Whenever I read a new recipe before I try it, I read it twice; the first time, the way I would make it, and the second time, how a less experienced cook would. So many food bloggers create recipes and don’t think past their own abilities.

What I learned about cooking and baking with students who worked in my kitchen at school and our spätzle customers who don’t like to or know how to cook is you can’t assume anything.

Tomorrow is our youngest son Sam’s 22nd birthday which we are celebrating today since he is working in the ER tomorrow night. I asked him what kind of cake he wanted for his birthday and he couldn’t decide and left it up to me. He did request a low-country seafood boil like we did last year for dinner.

I looked through dozens of birthday cake ideas that aren’t dry af gluten-free cake recipes. Sam loves chocolate and peanut butter, so I decided on a flourless chocolate & peanut butter torte with chocolate ganache. Yum! The recipe was listed as “Super Simple and Easy Flourless Chocolate Cake.”

The cake recipe was easy and required no mixers or fussy kitchen equipment. I followed the recipe exactly and was pleased with how well it came out.

It came out of the springform pan without any problems, and removing the parchment paper from the now top of the cake went smoothly, keeping the cake intact perfectly. Sometimes the paper sticks and ruins the edges of the cake.

After letting the cake cool completely and the ganache was made, the recipe says to frost the cake with the ganache on a wire rack. Here is what the recipe writer fails to mention, what side of the cake is the top and the bottom? How do you get the frosted cake from the wire rack onto a serving plate or stand without ruining it?

I know the answers to both of those questions, but thinking like a beginner cook/baker, I would be confused and honestly unsure what to do. It would help if you didn’t have to look at other recipes or a Youtube video to answer questions about the one you are using. Right?

I did go to other flourless chocolate cake recipes and found half of them told you exactly how to frost the cake with the ganache frosting and the other half assumed you knew how to.

Remember what I said never to ASSUME anything; it always makes an “ASS out of U and ME.” See what I did there? 🤓

Ignoring the recipe’s instructions about frosting on a wire rack, I inverted the cake onto a cake stand and then frosted the cake with the ganache frosting. I wasn’t thrilled with the piping of the warm peanut butter because when I was piping it onto the cake in lines, it globbed out and made me curse up a storm.

I remedied the problem when I dragged a skewer through the frosting but hated how the edges of the cake looked unfinished. I piped peanut butter around the edges and carefully sprinkled it with chopped peanuts. I was satisfied with how it looked and stuck it in the fridge until cake time.

The other recipe I used today for clarified butter failed to mention a method that makes clarifying butter so much easier. I was watching a cooking Youtube video, and they happened to be clarifying butter for chicken. In the video, the Korean food stall cook used a ladle and a sieve to remove the butterfat foam from the top of the butter.

Every time I attempted to clarify butter, I ended up frustrated because when I scooped off the butterfat scum from the top of the butter, I lost half of my clarified butter with the scum. I stopped trying and just served melted butter whenever I made shellfish.

I looked at recipes for clarified butter, and none of them tell you about the sieve trick making it so much easier. Is this another case of professional chefs keeping secrets from home cooks, so food looks better when you go out to eat? I think so.

My clarified butter was so easy to make! I always thought it was much more complicated since restaurants have one prep cook in charge of clarifying butter and nothing else. If they are lucky, they are also trusted with other small tasks like picking herbs off stems or just zesting lemons.

Most new chefs spend months doing just one task. It’s all part of life in a professional kitchen and paying your dues, especially if you become a chef by attending and receiving a degree saying so from a culinary school and not moving up the honest or hard way, as they would call it.

Yes, an executive chef would scream at me since there were still a few tiny bits of fat debris in my clarified butter, but for our seafood boil this evening, I think it will be fine, and we all will live.

I’m glad I tried clarifying butter using the Korean cook’s hack again. Now, I am sharing it with you. Clarified butter, also called ghee, is used in Indian cooking. Now I can finally prepare my Indian dishes the proper way! Thanks, Korean food stall guy!

