The One Candy to Rule Us All

Like all rational humans, I view Williams-Sonoma with a blend of longing and hatred. I have a college degree and I work hard and dammit I WANT ME SOME OF THAT STUFF RICH PEOPLE EAT! I can't afford the Mauviel copper pots, hand hammered by French artisans with their pewter lid handles in the shape of tiny sculpted squashes and acorns--my not-as-good copper pots came from countless hours combing through twelve different Marshalls stores and digging through broken candlesticks and snowflake shaped spatulas until I found each of my 60% off pots one at a time. It took me a year. But Rich People Food--I mean, I know how to work a search engine. There's stuff on the Inter-web-thingy, like, lists of instructions, or recipes, if you will, for how to make things. I COULD HAVE THAT FOOD (If I make it my damn self).

In fact, Williams-Sonoma dares me to make that food. 

Two different colors and puuuuuuure flake sea salt! Woooooo, pay no attention to the man behind the curtain, this is Faaaaaancy people fooooood....

Their Christmas catalog is one of the coolest and most envy and rage inspiring 29 pages of quasi-literature known to man. And among the ridiculously expensive gadgets (Mauviel copper fondue pot, $770--really? People still fondue? Is this a wife swapping party? What are you even talking about with your 1962 cocktail party madness?!?) is the cornerstone of the Williams-Sonoma Christmas economy--peppermint bark. A Williams-Sonoma store may sell only one $1500 reclaimed barn wood chicken coop with artisan hammered copper roofing to a crazy aristocratic chicken lady in heels but there are enough middle-class poseurs who'll buy that damn peppermint bark to keep the little artisan elves who live in the back of Martha Stewart's elf shed in reclaimed barn wood and artisan copper to hammer for the rest of the fiscal year. And not only does Williams-Sonoma know that the Suburban sheep will buy it, they know we'll try to make it ourselves and they scoff--yes, SCOFF!--at our attempts. "Our nostalgic peppermint bark is often copied but never matched in flavor." Really, WS? 

Oh, WE CAN GO. 

Alright. First of all, peppermint bark has three ingredients--dark chocolate, white chocolate, and candy canes. So you can just get a cheap pounds of dark chocolate, a pound of white chocolate, and a box of candy canes for a few bucks and make your own peppermint bark for way cheaper than Williams-Sonoma (mini-win). I mean...you *could*.  Sure, Hershey's and Nestle chocolate chips are a thing, totally.  Hershey's and Nestle are okay if you want to put them into the middle of some cookie dough but people we are not hiding our chocolate in brown sugar dough as something crunchy to kind of notice and go oh, hey, chocolate, what's up? If you use the cheap chocolate THEY WIN. "Often copied but never matched in flavor"? We have to make peppermint bark that at least matches in flavor. AT LEAST. Really, what we're going for here is the utter destruction and humiliation of the Williams-Sonoma franchise. We want that candy to slink away in shame like the cheap tarted-up tin-bait it is.

Go home, Tin-Bait. You're drunk. 

Okay fine. YES. You could use Guittard. You can buy it in most supermarkets like Von's, Sprouts, and Wild Oats; and import stores like Cost Plus carry it, especially in December. It's not that expensive and for the price per pound, you can make more than twice as much as you get in the Williams-Sonoma tin. And it is exactly what Williams-Sonoma uses; charging you $30/lb to give us what they bill as a heavenly confection and it's the same chocolate you can buy in the grocery store. It's not even the BEST chocolate you can buy in the grocery store. They just don't think we're smart enough to notice. DO YOU SEE THE EVIL?! 

We must destroy them. 

The Fellowship of the Ring doesn't just grab like, some random skinny guy and give him a bow and say hey, follow this quasi-annoying short barefooted guy from Wilfred around until you see a volcano, don't die. They got ORLANDO BLOOM to shoot a bow while he's running up a chain to the top of a monstro-elephant head and shoot that giant monster in the face and still have effortlessly
straight glowing blond hair. If we want to make the One Candy to Rule Us All we need the Orlando
Bloom of chocolate and that, my friends, is Callebaut and Valrhona. 

