(Winter at Amherst)

(Decorated my dorm with pictures of food)

One aspect of my Amherst that I wish were better is the food culture. In terms of food, Amherst cannot compare to NYC. I knew that from the start, but it has somewhat put my food blogging to a slow halt. Nevertheless, I did what I could. While I wasn’t blogging, I designed a course on Molecular Gastronomy, about the scientific processes behind cooking. In the course of a few months, I read through about 95% of the entire Modernist Cuisine! There were some times when I thought I would go insane if I had to read another hundred pages, but the experience was worth it and I’d do the course again in a heartbeat. I’ll tell you more about the Molecular Gastronomy course in the near future, stay tuned.

(International Olive Oil Competition Dinner in International Culinary Center for Molecular Gastronomy trip)

Even though the food culture here is not that vibrant (access to kitchens is limited and inconvenient, dining hall could be better, local eateries are a hit or miss), I’ve started to make the best of what’s available. Next year, I hope to do something to improve the food culture and take more time to cook with friends. I will continue to go to GoBerry, a local froyo store that’s way better than Red Mango (I never thought that I’d say this, but it’s true.) And I will cherish homemade food more every time I go back to NYC during vacations.

(Developed quite a tea obesssion this year)

All in all, I realized that no matter where I am, food is still an important part of my life. I photograph food a little too much, but this is how I remember the food, the memories, the people who I eat with. So enjoy the food pictures (or suffer if you’re hungry…just kidding).

(Enjoying Mom’s cooking during vacations)

I will be embarking on a new food adventure this summer in NYC and spending a ten days in Ireland, so I can’t wait to share my journey with you soon!

 (My lovely dorm, Stearns Hall)

Well, during my spring break, I got to satisfy my tea obsession at the Coffee and Tea Festival in NYC on March 23rd. I already have so much tea in my dorm room that it’d last me a couple of years, but there was no way that I would miss this event. I got my butt out of bed and stood on the line that wrapped around the 69th Regiment Armory, on my way to tea nirvana.

There was a sizable crowd during the first two hours, to the point that it was difficult to access the tea samples, but the crowd did thin out towards the late afternoon. The first table that I visited was Pairteas, a company that uses research on flavor chemicals to pair teas with food. I tried their taste test, where I tasted the cinnamon candy, spit it back out (I forgot this step but it still sort of worked), popped in a mint lifesaver and then spit that back out as well. The key is that you first taste the cinnamon, then the mint candy overpowers the taste and then the cinnamon taste comes back again after you spit out the mint candy. Here’s a tidbit from their site which reflects on the purpose of this taste test, “Binding of a food chemical to one receptor can actually inhibit the function of another receptor: you will sense one array of tastes if you drink a tea without food, but a very different array when you pair the same tea with specific foods: many tastes of the tea disappear while others stand out!”

Next, Runa Tea. It is not made from real tea leaves (Camellia sinensis), but from guayusa, an Amazonian tree leaf. With as much caffeine as coffee and twice as much antioxidants as tea, it makes a good alternative to both coffee and tea.

Press Tea uses a special method of brewing tea– pressing them. Quite a novel approach and I’m surprised that no one had thought of that before. (Actually, I did brew tea in a French press before, but does that count?) I’m not quite sure how the taste differs from normally brewed tea, since the tea sample I tried was masked by the added sugar.

The Four Season Spring Oolong (right) from Fang Gourmet Tea was delicious, and better than the Golden Lily (left).

Soursop (flavored green tea) from Kanlo Tea, which was slightly sweet and tart.

Jasmine green tea, my favorite kind of tea, from Lotus Tea.

Bingley’s Tea Limited, Jane Austen-themed.

T, which unfortunately only gave sample sessions for a fee.

Bee Raw Honey sampling! Go for the Colorado Star Thistle, or try the New York Aster for  a beady texture. I don’t usually put honey in my tea unless I’m sick, but there must be ways to incorporate honey and tea in desserts.

Andrews & Dunham Damn Fine Tea, with super cool product packaging.

Hortissimo, with matcha-dipped berries. Why didn’t I think of that?

Chai Diaries (chai is an Indian word for “tea”).

This is Everlasting Teas, run by a father-and-son team. The tea leaves from the four oolong tastings we tried all came from the farms that the founders personally visited. I bought their Jin Xuan, a creamy-tasting oolong.

Petit fours from Three Tarts after the Afternoon Tea seminar.

Sencha from Sara’s Tea Caddie.

Tired of tea? No way.

Rau Om’s tofu misozuke is the next best thing to going to Japan myself and ordering it. I trekked to a Fairway Market in Manhattan and bought one. It tasted slightly astringent and aromatic when paired with sesame-studded crackers. The sake flavor was noticeable, or it may have been the strong miso flavor.

If I had not known what tofu misozuke was, I would have thought that I had just eaten cheese. Is the next step to make it at home?

I tried the S’mores Cupcake– how could I not? The cupcake did not travel well since I walked all over the Upper East Side with it, but it was just the toasted marshmallow frosting that got a bit smushed. The two cupcakes are stored in a paper box, each separated by waxed paper.

The crispy, crackly graham crust beneath the chocolate cake was a welcome surprise. The chocolate ganache filling was yet another surprise, albeit a bit too sweet. I prefer Magnolia’s S’mores Cupcakes, but the Sprinkles S’mores Cupcake is worth a try. Note that this flavor is seasonal (August 2 to September 1) and the red velvet is available daily.

And… oh, yes! The customized wooden utensils are perfect for enjoying the cupcakes, bite by bite.

I am interested in molecular gastronomy, so I was excited to see a liquid nitrogen ice cream demonstration in real life… finally! I then found out that Amherst’s science library has the whole collection of Modernist Cuisine– pinch me now.

