Every time I bake chocolate chip cookies, they come out thin and crispy, which is not my desired style of cookie. Some may like them that way, but I vastly prefer something with a little more depth. Before I got into baking, I just blindly followed the same recipe each time—expecting that my failures must have been something I was messing up. Actually, it was a fault in the recipe: I was using The Joy of Cooking as my source, which normally an excellent source. Just not this time.

A friend told me to just follow the recipe on the chocolate chip bag. I did, but the only difference was a change in sugar quantities: 1/4 less of both granulated and brown sugars. Everything other aspect of the recipe was identical, and the outcome was only slightly better. That’s when my real quest for success in chocolate chip cookies began.

The Prantle’s cookies are thicker than your average cookie. Actually, it’s the chocolate chunk cookies that get me. Their standard chocolate chip cookies are nothing to write home about. If you’re looking at their counter and having a hard time finding the right cookie, the chocolate chunks are nearly identical to their M&M cookies—just with a different type of mix-in. They’re also a little bit larger than your typical cookie—though not enormous. This was my template.

I started last weekend by prepping the recipe from the back of a bag of Nestle’s semi-sweet chocolate chips. I divided one complete recipe into 100g micro-batches and started baking some variations. I was aiming for something with a more cake-like texture, so adding flour seemed like a logical first step. To the first micro-batch, I added 3 grams of flour. Then 5, 10, and 20. I baked each to see where I landed. An extra 10 grams seemed all the difference. You can see my results below.

The cookies on the far right, with 20 extra grams of flour per micro-batch, were my favorite. They look a little flatter than the 10 gram variation, but that’s because I pressed them down before baking for fear that they wouldn’t settle during baking.

Last night, I had a friend coming for dinner that I knew would appreciate some quality cookies, so I decided to apply my findings and make a batch of what would hopefully become the ultimate chocolate chip cookie. I think I succeeded. I made larger cookies to better match my Prantl’s template and added 60 extra grams of flour to the half batch (half the recipe on the chocolate chunks—see recipe below). The other major variation was to roll out balls of dough rather than just drop blobs on the cookie sheet. Before baking, I pressed the dough balls down just slightly to make sure they flattened enough during baking. That may not have been necessary, but I didn’t want to take any chances. The results appear below, followed by a list of my final ingredients (which I now have memorized—I’ve made that many attempts).

I discovered this partially by experiment, but those experiments were motivated by a tub of Fage Total 2% authentic greek yogurt that I bought on a whim. First off, you should go buy some Fage right now. You haven’t had real yogurt until you do. They even have it at Giant Eagle, so you have no excuse not to try.

The texture of the Fage was quite different from most yogurt I’ve ever eaten. It’s light and fluffy—far less runny than more heavily processed yogurt epitomized by Dannon All Natural. There’s even a protective plastic lining that presses down onto the surface of the yogurt to collected any separated liquid. When you pull off the plastic, the liquid has a natural tendency to come off along with it. As a result, the taste is a little bit dry—and in a very good way.

At first, I chalked this different texture up to the fact that it was a different kind of yogurt. Maybe greek yogurt is just that way. Then I tried something out with my Brown Cow (plain) Low Fat yogurt. I opened my weekly tub one morning to find the yogurt slightly separated. As is fairly typical, some liquid (presumably whey?) had collected on the surface. Thinking back to my experience with the plastic lining on the Fage, I dumped out the liquid. Normally, I would stir it in and go on, but I decided to try something new. The yogurt kept a little of the structure you find when first opening the package, and it tasted a little bit more like the Fage.

The next day I did the same. Then again on the next, and so on. Each morning, there was a little whey collected on the surface of the yogurt, but I gently poured most of it down the drain (it was less than an ounce or so each time). Each morning, the yogurt was light and more like Fage than I ever expected. In fact, it grew better with each passing day as more and more whey was discarded. It actually reminded me of back in the day when Graham Kerr used to drain yogurt in a cheesecloth to make a kind of fat free queso blanco. That ye oldie Graham Kerr memory probably even helped to motivated the experiment.

So, I’ll repeat and stand firmly behind my original statement: don’t stir that yogurt. I haven’t found any further documentation in the blogosphere or elsewhere (though I didn’t look very hard), so this may already be common knowledge. If it’s not, and you aren’t already doing this with your yogurt, at least give it a try and see what you think. While you’re at it, you should probably give some Fage a try just so you know what you’re missing. They even have flavored varieties for for those of you that aren’t as ridiculous as I am with the all plain all low fat all the time.