Callebaut and Valrhona are the chocolate of choice for professional chocolatiers. It's not what the Rich Folk feed us poor slobs, it's what they feed themselves. Sparingly. Callebaut white chocolate is so soft, so perfectly buttery delicious, it melts into your hands. It has flavor and that flavor, my friends, is not flavorless wax lard and lies, as we've been told all our lives when we were unfortunate enough to be the kid who for the white chocolate Easter bunny just to have variety between you and your siblings. Callebaut white chocolate is a tiny bit nutty and buttery and smooth as the cabana boy you wish was rubbing cocoa butter on your back at your vacation home in St. Barths. (That's a thing. I think.) The Callebaut dark chocolate is the perfect PERFECT balance of bitter and delicately sweet chocolate with a smell that when you melt it will almost certainly bring someone to your door asking for sex. A dab of this stuff between your boobs will let you rule the free world. I feel certain it's how Jennifer Lopez gets people to let her make movies. 

Have I convinced you? Buy some real chocolate. They sell it at Whole Foods and yes that is an intimidating store but just walk in, get your chocolate and get out before you get bogged down in organic truffle oil and sustainably farmed hemp candles.

Okay so, let's cook. You need:

1 lb dark chocolate (60% cacao, bittersweet)

1 lb white chocolate (it's the white one. You'll see.)

4 candy canes (yay! Cheap at Target!)

Peppermint extract (also Target!)

Vanilla extract (you have some! It's free!)

Parchment paper (Target)

A gallon plastic Ziploc bag

A hammer (calm down.)

A spatula

A pan (jelly roll or a cookie sheet)

A knife

A pot

A double boiler (basically a Nother Pot)

1. Start the double boiler doing its thing. You can use a bowl set over a pot of boiling water as well. The basic idea is not to let the chocolate touch the bottom of a hot pot. Cut up the dark chocolate into chunks or shavings and throw it in the top part of the double boiler to melt. Stir in 1/2 tsp peppermint extract. Yeah. You heard me. We're not just making a chocolate layer cake like a bunch of noobs here. I said put the peppermint right IN. THE. CHOCOLATE.

2. Lay out a piece of parchment paper into the pan. The chocolate is thick (yay! You bought Callebaut so it's not separating and leaving oily crap all over the place!) so it won't run. Pour out dark chocolate and spread over the surface of the pan until it's as thick as desired. I like about 1/4" so it has a nice bite to it.

3. Clean the cutting board, knife, spatula and double boiler and dry completely before repeating the process with white chocolate. Any water getting in the chocolate will absolutely ruin it so be careful. Cut it up, melt it down, boom. Add 1/2 tsp vanilla extract and 1/4 tsp peppermint extract. Yeah. Vanilla. Often copied but never matched in flavor my ass. Pour it out on top of the dark chocolate and carefully spread it so that the two flavors don't mix.

4. Unwrap four candy canes and put in Ziploc gallon bag (use the gallon bags because they're thick and better able to withstand the beating you're about to throw down). Take the hammer and beat those candy canes like they're the thin red and white walls separating us from the World of Rich People Food. Because that, my friend is what you're doing. Beat down those walls.

5. Sprinkle crushed candy canes over the white chocolate layer and let cool. When it's hardened, which will take a few hours, pick up by the parchment paper and pan will be as clean as if you had a sous chef coming along behind you to clean up. You don't do dishes. Break up the candy into whatever sized pieces you want and either eat it or give it away to your friends like a baller.

6. Practice your smug face. Smiling gives you wrinkles. 

Autumn in Heels--Eating Locally, Eating Seasonally

In Southern California we don't get much of an autumn so we really, I mean REALLY celebrate seasonal flavors like, ON THE FREAKING DOT of September 1st. And by celebrate seasonal flavors I mean go to Starbucks as early as they open so it'll be sort of cool enough to enjoy a hot drink and get a pumpkin spice latte. If you happen to be in luck and it's a slightly overcast day you will definitely wear your brisk Arctic polar fleece Northface zip-up jacket, because really, when are you going to have another chance to wear it and pretend we have seasons. By October the infinity scarves and Ugg boots make their appearance, probably with leggings and the thinnest long sleeved shirt you own, because, again, it's usually in the 80s all the way through the start of November.

