Swapping Sweet for Savory
Go...now. She pointed up the back stairs to the walk-in refrigerator. That is where you will work!
She was revered in the kitchen, first one in and last one out. She was French and word in the kitchen was that she was a princess who inherited millions. She drove a Porsche back in the days when even head chefs did not yet, smoked cigarettes and spoke rapid fire sentence in broken English. She was my introduction to the professional kitchen at Spago. And she was only an entry level pastry plater!
These were the days before restaurants in Los Angeles abided by the regulations of the health and labor departments. We were paid from 4pm to midnight but arrived at 1pm, every day, and working in pastry I was always there past midnight.
Getting to work early meant that we would set up our station, make fruit and chocolate sauces and caramel, and choose the ripest fruit and berries to garnish the evening’s plates. We would assemble all of the components needed to plate the pastries for the evening, and carry them out to the line and set up our station. Once that was finished we had time to play!
Sugar and chocolate were our muses. Dark chocolate bon bons filled with thick, vanilla-flecked caramel. Turtle shapes, swirled with white and milk chocolate, then brushed with 24-karat gold dust. We’d pour sugar into copper pots, mixing it with water until it was the consistency of wet sand where the waves roll up at the beach, taking care to wipe away any sugar crystals on the side of the pot to prevent crystallization. The caramel would cook to various shades of auburn, then we would create vases and sculptures from it that would hold our pastries for the evening.
Into the hot caramel we would poke a skewer to swirl 24-karat gold dust, and as the caramel began to set we stretched and pulled it to ripple the edges, much like blowing glass. We’d pour small caramel circles as bases and use melted sugar to glue them together. Then we would fill the vases with Sacristans — French crullers — twisted puff pastries dipped in sugar and baked hot to crispy caramelization.
Making the Sacristans required cool air, and working in a hot kitchen the only place that was to be found was inside the walk-in refrigerator. I’d walk into that cold steel room with a sheet tray, a portion of dough, a pizza wheel and a deli cup full of sugar, and set myself up among large plastic containers of vegetables, sides of salmon and whole lambs hanging from the ceiling. The dough had to be sprinkled with sugar, folded in half, and cut into long narrow strips that were twisted around themselves. Then it was back into the kitchen and in and out of the baking oven, and then finally we would fill our sugar vases with the Sacristans.
Fast forward many years to Bakeshop and our lamination station. After using the most pristine dough for our croissants, we have leftover pieces that can be made into other items that will not be judged by their honeycomb centers. Needing to find use for this excess of dough, and in an effort to balance our sweet menu with savory items, my memories of making those Sacristans inspired me to develop my cheese straws. Swapping out sugar for parmesan, pepper and cayenne, but still emulating the same method of twisting, turning, dipping and finishing with a hot bake led to the emergence of a crunchy, cheesy, spicy pastry. It remains my favorite morning snack when I do the bake. And with a temperature-controlled bakery, no one had to work inside the walk-in.