All-Consuming

Ask me, at any given moment, what I want to eat and there's an excellent chance I'll say bread. I love bread. Were I forced to give up every other food in the world save one, that one would be bread. Bread is also somewhat of a nemesis. I believe that the standard serving size of bread is one loaf. I believe bread is a meal. I believe bread is an inalienable right. These beliefs are the enemy of a trim waistline and a diet sufficient in nutrients.

So bread and I have lurid affairs. We meet secretly and occasionally. We are passionate in our time together knowing that it can't last. Often I don't even dress bread up with toppings but will devour it unadorned. When we are apart, I am mightily tempted by bread, even mediocre bread, but I stay my hand knowing that bread and I will be together again soon. I play favorites with bread and am, while polyamorous, discerning.

I have made a bread from time to time, but given my propensity for entire-loaf-consumption, don't make a habit of it. Yet even the best of intentions get tested. My mother wanted a baguette pan for mother's day and it seemed silly to just buy one while Amazon was already delivering to my house. I've never made a baguette, so the prospect was interesting. I do like eating baguettes...

I was all set to make a plain white version when the same bad influence mother pointed me to the 20% wheat version profiled in The New York Times Magazine earlier this year. Since I happened to have wheat flour in the house, I figured what the hell. The recipe couldn't have been simpler and the dough quickly took shape. A half hour or so in the oven nestled soundly in the baguette pan and there were three tiny loaves ready for the sharp-toothed embrace of my mouth.

The verdict? For a loaf I whipped up in a minute in my house with a conventional oven? Pretty good. But there is much room for improvement. I'll start with the flavor. When I have a wheat bread, I enjoy a little something extra: malt, honey, molasses, something to highlight the wheatiness. Since this recipe had all of 4 ingredients (5 if you count water), this extra oomph was absent. My next iteration will likely try adding one of the above. Fearing overcooking, I likely took this out of the oven 4 or so minutes too soon. The bottom crust is perfect, the top crust a little too pliable. This bread isn't quite white and isn't quite wheat and I think I'd prefer one or the other. I think if one made this recipe with 5% wheat flour instead of 20%, the result would be a nice, slightly complex white. I'm also debating beginning my own sourdough starter. These are not good thoughts as they imply more bread.

Like any good affair, though, the key is to not make mistakes that could lead to discovery - where discovery in this case is 15 pounds of additional stomach attributable solely to bread. If bread and I are to continue our assignations, we must moderate. This means that either a lot of leftover bread is headed to the freezer or everyone in my neighborhood is about to find homemade bread bundles on their doorsteps.

Not-Quite-Whole-Grain Baguettes from Mark Bittman, New York Times

100g whole-wheat flour
400g all-purpose flour
10g salt
6 instant yeast

Add the above to a food processor and turn on - slowly add up to 1.5 cups of water until the dough comes away from the sides (and looks like dough), then keep the machine running another 30 or so seconds.

Transfer the dough to a bowl and cover with plastic wrap while it rises over the next 3 hours (the colder your room, the longer you may need - mine rose over 4 hours).

Divide the dough into thirds and shape into rough logs, then cover your logs with a towel for 20 minutes (very lightly flour your work surface if needed).

Roll the dough into more baguette-shaped configurations and put them in your baguette pan and let sit for a half hour. Use this time to preheat your oven to 465.

Slash the tops of the loaves (next time I will do one long cut down the middle as opposed to many short ones for aesthetics) and bake until a thermometer inserted in the loaves reads 210. Cool on a rack (but not for too long since you know you want to break off a warm piece and start eating).

Curse You, Default Sheep Mentality

While we're on the subject of cooking, I thought I'd share a problem I've been having recently: following directions. As in, I follow them when I know I shouldn't. The wedding cake death march should have taught me that, when reading a recipe, be skeptical.

Over the holidays, we sampled some really delicious chocolate sables from a bakery in San Francisco. They were delicious enough that I wanted to find the recipe and crank out some myself. It took me until now to try (also I needed more cocoa, aforementioned wedding cake having thoroughly plundered my supply) them and how lucky I was that the recipe was available on el internet. In fairness, I gave myself every opportunity to correct the obvious fault with the recipe. I read it several times, opened up my master notebook of working recipes to compare, read the original again, shrugged my shoulders, and said (in a famous last words kind of way): "they published this recipe in a book, it MUST work."

Intrepid readers and bakers, perhaps you can spot the missing ingredient: cocoa, butter, sugar, flour, baking soda, vanilla extract, grated chocolate.

I'll give you a minute.

For those who don't bake often, the missing ingredient is some form of EGG PRODUCT. An ingredient, by the way, that was in every sable recipe I had in the master notebook. The mixture this recipe gave me could politely be described as "sandy." It was so dry and separate-y that even an attempt to roll it in log form in cling wrap did nothing for it. While the recipe implies that one should be able to roll the dough out and cut it into shapes, this was demonstrably untrue; instead I mashed it onto a cookie sheet as best I could and threw the whole mess in the oven (the final destination of these cookies is, as luck would have it, the crust for a cheesecake, so presentation is the least of my concerns as the whole mess will end up in the food processor anyway). What came out of the oven could politely be described as looking like the waste product of a mammal pressed onto a baking sheet and cooked.

