The Lush Chef

Since late February, The Lush Chef has been giving you food and cocktail recipes, libation education, little musings and spotlights on artisanal products, but I haven't told you about where I like to shop in Los Angeles.  So let's begin!

This past weekend, my old boss and I hit up Silver Lake Wine, a hip boutique that offers wines from around the world, some microbrews, select liquors and sake and a few yummy treats from local chefs/bakers.  I had my first experience with the shop when I went to the Barnsdall Art Park Friday Wine Tastings this past summer.  It's a great event out on the lawn in front of Frank Lloyd Wright's Hollyhock House, with KCRW DJ Dan Wilcox spinning tunes, a flight with four wines and the sun setting over the city.  The guys from Silver Lake Wine were young, hip, knowledgeable and just want you to find something you like.

















My friend highly recommends the Sunday tasting events at 3pm because it's not as crowded and you get delicious food pairings with each glass of wine.  Sunday tastings are $20 for 5 wines and food and reservations are recommended—it's an insanely good deal, considering the pours are generous and the food is plentiful.  They also do Monday nights with 3 wines, cheese, olives and bread for $12 and Thursdays nights with 3 wines for $12 (the Let's Be Frank hot dog truck is parked outside if you need some nosh).

The focus of the evening was on California wines paired with food from Heirloom LA.  George Cossette, one of the owners was on hand and told these lovely, long stories about each winemaker.  The guy really knows his stuff and understands how to get folks excited about wine.  Here's what we had:

- Dominique Piron Rosé Beaujolais 2010 from France (the only non-California wine in this flight) - $13.25

- Tatomer Riesling "Sisquoc" Santa Maria Valley 2010 - $21 - paired with a Farmer's Market Salad with goat cheese, heirloom tomatoes, beets and shisito peppers

- Andrew Murray "RGB" Camp 4 Vineyard Santa Ynez Valley 2010 - $24.25 - paired with a salmon croquette with a spicy remoulade

- Storybook Mountain Vineyards Zinfandel Estate Mayacamas Napa 2008 - $39 - paired with osso buco in an heirloom tomato sauce with mini ravioli

- Sean Thackrey "Pleiades" Old Vines XX California - $26.25 - paired with ham thinly sliced over a red cabbage slaw and herb spaetzle

All wines featured in the tasting ended up being 10% off and my friend and I each bought bottles of the Riesling (we liked it because it wasn't very sweet) and the Old Vines (such a smooth red that I couldn't resist).  It's not often that I get out to Silver Lake, but it's worth the trek for great wines and beautifully planned tastings.  I'll definitely be venturing East again soon.

Libations used: 1 bottle plus 1-2 Tbs of beer
Libations left over: 3/4 bottle of beer
It may not be fall yet, but this Honey Spice Beer Cake from the ladies at Booze Cakes has been on my "to bake" list for a long time.  Some friends of mine were doing a housewarming party and weren't planning on making dessert, so The Lush Chef to the rescue!  This particular cake is super rich, moist and decadent—as much as I would like to think I could eat a gigantic piece, I could only eat a small one.  But oh, what a delicious piece of cake it was!  The slightly salty mixed nuts were a nice way to offset the sweetness.  

The recipe calls for honey beer, but any kind of dark, spicy beer is fine.  I had an oatmeal stout on hand and it worked beautifully with this recipe—the flavor was a nice compliment to the lovely mixture of cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg and allspice.  I bet this cake would also taste amazing with some pumpkin ale or Guinness, so feel free to get adventurous.

Honey Spice Beer Cake - serves 20-24
Cake Ingredients:

• 3 3/4 cups flour
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1 tsp cloves
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1 tsp allspice
• 1 tsp nutmeg
• 1/2 cup (1 stick) salted butter
• 1 cup light brown sugar
• 1 cup sugar
• 4 eggs
• 1 1/4 cup honey
• Juice and zest from 1 lemon
• 1 12 oz bottle of beer 

Frosting Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup (1 stick) salted butter
• 3 1/2 cups confectioners sugar
• 1-2 Tbs beer (start with 1 Tbs and if you need more liquid, carefully add more beer until desired consistency)
• 2 Tbs honey
• 2 cups lightly salted mixed nuts

To make the cake:
- Preheat oven to 325.  Grease and flour a 9x13 inch sheet cake pan.
- Combine the flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt and spices and set aside.
- In a mixing bowl, cream butter and sugars for a few minutes, or until light and fluffy.
- Add eggs one at a time, beating after each addition.
- Mix in honey, lemon juice and zest.
- Mix in flour mixture and beer in 3 alternating additions.
- Bake 40-45 minutes.  I actually had to bake mine for about an hour because the cake rose like crazy (all that beer!) and took a while to completely bake through.

