apples, pears, and a recipe from chef salvatore

Part 2 about our weekend, continuing from yesterday... And yes, there is a recipe from Sal at the bottom of this post.

We waved goodbye to Sister and Guy Sunday morning, then Sal headed off to the school to prepare for a cooking demonstration at the Portland Nursery Apple (and Pear) Tasting. You may remember from last year's post that this event is like a birthday party for autumn, and I really have no better way to describe it.

I arrived at the festival just in time to watch Sal set up for his demonstration. It's held in a busy area of the festival where there are vendors selling gourmet homemade caramels and other delectables that make your mouth water, and where you will be amazed at how many people will line up for a free taste of freshly brewed hard cider. The demonstrations are an informal setup with hay bales for seating, which means there may or may not be anyone sitting there to watch when you start. I'll admit I was a little worried that he wouldn't have anyone sitting down to watch and was tempted to go round people up to ensure he had an audience. He'd stayed late Friday night making 80 samples of the pear coffee cake with streusel he was demonstrating, and I didn't want him to be up there all alone. "People, there's a real live chef over there making a fantastic dessert and handing out free samples! Come, come see the magic happen! He's even sharing the recipe he invented! This will be the best thing you eat all day, I promise!"

I needn't have worried. The elderly lady who wandered up while he was getting his trays set up was soon joined by a few couples standing at the back of the seating area, arms crossed, and then familes, and then some older gentlemen, and within two or three minutes all the hay bales were packed and there was a genuine crowd watching him talk about pears and the wonders of cardamom and the amazing alchemy that transforms heavy cream when you whip it very patiently.

Sal @ last year's demonstrationHe's so, so good at what he does and I never fail to be impressed every time I watch him at work, sharing his passion in his charming, inviting style, easygoing and welcoming to people that might be intimidated by talking to a real live pastry chef. Somehow, he managed to field questions despite the background noise, cut d'Anjou pears into perfectly even slices with a knife sharp enough to amputate fingers, and talk about the differences between pastry flour and cake flour, all while turning cream, sugar, vanilla, and spices into a beautiful cinnamon creme chantilly (a flavored type of French whipped cream). And then proceed to pipe it out into a decorative dollop on 80 samples right there with everyone watching.

The samples disappeared in minutes. As did the 50 copies of the recipe he had out for people to take. Several people came back two, three, four times. A few brought back companions standing in other lines saying, "OMG YOU HAVE TO TRY THIS." Many people said they don't really care for coffee cake, but this was amazing and did it really count as coffee cake because it was delicious and how was that possible? Many more asked where he taught and did they have a restaurant and was dessert served there? Were his desserts served there? I even talked to one lady and told her all about the school and the restaurant and how she totally needed to go there, like, nowish.

(And so now your mouth is watering, and you're wondering if it's really that good, so we have supplied you with the recipe at the bottom of this post for that coffee cake that transformed a random group of strangers into fawning gourmands in five minutes flat.)

(see all the pictures from last year's festival here)

Culinary awesomeness now complete, we made our way to the "Buy the Bag" part of the festival, where you walk amongst ginormous bins of apples and pears of a million different varieties you didn't even know existed, filling a bag (or more likely, bags) with as many apples and pears as you think you can possibly eat and it's all the same price, $0.99/lb. There are pears that are good for poaching and for baking and for sauteing, and apples that are best for pies and others that hold up well paired with meat and still others that store for a really long time, and many varieties of both that are perfect just for eating no matter whether you prefer juicy, tart, sweet, firm, crisp, mellow, flavorful, or any combination of all of those qualities and more.

And you will buy half a dozen a dozen dozens many pounds of both apples and pears and decide to skip dinner altogether so you can just gorge on apples and pears, which will sound like a mighty fine idea until about 2 AM, when the stomache to end all stomaches has you sitting upright in bed and second guessing whether the apples and pears were really that good. They were, but you might possibly be a bit more judicious about how many you eat in a single sitting next time. Which totally didn't happen to us, I'm just saying, you know, it could possibly happen to some hypothetical people who were a bit caught up in all the apple and pear excitement of the moment and let their gluttony get the best of them.

lunch, Lunchbot Duo:

• smoked sausages
• corn on the cob
• steamed broccoli
• Yukon gold potato (so sweet and buttery it needs no butter or salt)
• Starkcrimson pear
• yogurt-covered pretzels
• dark chocolate-covered raisins

Chef Salvatore's Spiced Pear Coffee Cake with Pecan Streusel
Yield: 1 ea. filled coffeecake

6 oz.        Butter
7 1/2 oz.  Sugar
1/2 tsp.    Salt

3 ea.        Eggs
2 tsp.       Vanilla Extract

8 oz.        Pastry Flour    
3/4 tsp.    Baking Soda    
3/4 tsp.    Baking Powder
1/2 tsp.    Cardamom, ground
1 tsp.       Cinnamon, ground

1 1/2 C    Sour Cream

1 ea.        Ripe pear, cored and sliced into ½-inch sections

Cream butter, sugar and salt until light and fluffy. Add eggs and vanilla in small portions, scraping between additions. Sift dry ingredients together and add to mixture in three additions with the sour cream in two.

Spray and flour a bundt cake pan. Spread half of the batter into the pan, arrange sliced pears. Next, spread about 1/2 C of streusel (see below) on top of the fruit. Spread the remaining batter on top, then a final 1/2 C of streusel on top. Bake at 350 degrees. Check at 45 minutes with a skewer. When the skewer comes out clean, cool and depan.

Pecan Streusel
Yield: approx. 1 Cup

2 oz.        Pecans, chopped
1 1/2 oz.  AP Flour
2 oz.        Brown Sugar
1oz.         Butter, melted
1/4 tsp.   Cinnamon, ground

Mix ingredients together lightly, breaking it up with your fingers to make a coarse meal.

Comments

[Tammy]

Yay for a recipe and so happy for Sal to have such an enthusiastic turnout! I enjoy it whenever I have the chance to mention the "real life" chef I know and think back on the wonderful food we've enjoyed with him. Is he accepting applications for summer cooking classes with 6 year olds? Cause that would seriously be extra cool. ;)

[Bitty]

HOLY CRAP THAT WOULD BE AWESOME! He would seriously die of excitement.