The flavor was fine, but you couldn't possibly mistake it for a cookie - or a sable for that matter. It should work for its purpose, but don't expect to see these tied up with ribbon and presented as gifts anytime soon.

So while I seem to be a know-it-all, when confronted with written instructions, I tend to follow blindly and curse later. I find the same thing when following a knitting pattern. In both of these endeavors, I need to stop trusting the authors and instead trusting my wealth of accumulated knowledge.

On the bright side, and following from yesterday's post, the utter and complete failure of this extraordinarily simple recipe removes any chance that I would buy the full cookbook (oh, I realize I have been protecting the guilty: the recipe was from the Miette cookbook).

Otherwise They're Just Taking Up Space

One of the novelties of our suburban life which pleased me to no end was this magical extra room known as the laundry room. In apartment life the laundry room was in the basement if you were lucky, or several blocks away if you weren't. I spent many many years paying other people to do our laundry because I simply couldn't endure the laundromat - a luxury I know, but one which we endlessly justified by comparing our hourly rate at work vs. the .60/pound the nice people charged to do our laundry (and fold it) for us.

With the advent of in-house laundry, this rationalization flew out the window. I still do not relish the laundry job, but I have come to accept it as something normal people do. However, our particular laundry room may well be the largest room in our house and that seemed like a lot of room to allocate just to soiled things. So, in my optimism, I rechristened our laundry room: the prep kitchen. It has industrial shelving and a 6 foot long stainless table; all of the bizarro ingredients that don't belong in our regular kitchen (I'm looking at you, atomized glucose); and the massive stacks of cookbooks I have amassed over the years. This configuration, though, has proven the out of sight out of mind adage, and only in very special circumstances do I pick up one of those dusty cookbooks.

This will now change.

Starting this week, I will select a never before made recipe from on of the books and we will have it for dinner on Thursdays. There is really no point in ever buying another cookbook (and on this point, I have been rather firm - I haven't had a new cookbook in well over a year) if I haven't made at least some of the recipes from the existing ones.

True, there are some limitations. As there is still some calorie-watching going on in our household, it will be safe to assume that pork belly in cream sauce will not be on the menu anytime soon but, as luck would have it, the first book I selected at random immediately coughed up an acceptable meal: lime and chili crusted seared tuna.

Watch this space on Friday for the post-game.

People Do Give You Funny Looks

I am no stranger to the strange looks cashiers give you at the grocery store. After all, I was the girl at Fairway with a case of heavy cream and nothing else. Come to think of it, I also got strange looks when I bought 6 pounds of duck fat and nothing else.

As of today, my crisper drawers are filled with 12 pounds of cream cheese and 9 pounds of butter and the walk of shame to checkout was significant. People do wonder what the hell you're planning when they see that in your hand cart.

After much trial and error and, given the cake-free zone in our house, disposing of failcake in the trash, the recipe for the wedding cakes is set. The test-freezing has been done. Now it's just a question of ingredient amassing.

What has been interesting is discovering just how much I already had in the house. It does, in fact, take a while to go through a 50 pound bag of sugar. I was able to make all of the test cakes without buying more cake flour. I have quart sized mason jars of vanilla extract just hanging about.

So in case you've ever wondered what it takes to make cake for over 100 people, have at it (approximately):

8 pounds of flour
9 pounds of sugar
8 pounds of butter
30 eggs
2 pounds of cocoa powder
1 gallon of oil
1 gallon of buttermilk
12 pounds of cream cheese
6 pounds of confectioner's sugar

and assorted smaller amounts of the minor ingredients.

When I look at it all together, it doesn't seem like that much, which is a boon to anyone who might be having a minor panic attack about making cake for over 100 people in the next three weeks (and then making chocolates). But then I realized that making one entire cake every day for a week pretty much dispenses with cake making and the chocolates can be done in a day.

But I'm glad I only have to do it once.

Darwin Awards: Yelena Edition

I don't know if any of the chefs I apprenticed with ever read this, but if they did, they could attest to the fact that I was not the neatest cook in the kitchen. Flour on my face was frequently cited, and mocked. Devoted partner can comment, extensively, on the unique places I could get melted chocolate. Like my butt. Even though my butt is not exposed when I make chocolates.

I am in the process of making a bunch of confections for an event at ye olde alma mater and as I was stirring my molten caramel, it occurred to me that chefs wear those long jackets for more than just fashion. I was in a tank top, my limbs exposed to 2nd degree burn inducing hot caramel, when I realized that tank tops are my frequent top of choice in the kitchen. Part of that is surely due to the fact that in 2004 I bought pretty much every color tank top available at H&M, but the other part is that cooking is hot work. And yet, the bare arms do dare my chemical experiments to leap out of their pots and do me permanent damage. Which is also funny given my burn aversion.