To make the frosting:
- In a mixing bowl, cream butter with about 1/3 of the confectioners sugar.
- Mix in 1 Tbs beer and the rest of the confectioners sugar in alternating additions.  If the frosting is looking too thick, keep adding in a little bit more beer.
- Stir in the honey.
- Once the cake has cooled, frost and garnish with the mixed nuts.

This line could very well work on me, or will at least get a good laugh out of me.  Thank you Knock Knock for coming up with these Foodie Flash Cards.  They adorn my kitchen walls, are informative and make me giggle while I cook.

A beach afternoon on Labor Day always calls for a little cocktail time.  The strawberries are still in season and my basil plant was begging to be picked.  Malbec and Hefeweizen love their spicy cocktails and I had some leftover jalapeño-infused tequila.  These various ingredients may seem like an odd combination, but trust me—it works.  The slivers of basil add another level of flavor, and when combined with strawberries, reminds you of the dog days of summer.  So whip up a pitcher and sneak it onto the beach...

Spicy Strawberry Basil Margaritas - serves 6-8
Ingredients:

• 12 oz jalapeño-infused tequila
• 6 oz Cointreau
• Juice of 4 limes
• About 16 strawberries
• 6 basil leaves, chiffonade
• Ice

- Infuse the tequila - check out my Children of the Sun cocktail recipe if you haven't done this before.
- Purée 10 of the strawberries.
- Combine the tequila, Cointreau, puréed strawberries, lime juice and basil.
- Add ice and stir.
- Quarter the rest of the strawberries and garnish each drink with a few pieces.

This summer I've been doing a lot of beer cocktails at BBQs and pool parties.  Malbec has been having us over almost every Sunday for some grilling action and lazing in the pool, and while I love my Lush Chef Taste Testers, I can't be busting out the expensive stuff all the time.  Beer cocktails can go a long way and won't break the bank, so they're perfect for large, casual gatherings.  Last BBQ we went spicy and had Micheladas, but this time I was craving something fruity.  I bought a huge box of raspberries at the farmers market and went home to get a little blender happy.

Raspberry Beer Cocktails - serves 6
Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 cups raspberries
• 2 Tbs fresh lemon juice
• 1/2 cup vodka
• 3 bottles light beer (I used Stella Artois)

- Add 1 cup raspberries, lemon juice and vodka in blender and purée.
- Transfer to a pitcher, add the beer and stir.
- Serve each cocktail with some raspberries for garnish.

Libations used: 1/4 cup bourbon
Libations left over: None
The stone fruit is ridiculously amazing right now in Southern California, and I'm pretty much spending all of my cash at the market on peaches, nectarines and pluots.  Malbec was having one of her pool parties again and we were going to be firing up the grill.  Usually my crew never thinks of dessert, so I knew that part would be left up to me.  I had planned on making a peach cobbler (I'll get to that eventually), but just didn't have the energy to bake on a beautiful summer morning.  What to do with these 8 gorgeous peaches?

It's not often I invoke the name of Paula Deen, as she's the arch-nemesis of my culinary crush Anthony Bourdain, but this recipe of hers for Grilled Stone Fruit incorporated plenty of bourbon and...do I even need to say what the other ingredient is?  The glaze created for this dish could have certainly coated a lot more than 8 peaches (probably twice the amount), so it's a perfect dessert to serve at a big BBQ.  The recipe tells you to just toss the peaches on the grill, but Whiskey (my grill master) and I decided we wanted the glaze to get all hot and caramelized while the peaches cooked.  We created an aluminum foil boat and let the peach halves just stew in that bourbon buttery goodness.

