So, I went to an auction. It seems to be auction season in our part of the world, where people organize fabulous dinner events, with choice items to bid on, in the name of raising money. I wonder to myself if people are spending as much this year as they did last. The economy is a bit on edge: I went to the auction with a budget.

I spent my entire budget on one item. Well, 8 cases of one item.

I bought dry soda; it is a sexy soda based out of Seattle. It transcends corn syrup, sideswipes sweetness and ushers in unusual, savvy, urbanite flavors (lavender, kumquat, lemongrass and rhubarb). You might consider wearing shades while sipping from these clairvoyant bottles.

Their website is as hip as their sodas. I noticed they had a few cocktails on their site, many of which boasted a long list of ingredients. Never fear, my impatience is near. I just borrowed genius from a lemon drop and created a kumquat version:

Kumquat Drop
triple sec
vodka
fresh squeezed orange juice
Kumquat Dry Soda

Per drink: 1/5 fresh squeezed orange juice, 3/5 vodka, 1/5 triple sec, 1/5 kumquat soda. Shake with ice, strain into martini glass; pierce a few kumquats on an olive pick for garnish. Note: feel free to substitute fresh squeezed lemon juice for the orange, or a combination of the two… and skip the sugar rim. It isn’t necessary.

Orange you glad its a kumquat?

Kumquats are awesome; have you ever tried one? It is nature’s lemon drop candy; the candy that is so, so sweet yet makes you pucker straight to the back of your jaw. You can eat kumquats whole, though we usually slice them in half and remove the larger pits. I slice the halves and put them in my boys’ lunch. On my old site (didn’t have time to run two sites, though there is a chance I may resurrect it), Brown Bag Blues, I wrote a post on kumquats that you might find useful (click here).

Baked goods are best fresh, right out of the oven and the same day they are made. Why is that anyway? Because after they come out of the oven, they continue to lose moisture. And moreover, when you see the day-old pastries for sale at your corner coffee shop, they are usually individually wrapped in saran wrap. Do you know why? Because it helps keep that same moisture in just a little bit more than if it sat in a case, exposed to the air. I am already appreciating the science behind baking.

My baking CHEF simplified it like this: baking is really about knowing the science behind 10 ingredients. Know these inside and out and you will understand baking. A few of these ingredients? Butter, flour, yeast, baking soda, baking powder, sugar…

I like learning little details like this. This has so much to do with why I am going to culinary school; it is a fact-finding mission. Only I traded in the spy glasses for a chef coat and a thermometer.

Another example:

I was making a salad dressing at home the other night, and a big grin crept across my face as I tossed in a measly teaspoon of mustard. Do you know why (shall I stop with the redundant questions already?)? Because I now know that mustard is magic. It contains lecithin, and is the third party that ushers in the marriage of oil and vinegar. The little ingredient that could, whether wet or dry mustard, it creates the emulsion of oil and vinegar—the mixing of ingredients that don’t normally mix. Egg yolks offer the same magic… in case you wanted to know.

By the way, don’t be alarmed if your vinaigrette dressing separates again; the magic isn’t gone, it is just science stepping in. Emulsions can be temporary (vinaigrettes, especially temporary if you don’t have mustard or yolk), semi-permanent (hollandaise) or permanent (mayonnaise).

I won’t go on, though I am tempted. Just remember, when mixing in mustard, you too are part of the kitchen-making magic. We are not only cooks, but also scientists and magicians.

Mustard Vinaigrette
2 T wine vinegar (or fresh lemon juice)
coarse salt & pepper, to taste
2/3 cup salad oil (olive or canola)
1 1/2 tsp mustard
optional: 1-2 tsp honey

Place in jar and shake like mad; OR listen to age-old, proven instructions and add the oil in a constant drizzle while whisking (also called aerating—it helps the emulsion process as well).

Some other mustard dressings around the web:

• Honey Mustard Dressing from Food Network
• Ginger Honey Mustard from Group Recipes
• Creamy Tarragon Mustard Dressing from Letite’s Culinaria
• Cream Dijon Dressing from Epicurious

How is it going, you ask?

I think I need a tag line somewhere on my site that reads: mom goes to chef school (perhaps for my own benefit). I am approaching my third week and it remains surreal. I have a chef jacket and apron dangling from my indoor clothes’ line with four tentatively placed clothespins… are they really mine?

Recently [though not surprisingly], people have been asking me: what do you want to do with a culinary degree? Work in a restaurant?

And my answer is: I am not sure what it is going to look like on the other end. And it doesn’t bother me. I don’t know if a restaurant is in my blood, though my hunch tells me I will take this culinary degree and wear it out. But the details? I haven’t a clue.

For now, I will just focus on cramming things into my brain—and yours.

For my culinary program, I take one baking/pastry class, and it happens to be this quarter. Which is why on my first post about school you saw biscuits and on this one, banana nut bread. And I cannot tell you the inner radiance of pride and joy when a CHEF (aka what we call all of our teachers, because well, that is what they are, though it has that whiff of Top Chef that makes me want to chuckle) tells you your product—banana loaf, brown sauce, glass of water with ice for all I care—is worthy of a restaurant.