Here is the link to the Super Simple and Easy Flourless Chocolate Cake I made today in case anyone wants to try making it.

Look for Sam’s birthday dinner post soon! Enjoy the rest of your Sunday, guys!

I’ve been working on making a perfect French omelet for years. It’s challenging and frustrating when it doesn’t come out correctly. I don’t get as angry as I did when I was younger and threw away eggs in a fit of rage. I am calmer now, and eggs are expensive af.

There are two kinds of people in the world, one who wants the food they have thought about for days, eat or make look and taste delicious. The other doesn’t give a shit what the food looks like as long as it tastes good to them. Right?

A French omelet is not only a complicated dish to master but is used by chefs in kitchens when interviewing a chef as a job candidate. Why an omelet? It shows how organized and how neat the chef works. It offers their knowledge, expertise, and efficiency. It’s a good indicator if they are a bullshit artist or not. 

If you are wondering if there is a difference between a French omelet and an American one, the answer is yes. We’ve all seen those infamous three egg omelets at diners across America overstuffed with the filling coming out the sides. The outside is the omelet is browned and dry looking. 

Now, if you like these types of omelets, I say good for you, and you should enjoy them as often as you would like. I had never liked omelets until I first had a French omelet, which was life-changing.

It was exactly like the soft and creamy French scrambled eggs I have mastered and love so much. The first time people eat my scrambled eggs, they love them too. Most people think they have cheese in them because they are so creamy. My culinary students at school loved when I made and taught them how to make these eggs.

Before I attempted making French omelets, Marty and I watched many Youtube videos on how to make them. I watched the French Chef episode when Julia Child makes her omelets effortlessly. Even though her recipe for French omelets in Mastering the Art of French Cooking is eight pages long, she can bang out an omelet in 14-20 seconds. “It’s all in the wrist,” she says. Bullshit!

French omelets are made quickly, not 14-20 seconds quickly, but faster than an American omelet. The well-beaten eggs are poured into a hot pan with butter and stirred vigorously with a fork until they begin to set. Next, you shake the pan using your wrist to keep the omelet moving.

As soon as it is almost set, you remove the pan from the heat and tip the pan while rolling the omelet onto itself; then, the plate is held close to the pan as the omelet slides onto the plate. Easy peasy. Not so much.

So my instructions are a mere two short paragraphs, but that’s how it is done in a nutshell, and believe me, it’s more complicated than it sounds. Marty, that son of a bitch nailed his omelet the first time he tried making one.

We are so competitive that he paraded around the kitchen with his perfect omelet while I was swearing up a storm and had to eat my less-than-perfect, far-from-perfect omelet. That bastard! Lol.

Since I have to eat in the morning now taking this new medication, I decided to make myself a French omelet with a bagel for breakfast the other morning. And…it came out how it is supposed to be! Yay! It was just a plain omelet without any filling but tasted so luxuriously delicious.

It was soft, velvety, and unctuous in my mouth. Marty pretended not to notice my omelet as he ate his bagel at the other end of the kitchen island. He saw it but had no comments to make.

Marty’s big thing to say these days is to ask me while I am blabbing about something random, “and this concerns me, how?” He knows it makes me crazy, so I blurt it out before he can, and we both laugh.

Not everyone gives two shits about an omelet, but foodie people, aspiring cooks, and chefs are obsessed with making them properly. The next time I am going to add a small amount of freshly snipped chives to my omelet and then perhaps move on to a small sprinkling of Swiss cheese. It’s not about the fillings like in an American omelet; it’s about the simple perfection in which it’s made and the soft creamy texture.

If you have never had a French omelet, I urge you to seek a restaurant or a place that makes them. You may never go back to an American omelet again. Better yet, you could always try making one yourself. Here is a link to making a French omelet.

What is an influencer?

Noun A person or thing that influences another.

A person with the ability to influence potential buyers of a product or service by promoting or recommending the items on social media. Influencers can add serious credibility to a brand.