Scones are one of those items that I always thought would require some extraordinary skill—best left to the professionals. After reading up on the basic technique in The Joy of Cooking and making them a few times, I’ve decided that quite the opposite is true. As baking goes, scones are fairly fool-proof and never taste better than fresh out of your own oven.

Let me start with the basic recipe…

The cafe is only open on Saturday, and I’ve heard that it can become quite packed during peak hours, so I went with a group of friends for an early lunch: around 10:30. We must have arrived at just the right time. We had no problem finding one of only two table big enough to house our group. Just a few minutes later, but people really started to pile in just after we sat down.

The menu is simple and fits on front and back on a single sheet of paper. I wish I would have grabbed a copy while I was there to jog my memory for this post, but so it goes. You can be certain that everything on the menu is filled with exciting flavors and textures emulating a rustic Italian kitchen. I’ve never been to Italy, but I enough have faith in Larry’s dedication to form to just assume that it would taste something like my trip to Enrico’s (if I found the right place). Everything on the menu has a very humble construction—relatively simple without any unnecessary effort to steal attention from the basics.

Based on the recommendation of a friend at work, I ordered a “sangaweech,” which is not just your typical deli sandwich. This version of a sandwich is baked into a bed of Larry’s pizza dough. I picked the version made with artichoke hearts, roasted red peppers and salad greens. I was worried it might be a massive amount of food, but it was actually quite a reasonable size. The contents were nice and hot as if the dough was baked with them in it, but I’m not certain of the exact preparation method—the salad greens were still fresh. My current hypothesis is that they baked the pizza dough flat with the non-lettuce fillings on one side, then added lettuce and folded upon remove from Larry’s wood-burning oven. However they made it, the result was delicious.

I’m rating Enrico’s Saturday Cafe as another must-visit place in Pittsburgh. If you’re reading this, then you should go there. While you’re at it, take a stroll through the exciting shops and markets in the Strip District.

On Sunday, I took that class for a second time—this time with two new friends. If you like too cook (or have any interest in baking or Italian food culture), you should sign up and take the class as well. Breakfast alone is worth half the cost.

At the start of the class, Larry presents an amazing breakfast. Fresh fruit paired with cheese, fresh-baked quiche, beans and greens (my personal favorite), and, of course, bread. The breakfast is amazing, and there’s really no choice but to stuff yourself in an attempt to try a little bit of everything, then find room for another serving of something that happened to really tickle your taste buds. While his students feast, Larry delves into the history of bread baking: “10,000 years ago, a woman in Bagdad grids up a some farro to break the shell, mixes with water from the Euphrates, smashes it into a flat shape and puts it in a box to carry during the day.”

While his story is necessarily an interpretation of his various reading, he is clearly well-read and familiar with the underlying history of his stories. He really drives his point that bread has been central to our culture for 10,000 years and it is soon to be lost in just 3 generations. Actually, I think the lecture leaned a little bit further in this direction during the first class than the second. For 10,000 years, baking technology passed along to each new generation, and we’re on the verge of letting it fall through the cultural cracks: accepting processed something not much better than Wonder Bread in its place.

That’s not to say that that artisan bakers are a dying breed. Quite the contrary—their profession is on the rise. The real issue is that we no longer live in a world where mothers pass the craft of bread baking to their daughters. Gone are the days when the making of bread is intertwined with the production of a meal that regularly unites a family in an almost ceremonial breaking of bread. On one hand the situation is completely understandable: you don’t see me complaining that we no longer can our own vegetables or milk our own cows, but there is something significant in the baking of bread that the world is quickly losing.

After hearing all that Larry has to say, it becomes clear that bread means so much more to our culture than stewed tomatoes. Families “break bread” together. For holy communion, Christians, consume bread representing the body of Christ. The word “companion,” literally means “one who breaks bread with another.” So much of our past and present culture is tied to the ritual of baking the daily bread.

Since I took the class, I have been making bread nearly once a week. I always make at least one loaf for my own consumption and I often make multiple loaves and distribute them to friends. There’s something about the magic of bread baking that motivates me to keep up with it week after week. It has a certain challenge that keeps me wanting to try another loaf using a slightly different technique.

I don’t think everybody should do the same—after all, I’m fairly obsessed with food and cooking. I do think that everyone should take the class. So go, sign up or maybe just visit the Saturday cafe.

My motivation for attending is twofold: 1) my site lacks interaction with related sites, and 2) I need to get out and meet some new people. Regarding (1), the primary benefit of blogs and small-scale sites is the interaction between a related cluster of sites: the section of the blogosphere in which each cluster appears. The main problem with my site right now (aside from a shortage of regular posts), is a lack of community. I’m sure there must be others in Pittsburgh who maintain sites that pertain to getting the most out of life in Pittsburgh; PodCamp is a good chance to find them.