Such was this humble little loaf of banana bread:

Banana Bran Bread
one large or two smaller loaves

1 cup butter
1/2 cup white sugar
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup bran
4 eggs
2 1/4 cup flour
2 tsp bakin gsoda
1 tsp salt
1 cup raisins
1/2 cup chopped pecans

Oven to 350; grease and flour pans. Cream butter and sugars (on high 3-4 minutes, seriously). Then add banana, bran and eggs (we mixed half the bananas directly, and chopped half into 1/2 inch cubes and dropped in just to blend). Sift flour, baking soda and salt; add dry ingredients to the wet, just to moisten. Fold in raisins. Pour into pans, score top of loaves with spatula dipped in oil. Sprinkle with pecans. Bake 45- 1 hour, until edges begin to pull away from sides.

I am a huge advocate of getting my children to try new foods. What I mean to say is, I believe our palates evolve (or so I tell my kids). When I was a kid I wasn’t a big fan of tomatoes and avocados (to name 2 of at least 300), but now I adore them. Does your child eat roasted onions or olives, goat cheese or brussel sprouts? (Okay, be proud if they do, but my point is: don’ t we all like a lot more foods as adults than we did as children)?

My 11 year old likes more foods this year than he did last year (he recently added poached eggs and goat cheese to his repertoire; he disdained both for many years). Your taste buds are growing up, too, I tell him. And if it is a certain right of passage to maturity for your taste buds to develop, well, you have piqued their interest and even more importantly: their palate.

And besides, kids love to have opinions; and they love to share those opinions with adults… Parents in particular.

So why not give them an opportunity to decipher their palate, to navigate through flavors and textures, to think banana and avocado texture are gross, shrimp is chewy and chocolate mousse is really, really chocolatey?

And then they notice when their siblings like things other than them, and proudly discover they prefer Asian pears to other pears and are partial to kalamata olives. Maybe you should start with their favorite flavor of Kettle chips (mine adore the Honey Dijon)? And there are so many foods they still have to try, and retry, since their palates are growing up too.

The other day I was at the market, and discovered these little nubs. At almost any cheese counter, they have little pieces of cheese left over. Not worthy to stand alone, these are mere samplings, wrapped, weighed and marked: $ .57 for an ounce, $2.11 for a large chunk, $1.02 for a good taste of farmhouse white cheddar. Ultimately, for about $5 I came home with 6 different varieties of white cheddar. One was aged, one was from Vermont, others were specifically farmhouse cheddar and at least two came from England.

And I opened them, cut them into bite size pieces, marked their origins on some parchment, threw on some almonds and pears to cut the flavors and we all sat around and tasted cheddar. And shared opinions. Very, very sharp was one. Sweet and mild was another. And a third… what flavor is that? Interesting… it is the only one that says: ‘Aged.’

So we ate, and learned, and payed attention and shared. Those are the moments we live for.

I love these herbs. I mean, really. You know how I love default dinners? Well, if ever there was a pile of herbs at my side, ready to join the ranks of my tomato sauce and creamy soups, roasted vegetables and hand-made meatballs: here they are. The herbs on my hip. I should probably invest in a holster.

I now make them in bulk. Yes, I use them that often.

And I am happy to say, these herbs have recently become my ubiquitous kitchen gift giveaway. I go through phases of kitchen-inspired gifts, trinket-y hand-outs that let people know I have so much time on my hands [cough, cough], that I hand-dipped this spoon just for you in chocolate, drizzled it with caramel, rolled it in nuts and tied it up with cellophane and a bow. It is a bad segue into ’so, what did you do today?’

All I am trying to say is, I like making thoughtful—and useful—hand-made gifts from the kitchen. Sometimes it is homemade granola, around the holidays it is most certainly peppermint bark (and you don’ t need time to make that one, you can do it between sips of coffee in the morning), limoncella (okay, yes, that one takes a substantial amount of time plus about 80 days to marinate…) and now: default herbs.

But, I am not close enough to you to hand you a fancy little jar with a hand-written card (sans calligraphy, in this case I printed out a small recipe for this salad dressing and attached it to the jar). Thus, I am giving you the picture, the idea, the recipe for herbs, some recipes that include these herbs (keep reading) and am humbly asking you to make it yourself and then give it to yourself, from me.

Wow, that saves me a ton of time.

I use default herbs in: Buttermilk Parmesan Chicken, as the Italian herbs in this Baked Omelette, instead of all the ‘other’ herbs in my Roasted Romas, and in this fancy but easy to make Eggplant Parmesan, to name just a few.

Default Herbs
1/8 cup dried rosemary
1/4 cup dried oregano
1/4 cup dried basil
1/2 tsp allspice
2 T dried thyme
1 1/2 tsp dried marjoram
1 T fresh ground white pepper
2 T fresh ground black pepper

Process rosemary in a food process, mix all ingredients, store in sealed container. 6 months.

To make the pretty jar, I just used a canning jar, cut a circle of fancy paper and screwed it on between the lid and screw top.