Even as I deftly step away from the pot of caramel after the cream has been added, causing the cauldron to bubble dangerously, I don't think to put on more clothing. I don't think this has anything to do with a) a propensity for risk-taking or b) innate exhibitionism, but it does give me pause. I've seen some unpleasant kitchen accidents and their aftermaths, and I'm not entirely sure I would welcome a caramel welt on my tender arm skin.

I once thought that it would be a great idea to do youtube videos of myself in the kitchen. I think I'm pretty good at speaking extemporaneously; I'm not camera shy; and wouldn't everyone like to see a confectioner who gets chocolate on her butt? Now I'm glad that was one of many plans I never executed. My kitchen garb is simply not telegenic (devoted partner's sweats and natty H&M tank), and I generally wait until confectionary is over to wash my hair. Vanity aside, I just don't think it's fair to the public. Then there's the bad example I set for the children as I tempt the fate of grievous bodily injury which, should it occur, would result in additional bad-for-the-children language. And I'd have to keep my kitchen far more glimmery than I am wont.

So, I have no exciting video of myself hovered above a pot of boiling sugar - you'll have to use your imagination. When the inevitable happens, I won't whine about it because I will have well deserved it, but I'll definitely have pictures of my wounds for all to ogle.

The Fish Resolution

One of the dirty little secrets of my upbringing is that from birth to the time I moved out, we never ate fish for dinner. Not one time. The only fish that was ever in the house was gefilte for passover and lox on special occasions like my mother's birthday party. There was no tuna, no flounder, no bass, no halibut, nothing. Dinner was never ever ever a piece of fish. The reason, insane though it may sound, was simple: my dad didn't like fish. So we children grew up never eating it.

So I reached maturity without a taste for fish. In fact, given the two fish products ever in the house, I only understood fish as something deeply smelly and not really fit for ingestion. And, sadly, I still have significant lingering fish issues.

Issue #1: Fish is not meat. No matter how it's dressed up, no matter if it's a tuna steak, no matter, no matter, fish is not as substantial a protein as meat or poultry. My favorite way to eat fish? As a prelude to the meat course.

Issue #2: Eating fish in a restaurant is a far different proposition from eating fish at home. I estimate that for every pound of fish cooked in a restaurant a pound of butter is used. This masks the objective blandness that is fish. Fat makes everything taste good. At home, where I control what goes into the pot, pounds of butter are reserved for baking, pats of butter for cooking. I simply cannot, in good conscience, throw a stick or two of butter in a pan to cook a single fillet. As a result, my fish tastes like vaguely proteinaceous matter, while restaurant fish tastes like a butter delivery system.

Issue #3: Not so hot on salmon. Salmon is, for me, the fishiest of the fish. I can eat sardines and anchovies and mackerel, but salmon just makes me blanch. This complicates the cooking of fish as salmon is universally available where as, for example, monkfish is not. Smoked salmon? I won't even touch it. When we have it at parties I force devoted partner or my mother to be in charge of touching it.

But I know that fish is good for me, not fattening, and an important part of my cancer avoidance regimen. So on the list of slightly silly new year's resolutions was the resolution to eat fish a minimum of one time per week. After all it will break up the chicken monotony. Week 1 I cheated. I mean, I didn't really cheat, we ate a sea creature, but it was a scallop. I should mention that I 100% consider scallops to be food. I love scallops and I have some kind of minor superpower that enables me to perfectly cook them every single time. Of the under the sea creatures we eat, scallops easily make up 50-75%. My problem is that I honestly believe most fish doesn't taste like anything. Scallops taste like something.

So yesterday we had a cod fillet for dinner. Simply cooked in a pan with a pat of butter, a sprinkling of panko, thyme, salt and pepper. It tasted like, um, warm vaguely protein stuff with salt and pepper. And I am a confident enough cook that I know this is just what fish tastes like. I've had some better luck with mackerel, which is a stronger tasting fish, and if I was willing to salt my cod and add it to mashed potatoes with heavy cream, I know it would be quite tasty, but it would defeat the healthy motivation behind eating fish in the first place.

So much like a previous year's resolution of doing something every day for the entire year (if you know what it was, so much the better, but I'm not repeating it here), this is going to be one I just get through and hope that, as I explore additional fish and additional recipes, fish becomes something I enjoy and not something I take like vitamins.

Two Summer Recipes

I have always wanted one of those beautiful food blogs with incandescent light sweeping across my beautifully plated foods. There are a couple of obstacles, sort of surmountable, but which I don't seem to surmount. First, the light in my house is yellow. At times of the day there is some nice natural light through the windows, but those times are not in the evening when I cook. In theory I could take my food outside, set it up on a table, and photograph it, but we're going to eat that food and I'd like for the hots to stay hot and the colds to stay colds, and neither to be befouled by bugs, tree matter, or rain. Second, food bloggers seem to know where the best tag sales are because they all have beautiful vintage-y looking pieces in which to display their creations. Last summer, in an attempt to emulate them, I schlepped devoted partner to a dizzying number of local tag sales where we found precisely nothing I would want to serve food on. I've looked at etsy as well and the long and short of it is, these food bloggers either snatch all the good stuff or they're shopping somewhere else.

