Here is the video coverage from today’s demo at 61st Street Farmers Market. It was an honor that a few fellow bloggers and friends turned out. Also Stephanie Izzard was at the Market doing Market School on behalf of the Common Threads Organization. I made Lamb Sliders with Rhubarb Onion Sauce where you can find here. Note I used Brown sugar in today’s demo.
I like to think after all these years of blogging, I am finally finding my voice. The Courtney today isn’t the Courtney of yesterday which is apparent in old photos, views, passions, and beliefs. Today’s post is about reinvention, and not necessarily about food, or food blogging, but then again maybe it is? My friend AfroBella referred me to the PR folks at Eucerin to attend MORE Magazines Reinvention Convention. Eucerin sponsored Dr. Pamela Peeke, who gave a wonderful lecture on how to be your healthy fit best after 40. The same we focus on our overall health care, we need to do with our skin, the largest organ of our body. As cooks, proper care and nurturing of our skin, hands, and arms is essential to aid healing. Click here to take the Skin First Pledge.
More Reinvention Convention
Reinvent your career • Revive your look • Rev up your energy
Reimagine your future • Reinvigorate your sex life • Revise your priorities
Recharge your life
To say the day was so inspiring would be an understatement. Even now as I type this I am still buzzing on the wealth of information and shared stories I took away. With Speakers like Lee Woodruff, Dara Torres, Dana Delany. Dr. Pamela Peeke, and career coach Pamela Mitchell I realized I am in my Prime and there are so many new chapters to my story awaiting. I recognized pieces of me in stories ranging from coping with loss, being in a place career wise you don’t want to be and seeking change, tackling our changing bodies, and mostly important realizing being a woman over 40 is to be very relevant with knowledge to share. Funny thing I never really identified with being in that MORE demographic, but I am and I am proud. If you follow my tweets you will see I shared some tidbits from day with the hash tags of #skin first and #more invention.
For most of us blogging, we are already in some stage of Reinvention. I realized as I listened to career coach Pamela Mitchell that I was already practicing the 10 rules of reinvention by starting this blog. Coco Cooks has opened a whole new world for me that forced me to recognize my passion and give it legitimacy. Through the blog, I had many new opportunities, which parlayed correctly have led me to second career of sorts. It was evident that Age IS just a number (Dara Torres) and regardless if you are in the kitchen, playing field, or boardroom our hunger to succeed and have quality of life hasn’t subsided after 40. I’m reminded of a recent negative situation I have been going through with a person a decade younger. All I could think of as I listened to her know it all opinions, was to keep on living little girl ( my mother’s favorite words). Life at 30 for you now will so different from when you reach 40.And 40 will be different from 50, etc. What you thought you knew or wanted, you really didn’t know or want at all. Reinvention, be it forced or planned, is key to a successful life.
Thank you Eucerin and MORE Magazine for reminding me of that.
*Disclosure. New Media Strategies, representing Eucerin US sponsored my attendance to attend More Magazines Reinvention Convention. A $198 value.
I love the diversity that is Chicago. Yet I have to admit, its still a segregated city in many aspects.
I find the only areas where you can be truly integrated are the more expensive areas, where money or education is the common denominator. Other than that, your ethnic origin separates you. I live on a street that cuts from the east by the lake and flows all the way west. If you were to drive down it , you would see how the neighborhood shifts from shabby yet solid and genteel high rises by the lake inhabited by a racially diverse mix of academics, lawyers,doctors, students, and the mainly bourgeois.My world. A little South off this main road is the home of our nations president, Barack Obama.Continue driving a a few blocks later there is an immediate shift. A busy mostly African American thoroughfare of people ranging from people doing questionable activities, regular folks passing through on Public transit, and just people hanging out. Barber shops, African Braid shops,liquor stores,cheap fast foods, and neighborhood lounges, I couldn’t even conceive of going into, but love to look into while driving by.This little section has another name, Tobacco Road which is a paradox, because once this section of Bronzeville was alive and bursting with the greats of the African American music, and literary scene. Imagine these names hanging out and performing during the Great Migration of Blacks from the South,Nat King Cole, Lena Horne, Louis Armstrong, Billie Holiday, Sam Cooke, Dinah Washington, Miles Davis, James Brown, Redd Foxx, Richard Wright , Joe Louis,Bessie Coleman, and Gwendolyn Brooks.Off the main road today , young and affluent mostly African Americans are staging a neighborhood comeback.Keep driving then it shifts to a little pocket of blue collar Caucasians who haven’t left the area and seems worlds apart from the whole streets dynamic.
Then the road it shifts to a predominately Mexican feel with Taquería,Fruterías ,Carnicerías,
Pasteleria and Panaderia. In addition to the small shops there are
major super markets catering to the Latinos I want to visit and just explore, which I have been doing on occasion.It has been an education and eye opener . It was in one of these little shops I discovered Cajeta lollipops. Goat milk simmered down with sugar until it hardened to a lollipop .But Cajeta is often more recognized in a more sauce like form. Spread on toast, , crepes,used as an ice cream topping, or eaten straight out the jar, its up to you to adapt it. I decided to mix my love of Blackstrap rum with the slow cooked goat milk, vanilla and sugar.
