Sofra (its been a long time coming)

What do you do the day after you run a half marathon?
Take a lazy, sunny trip to Sofra with friends, of course, of course

What do you do after an afternoon of particularly high stress babysitting?
Stop by Sofra on the way home, of course, of course.

What do you do the morning after a lovely late night with a friend?
Continue the conversation over breakfast at Sofra, of course, of course.


I will tell you about the post half marathon trip with LZA, JRD, and SSS.

Sofra sits on the edge of Watertown and Cambridge off of Mt. Auburn. The cafe is a product of the continued collaboration of Ana Sortun and Maura Kilpatrick. Much like their restaurant, Oleana, the flavors are primarily inspired from Turkish and Eastern Mediterranian cuisines.

The four of us sat outside in the beating sun on the sleek patio they recently finished building secretly hoping the sun would color our cheeks a little. The atmosphere is a combination of contemporary chic and an old Turkey I have never seen.

We ordered a mezze platter where we got to pick 5 different spreads to eat with their housemade pita and fingerling bread.
-Lentils and carmelized onions.
-Beet Tzatziki (my fave)
-Whipped Feta with sweet and hot red peppers (JRD's fave from Oleana).
-Whipped Celery root with almonds garlic
-Smokey Eggplants with pine nuts (I didn't love it, but I don't usually like smoked things).

They have this egg sandwhich with cheese, optional bacon and a cooked to order egg on a rich, soft brioche with a spiced top. This is one of the best egg sandwiches I have had.

We also had poached eggs swimming in a tomato curry with toasted pita crumbs, a tasty and welcomed new take (for me) on usual breakfast fare.

The Turkish breakfast was an array of fresh flavors. This was a soft boiled egg with cucumbers, olives, thick yogurt, a sweet jellied fruit, fig and phyllo noodle shreds.


We ordered a sampling of treats.
-The Bee Sting - Honey, almonds, brioche. This sounded better than it was.
Persian Donut - Oof! Not too sweet, delicately fried!
Strawberry Rhubarb tart - a delicious classic.

Good coffee was had, a Rhubarb mint drink (very sweet - we added some seltzer when we got home!) Orange Blossom Lemonade - MK told me to get this a long time ago and I thank her for that. Their iced housemade chai is a little different than you might expect, very very sweet (undrinkable way too sweet for some), but very good (to me!).

We took so much home too so that the experience could last the entire length of a day!

An absolute must are the incredible fluffy clouds of not quite pita that you can buy by the bag full. We did.

Plus Milk Jam. Milk jam is essentially carmelized milk and sweetened condensed milk and is good on most things, including your pinky!

-Earthquake cookies are beautiful, and chocolatey, with a very thin crunchy layer and a chewy inside.
-Molasses cookies have a sweet spice, crunchy outside, soft inside.
-Chocoloate Hazelnut Baklava is a more complex, less sweet version of the traditional.
-Almond Rose cake has a light crumb with a strong almond but gentle rose flavoring.
-Kunefe is shredded phyllo with a sweet cheese inside which makes for such an interesting texture in your mouth and the flavor is simple and deep.

Sometimes the floral flavors are too heavy handed for my taste especially when I am not warned. I have ordered some things and sure enough there is the rosewater, there is the orange blossom and I just didn't want it there. In the lemonade it is clean and delicious but I don't need it everywhere!

I could go on and on about all of the different things I have had over the past 8 months here and I haven't even talked about the flatbreads and schwarma. Look at the menu on their website to learn about all the other options. More importantly, go! They are a cafe with some limited options but they have something everyone whether it be, vegetable tarts, flatbreads, soups, dips, or sweets sweet sweets.

These picture by JRD and SSS are pretty self explanatory and may cause extreme cravings. In that case stop what you are doing, pick up your phone, give me a call, I will pick you up, we will go. Trust me.

The fat of the matter is...

This all started when I got biscuit anxiety at work. The dough was crumbly, dry and not coming together. I thought I had lost my touch. Finally, I was alerted that we got cream for a different company and the milk fat was 40% in this brand of heavy cream instead of the typical 35%.

