Kitchen Chick

Fabulous French Pastries at The Croissant Shop

Clockwise from the top: cinnamon roll, almond filled croissant, chocolate croissant, brioche, butter croissant.  Click on the photo for a larger (and even tastier) view.

Ann Arbor has a number of good bakeries, but it's also got a well-kept secret: The Croissant Shop, where CIA-trained (the culinary one) baker Kurt Boyd makes delicious French pastries for restaurants, cafés, bakeries, and caterers by hand. Its existence isn't secret — what's secret is that you don't have to be a restaurant to buy from The Croissant Shop.  You, too, can enjoy these gorgeous fresh pastries at great wholesale prices (that's to say, far less than what restaurants charge). It just requires a bit of advance planning.

We've actually known about this for some years, since before I even started Kitchen Chick. I would order them on occasion when we had house guests, but this holiday season we decided to treat ourselves and family.

The butter croissants were everything you expect a croissant to be. Buttery layers encased within a deliciate flaky outside. (They also make great croissant french toast. Carefully slice them horizontally and soak in whisked egg and milk. The outside crust doesn't absorb a ton of the egg, but the soft insides will soak it right up. We enjoyed them for Christmas Eve brunch dusted with some confectioners sugar and served with maple syrup.)

The almond croissants have a sweet almond filling and are dressed with a bit of glaze and ground almonds on top, and the chocolate ones have a streak of rich dark chocolate filling. Joe loved his brioche. He dived into it as soon we got home [well, actually as soon as she was done taking pictures — Joe] because these breads are best when fresh. It was light and rich, like a good brioche should be.

I really adore the cinnamon rolls. These are not the usual super-sugary, heavy rolls that sit like lead in your stomach. The dough is light and moist, the layers are filled with lots of cinnamon, the glaze delicate and delectable. These rolls really live up to the name of cinnamon rolls. I like to eat them in a deconstructionist manner — unrolling the pastry and eating each layer.

The Croissant Shop also sells pecan diamonds and pecan rolls, several kinds of baguettes and breads, savory-filled croissants, and mini-croissants and mini-filled pastries. We haven't tried those yet, but we will.

There is, of course, a catch: you can't just walk in and buy a couple croissants. You have to order at least 24 hours in advance (no later than 9:00am the previous day) and then you can go get your order on the morning of your pickup day.  He'll need to know the specific time you plan to be by. But these treats are well worth a little planning.

Pastries are best eaten the day you get them, but they'll keep for a day or so in the cardboard box, or you can try freezing them. Storing them in a tupperware will make the flaky crisp outsides go soft, but a few minutes in a toaster oven can help with that.

The Croissant Shop
3660 Plaza Dr # 1A
Ann Arbor, MI 48108
(734) 662-7424
Monday through Saturday

Taking in the Scene at Yang Chow, L.A.

During our L.A. trip we squeezed in a few restaurants between all the wedding activities. One was the wonderful and very authentic Chung King. Less authentic but equally wonderful is the probably the best known Chinese restaurant in L.A. — Yang Chow in downtown L.A.'s Chinatown. Yang Chow is justifiably famous for their delectable Slippery Shrimp (pictured above), and while you're there you might also get to do a bit of celebrity-spotting: governmental (it's close to city hall) and Hollywood celebrities have been known to show up. (We didn't see any, but we're not the most talented celebrity-spotters around.) They serve up some very tasty Americanized Szechuan dishes. They also serve alcohol (beer, wine, etc.), but they also allow you to bring your own wine with a $3.50 corking fee.

We showed up without reservations (not generally recommended) and had to wait for about 30 minutes, so we strolled up and down Chinatown. It was night and most of the stores were closed, but with good company the time passed quickly enough. The restaurant was full and everyone looked to be having a good time. We threaded our way to our table. It was a bit of a squeeze, but not too bad.

I had to order the Dry Sautéed String Beans with Minced Pork just to see the contrast with Chung King. Yang Chow's string beans didn't have the more exotic ingredients like pickled leaf, but it was a well-executed Americanized version. Chung King's version was more intense and complex, but I would order this again happily.

What did Santa leave under your tree?

Gifts in our household are frequently edible. When Joe handed me the wrapped present that contained this bottle I had a pretty good idea what it was. Among olive oils, Pasolivo has a unique and beautiful bottle. Except my guess wasn't quite right...

Joe was shopping for some stocking stuffers at Zingerman's when Solomon, who works the dry goods section, came running up to him to tell him about the new olive oil Joe just had to try.

When he said "new" olive oil, he really meant new. As in, this oil was bottled immediately after pressing a mere two weeks ago!

Although olives were brought from Europe to the Americas in the 1500s, according to some it's only been in the last 5 or 10 years or so that American olive oil producers have started to make great olive oils to rival the best of of Italy, France, Spain, and Greece. Pasolivo is produced in California using organic methods (they are in the process of certification). They hand-pick all their olives. I've had their standard olive oil and think it's a standout.

