Sweet and Cheesy

The next few weeks will be busy, friends. It's that time of year around college towns like this when coffee sales skyrocket and sweats become an acceptable and practical fashion statement, mostly because of the coffee-bloating. It's finals time.

Finals time for some means putting aside basic survival necessities and ignoring all acceptable societal conduct such as sleeping and showering. For me, it's when I indulge maximally in all things that could distract me before I can focus on school. Sleep till I'm rested! Get all that television watching out of the way! Eat whatever I want!!

Hence the New York Cheesecake with Strawberry Coulis:

Apparently there are quite a few ways to bake a cheesecake. The New York method yields a dense, thick, and creamy cheesecake with a heavy cream cheese cake.  This particular cheesecake comes with a shortbread crust. After this picture was taken, S. and I devoured it with whipped cream. I have a slice left I plan to eat with my obligatory finals coffee.

Knead to Eat

I can't help myself: puns are my Kryptonite.

Occasionally I poke fun at my highly conflicted foodie boyfriend, who besides food, also loves to experiment with fringe diets that seem to be made for the sole purpose of giving me a reason to roll my eyes. One can only imagine the inner struggle he goes through every time I suggest a cut of meat that is not free-range, bake when he is sugar-free, or make fresh pasta while he is gluten-free.

This was one of those weekends. S. was on a gluten-free kick, which stopped the moment he started pinching at the dough I was kneading for honey wheat bread. He didn't even wait until it was cooked...

Awhile ago, we went to a restaurant that served Italian-Iranian fusion food, and I had their creamy and tender Parchment Fish. Determined to replicate it at home, I bought some Tilapia at our grocer (assured to be radiation free! farmed in Ecuador), and made a cream sauce with what I thought belonged in my own Tilapia en Papillote: mushrooms, sun-dried tomatoes, asparagus. Potatoes in cream on the side, and just a bit of grilled zucchini and banana squash for a fresh side dish. Since I had gluten-broken S. earlier in the day with bread, I brazenly sprinkled some flour into my cream sauce to thicken it around the fish as it baked in it's parchment cocoon. Unfortunately, I don't think you can see the fish under all the goodies in this picture, but trust me, it was good.

The Elusive Donald Duck

There's only one place around here that sells fresh duck, and it happens to be in a posh area with no parking and completely out of the way of our usual, beloved grocery store. It remains one of the only butcher shops I've been to; an institution, if you ask me, that is dying slowly because of the complaints of one-stop shoppers who value time over custom cuts of meat and aggressive vegetarians, of which Berkeley has no shortage.

I have no idea why duck is so difficult to find in American grocery stores; it's possible that it's because we haven't developed quite the sophisticated palate as many Europeans, or people don't quite understand how to cook duck. I tend to think it's because ducks have been glorified as lovable cartoon characters described as "cute," and "funny," even though creepy Donald wears no pants and Daffy spits like an automated sprinkler on a suburban lawn. People just don't want to eat that.

When S. noticed the duck peeking out of a corner in the display, he almost didn't notice that it wasn't free range or organic (S. belongs to another gastronomical discriminatory group that Berkeley is replete with, The Organicists.). Right then and there we decided to return the following week, pick up our hormone-injected duck, and to the horror of my vegetarian roommate, cook the damn thing in its own fat for a delicious duck confit.

Then Taxes happened. Being the responsible procrastinator that I am, I saved my tax doing for a few days before the last possible minute, meaning this past weekend was tax time. I was consigned to register myself with the one-stop shoppers and pick up dinner foods at our wonderful, but expensive, and unfortunately fresh duck-less Berkeley Bowl. As a piece offering to S. who was rather disappointed about having to wait for his confit, I decided on a compromise: a tangy and peppery chicken a l'orange, traditionally made with duck rather than chicken breast.

If you didn't already know, croissants have a lot of butter..

But that's ok. According to S., butter is good for you. I'll spare everyone the extremist nutrition lecture I was subjected to. Since I've had an easier couple of weeks at work and school lately, and the sun has finally decided to end its boycott, I had some time yesterday to undergo the long process that is croissant-making. The actual time spent working on them isn't that demanding, it's the weird waiting periods.  To make sure the butter is mostly solid and doesn't melt into a greasy gooey heavenly mess, between working the dough into all those flaky layers I refrigerated it in intervals.

I can't believe it's all butter:

Mmm... breakfast in the morning. Some are chocolate filled, and some are plain, meant to be eaten with more butter and maybe some jam. Notice baby croissant! I shall name him Croissito:

For dinner, a slightly healthier option:
Chicken with mushroom sauce. Simple and heartwarming.