I started wondering about what all of this means... Of course, this meant pumping KK for all that she knows on the matter and then she lent me her book, "Starting with Ingredients, Baking," by Aliza Green. I've learned a lot and am ready to share.

Here are some basic definitions:

Half and Half is 10-18 % fat.
Light Cream is 18-30% fat.
Whipping cream is 30-36% fat.
Heavy cream is over 36% fat.
extra-heavy cream is 40% fat. (interesting to try an ice cream with this one...)

Creme fraiche is heavy cream ripened with a bacterial culture.

Sour Cream is a light cream ripened by a bacteria that thickens it.

Buttermilk is the left over liquid when you make butter and consequently is very low in fat or has none at all.

Speaking of butter...

American butter is 80% clear yellow butterfat, 18% water 2% milk solids

While European butter contains up to 86% butterfat and much less moisture.
- the extra fat means flakier and richer baked goods and that it doesn't burn as easily.

Plugra is the most common brand of European butter and can be found even at the Trader Joe's.
This butter is obviously more expensive. Everything still comes out wonderfully with regular American butter. Save the European butter for when you really want an edge (or money is no object and you insist on living the most decadent high fat content life possible). If you are going to splurge on it, wait till you are making a puff pastry, or maybe more likely, a pie crust. Your pie will have a flakier, nuttier and easier to work with crust.

If you are still interested in butter facts, read on!

I have always wondered why it says sweet cream on most of the butter I buy. The sweet cream label signifies that it is made from pasteurized cream and can be salted or unsalted. Butter used to be made from soured milk so that there would be more butterfat.

If sex and food are not already linked in your mind, maybe this will help. If you are wanting to make butter and use proper terminology, you churn cream or milk until the butter comes.

You'll need 21 pounds of cow's milk to make 1 pound of butter! Now, I am curious about sheep's milk butter.

Next time I make a crust I am going to try a european butter and I am going to ask around if the butter would make a noticeable difference in a shortbread recipe with which I recently fell in love.

Thank you KK and Aliza Green for all the Information!

and then there were three, Franklins that is!

Monday nights are becoming one of my favorites. Somehow some of my most indulgent evenings crept up unexpectedly on this early weekday. The festivities of a few Mondays ago only furthered this pattern.

Before SEM and I even knew each other separate Franklin Cafes had found their way into the stomachs of our separate hearts. She had been to the original on Shawmut Ave in the south end for most of her birthdays since turning 16 (and in historical markers, it claims the spot of her first legal drink). The Franklin in Gloucester (and the only franklin with dessert!) is one of the best restaurants on Cape Ann so many occasion are celebrated there by the residents. JRD and her mom, B, were the first to take me and I haven't looked back since.

We made a plan to try the latest one. The plan was on Monday night. Luckily, KH was also available.

This South Boston restaurant is larger and more open than its counterparts and promises a small patio in warm weather. I had been expecting a similar menu to the others. I'll admit it, mostly I was looking forward to the Franklin Calamari. However, this dish was not on there! I recognized one or two things that seemed similar but it seems as though they are going for a slightly different tone here.

They still had their exciting, elegant and comfortable cocktail list.

KH adores oysters. She ordered us each one. My first. It squeaked down and tasted like the ocean. What a way to start a night. All I could think of was MFK Fisher's first oyster at her all girls school Christmas party seated between two uperclass girls. The oyster was followed by exhilarating dances with each girl. (our before and after pics are shown)

Our oysters were followed by several other dishes and excited, frenzied planning of our futures!

We had tomato soup with a little bite of grilled cheese. Zucchini salad with a dramatic piece of cheese. Gnocchi with a corn puree and a crisp ham. Surprisingly good shumai (despite all the respect I have for the Franklin, I didn't expect this Asian dish to be as good as it was)! We also had a juicy, appropriately salty chicken dish.

They were on their winter menu still, marked by all the balsamic reductions and the fact that the menu said as such, which was disappointing especially because the day we went was perfectly, cool-ly, spring.

No dessert at this Franklin, just like the original. I respect their choice to ignore it, plus it gives us an excuse to enjoy other spots in the neighborhood.

Plans are in the works for a trip to Franklin Cape Ann followed by a sleepover and a beach day (to remind us of the oysters...)