But I've never had olive oil where the olives were still on the trees a mere few weeks ago.

Joe knew that this was the perfect thing and snatched up one of the last bottles. But if you can't find it at Zingerman's (or your local equivalent), you can look up local retailers on the Pasolivo site or get Olio Nuovo directly from them.

Tasting Notes
The bottle is cloudy, with lots of olive particles at the bottom. I had to give it a good shake to re-mix it. The scent was green, like freshly crushed grass. The texture across my lips and tongue was smooth and buttery. The flavor is a touch green with a blast of bitterness. It's not the "greenest" olive oil I've tasted, but it has this freshness that I found very pleasant. When the oil hit the back of my throat, intense peppery notes came forward. It's got enough of a peppery bite that it's best to sip slowly and in small amounts so that the first hit doesn't shock you. (Some of the "spicier" oil olives can send me into a coughing fit if I take too much at once.) After the pepper dies down, the bitterness evens out and finishes very smoothly.

This is a nice oil for serving with Italian bread.

An olive oil this new is worth savoring repeatedly over the following month or two as its flavor will mellow in the bottle over time. I'm looking forward to seeing how it changes.

The holidays are winding down and in a week it will be 2007. We hope your holiday season has been filled with friends and family, plenty of warm cheer and, of course, good food.

Marcella Hazan's Bolognese Meat Sauce

A long time ago (back in 2004), I posted about Hazan's Bolognese Meat Sauce... but I did not post the recipe. Then back in July this past year, "jeex" asked if I would finally post the recipe.

So tonight, with some ground beef that needed to be used (or lost), I put a pot of bolognese on the stove to serve as dinner for later this week. It's perfect for cold winter nights. I like to make double batches and freeze some to have later as a fast dinner.

Okay, I can be slow, but I get there eventually...  Here it is, from one of my favorite Italian chefs! (click the "continue" link)

What Kitchen Chick does when she isn't cooking...

I've mentioned in passing that I'm taking photography classes. This past term I took two classes: History of Photography and Black & White Digital Photography. (And worked some 30 hours/week.) Whew! I'm not doing that again. Oddly, I haven't done a lot with food photography in my classes. Most of my food images on Kitchen Chick are what I consider to be snap-shot-ish. (Though they're a ton better than the food photos I took back in 2004.) I'm usually not willing to let dinner get cold, so I shoot quick, often using a point and shoot camera instead of my good digital SLR. If I've been light in posting here, it's because I've been busy with my coursework. So here is my "other" photography. This is an image from my black and white digital class. Click here to see them all.

Quick Tomato Sauce Dinner

Canned tomatoes are one of the great convenience foods of the world. My pantry may be stuffed full, but it feels empty to me if I don't have at least a few cans of tomatoes on hand. If you've got canned tomatoes, an onion, garlic, some spices and herbs, some olive oil, and some pasta (or gnocchi in this case) you can have dinner in 25 minutes or less, depending on how fast you can chop that onion and garlic. If you have a bit of red wine to add to the sauce (you know, half-empty bottle in the fridge left over from a holiday party), then all the better!

Start your water boiling for the pasta (or gnocchi) first thing and then it should be ready to go so that you can cook your pasta during the last 5-10 minutes that sauce is cooking.

A taste of Szechuan at Chung King, San Gabriel, CA

Several years back Joe and I went to China with our Tai Chi school. We ate ourselves silly. One of the most memorable meals was a Szechuan dinner we had in Beijing. (Yes, I know. Beijing isn't in Szechuan province, but you find just about anything in Beijing.) The food was unlike anything I had had in the States, and it left us with cravings for dishes that we did not know how to find back in Michigan. One dish in particular stayed with us: filets of fish served in a pot, covered with oil flavored with chilies and szechuan peppercorns. You lift the fish pieces out of the oily broth and then savor the tongue-numbing zing. So... earlier in November when we flew to L.A. to attend a wedding, finding an authentic Szechuan restaurant was at the top of our list (apart from the wedding, that is). We figured that LA, with its large Chinese immigrant population, would harbor at least one unaldulterated Szechuan restaurant.

Joe did some research on eGullet, and on the night we flew into LAX, before driving to our hotel, we headed out to San Gabriel to visit the Chung King Restaurant. When I called the restaurant to confirm their hours, the woman answered the phone in Mandarin Chinese and English, both greetings fired off at a rapid pace. A good sign.

There is free parking at Chung King, and if the small lot is full you can park on the nearby residential streets. We walked in the door and were immediately taken back to China. You know that saying in the States, "If you're the only non-Asians in an Asian restaurant..." It wasn't just the all-Chinese clientele, it was the smells and the dishes we saw people enjoying. It had that promising feeling.