Cajeta with Buckwheat Crepes
Cajeta With Black Strap Rum
*this recipe requires frequent stirring and attention. It will take abut 3 hours to complete. I went ahead and did house work while checking on my Cajeta within 10 minute intervals to stir while it was on a lower heat.
1/2 gallon (2 Qts Goat Milk) Cows milk can be used as well.
2 teaspoons of vanilla paste ( Nielsen Massey or 1 vanilla bean)
2 cups sugar
1/2 teaspoon baking soda dissolved in 1 tablespoon water for this reason to prevent the milk proteins from coagulating and aiding in the caramelizing, browning of the Cajeta.
4 tablespoons Black Strap Rum or dark rum
In a heavy stainless steel pot combine Sugar, goats milk, a seeded vanilla bean and pod, or paste.Whisk to combine. Simmer on a low heat until sugar is dissolved.Carefully add the baking soda water and the liquid will fizz up a bit. Continue to simmer on a low heat but with the simmering action visible. Stir frequently. Over time the mixture will start to deepen and brown ( 1 hour). After the first hour start to add the rum in intervals and continue to stir even more frequently. You may want to adjust heat to less or more.. The mixture should be reduced by a third, eventually to by half or more. Towards the end of cooking it will be deep and golden and start to bubble and come to rolling aggressive boil as it’s more sugar than liquid at this point.Don’t let let the Cajeta get to thick as it will thicken while cooling down. Store covered in the refrigerator. If its to thick heat for 10 seconds in the ,microwave or warm container in a batch of hot water before use.
Certain Someone and I just spent an amazing long weekend in San Francisco. My head is still reeling from all the sensational tastes, sights, and sounds of our trip. San Francisco and the whole Bay Area is truly a culinary inspiration, and no wonder so many great chefs gravitate to the region. Can you really be a bad cook in San Francisco with all the great offerings? It’s insane. I have so much to write about this short little visit, but that will come later. One thing I was itching to do was get back to my kitchen and experiment with some of the goodies I brought back.One item being the famous heirloom cult like Rancho Gordo Beans, of which I have heard about , but have never seen. I also stuffed some fantastic bulbous Spring Garlic I purchased from the Farmers Market at the Ferry Plaza. Resembling a red onion, I have been using these babies all week, thinly sliced like scallions from the bulb to the tops. I decided to make an oil poached tuna as a riff on Cannellini beans and tuna as a salad. Instead I decided to make a warm dish and throw in a few seasonal Fava beans for color. While at Cafe de la Presse , which my new buddy Denise from Chez Us recommended and you can see below, I noticed they made their own tuna confit for the Salade Nicoise.That little nugget of information served as even more inspiration for me.
Spring Garlic Oil Poached Tuna with Cannellini and Fava Beans
The Beans
2 cups Dry Rancho Gordo Runner Cannellini Beans
1 Shallot sliced in half
1/2 Spring Garlic Sliced Thin
1 cup chicken stock
olive oil
sea salt
Ground Black Pepper
Bay Leaf
The Oil Poach
1/2 Spring Garlic sliced thin
2 cups Extra Virgin Olive Oil
1 tsp dried Thyme or a few sprigs of fresh
A few slices of organic lemon
2 red tuna fillets
sea salt
fresh ground black pepper
Fava Beans ( shelled and par boiled)
Soak your dried Cannellini Beans in cold water for 6 hours. Rancho Gordo says soaking isn’t always necessary but cooking time will be longer. However I was advised at purchase, not to soak overnight or for longer periods. Place beans and water in a pot with the shallot sliced in half, spring garlic, bay leaf, and chicken stock. Simmer for a few hours until done( 2-3 hours). Season with salt and pepper towards the end of cooking.
Shell and parboil your Fava Beans, removing the second waxy casing after the par boil. Set aside.
Season your tuna steak with sea salt and pepper. Set aside and keep cool in the refrigerator.
In a small sauce pan layer the slices of spring onion, thyme , salt and pepper ,and pour in 2 cups of the olive oil. Heat up the oil to 130 F until hot. Take off heat and add the lemon slices. Allow the garlic and lemon to infuse the oil for at least 15 minutes. Gradually heat oil again and keep on a very low heat. Add the tuna steak and carefully spoon the oil over the tuna. Slowly poach for 10 minutes on a very low heat.Turn tuna over half way. Do not allow the oil to bubble on high. The tuna will be slightly pink, but more to the done side, not rare.
With a slotted spoon , dish the Cannellini Beans, and some Fava Beans onto your plate. Place the tuna,and drizzle the infused olive oil over the tuna and the beans. Garnish with the Spring Garlic within the poaching oil.
Serve with an additional squeeze of lemon juice
