Bread and Butter Quotes

“They set aside the quills and inspected the roasted pear, which was filled with mascarpone and scattered with pistachios. Leo considered. "The mascarpone's a good idea," he said. "It's not sweet. There's some cardamom in there too."
Britt nodded. The tuiles that accompanied the pear were caramelized and sparkling with coarse dark sugar. He took a bite of pear and mascarpone and a bite of tuile and chewed, still nodding. Leo took one more bite. "That's actually really good. I hate a mushy pear, but this is just right."
They moved on to the sour cherry cake, which was moist and fragrant with almond and some herbal note that quieted both of them. They sat, tasting and thinking, for several seconds, until Leo said, "Hyssop.”
― Michelle Wildgen, Bread and Butter

“He liked walls the color of some creature's muted underside or the soft inner petal of a plant, slippery leather banquettes and a silky curl of gravlax served on a slick white plate.”
― Michelle Wildgen, Bread and Butter

“Hector would spend a week perfecting a sesame grapefruit mousse that Britt had described as the union of grainy and puckering, but then ditch the mousse and debut a flawless napoleon of crackling pastry layered with coconut and kaffir lime custard. He'd sprinkled it with a vivid emerald powder that sent Leo's mouth alight when he tasted it, a fragrant tartness that intensified the creamy custard and the buttered shards of crust. It turned out to be sugared lime leaf powder.”
― Michelle Wildgen, Bread and Butter

“They started on the ice creams: cinnamon, crème fraîche, and Damson plum.
"Ever had Damson plum ice cream?"
"Nope. Nice color." The plum ice cream was vanilla marbled with a rich winery purple.
"By 'cinnamon,' do they mean cinnamon the spice?"
"As opposed to what?"
"The candy. Try it. Plus, it's pink."
"Oh.”
― Michelle Wildgen, Bread and Butter

“We confit the leg and serve that with roasted fig and butternut chips, whatever, that's a different prep. But the breast we sear off, right, and the potatoes we slice thick and roast with a little thyme. Crisp up the duck skin, let the fat render, and a minute or two before you take it off the flame to rest, you brush the meat side with some mustard thinned with a little olive oil. You let the breast rest on the potatoes, mustard side down, for maybe two minutes before serving. The juices mingle with the mustard and the thyme and the olive oil on the potatoes, and boom- dish has a sauce by the time you serve it. It's a self-saucing dish.”
― Michelle Wildgen, Bread and Butter

“According to Britt, Hector was spending the last few weeks before Stray opened perfecting some mad scientist's ice cream cone, cacao custard in a cup constructed out of malt or something equally odd, plus a salted, buttered popcorn ice cream. He'd created some kind of hot fried pastry with a cool Meyer lemon center, served with Thai basil cream and a sparkling drift of sugared zest. Britt had described them as otherworldly beignets.”
― Michelle Wildgen, Bread and Butter

“The plate was filled with rich yellow rice, scarlet peppers, carrot dice, and silky golden onions. Two pieces of chicken, the skin perfectly, evenly browned, nestled in the bed of rice, scattered with minced parsley and cilantro. A few green leaves of salad were on the side, sheathed in vinaigrette, with shards of cheese shaved over the top.
The sear on the chicken was what he most appreciated: staff meal chicken and rice would be only the braised legs, delicious and shredding off the bone but not skillfully browned and crisped solely for the pleasurable contrast of the velvety meat and the rich, salted crackle of skin.”
― Michelle Wildgen, Bread and Butter

“Are you cooking the peppers?" she asked.
"I was going to slice them over the top with the cheese," Leo said. "Too much?"
"Nope." Thea let him handle the jalapeños while she shaved off a few thin slices of cheese, a mild cheddar the cooks kept on hand for baking into cornbread or slicing onto burgers at staff meal. It was just the sort of thing she would have been moved to eat if she'd been by herself, except she would have just toasted it on bread or eaten it cold on crackers, meditating on the ring of toothmarks she left in each slice as she chewed. Leo swirled his pan, tilting it to let the last soft rivulets of egg hit the hot pan, and then wordlessly reached one hand back toward her. Thea set the sliced cheese in his palm, realizing as she did that she was a little more buzzed than she'd intended to be, because she placed the cheddar on Leo's warm skin as delicately as if it were a piece of jewelry, a hollowed, painted eggshell. He laid the cheese over the eggs, then scattered a thick layer of chorizo coins over the cheese, and finally a handful of fresh sliced jalapeño.
"And we're done," Leo said. He paused, looking around frantically until Thea realized that he had forgotten where the plates were kept. She reached beneath the prep counter and handed him two.
"Thanks," he said. He ran a spatula down the center of the eggs and lifted a golden orange pillow onto each plate, dropping yet more paprika-scented oil onto the stove and the counter.”
― Michelle Wildgen, Bread and Butter

“Mostly Britt had done it; he'd exchanged a terracotta vase for the sleek ones the color of chalcedony, the stemware for Moroccan painted bistro glasses, the white napkins for oatmeal ones, and the ferns for more birch branches, until the clusters looked as if they'd come from Norway or a fairy tale.”
― Michelle Wildgen, Bread and Butter

“The cloudy-eyed heads of the fish were stoically averted from the bare fronds of their ribs. The baby octopus wasn't moving, but the few he'd seen looked perfect, purple and white beneath a yellow haystack of frizzled ginger.”
― Michelle Wildgen, Bread and Butter

“Yesterday it had been a single chocolate orb that shattered with the tap of a knife, revealing shards of crystallized whiteness. "Chocolate-menthol geode," Hector had said, and watched them piercingly as they ate, the chocolate melting on their tongues while the menthol rose in vapors straight towards the tops of their skulls.”
― Michelle Wildgen, Bread and Butter