Coworker Love

My coworkers love the women in the office. What other explanation could there be for such a lovely piece of art that showed up in the ladies room when Lindsay and I were away for a few days?

My favorite part is that you can see it in the mirror as you're walking in the door.

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Wine and Jazz at Kazimierz

Last night Chris and I had an unusual outing on a "school night." Ryan got a group together to drink wine and listen to jazz at Kazimierz in Scottsdale. Wayne met up with Chris and I for dinner. Later Ryan, Aeree, and Matt joined us. We had a very fun night!

It's been awhile since I've been to Kazimierz, but I was very impressed. We had great service (from a waiter whose name I don't remember but who had great hair). The jazz, with Dennis Rowland, was really, really great too! This is definitely a bar I need to visit more often on Thursdays.

Christian's Croissant Recipe

Christian, a good friend who lives in Athens, GA, and is the most amazing cook, shared a recipe with me for croissants. He was actually writing it for someone else, but then we started talking about it and offered to send it to me. While I may never make them, I like the idea that if I ever want amazing croissants from scratch, I've got a recipe. Christian said this is his version of Julia Child's recipe so she should get some credit too.

If you make these, be sure to send me a picture!

Ingredients:
4 1/2 sticks butter (not added until about 5 hours in)

combine in bowl A:
1t yeast
3/4 cup plus 1 1/2 T warm H2O
1 1/2 T sugar

combine in bowl B:
3T sugar
1 1/2 T salt
3 cups warm milk

add to 36oz flour with 5T vegetable oil
note: you will need more flour for the table and some extra oil to keep the dough from sticking. also, an egg is needed if you decide to do the eggwash- described at the end.

stir just until combined in a mixing bowl. pour onto a table; let sit for 5 minutes (i usually wash the bowl in this time). gently knead 8-10 rotations; just want it to hold together, but no serious gluten formation. (i find using latex gloves and a bench scraper invaluable at this point. the dough is a super sticky mess at this stage.)
pour a little oil in bowl to prevent sticking. move dough back to bowl and cover. let sit 3.5 hours.

pour on a floured table. fold in thirds and return to bowl. cover and let sit for 1.5 hours.

let butter warm to a workable temp.
pour out dough onto floured table. push into a rectangular shape like a giant piece of newspaper and about as large.
spread butter onto top 2/3 of dough. (i like to start this between parch paper or film and then lay it on top of the dough.)
fold up the bottom third of the dough and then fold the top third over the remainder. rotate the dough 90 degrees, so the length is pointing out from you. (this is the first turn.)

roll the dough out to about 24x16 inches and fold again in thirds, starting from the bottom. (this is the second turn.)
place the dough on a sheet tray in the fridge for 2.25 hours. this is the perfect stopping point if you want to leave it overnight. just weigh down the dough so it does not rise too much.
pull the dough and let warm a little for 15 minutes (longer is it stayed in all night).

lay the dough lengthwise away from you on the table and beat gently with a pin if the butter is still tough. (if it is especially cold, you may need to wait longer before working with it. trying to roll out too early, the butter will break through all the layers. it's not a disaster if this happens. it will still bake up nicely, but some flaky layers will be lost in final product. ) roll out to 24x16 inches; fold; rotate. (third turn.) roll out, fold (fourth turn), and put back in the fridge. let rest 1.5 hour.

cut into 3 portions. taking each portion one a time, roll out on a floured surface and cut in half, making two squarish rectangles. cut each half into halves again. this final rough square, cut on the diagonal. roll it out a little thinner and grabbing two points in your hand roll toward the third point. tuck the third point under, bend in the two other ends (making the classic croissant shape). place this croissant on a greased pan to rise for an hour. repeat for rest of dough. let rise one hour, until about double in size..
brush with egg wash (egg and water beaten together. this is optional but makes a shiny crust). bake at 400 15-20 minutes.

makes 24 roughly 7oz croissants

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by the Arizona Theatre Company Sponsored by Yelp.com

Last week Chris and I saw the play Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde at the Herberger Theater. We received free tickets from Yelp.com, which was great! I really enjoyed the play. The production was extremely creative and in my opinion good. To my surprise a number of people left at intermission (one couple in front of us and another behind us). I suppose that means they didn't care for it as much as I did. But everyone has different preferences. Plus, the last live theater I saw was so horribly amateur and this one far superior.

If you're interested in seeing the play, you can get discount tickets by calling the Arizona Theatre box office at (602) 256-6995 and mention the code word YELP. You can see Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde for just $20! (That’s over 50% off the regular box office price.) Hurry because it's only around through February 24th.

Yelp.com is a review site that I've been using for awhile now. (Check out my reviews at http://ericalucci.yelp.com I've always been very impressed by the quantity and quality of reviews on it. Plus, I have a few friends in Austin who are very active in the Yelp community and speak very highly of it there. So I'm trying to get more involved here. Unfortunately, my first in-person Yelp experience was poor.

The play was great and getting it for free was really, really awesome. So Yelp gets a big thumbs up from me for that. However, they lose when it comes to the dinner before the play. First, the posting about the event was confusing...it wasn't clear that dinner was in a different place than the theater. Second, no one from Yelp was there to actually host the dinner. So when Chris and I arrived at the restaurant, no one greeted us. We didn't see any signs or other indication that we were even in the right place. As we stood around looking confused, someone from the restaurant finally pointed us in the direction of a small buffet. The only indication that it was Yelp sponsored was a yellow legal pad on the table asking for us to sign in. The Yelp community organizer for Phoenix apparently couldn't make the event and disappointingly didn't get anyone to stand in. The food was completely disappointing and certainly shouldn't have been served to a bunch of people who write restaurant reviews in their spare time. It's a shame too, because I have a client across the street from this restaurant and would have actually tried it for lunch someday.

While this was a disappointing event, I'm not going to write Yelp off just yet. It's still a great place to get restaurant reviews. Through Yelp, I've been invited to a fashion show this weekend. I'll give that a try and look forward to meeting some new people in Phoenix. Hopefully the next Yelp event will be better than this one.