Bourbon Glazed Peaches on the Grill - serves 16 (or 8 greedy friends)
Ingredients:

• 1/4 cup bourbon
• 2 sticks butter, softened
• 2 cups packed light brown sugar
• 2 lemons, juiced
• 1/2 cup water
• 8 ripe peaches (you can also use nectarines, plums, pluots), cut in half

- In a saucepan, bring the bourbon to a boil over medium-high heat, and boil for 1 minute to burn off the alcohol.
- Add the butter, brown sugar, lemon juice and water, and bring to a boil, whisking until the sugar is dissolved.
- Simmer for about 5 minutes and then let it cool to thicken.
- Toss the fruit with the glaze.  Because we weren't eating for a while, I let the peaches just sit in a container with the glaze for a few hours.
- Set your grill for low heat and then place peach halves in an aluminum foil boat.  Drizzle some of the glaze over the peaches and let them cook for about 5 minutes.  Turn to the other side, drizzle on some more glaze and let them cook for another 5 minutes.
- You can serve with ice cream or just devour these plain like we did.

Libations used: 1 Tbs St. Germain
Libations left over: None
Le Macaron - why is it that you're the prettiest cookie ever and yet the most difficult to make?  It must be a French thing, so thank goodness I'm a quarter French, because I honestly think that's how I got through this.  It took 3 attempts, with the last 2 involving me tossing out about a quarter of each batch.  But the ones that made it through, turned out delicious–pretty feet, slight crisp on the outside, and chewy happiness on the inside.  After making these, I thought for sure I wouldn't attempt them again.  It was just so much work and the thought of hopping over to 'Lette or Bottega Louie and just buying a dozen seemed easier.  When I brought these in to work and also shared them with friends and neighbors, their ecstatic compliments and groans of pleasure changed my mind.  Fine...I'll make these again, but only because you all insist!

The recipe comes from the fabulous Hadley at the Gourmandise School of Sweets & Savories in Santa Monica.  I credit Hadley's macaron demo for getting me through attempts 2 and 3 (you don't want to know what 1 looked like).  The cookie is a basic vanilla and you can do flavor variations with infused sugars (lavender, orange, lemon, etc) and color them using gels (do not use food coloring).  The buttercream is a basic French vanilla buttercream and you can get creative with flavors, like I did with the St. Germain and strawberries.  I don't have a scale, but if you do, then 1) you're more awesome than the Lush Chef and 2) I included grams for you.

Strawberry & St. Germain Macarons 
Macaron Indredients:

• 4 egg whites (140 grams)
• 1/2 tsp egg white powder (3 grams)
• 2/3 cup vanilla sugar (80 grams) - you can make this by scraping 1 vanilla bean and adding it to 2 cups of sugar
• Scant 2 cups almond flour (180 grams)
• 2 cups powdered sugar (240 grams)
• A pinch of salt (2 grams)

French Buttercream Ingredients:

• 2 eggs, at room temperature
• 1 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup water
• 1/4 tsp cream of tartar
• 2 sticks of butter, at room temperature
• 1/2 tsp vanilla
• 1 Tbs St. Germain
• 1/2 bag Trader Joe's freeze-dried strawberries - do not use fresh strawberries because this will make your buttercream watery

To make the macarons:
- Pulse the almond flour, salt and powdered sugar in the food processor until it's completely mixed.
- In the bowl of a stand mier, beat the egg whites and egg white powder until soft peak stage (they'll still be a little foamy, slightly yellow and the peaks will fall).
- Slowly add the vanilla sugar and continue beating until just before stiff peak stage (no longer foamy, bright white and the peaks will be kind of stiff)
- Fold the dry ingredients 1/3 at a time into the egg whites.  Keep folding until the batter can form ribbons when you lift up your spatula.
- Preheat oven to 350.
- Pipe onto parchment paper and let them set for half an hour.
- Place cookies in oven and lower the temperature to 300.  Bake for 15 minutes and don't remove cookies from parchment until they've cooled for at least 10 minutes.

To make the buttercream:
- In the bowl of a stand mixer, whip the eggs until they triple in volume.
- While the eggs are whipping, place the sugar, water and cream of tartar in a sauce pot and bring to a heavy boil (about 240 degrees).
- With the mixer on medium speed, pour the sugar syrup over the eggs in a slow and steady stream.
- Continue beating for 10-15 minutes, or until the bowl cools to room temperature.
- Add the butter, one pat a time, until the mixture thickens.
- Turn the mixer to high speed for 2 minutes and add the vanilla, St. Germain and strawberries.