Whenever I open Amazon, I am shown the top trending picks by their influencers. The products I usually see are home and cooking items, and now and again, some fashion items. I found that Amazon had an influencer job application on its website yesterday. Who knew?

Who are these social media influencers? How do you become one? How do you get paid? Is this a career? All very good questions with some simple answers.

Influencers are people who have built a reputation on social media using their knowledge and expertise on a specific topic. Influencers make daily posts on social media about that topic and generate large followings of people who pay attention to what they have to say.

Brands love influencers because they create trends and encourage their followers to buy their products.

There are different types of influencers, and they are ranked by the number of followers they have.

~ Mega-influencers have more than 1 million followers. Celebrities such as Gordon Ramsey, Justin Bieber, Dwayne Johnson, and Christiano Ronaldo are Mega-influencers.

~ Macro-influencers are people with between 40,000 and 1 million followers. They are usually experts in their field or B-grade celebrities who haven’t made it big yet.

~Micro-influencers are regular everyday people who have become known for their knowledge about a special topic. They have between 1,000 and 40,000 followers.

~ Nano-influencers are new to the game. These people have a small number of followers in a highly specialized field. Think of being a big fish in a small pond. This type of influencer is not useful to most brands.

The bigger the influencer with the most followers attracts bigger brands and makes bigger commissions. Celebrities can make up to 1 million dollars for a single social media post! Shit!

So why in the hell am I talking about influencers anyway? The other day Marty and I were on the road after production making deliveries and needed to stop for lunch. I always check my phone for gluten-free choices, and this time something new popped up, a place called Viva Empanadas.

Before ordering any food, we spoke with a woman who was the business owner. The empanada place was in a food gallery set up like a food court with different vendors and community seating inside and outside.

Let me tell you; this young woman had me at hello. We started to ask about gluten-free and if those empanadas were fried with the wheat ones when she got a huge smile on her face and began telling us all about her business.

The food was not only safe to eat, but killer! It was delicious and made with so much love you could taste it. Marty said it was his best bite of food out so far this year. We spoke with the owner Veronica at length and told her about a Facebook group called Gluten-free Albany.

It’s a group page for people to share places, products, and food establishments that are either gluten-free safe or warn everyone to watch out for cross-contamination or a poorly trained staff.

Veronica is new to the area; she recently moved to the Albany area from Brooklyn, NY, because she couldn’t afford brick and mortar rent in NYC and outgrew her food truck. I promised her I would tell the group about her new business that opened only two months ago.

Later that night, this is what I wrote on the Gluten-free Albany page:

We had a great experience today at a new place called Viva Empanadas Latin Kitchen at Gallery 7 in Latham today. The owner Veronica is very passionate about her food and having something that everyone can eat, from gluten-free, vegetarian, vegan down to traditional varieties. 

Veronica and her staff are knowledgeable and are extremely careful about cross-contamination. They have a separate dedicated fryer for all gluten-free empanadas. We tried four different kinds of empanadas, and each one was more delicious than the next. Marty said it was his best bite eaten out this year which is a big compliment. 

I told Veronica we would tell you guys about her and her new business she opened only two months ago. The prices are good, which is something that is important to her. She is super friendly, proud, and passionate about her food and is a fantastically talented cook. Tell her the spätzle people sent you. Lol.

By the next morning, over 800 group members had read the post. By that afternoon, 1,100 saw it. While Marty and I were in production, he reminded me I forgot to tell everyone the important part of her business. The thing we loved most about it. So I wrote another post:

I was so excited to tell everyone about Viva empanadas that I forgot to mention the most impressive part of her business…the time, effort, and love that goes into each of her gluten-free empanada doughs. She told us her story of how she peels the cassava or yucca root and boils it until soft, then mashes it and works it into the dough. She does the same thing with the green plantains and corn. 

All of her doughs are naturally gluten-free the way they were meant to be made in Latin America. The meats are slowly braised and tender, flavorful and unctuous. All of this work is an incredible part of her whole business...