This is why you're going to get two summer recipes with zero summer recipe pictures (though, theoretically, I am going to attempt to photograph one of them this afternoon in a simple white footed bowl).

In the interest of not infringing copyright-wise, the first recipe, Honey and Spice Glazed Chicken is from Food & Wine magazine. I subscribe and have subscribed to a plethora of foodish magazines and I rip out the recipes I want to try. Then those recipes sit in a drawer. Untried. I don't know why. Similarly, I have a motherlode of cookbooks which are eagerly paged through and then, well, put on a shelf where I like to admire their spines. I don't have an answer to that either. However, I have a plan. Devoted partner and I do some weekly shopping most Saturday mornings. On Friday evenings, we will look over the list of seasonally appropriate recipes and choose two or three to make in the coming week. Successful recipes will then be copied down into a book of some sort that they can be made again and that they can be found again. Unsuccessful scraps of magazine will go to the garbage. See how that makes so much sense?

Anyway, this chicken dish fit the bill on a number of levels including ease of preparation, quickness of preparation, ample flavor, and not at all bad for you (if you don't scarf down the chicken skin). My one caveat would be that the 25 minutes of cooking time suggested by the recipe was a touch on the short side for us. I would have given it another 5-8 minutes.

The second recipe isn't so much a recipe as it is the simple combination of three and a half ingredients to create a facsimile of a dish I enjoyed in childhood that I do not wish to enjoy so much in adulthood as the main ingredient is sour cream and a lot of it. My parent's friend Kayla made a strawberry soup that I could have quaffed by the vat. It's possible that at one time I asked for and received the recipe, but I'm pretty sure it was just strawberries, sugar, sour cream, and heavy cream. With strawberries in their peakest of peaks at the market, I simply had to come up with an alternative. Using two cups of fromage blanc (which is naturally fat free), one quart of pureed strawberries, about 1/3 of a cup of superfine sugar (this should be to taste depending on how sweet you like things), and a quarter cup of (I know this is disgusting) fat free half and half, I was able to come up with a decent stand-in that I felt not at all bad about eating. Oh, and it couldn't be simpler: puree strawberries in blender, add sugar. Beat fromage blanc until smooth, add strawberry puree, add half and half. Chill before serving and slice some whole strawberries into it if you like.

On Not Being Disappointed With Dinner

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I cry "Uncle!" Thomas Keller, for all of his persnickety OCD, has won my heart once and for all, and while I climb on the bandwagon rather late, I like to think I do so because I have permitted myself to be skeptical before jumping. It is true, I have only ever eaten at the Bouchon in Las Vegas, but I own three of the man's cookbooks and I am here to say:

I have yet to make something bad from any of them.

Now, it is true, the cake in the photograph was my creation, not his, but I didn't manage to photograph anything else we ate Tuesday night because I was in the kitchen making it. The entire main course of Hebrewpalooza 2010 was from Keller's Ad Hoc at Home and, if I may be so immodest, it was all delicious.

This is the fourth iteration of Hebrewpalooza chez nous and the years have experienced varying degrees of success: Year 1's rack of lamb - utter fail; some people didn't get their food until others had long since finished. Years 2 and 3 tried to arrest that problem by featuring braised and stewed meats that do not have time sensitive components. But stew is kinda unfestive and I wanted to do something different this year. Originally I was going to roast chickens until I realized that roasting multiple chickens sounded time-complicated especially if I wanted people to eat warm food. So I paged through the book (which had already been used for a weeknight chicken paillard that won high marks and a cod which, if I could bring myself to enjoy fish, would have been excellent as well) and hit upon duck breast.

Cool. I like duck. In fact, duck is one of my favorites. Yet, somehow, I had never made duck breast before. I very ambitiously (and using Keller's recipe from his Bouchon cookbook) tries my hand at confit, but I had never gotten around to making duck breast. So, a week before the guests arrived I bought two duck breasts and tried them out.

They were good, even as they were a trifle overcooked. They were good enough and frankly simple enough to prepare, that I decided we would have duck for everyone. So I searched for some side dishes to go with my duck. Being the feast of You Can't Eat Anything, many delightful side dishes were ruled out, but I settled on the Rainbow chard with wine soaked raisins and pine nuts (no one ever said Keller wasn't, frequently, a trifle precious) and garlic potato puree. So I had to make a couple of adjustments to keep with the spirit of the holiday, and this necessitated exchanging butter and cream in the potato recipe for delightful, super nutritious, duck fat. Come on everyone, say it with me: "mmmmmm....duck fat."

