The past week I’ve been trying to focus on cleaning up and clearing out.  There are still piles in my apartment that I haven’t touched since I moved in about 4 months ago.  There has been a pile of clothes lying at the foot ofmy bed, since I left them there after washing them last week (on my last day off).  Aside from the mess in my own apartment, we’ve also been doing some cleaning around work.  Alyssa was awesome and really got into cleaning the deep shelves beneath the chef’s table…

alyssa getting down and dirty to clean up the kitchen

I don’t think most people realize how much cleaning is such an important part of kitchen work; I know I was shocked when I first started working in a restaurant.  You have to constantly work to keep your station clean, and keeping communal areas like the walkin or dry goods storage areas clean is an ongoing process.  Sometimes I actually  feel like I spend more time cleaning than I do making food (that was especially the case at Spiral, where we rotated jobs and cleaned EVERYTHING ourselves.  I’m not complaining, though, that job was one of the best experiences I’ve had, and it taught me so much about the importance of cooperation in the kitchen).   But, in the end, it’s all those menial jobs (like washing produce and keeping the kitchen clean) that allow you to create food.  Like these tarts:

alyssa's butternut citrus tart

And both of these tarts were also, in a way, a product of our deep clean, since we were able to use ingredients that may have otherwise gone to waste.  Alyssa used the ends (the butts, as I call them) of the butternut squash since the kitchen just uses the necks to make the noodles.  The cardamom tart has a filling with dried apricots, since we still have some of those in stock from the fall menu, but we aren’t using them anywhere on the winter menu.  And, both tarts used brazil nuts, since we have a lot of those in stock, but we aren’t using them that often.

david & alyssa

All in all, a clean kitchen makes for a happy kitchen, and a clean home makes for a happy home.  So, now, I think it’s time I focus my attention on that pile of clothes and at least one of the piles.

As I mentioned in my previous post, I haven’t had time to blog lately because I’ve been so busy, still getting settled into my job as Pastry Chef at 105degrees (Matthew Kenney’s newest raw restaurant in Oklahoma City).  One of the coolest things about 105degrees is that it’s much more than a restaurant, there is also an academy where students have come from all over the states (even internationally) to learn how to prepare raw food in the first accredited raw food academy.

I’ve had the chance to get to know and work with so many passionate and talented people, and I’ve learned so much while I’ve been here (I can’t believe it’s only been a few months!).  I’ve got a lot of catching up to do, but I figure, I’ll just start with the present, and eventually I’ll deal with the catching up.

So, here’s (one thing) that we’ve been working on lately:

Raw White & Dark Chocolate Raspberry Tart

This tart is a special we’re currently featuring at 105degrees.  We had an abundance of raspberries, so in a collaboration with my assistant Kristen, and Alissa (you can check out her blog here) and Hillary, the two Level II students working on my station for the next two weeks, we came up with this tart to feature as a special.

The tart has a dark chocolate crust, a creamy white chocolate filling, and it’s topped with fresh raspberries covered in a sweet glaze, which, as Helen sweetly said, makes it look a bit like a jewel.  We wanted to make it nut-free (we love creating nut-free options for people who have trouble digesting nuts), so we used coconut meat to give the filling creaminess, and cacao butter to thicken it and give it a delicious white chocolate flavor.  After assembling all the crusts and allowing the fillings to harden in the freezer for a little while (hardening the filling makes it easier to top with the berries so that the filling isn’t oozing out everywhere), we topped the tarts with fresh raspberries and finished them off by painting on a glaze made from agave and reduced pear juice.  I’m really proud of Kristen, Alissa and Hillary for their help in coming up with and making these beautiful and delicious treats.

If you’re near Oklahoma City, you should stop by and try one….