One volunteer pours the liquid nitrogen and the other stirs the ice cream mixture. No one got any cold burns from accidentally touching the liquid nitrogen. The photo below is the result of the first batch.

The photo below is the second batch, with chocolate syrup added. This one was a bit smoother than the first because the volunteers spent more time mixing the solution.

I think of Dippin’ Dots whenever liquid nitrogen and ice cream are in the same sentence. Dippin’ Dots has their own factory where their machines drip droplets of ice cream mixture into the liquid nitrogen. We did not have such a machine, but our homemade version is not too shabby.

Et violà. J’aime la (crème) glacée.

I went for the afternoon tea set that they serve until 7PM (that was my dinner), but I was surprised when I found out that the tea was not included. Afternoon tea without tea? There’s no such thing, so I ordered the jasmine green tea, which I shared with Evelyn.

The pot was quite small, so each refill was two cups worth of tea. They refilled it about six times with new tea leaves until they only refilled it with hot water, a sure but subtle signal that they wanted us to leave.

The mini bagel sandwiches were the only savory portion of the afternoon tea. The sandwich was tender and chewy but hard to eat because all the butter melted into oily liquid instead of staying as its creamy self.

The scones were the best part. Sugar-crusted, dense yet not overly so. The blueberry jam was not too gelatinous and more like a fruit compote. I took alternate bites scone + jam with scone + cream and it was soon gone.

The rest of the sweets were too dense. It definitely needed something lighter to balance out the heaviness of the bagel sandwiches and the scones. More macarons would be nice.

By the time we were done, I had gone to the men’s bathroom twice. No wonder why the guy in the kitchen was staring at me like I was a little crazy. To my defense, the sign looked more like a dancing fish than a male stick figure.

Full on buttery baked goods and tea, I brought my unfinished afternoon tea sweets home with me.

I did not expect The Tea & Honey Store to be so small– yet it has a thoughtfully curated collection of teas. They do not have house made blends, but they do have interesting types of honey, which I must try next time.

After perusing the store for a while, I decided to go with Le Palais des Thés’ Margaret’s Hope, a darjeeling waker-upper.

Loose tea leaves create a full-bodied flavor that you don’t get in regular tea bags. It is worth the inconvenience. Might as well serve it with Ladurée macarons!

Speaking of Le Palais des Thés and Ladurée… je vais apprendre le français. I hope that by the time I go to France, I will be able to speak and write French fluently.

I should go and brew some thé. Au revoir.

This dish, tamarind shrimp with suman, marks the first time I tried Filipino cuisine. It’s a bit pricey for the amount of food I was given, but the tamarind sauce was so mouthwatering that I probably could just eat it over plain rice and call it a day.

I assure you, I would’ve ordered one scoop of each ice cream flavor if I could, but I really wanted to try that Ariel-approved halo halo. Digging in was a bit of a struggle– we even had large bowls placed underneath so that the ingredients (sweet beans, palm seed, cocogel, agar agar, coconut sport and jackfruit) would not spill over. Some prefer to mix the purple yam ice cream into the shaved ice, but I didn’t want mine “under the sea” of ice.

]]> http://vivianmacaron.com/2012/09/purple-yam.html/feed 2 http://vivianmacaron.com/2012/09/sundaes-and-cones.html http://vivianmacaron.com/2012/09/sundaes-and-cones.html#comments Mon, 03 Sep 2012 12:32:26 +0000 Vivian http://vivianmacaron.com/?p=1780 Continue reading →]]> After a hot day poring through the stacks of discounted books at Strand, I need a scoop of ice cream to cool down. Despite the good variety of Asian-inspired ice cream flavors at Sundaes and Cones, I always find myself ordering the black sesame ice cream. De Bon Coeur, our high school food club, went a few months ago and President Tiffany told me how much the black sesame ice cream tasted like black sesame soup, a popular Chinese dessert. They both taste exactly the same except one is refreshingly cold and the other piping hot.

The Maeda-En black sesame ice cream you can find at Asian supermarkets do not even come close to the creamy black sesame ice cream from Sundaes and Cones. Vanilla ice cream with specks of black sesame is not enough– it has to be so intense that the ice cream is literally grey. The heady aroma of the black sesame is half the experience. That combined with the toasty smoothness of the ice cream seals the deal.

If you’re not interested in black sesame, coconut would be a safe bet. Ask for samples of the taro and lychee before buying it if you are up for more adventurous flavors.

The edges of the bar were not as perfect as the ones in Starbucks, but it came pretty close. The regular kitchen knife I used cut through the sticky marshmallow cereal like butter after I let it cool down for a bit.

These were gone in two days tops. I won’t say where they went. :)

Starbucks-Inspired Marshmallow Dream Bar (what a mouthful, literally)

Based on Campfire Marshmallow’s recipe

Makes about eight squares

1 bag of mini marshmallows

4 tbsp butter

6 cups rice krispies

1. Melt the butter in a medium-large pot in low heat.
2. Once the butter is melted, addd one bag of marshmallows. Save 1/2 cup for later.
3. Once melted, turn off the heat and add the rice krispies and mix to incorporate.
4. Once nicely distributed, add in the remaining 1/2 cup of marshmallows and incorporate.
5. Spread the mixture onto a 13×9″ tray. Pack it in gently and even out the surface with a small piece of parchment paper so it won’t stick to the mixture.
6. Gently lift one edge of the rice krispies up and fold it over the other half. The rice krispies bar should now be double in height.
7. Let it cool and then cut it into eight or more bars.

]]> http://vivianmacaron.com/2012/08/marshmallow-dream-bar.html/feed 0