I am frequently super judgmental when it comes to my cooking because most of the time I know I could have done better, but this time, I am safe in saying I did well enough. While there was certainly room for improvement (I'm looking at you duck breast that for some strange reason didn't cook through while some of your brethren were a touch past medium rare even though I moved you throughout the pan during cooking so you would be evenly done), I may have been more pleased about the complete package than I have been at any other meal.

And while Keller can be a little fussy, this book is really really accessible. And I fought myself on whether or not to buy it, thinking I already had his two other books, what did I really need with this one. No. I needed this book and if you like cooking you might need it too.

Busy Bees

Devoted partner is having a bit of a work meltdown. After several months of buildup, his project has officially commenced. This neatly coincides with the Passover/Easter holidays, friends visiting from out of town, and spring cleaning.

So, naturally, I helped out by arranging for us to pick up a bed in Manhattan on Saturday kindly donated by Ariane.

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We needed a bed, she needed to not have to worry about this one. It was perfect, really. So, yet another item was roped down to the top of the trusty Subaru and transported back to our manse (after Chinese for lunch, natch). Upon reassembling the bed, devoted partner took off for the office and did not return until long past nightfall, though happily as he was able to get much work done in an empty office. I decided to use the motivating forces swirling around our new acquisition to go to the store and buy those items necessary to dress the bed. As you see, the (what I've christened) Amy Guest Bed is now fully operational. It is also housing two cherished childhood stuffed animals which, before this, were in a closet. You may all commence making your reservations.

Sunday, I was far kinder. Devoted partner left the house early for the office while I did the parts of spring cleaning he hates: deciding what on the floor is garbage and what is not, and finding a home for the nots. This was before Kim arrived for our cake decorating date. We'd been planning this for ages and I had prepped by making several cake layers Saturday night, and outfitting the house with a dizzying assortment of gel food colors.

Much butter lost life in the creation of these two cakes:

Mine

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And her, much better

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Would you believe she'd never done it before???

I was really quite impressed as someone who finds coloring within the lines challenging. I mean, look at her leaves!!!

And now comes the Overpass part. Devoted partner cleaned like a champion while I was at my parents' last night, leaving me to, well, feed people. The food has been bought, the necessary wine is chilling; all that remains is for me to get off the damn computer and go cook something!

We Interrupt This Vacation Reverie To Invite You To Dinner

I was in the mood for jambalaya. So enthusiastic, in fact, that I left the office without the recipe so my foray into Whole Foods was flown blind. Still, it's stew - chicken and sausage stew (I prefer this to the (?) more traditional (?) chicken, sausage, and shrimp stew) - and stew generally has a lot of similar ingredients: you'll need stock, and tomatoes, and onions, and then whatever else you like to throw into food you'll be eating.

While I recently acquired the perfect pot for this dish (and finally - literally I have been lusting after this thing for at least 8 years and Bloomingdale's finally had that recession sale I was looking for on the 9 qt. Le Creuset oven), it is still at my parent's house because it is heavy enough that I want to wait until I have the car in the city rather than trying to lug it home on the train. So I figured I'd use my trusty (and rusty) unfinished cast iron pot. Wrong. My unchecked shopping had yielded an amount of food that would never fit in the pot - hell the meat part of the recipe alone filled almost 3/4 of the 5 qt. pot. As the jambalaya had to be cooked in the oven, my only recourse was my turkey roaster.

After all the meat and veg and stock and juice and rice was added (people, remember as I seem to have not, that rice expands when cooked and don't just throw in more rice because you think it looks a little under-riced), the damn turkey roaster was filled 2/3 of the way.

But the smell was good. Really good. Sadly, too much rice and not enough liquid did create a slightly crunchy finished product (which will be rectified this evening as more liquid is added and recooked), but, aside from that, dinner was super yummy.

Which is good. Because there is enough of this stuff to last us through the winter. Literally.

But it was good, so give it a shot. I will say that, in my opinion, the special ingredient is the smoked paprika.

Jambalaya - No Shrimp Edition
Makes a bajillion servings

3 pounds chicken (I used breast and thigh) cut into bite-sized chunks
1 pound andouille sausage (or chorizo or smoked kielbasa)
1 heaping cup chopped yellow onion
1 heaping cup chopped red onion
1 heaping cup chopped celery
1.5 pounds chopped bell peppers
4 cloves chopped garlic
oil/butter - enough to saute meat and veg
1 quart chicken stock
2 quarts stewed tomatoes
2-3 cups rice (but check as cooking to make sure there's enough liquid - I would recommend keeping an extra 28 oz. container of stewed tomatoes on hand just in case)
tabasco
oregano
thyme
bay leaves
cayenne
smoked paprika
allspice
(all of the above to taste)
1 truly enormous pot that is oven safe

Directions:
Brown meats in a saute pan then transfer to cooking vessel. Cook all veg together until cooked but not soft then transfer to cooking vessel. Add stock, tomatoes, rice, and spices (here really, go with your gut - I tend to never measure spices because I know what they sort of look like going in - that being said, I added too much tabasco and cayenne together and had to add some water later in the cooking process). Cover cooking vessel and put into 425 degree oven until done. Done is when you taste it and you would eat it - I'd say about 1.5 hours.

