I'm late to the cupcake party. If you don't know that cupcake bakeries are all the fashion in NY, LA, and SF, then you've been living under a rock. Or at least, just not eating enough cupcakes. Enter The Flying Cupcake slated to open in the next few weeks at 56th and Illinois. They'll do other gourmet tidbits and treats as well as offer outdoor seating. (Great for when this weather cools off just a bit.) Look for them in the old Baskin-Robbins space.

More Location Shuffling: By the way, also look for a Starbucks moving onto the corner next to Kinkaid's, the former Emmett's salon space. Emmett's is moving to 49th and Penn and there will be some shuffling in that block as Emmett's and the expanded Patachou fill the space formerly held by Corks and the Hamaker Pharmacy. Confused yet? Don't worry, it will all be sorted out by the end of the year.

More Fair Food! I don't know how I missed this, but the Star picks up the recipe for the winner of the canola oil fried fair food competition: Fried Hush Puppy Meatballs. From what I can tell, you start with 2 quarts of canola oil for deep fat frying. (Yeah, transfat free doesn't mean regular fat free so get ready). Then you make meatballs, then you make hush puppy batter from a mix, then you apparently coat the meatballs *in* the hush puppy batter, and fry the whole thing. Use ranch dressing for dipping sauce. Finish by making an appointment for a double bypass.

Hangover Helper: Neal over at InTake has a nice article on pubs that offer great brunches. If you've ever been in the mood for a little bloody Mary and some good pub grub before lunch time on a Sunday a.m., these are the places to go. (I have other brunch advice like avoid any "seafood specials" and only order meals that are likely to be made fresh that morning, but that's a whole other post.) Now we know there's a reason to go to the Red Eye Cafe.