Since yesterday another 950 people saw my second post. There are only 2,000 members of the group, which meant more than half read my recommendation. I read comments on my two posts from members who either went there the next day and had a great experience or planned to go. Everyone was so excited and thanked me for telling them about this new find. This group really watches out for each other!

I got a personal message from Veronica thanking me and wanted to share with me how many new customers are coming in and saying they saw my post. Marty told me I was an influencer. How do you like that? A gluten-free food influencer. Huh.

I didn’t plan or even think I was influencing people or the brand Viva Empanadas. I wanted to help another new small business owner be successful. I also wanted the members of our group who are always looking for another safe place to eat and can trust to know about it. I achieved both!

I believe we need to support, lift up, and cheer on other amazing, hard-working small business owners. We have had many influencers post about our spätzle over the last five years; one post got as many as 10,000 likes. Social media is like a mighty freight train that can either make or break you.

If you are in Albany, gluten-free or not, I urge you to try Viva Empanadas located in the Gallery 7 Market in Latham, NY. You will not be disappointed or sick! Tell her the spätzle people sent you. 😂

I don’t know how this happened. Marty is from Germany, and I am a lover of all things from France, and yet, we never heard of flammkuchen until early last year. The direct translation is “flame cake” or “pie cooked in flames.”

We have a wholesale restaurant account in Greenwich, NY, not far over the New York border. The restaurant is called Elsasser’s Beim 111. A year and a half ago, the chef & owner, Chris, contacted us and wanted to use our spätzle on his Germanic food menu.

That’s another thing we never heard of either; Germanic food. Chris’ new restaurant serves flammkuchen, many kinds of brats, and different dinner specials weekly. We have made deliveries to his place but have never eaten there since we are there at weird times of the day.

Lately, I’ve been watching a cooking and travel series on BBC television with Chef Rick Stein. I like Chef Stein’s approach to food and travel; it’s different from others I’ve watched in the past. He uses literature, history, and art to describe or tell about an area and the food.

I am watching Rick Stein’s “Secret France” series, and of course, I love it. On this food adventure, he takes you to hidden food treasure stops, not tourist trap restaurants or even places in big cities in France. These gems are where the locals eat, and the chefs cook with their souls using whatever fruits, nuts, vegetables, meats, and dairy is right around them.

When Chef Stein was in the Alsace region of France, he made flammkuchen. He called it Tarte Flambée because he was in France. The Alsace region went back and forth between Germany and France and thus created Germanic cuisine. Huh, now I know.

Flammkuchen is a German/French pizza with a very thin crust and is topped with creme frâiche, thinly sliced onions, bacon, or lardons, which are thick chunks of bacon, sometimes with Swiss or Gruyere, grated nutmeg, salt, and pepper.

How could we not of heard of this type of pizza before? Flammkuchen was originally made by German farmers who made bread once a week. To test the temperature of their wood-fired oven, they would scrap aside the embers and throw in a thin piece of dough that should be cooked in a minute or two if the temperature is correct.

The farmers later began topping their “test” dough and had themselves a nice lunch or snack. The rest is flammkuchen history, you might say.

After watching Chef Stein make his tarte flambée or flammkuchen, I knew I needed to make it too. I found his recipe online, see the link above, and decided to make the one I just watched him make. Unlike pizza crust, it is an unleavened dough that doesn’t contain yeast. Of course, I made a gluten-free version.

You must use creme frâche for flammkuchen, which cannot be substituted with sour cream because it is too sour. Creme frâiche has a less sour and almost nutty taste. I decided to make my own since it seemed easy enough.

When I looked at creme frâiche recipes, I saw it takes a minimum of 24 hours to make. Besides time, the recipe only calls for two ingredients, heavy cream, and buttermilk or sour cream.

I used a glass measuring cup and added a cup of heavy cream with three tablespoons of sour cream. I covered it with a towel and let it sit for 24 hours at room temperature.