Cl!t0r!s or Why You Should Make More Dessert

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It was mentioned to me that my last post was briefly confusing - that is if you can't read. A hapless (but devastatingly handsome, talented, interesting and, above all, modest) reader was dismayed to discover that my article was not, in fact, about how making dessert would get you more happy fun time and, instead, was a "boring" recipe.

I feel your pain, brother.

I don't think the mainstream media discusses the relationship between dessert and cl!t0r!s accessibility nearly enough, and it is up to, dare I say it, maverick(TM) members of the blogosphere, like myself, to pick up the slack.

To begin with, I'm glad that the gentlemen out there are interested in more cl!t0r!s. This represents a sea change in sexual acquisitiveness that is heartening. Once there was a time when conquests were measured in the number of sex acts being performed upon you and not the number of sex acts you were able to perform on others. Rare was the man (boy) who bragged to his friends about how many women he was able to pleasure.

Similarly, as we continue to see chocolate cake lose the PR battle to organic mesclun, it is simply wonderful to discover that there are people who would be willing to return to dessert if the dessert in question offered a happy ending (please, no offense to the lovely people at Friendly's who, I believe, still have something on their menu called the Happy Ending Sundae).

So I would like to talk about the relationship between attainment of the female orgasm and the making of dessert. Let me warn you, in advance, this will not be some tired discussion of how chocolate is the same as an orgasm for women: if you believe this, you need to have better orgasms effective immediately!

When I dine out, I frequently see couples, in various stages of love for one another, ask for the check before their meals are over. These are people for whom dessert is not a mandatory part of the dining out experience. Now, it is true, there are occasions when I, myself, do not order dessert, but those times are NEVER when I am at a restaurant that serves a good dessert (sorry Chinese restaurant, but your lychee pudding does not qualify). Why would you skip out on dessert? The damage to your diet regimen has already been done, don't suddenly develop a conscience when the dessert menu is presented!

Because the sad thing is, there are still a great number of women out there who won't have the cojones to order a dessert if their dates don't - as though that would make a bad impression. Certainly this evaporates, I think, the longer a couple is together, but gentlemen, order a dessert! If she demurs, tell her it's YOUR favorite part of the meal and encourage your server to bring two forks/spoons. But choose wisely, and remember one dessert does not fit all. When in doubt, tell your dinner partner that you definitely want dessert, but don't know which one to order, and ask her what she would order if she was going to order a dessert (only the most self-controlled of humans will be able to get out of this one).

But the title of this post is why you should MAKE dessert, and the simple answer is: dexterity.

While watching a man deftly wield a squeeze bottle full of caramel sauce might not be the kind of foreplay every woman wants, I embrace the idea of men using whatever talents are at their disposal to demonstrate that they are good with their hands. If you have a flair for baking, show it off! Forget the stereotypes that would tell you it's feminizing; I have known more than a few men who are good in the kitchen, but otherwise not at all sexually interesting to me, whose stock has gone up after witnessing them do something masterful in the cookery department.

Furthermore, even if your dessert is a disaster, which it couldn't possibly be if you made yesterday's clafoutis recipe, unless the woman you seek to impress is a total bitch, you will get an A for effort.

Which you will promptly lose if you aren't dexterous in matters referenced in the first part of this post's title!

While chocolate cake is wonderful and I ask for it by name on a regular basis, there's something arguably more important that I ask for by name on a regular basis. If you have been unfortunate enough to number among your partners only the type of women who would rather remain unsatisfied than bruise your fragile ego by giving you some pointers, or if you have derived the bulk of your sexual education through obsessive viewing of pornography, this will probably shock and appall you: you are doing it wrong! I do not claim a monopoly on female pleasure, but I feel confident in asserting that if your technique is made up solely of poking, prodding, and whatever that thing is where you line up three of your fingers in a flat plane and then proceed to move them laterally as quickly as possible (fake nails optional) against the sensitive bits of your partner, your technique is very very bad.

Much like chocolate cake, quantity will not make up for bad quality in this department. Lots of bad chocolate cake is merely depressing and fattening; lots of bad starts with C and ends with GUS is merely depressing and chafing. Bloated chafed girls are no fun for anyone.

Fortunately, one can learn how to do both things well. Yes, it will take some practice, but it's not like practicing either of those things sucks. Oh, no, not another chocolate cake to try. Oh, no, not more head. See how this is only a win/win situation?

Lost without inspiration? Allow me to assist. Have you considered:

• pots de creme - like creme brulee but without the dangerous fire
  
• pound cake with macerated fruit - and you may not buy your pound cake from the supermarket
  
• flourless chocolate cakelets - see postscript
  
• salted caramel ice cream - a man who makes his own ice cream is a sought after man indeed
  
• meringue kisses dipped in chocolate - almost dietary!