So that’s my story: I’m going to PodCamp. Unfortunately, I’ll miss a few sessions on Saturday morning—I invited some people over to my place for a book club type thing. The good news is that most of the Saturday morning sessions pertain to PodCasting rather than web communities, where my interests lie. In any case, I’ll be at the social/kick-off tonight: maybe I’ll meet some fellow Pittsburgh bloggers there.

I just recently beefed up my supply of those little bowls—once I started to realize their extreme usefulness in managing cooking time. Right now, I have four each of three different sizes. At my last big dinner party, I used just about all 12 of them. For $3 or $4, you can get a set of four in that crappy little baking tin section at Giant Eagle or any other grocery store. They’re well worth the money—probably the only item worth buying from that section. So go buy a few, and why not get to work on roping in a friend to fill them with you and help out in the kitchen.

Last night, I hosted an event that should have been amazing for everyone. Instead, it was decent for everybody and not really worth it for me. I was inspired to make Grilled Split Kielbasa Reubens based on a recipe I saw on the Food Network earlier in the week. Much of what I tend to cook doesn’t have a wide appeal: it’s often vegetarian or involves strange ingredients that don’t generate much enthusiasm among my friends. I had a feeling the kielbasa Reubens would would be better accepted, and I was right. As a result, I had too many people over and delivered a mediocre event to a large group of people. Live and learn.

The event wasn’t a total wash, and I’m just a little wiser after pondering the outcome. From now on, my dinner parties will better target precisely those people who ought to come: the ones who are thrilled to be invited, will be enamored by the planned dish, and (most importantly) will contribute to the goodness of the evening. Stated differently, they will be gracious and sociable. The next time I plan to host an event, I need to carefully consider these qualities and assemble a good group. Then I need to work with that group to schedule a time when they can all participate. There will be no more mass broadcasts and probabilistic attendee lists.

Cafe Intermezzo is a coffee shop in the strip district that has the friendliest staff I’ve ever encountered in a customer-facing storefront (eerily friendly, at first to the point of sounding quite desperate for customers, but that feeling has normalized). When the little shop first caught my attention, I stopped in for a coffee and a chocolate chip cookie after one of my post-lunch strolls through the strip. I’m not one to be unhealthy like that, but it was a weak moment. They gave me a delicious cookie, offered to heat it up (because that’s just how some people like it, and I accepted the offer), then proceded to give me some background on their current feature coffee (which changes daily). Every subsequent time I stopped in, they remembered me and kicked off a conversation. They asked where I worked, and whether it was nearby (thus explaining my semi-periodic visits). Even now, they frequently ask how my day is going and chat for a few minutes after serving up my coffee. Basically, they made me feel welcome as something more than just another dollar sign.

Most recently, I took advantage of a free coffee I earned on my frequent customer card. Each time I stopped in after my requisite 10 drinks, they asked if I wanted to use my freebee or wait until I wanted to try something exciting. Who even does that? Prior to their offering, I felt obliged to use my freebee on the same 16 oz. coffee I usually order. With their urging, I tried a cappuccino instead after hearing the low down on the distinctions between latte, cappuccino, and all those potentially confusing choices. I’ve had a cappuccino at Starbucks, but this was completely different: it was amazing. Go Intermezzo!

The next time I felt like going for something different from coffee, I got a machiato, which they recommended I pair with a flavor: particularly a coconut syrup to give a sort of light flavor over the espresso. I’m all about receiving recommendations, so I tried it. Also fantastic perhaps better than the cappuccino.

Now, I’ve rambled quite a bit about this place. Most of you have stopped reading or are wondering why I’ve gone on for three paragraphs about my interaction with the friendly staff at Caffe Intermezzo. Part of it is my own inability to organize these thoughts, but I also think there’s a lesson in all this: I will reward the storefronts that reach out with kindness and interact with me as both a person and a customer. I know full well that they’re probably gaming me to some extent: pushing as necessary to entice me to spend more money on higher margin drinks. The reality is that I’m very much willing to be gamed and spend more money than I absolutely need to in return for such am amazingly friendly experience. I go there in the mornings now because the pick-me-up of chatting with someone before work does far more to benefit my morning than the coffee. This kind of market is a niche in which all those little independent shops in the strip can thrive if there are enough people like me that recognize and reward it.

My point: reward them. Seek them out, give them a try, and reward excellence with your patronage.