It was like a science experiment as I kept checking the consistency and smell. As I watched it thicken, I saw the chemical reaction of the butterfat and bacterial culture turn into creme frâiche. No thickening agents are permitted in creme frâiche; this is serious business in Europe, so I used the word permitted above.

The creme frâiche had a consistency of a firmer whipped cream with a slightly tangy and nutty flavor. It was nothing like whipped cream or sour cream; it had its own flavor. This was my first time trying it.

I used regular bacon since I had no lardons on hand, which I sautéed a bit before adding to the flammkuchen. I sliced onion on my mandolin so I could get paper-thin slices. I grated some Swiss cheese and grabbed my nutmeg rasp (grater) and whole nutmeg.

I made the dough and rolled it out on parchment paper. I slathered on the creme frâiche and then topped it with the sautéed bacon pieces, thinly sliced onions, a small amount of Swiss cheese, nutmeg, salt, and pepper.

It looked weird going into the oven but immediately started smelling delicious. When I pulled the flammkuchen out of the oven, I couldn’t wait to try some.

Ok, this surprised me; it was my best bite of 2022 so far this year! It was that good. It has a different texture than pizza, and the combination of ingredients was a home run! Marty and Sam loved it as much as I did. Holy shit, it was good!

The next day, I told Marty I couldn’t stop thinking about the flammkuchen. When Sam woke up, he said the same thing to me, “I don’t know why but I keep thinking about that flammkuchen.” He loves the same type of food as I do and is also a foodie, always thinking about food.

I just looked at the menu at our customer’s place, Elsassers Beim 111, and the menu looked delicious and reasonably priced. It is right on Main Street in Greenwich, NY. 111 Main Street, to be exact. His flammkuchen looks delicious! Now I know how you can have an entire restaurant concept centered around flammkuchen. Chris makes a traditional flammkuchen along with several different types of toppings.

Today, I made a second batch of creme frâiche. I used a creamer warmer that I got from a couple of friends of mine, MJ and Stephanie. They didn’t know what to do with it, but now I do! It’s my new handy-dandy creme frâiche maker, and I love the look and design of it.

Flammkuchen has been requested over the weekend; they don’t care when or with what; they just want it. I do too! Trust me; it’s that good! yum!

I was making our dinner this afternoon, so it will be ready when I get home from bellydance later tonight. I made chicken marsala, mashed potatoes, and glazed carrots. Sounds yummy right?

I realized when making the carrots how I don’t cook like a home cook anymore. When I was a home cook, I would cut the carrots, put them in a pot of salted boiling water, and cook them until they were crisp-tender.

Next, I would get out a colander and drain the carrots. Then, I would take a sauté pan and melt some butter, then add the carrots, brown sugar, and salt. I would sauté until the brown sugar and butter got thick and bubbling.

What’s wrong with that? It seems correct, but it produces more dishes and takes more time to get to the same finished product, which in this case is glazed carrots.

Now, I throw carrots into one of my banged up, tried and true, restaurant-style steel frying pans and add about half a cup of water, a couple of tablespoons of butter, and brown sugar. I add a big pinch of kosher salt.

I crank the frying pan on high and cover it with another steel frying pan; I am always grateful Marty got me two of these pans instead of only one.

I let the carrots cook undisturbed for ten minutes and poked a paring knife in one of the carrots. They were crisp, tender! I took off the lid and cooked the carrots on medium for less than five minutes, and the glaze was shiny, bubbling, and thick.

What would have taken at least 25 minutes took less than 15 minutes. I don’t know about you, but ten minutes is a big deal in my world. Not having to wash another pot, lid and colander is priceless.

This is how they would do it on “the line” in a restaurant; quickly, efficiently, and most of all, delicious. I have never worked on the line in a busy restaurant, but I am training as I will someday. That is something on a to-do list of mine.

I am still struggling with fatigue and headaches from my new medicine, which could take more than two weeks to go away. I am still going to dance class tonight because I want to and won’t let a stupid headache get in the way of my joy.

Have a good night, everyone! I can’t wait to come home and eat the dinner I just made; it smells so damn good in here.🙂