Tom Douglas

Summer Camp Days Two and Three/ by Shelley Lance, Blog Editor

I’ve been trying to stay chained to my desk, typing away at the manuscript for the Dahlia Bakery Cookbook to get it  finished, but once in awhile I have to run across the street and check out the action at Tom Douglas Culinary Camp 2011.  Monday I stopped in for Mark Bitterman’s salt demo.  Mark is the evangelist of pure, beautiful, natural salt, as opposed to industrial, chemical salt.  He wrote the book, Salted, and he owns the shop, The Meadow in Portland.  Mark is pictured above left, holding a Himalayan salt block, which he later used to sear steak for the campers, above right.

My favorite part of the demo was the salt tasting.  We received a tasting chart with five salt samples, including a French fleur de sel, a Hawaiian red salt, and an amazingly crunchy Black Diamond.  We also got a plate with pieces of buttered bread, beets, cucumbers, and pineapple to taste with each salt.  Meanwhile Mark spoke eloquently and enthusiastically about each salt, and about why you should stop buying commercial salt and instead start using artisan salt on all your food.  At home, I use sea salt, but I think it’s probably what Mark would call an industrial sea salt.  I’m planning to pick up some real artisan salt soon to use at home.  Also I’m thinking of writing a little side bar about sea salt for the new cookbook.

The salt demo was fantastic, but so much more went on in Summer Camp on Monday. For more details about Monday, read Leslie Kelly’s post from Al Dente blog  here.

Since I’m in the midst of writing a pastry cookbook, I felt duty bound to check out Kate McDermott’s pie demo.  I started getting excited about it last week when I  noticed an invoice on Diane’s desk (accounts payable) for an amazing amount of leaf lard!  (…because every camper got a little tub of lard to take home. Which reminds me, I want one of those for myself to try out some pie crust with lard.)  I’ve been hearing about Kate’s Art of the Pie cooking classes for years and it was a huge treat to be able to slip into one of her renowned pie making classes this way.  Kate’s pie technique is slightly quirky, highly personal, and a delight to watch.  Every camper got a piece of gooseberry pie (photo above), made by Kate’s own hands.  Was the pie delicious? You bet it was- with an excellent very American pie crust- it reminded me of my Grandma Pearl’s, a world class apple pie baker by the way who used butter and Crisco (no surprise- we’re Jewish), not lard.  Kate makes a great crust, and she’s an inspiring teacher,  but I  think her genius is adding the sugar and starch to the fruit.  The gooseberry filling in that pie was a masterpiece-the perfect balance of sweet and tart with perfect, very lightly thickened juices.

I got so much out of just two of the demos over the course of two days.  The full time campers must be in heaven!

(Note: photos, again, courtesy of Summer Camper, Bruce Miyahara.)

July 19th, 2011