The relentless wild Californian Infinity Scarf develops a symbiotic
relationship with its prey before ultimately devouring her.

We hear about this "Autumn" you other states talk about and it sounds awesome. A whole new wardrobe that you only use for those three months! Dressing to match the foliage of trees that somehow change their colors?! That sounds magical. In So-Cal we have cypress trees, palm trees, and lawns. When we go to pumpkin patches they typically are big parking lots that have been covered with stacked bales of hay and a bunch of straw on the ground (which crunches satisfyingly under your Ugg boots and makes you feel all Autumnal-ly) and carnival rides to disguise the fact that you're getting the very same pumpkins you could pick up at the big box grocery stores. They even come in the self-same packing boxes. It's hard for us to find authentic Autumn experiences in the land of eternal summer--so we turn to comfort foods and things flavored with cinnamon and squash. Our myriad local farm-to-table gastropubs will reinvent the butternut squash ravioli and fried squash blossoms and pumpkin cheesecake all over their seasonal menus this month. 

So yes, yes, a thousand times yes on the pumpkin spice latte (I like a nice pumpkin shot in a chai latte, myself). But truly eating seasonally, in a way that's a bit more meaningful than gingerbread cookies and butternut squash soup, is a little more time and thought consuming. 

I first read about the concept of only eating seasonal foods when I read the Barefoot Contessa's book Back to Basics: Fabulous Flavor from Simple Ingredients. In the preface, Ina Garten describes her impossibly glamorous foray to Paris and how difficult it was as an American, being completely used to having any ingredient under the sun eternally available, to come to terms with having to cook only with what was available. In particular, she relates her attempt to cook a traditional American Thanksgiving dinner, when she, Ina Garten of Martha's Vineyard, was used to having access to heirloom veg fed turkeys, seventeen different pumpkins of varying colors, and wild cranberries from what I imagine is her own William's-Sonoma-crafted cranberry bog--only to find out that those things are only sold frozen and in cans in France, if at all. (Because, apparently, not all Parisians enjoy eating the cuisine of English people who were making do with things they found in the woods.) Still, I appreciated her story of gradually giving in to the season and allowing her inspiration for dinner to come from what was fresh and available where she was,of learning to cook in a way that celebrated a vegetable or fruit that was at the height of its flavor. It made me think about the December bing cherries that appear in stores like a breath of summer, shiny and rosy-cheeked and whispering, "Now you can have it all, now you can really have it all..." I remember buying a big two and something pound bag for a whopping $24, trembling with anticipation and not even waiting to get to my car before popping one into my mouth, expecting to be met with a burst of sweet juice. Instead I was met by hard, joyless lies, which eventually gave way to the sour truth--there is nothing, NOTHING, worse than a December cherry. 

Why eat seasonally, when we have access to almost everything almost all the time? It's the pumpkin-spice-latte effect. Starbucks actually sells pumpkin syrup all year round. You can get pumpkin lattes literally. Any. Time. You could have a nice hot pumpkin latte and you could even get them to put a dash of cinnamon or toffee sprinkles on top in the middle of July. The fact that it's on the chalk-menu in burnt orange chalk-pen with curlicues of green like pumpkin vines around it reminds you that you haven't had one since last fall and now you NEED that pumpkin hit like an infinity scarf needs a white girl to go with it. 