Just saying these things should make you feel amorous. Dessert might be a hokey method of seduction, but that doesn't mean it won't work.

In summation, and with your continued forbearance, only the stingiest of men withhold dessert - of both varieties - and even in this time of economic uncertainty, both kinds of "dessert" are easily affordable. Now is not the time to skimp on butter or affection, and I heartily encourage my male readers to remember that when the savory part of dinner is over this evening.

P.S. For those wishing to acquire extra credit, I have a really easy flourless chocolate cake recipe I'd be willing to share...

Clafoutis or Why You Should Make More Dessert

Last of the Plums
Originally uploaded by reallyct

Before I forget, this bit is for the two readers discovered these past few days. David, Peter, make Clafoutis for your wives (and adorable citrus-fruit named child). Everyone else, make Clafoutis just because it's so damned easy. Easy like unattended children could do it. Delicious like anything involving custard can be delicious. Here's the rub, though, because a clafoutis is cooked, you don't have to worry about any of the worrying things associated with custard making (like tempering yolks which is, I admit, intermediate kitchen work). Here's the other beautiful part: you have everything you need at home right now to make this. I almost guarantee it.

Pre-step one: preheat your oven to 350.

Step one: choose your fruit. It works with anything. Really. I used plums because I already miss summer and these little Italian jobs are probably the last stone fruit I'll get until late next June. Have two pears in the house? Use them. I've never done it with apples, but there's literally no good reason why it wouldn't work. Papaya? Sure. Cut up the fruit. I don't know how much - let's say two cups. Or more if you really like fruit. Or less if you prefer a higher custard to fruit ratio.

Step two: crack three eggs into something large enough to hold three cups of stuff plus room to whisk.

Step three: dump into the bowl (or bowl-like object) 1 cup of sugar, 1/2 cup of flour a good pinch of salt and, totally depending on what fruit you used and what spices you do or do not like or want, spices. Whisk this together until there are no lumps (give it a good whisk for, I don't know 45 seconds to a minute).

Step four: whisk in one cup of milk (whole milk please, people, it's ONE CUP of whole milk, you won't die from the fat intake) and, if you are so inclined, some liquid flavoring: vanilla extract, almond extract, cognac, whatever. Whisk until this is all smooth (again, maybe 30 seconds).

Step five: pour into prepared vessel. A note on your prepared vessel. It doesn't matter what it is so long as it's safe to be cooked in. I used a silicone angel food cake pan because I was too lazy to wonder where my oven-safe ceramic stuff was. If your vessel is not made of silicone, give it some butter or cooking spray so that your clafoutis doesn't stick. Put in oven for 45 minutes or so. It might take longer. If, after 45 minutes, it looks like it could be done (not wobbly, top kind of golden and crunchy looking), jab a knife/toothpick/bbq skewer into it. If your jabbed item comes out without liquid custard dripping down it, chances are you're done. I actually let mine stay in a little overlong and I'm happy I did because now its consistency is like flan.

Now, I know I just wrote a lot there making it seem like this is complicated, or involving of lots of your time, but that's just because I tend towards the verbose. To sum up:

Preheat oven: 5 seconds
Crack eggs: 30 seconds
Measure and whisk in dry ingredients: 90 seconds
Measure and whisk in wet ingredients: 60 seconds
Grease pan and pour in mixture: 30 seconds

That's it. Your active time for this dessert is 215 seconds, or 3 1/2 minutes. Then, it cooks while you eat dinner.

Now, sadly, clafoutis does not look pretty once it's finished, ergo no finished product picture. It tastes amazing though. Even devoted partner, no especial fan of a) plums or b) fruit in his dessert, ate his serving and then helped himself to another serving the next evening without being prompted. With that ringing endorsement, how can you NOT make this tonight?

Success(es) and Failure

Before we proceed, I need to acknowledge two individuals who helped make dinner such a success. The first is Dan, and by extension, all the folks at Grazin' Angus Acres who practice some sick ass voodoo to make their chickens come out that way - the chicken is so good that, try as I might, I cannot curse Dan et al for making them so damned expensive. If that's what it costs to have chicken that good, well, I guess I've been suckered in. Locals, this chicken can be yours as well on Friday and Saturday at the USQ Greenmarket and Sundays at either Carroll Gardens or the Museum of Natural History. I will not receive a kickback, there is no ulterior motive save the fact that this is the best goddamned chicken I have ever eaten in my life! The second is Adam of The Amateur Gourmet who provided me (and the rest of the internet - we're not actually acquainted) with this recipe for roasting a chicken. So easy, a one-armed blind man could do it with finesse. If you've never roasted a chicken, I swear to you, I was once just like you, and then I discovered the two gentlemen just mentioned and now I roast chickens and devoted partner thinks I am the one with the sick ass voodoo.

