Eat your books!

The Edible Book contest was held today! From the SBCC website: "...the second annual “SBCC Edible Books Festival” competition on Wednesday, March 24 in the library. This international festival is held annually around April 1, the birthday of French gastronome Jean-Anthelme Brillat-Savarin (1755-1826), famous for his book Physiologie du goût, a witty meditation on food. The event is a way to have fun celebrating our love of books and to reflect on our attachment to food and in our culture. All SBCC faculty, staff and students are eligible to enter. Just create something EDIBLE that 1) Looks like a book or 2) Acts like a book or 3) Is a pun on a book."
There were many, many wonderful entries. My favorites:

Best In Show Winner!
"The Jungle Book"
cake created by Pegeen Soutar





"Banana Karenina"
--Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy

"Jaws"
--novel, Peter Benchley










"War and Peeps" made from Easter chick Peeps
--"War and Peace", Leo Tolstoy

"Oh, The Places You'll Go"
--Dr. Seuss


There were so many more...an intricate cake for "Jungle Book", "Lord of the [Onion] Rings", "Out Of Africa" with an enormous cookie shaped like the continent with exit routes, a beautiful fondant "Mad Hatter" cake and a silver punchbowl with [blood] red punch surrounded by the mists of dry ice for "In Cold Blood". View the winning entries...See the 2009 entries..

Mine was a book of wonton sheets, covered with nori and bound with Chinese pea pod stems with the following tasty tidbits of "Edible Haiku":

*note: Dr. D. is our Food Safety class professor, teaching us to stay out of the kitchen when we're sick!


Pea pods crisp and green,
The bush bending from the weight.
Crunch, crunch, eat them up!


Mince, mash, julienne--
So many ways to cook food.
What a lot of pots!

Aspiring cooks wait,
Will the souffle fall?
Chefs' dreams float on air.

Sneezing and coughing,
A student still goes to class.
Doctor D. hates this.

Recipes and words,
Feed your hunger for knowledge:
The edible books.

BABY ARTICHOKE AND MUSHROOM QUICHE:


Cheddar Cheese Crust:

*use the recipe from 2/11/10 post. To roll out the dough, put the dough ball on a sheet of parchment paper and roll into a circle larger than your pie pan. You can invert the crust with the paper to put into the pie pan, pushing the dough into place, then peeling back the paper. Trim the crust to fit and save the dough  to make empanadas. Cover and store the pie crust in the refrigerator until ready to fill.


Filling:


Cut the pointed ends of the artichokes off and peel away any tough outer leaves. Quarter the artichokes. Slice the mushrooms. Spread the oil on the bottom of a frying pan, then add the artichokes, garlic, oregano and thyme and cook over medium heat for 20 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add the mushrooms and cook another 10 minutes, the artichokes and mushrooms should be softened but not soft. Remove from heat to cool. Mix the eggs and half and half, then stir in the Gruyere, salt, pepper and artichoke mixture. Pour into the unbaked pie crust and sprinkle with the Parmesan. Bake for around 45 minutes until the eggs are set and the crust is golden brown. Serve with a spinach salad and the 2004 Glass Mountain Syrah. Serves 8.

WEEK #8 CULINARY SCHOOL:
Not my best week, overall, either in class or in life! I baked the baklava too long--waiting for the phyllo to brown, the insides got too toasted. I covered them with a brandy sauce infused with mint and plated them with melon and whipped cream but they were NOT my best work. The rest of the class made beautiful food! And my roasted garlic and red pepper hummus turned out well--very easy, just pureed the roasted garlic and red pepper with chickpeas, lemon, salt and paprika, then stirred in some parsley. My favorite team table had bite sized mazza of shrimp with feta, tomato stuffed with couscous, excellent babba ghanoush on raw carrot slices (great contrast of textures) and baklava with carrot syrup. Sadly, to top off my low-performance week, none of the photos of their table turned out. Spring break--I need it!