If pumpkin syrup, containing zero real pumpkin and mostly made up of corn syrup, can be so good,  how amazing could fall fruits and vegetables, cooked well and at the height of their flavor, be? This table of local fall foods got me thinking about more than just pumpkin and butternut squashes. Broccoli and cauliflower are at their sweetest and least bitter in the fall; roasted carrots (cut into matchsticks, toss with melted butter, salt and pepper, cook at 375 for 30 minutes. Seriously. Stop boiling...); brussells sprouts (Salt & Cleaver in Hillcrest, San Diego has possibly THE most amazing caramelized Brussels Sprouts with bacon, balsamic vinegar, and granny smith apples); grapes (vineyards are one of the only spots for seasonal color for us in California), pears and of course apples. All these things have become mostly season-less in American grocery stores but their flavor is absolutely amazing right now. 

Eating locally goes hand in hand with eating seasonally, and here's the thing. It's very haute to eat locally and visit the farmer's markets (in San Diego, there's a farmer's market or three on every day of the week) during the summer. Nothing, and I mean nothing, can compete with the flavor of a farm stand summer strawberry. The grocery store strawberry has just had to sacrifice too much flavor in favor of the sturdiness that lets them be shipped all over the country; its a cheap truck stop cousin to the ultra sweet, delicate strawberry you can grow in your own backyard. The farm-stand strawberry is the next best thing, and at almost the same price per pound as the monstrous, tasteless version you get at the grocery store, it's ridiculous not to get the farmer's market version. Buying farm-stand strawberries keeps that strain of strawberry alive, because in case you haven't noticed, you literally cannot buy a strawberry that sweet in a plastic clamshell at a big box grocery store. They are selling (and their suppliers are growing) an entirely different product, something you almost can't, really, call a strawberry anymore because its resemblance to a real, hot from the summer sun, strawberry is so remote. Limp, tasteless, and sometimes moldy? (I'm looking at you Vons. I AM LOOKING AT YOU.) or sweet, acidic, and complex? Hurrah for biodiversity!

Except even in California the strawberry goes out of season. The guys at the farmer's market that were selling me corn and summer squash now have kohlrabi and artichokes and brussells sprouts. The orchard people don't have cherries anymore, they have figs and pluots and pears. And while figs may not be as sexy as cherries, they're still sweet and sultry and delicious--and buying that fig from a local farmer keeps them in business till cherry and strawberry season rolls around again. 

This morning I decided to drive out to Julian, the little orchard town in the mountains northeast of San Diego proper. My visit just happened to coincide with the start of the fall u-pick season (labor day weekend) and Apple-Starr Orchards had trees dripping with Bosc, Comice, and Anjou pears before you could even get out to the gala and granny smith apple orchards. I've been to several different "pumpkin patches" all over San Diego and the neighboring areas but most are not true working farms, just patches of land where someone parked a tractor for photo ops and pumpkins laid out in a row not far from the cardboard shipping crates. These orchards were true orchards, with, yes, imperfect fruit, weirdly shaped fruit, some worm and bird damage, some bruises--but these trees also held the sweetest, most bursting-with-flavor pears and crunchy apples I'd ever tasted. We munched as we picked, developing an eye for what colors each kind of apple and pear meant the ripest, sweetest fruit, using a long-handled claw-basket pole to reach the delectable fruits at the top of the tallest branches. Without a bit of cinnamon or sugar these fruits were perfectly, fantastically Autumn. 

Laden down with "peck" bags (12 pounds) we headed into town to Julian Hard Cider, a local brewery that makes cold-press cider with only local apples, champagne yeast from local grapes and seasonal ingredients. Since it was so early in the fall we were lucky enough to find their Black-and-Blue, a blueberry and blackberry hard apple cider, and my favorite, Cherry Bomb, an absolutely explosive cherry and apple hard cider; but they also had Apple Pie and Harvest Apple, rich with cinnamon and nutmeg and all the things we love about fall. The tasting room is small, with a bar made of wood and corrugated steel from local reclaimed barns and chandeliers made from cut-glass cider bottles, and for $1 a taste we sampled everything they had in stock, finishing our hot apple picking September afternoon in a haze of Apple Pie and Razzmatazz Hard Ciders while downing carnitas from the farm stand next door.

Celebrating seasonal flavors, check. I might even have room for some kohlrabi, depending on what that turns out to actually be--after a quick pumpkin chai latte.