Someone had to be let go on July 17, 2016… let go home early, that is. And that someone was me! Oh, what was I to do with the extra few hours of my life?! Oh, how perfect the day was that I hadn’t crammed myself into a corner with piles on piles of paperwork and taxes! Oh, what a beautiful day it was outside that I caught the best sunlight of the day, enough that I admired taking a walk… to my car to go home. I was given several extra hours on this day that I otherwise would have spent at work, and at first, I didn’t know what I was to do! But then it became clear: a timely culinary preparation of Italian culture that marries together a rather exotic blend of ingredients. I think that there is a misconception about tiramisu in that it is a very difficult dish to prepare. However, in my experience, the dish itself is not difficult. It just takes a bit of time – something we all have but never allow. That’s why I took the opportunity to make this dish today; after all, how often do you get let home early (unless your boss is planning to let you go)? This is not the delicate harmony of the experience, though, because the backbone of this dish rests in the ladyfingers, not the colorful layers of which the ladyfingers are apart. Surely, I could have bought ladyfingers at the store, except that I could not find them. Rather than waste time trying to derive a substitute or some other half-assed alternative, I chose the time-consuming method of preparing them myself. Go me, right? A+ for effort! The ladyfinger baking incited a new type of baking experience. Have you ever wondered where the angel-food-cake-like texture of certain desserts comes from? Or perhaps, a meringue? The chemistry of this design involves an understanding of a fanciful baking technique that I learned for the first time with this dish: whipping and folding. First, I had to separate egg yolks from egg whites, which I did by cracking the egg in two and dancing the yolk back in forth between the two halves. The egg white separated naturally from here. Once the egg whites were isolated, I had to whip the hell out of them until a cloud was created. This cloud is no simple feat; you must whip those whites until they don’t move – that is, until you can turn the bowl upside-down without the cloud drooping. You want it to form peaks when you release the whisk. Now, this is easy to do if you have an electric mixer… but I did not have that at my disposal. By hand, this project was a workout. Thankfully, though, I learned from my mistakes trying to make coconut macaroons and maintained a froth that was perfectly stagnant. But this is only the first step. Once you create the perfect froth, you must fold – not mix – the froth into your batter. This means you take a rubber spatula or a big ass spoon and gently “roll” the batter, as though you were bringing the bottom to the top and vice versa. If you mix it, you risk losing those air bubbles and ergo the spongey texture that the meringue guarantees. Delicacy is the key to success here, because negligence will yield a horribly incomplete and runny batch of ladyfingers. And you don’t want that, do you? A good thing to remember about this process of folding the whites with the batter: there isn’t too much froth. It may look like that at first, and perhaps you could get away leaving a bit out. But keep folding it in until it’s fully incorporated, and you’ll see that the froth measurements were not misplaced. Be wary, however, because folding too much will cause the froth stress, and it will lose its cloudy texture. Oh, how much meringue resembles a glass vase. You can see how my ladyfingers bulged just a bit, but overall the shape was maintained. And, they were beautifully spongey (because the eggs were not disturbed, they did not separate during baking)! The biggest learning experience with these was learning from mistakes – the mistakes being my coconut macaroons back from chapter one which did not quite turn out as planned. After these were cooled, it was time to put together my tiramisu, which is not a baking delicacy believe it or not. For this dish, I started by separating eggs once more, engaging in the same beating and folding process as before. But this time, the mixture was folded into a colorful blend of ingredients: mascarpone cheese, sugar, brandy (a decent amount), and only a tablespoon of cold espresso, all done over top of boiling water so that the sugar could dissolve. You can see that this dish brings alcohol and coffee together in an authentic way, as these two items might otherwise be thought of as beverage topics and nothing more. About alcohol, I am not much of a drinker. However, I value what it adds to dishes when used correctly. For example, cooking with red wine unlocks beautiful flavor nuances that would otherwise be left undiscovered. And now today, I’m using brandy to add an earthy layer of flavor to a dessert preparation (which complements the notes of coffee rather eloquently). Overlooking the alcohol part of alcohol, every type of alcohol or alcohol-based beverage offers something different to the culinary table in ways that most ingredients could not, because you get acidity, flavor, and body characteristics that can enhance dishes in more ways than one. Flavor is the key characteristic in this case; with brandy being a rather robust spirit with deep flavors that can augment most desserts. With coffee and cocoa both being present in this dish, you can surely see the possibilities of alcohol when considered beyond the after-dinner digestif window. Completing this dish was a linear process; I ripped the fingers apart and dipped them in the cup of espresso that I had previously prepared, layered them in a dish, and piled the egg/cheese/brandy/coffee mixture on top. Cocoa powder was sprinkled generously across the top, and the finished concoction rested in the fridge for hours to solidify. Yes, this dish is made with raw egg. But never fear! Raw egg is not inherently unhealthy. The key is to ensure that your eggs are Grade A or AA, coming from reliable sources and not infested with pesticides and other weird shit. Then it’s just a waiting game. Go for a walk or the archery range or something. Give your tiramisu four to six hours. What did I do for that time? Well, for one thing, I watched the following TED talk: While this TED talk may not have much relevance to this post from a superficial perspective, consider the implications of this talk. What would we be as a society if we based our opinions of others off abstract information like culture, societal norms, ethnicity, age, sex, and what have you? Such could be applied for the mindset of making this dish. You may order this dish from a restaurant and think that it’s a luxurious and authentic Italian dessert, which it is, but making the dish requires you to think about your ingredients in new ways. Brandy and coffee in a dessert? Raw eggs? Mascarpone cheese, which I’ve never even heard of? Think of your familiarity like a circle that expands over time. The more you open yourself up to, the bigger that comfort circle gets. And the bigger it gets, the more prepared you will be for the challenges of life. You start life and are taught the things that you are thought will be required of you, but eventually you must make choices yourself about what you will become. You decide how big your comfort circle gets.
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