My clothes are becoming pinker by the day. I now know, as in know for certain, that there are no items in the wash that have never been washed before. I know this for true. Yet, this morning, I removed more pink clothing that had not been pink before. Where does the pink come from? I am now resorting to the clusterf*ck that is the internet to get remedies from the masses for arresting this horrible development and, I fervently hope, salvaging the already pink clothing - I mean two white button downs, people - I need those shirts so that I can look not crappy. Bleach and Cascade. Lemon juice and bleach. Bleach and bleach. Some people are claiming that the one actual bleed from the first time I used this washer is lurking within and that I will need to perform some kind of washer exorcism involving bleach and empty loads. I am running an empty load right now sans bleach because I don't have bleach. I now know where I'm going after work, though. The bleach store.

But, on the bright side, something that should be pink (well, purple really, but I'm trying to wordsmith here!) is definitely pink and tastes fantabulous: the concord grape sorbet part 1. It just finished churning and is now hardening in the freezer. I'm feeling quite good about how it looks and tastes, so much so that I see a quenelle photography session in my future.

A Post in Three Parts

I.
The phone rings at 9:00pm. From our position on the couch I am closer to the nearest handset. As I get up I remember that I've spoken to both of my parents within the past three hours and that devoted partner's sister was spoken to the evening before meaning, "my bet's on your mom." I was wrong. It was his dad.

Now devoted partner's father and I have had our ups and downs, but for the past two or so years we've been in an ups phase. Still, and with no malice, whenever he's on the phone there's something strange. Like he still can't believe that telephonic technology works. He is always calling from in transit - and much like my father believes that other people really really want to talk to you while you're driving your car and cursing at traffic - and always seems a little confused that, after dialing our number, a person picks up on the other end.

So his mild discombobulation is normal. Last night, however, there was a fever pitched-ness about it: he was, obviously, calling from a moving vehicle, but the scenario he described was reminiscent of a Thelma & Louise scene from the cutting room floor. He was in the car with devoted partner's aunt (it was her car); they had wrangled a large rug out of his apartment, stuffed it into the Audi convertible, and were on their way over to give it to us. One might inquire why this was being done in the middle of the night, but I know better than to ask. I myself have a younger brother and I loved this imagery.

Surprisingly, given the slightly bizarre location of our house, they arrived about fifteen minutes later in one piece and yes, with a rug hanging out of the convertible. Devoted partner and dad wrestled it out of the car and into our house while I refreshed Aunty's drink and gave her the grand tour. I could sell neither of them on a slice of nectarine cake, but was able to pass around some freshly picked Honeycrisp apples - my role as hostess preserved.

Now we need another rug pad.

II.
Yesterday morning I stopped off at my parent's apartment to pick up some black cherry tomatoes my mother had kindly purchased for me at the market. As I was getting ready to leave, I calculated the number of blocks to work and realized it was the perfect number for a leisurely morning cigarette.

And then I remembered I'm not smoking.

I think New York smokers all calculate distance by number of cigarettes needed. For example: my best friend's house was 2 cigarettes away from mine - 11 blocks. From my house to school was 1 - and what a good 1 it was; our old apartment to the subway wasn't long enough for even one cigarette which never seemed ton stop devoted partner (and which always perplexed/vexed me) - and while our old apartment to my old job was also a little short for a full cigarette, given how I didn't want to rush to my desk, I didn't mind spending the extra minute or so outside finishing my cigarette.

I mention this because even though I have not had a pack of cigarettes within grasping distance in over a month, the habit is still in there. In fact, I think one of the reasons the quitting has been so easy for me is that I think of myself on vacation from smoking rather than on permanent holiday. This has the potential to be very dangerous - mostly because I already catch myself thinking that I could become one of those rare birds for whom a cigarette every once in a while is an easily accomplishable thing; the kind of person who, when out for the evening sipping bourbon obviously also smokes a quarter or a half pack, but then doesn't smoke again for a month. I can almost see myself as that person. But, I'm not going to test that theory quite yet.

I may have mentioned that built into my quitting plan was the escape plan: smoking is permitted on international vacation. If you've ever been a smoker, and you've ever been to Europe, you'll know that this makes lots of sense (even now as those damn Europeans are smoking less). Still, walking across Paris from south to north without a cigarette in your mouth seems somehow wrong. This was a fairly easy caveat to squeeze in, mostly because I knew there was probably not going to be international travel for at least six months (the islands don't count - no one had her enjoyment of the tropics diminished by a lack of cigarettes). So I gave myself an opportunity to outlast the craving. If six-twelve months from now I still think I'd want a cigarette while driving from the Geneva airport to Dijon, I guess I'll see what happens; but I simultaneously allow for the possibility that I'll become one of those horrid ex-smokers who wrinkles her nose at the smell of smoke. If I can last 6-12 months, I can try a cigarette and rely on my sheer force of will, that same force that made quitting a breeze, to prevent a slide back to habitual smoking.

That's the theory, anyway.

III.

It strikes me that I could, from time to time, encourage you to cook. I liked this cake I made Sunday. It was easy. It needed only a little tweaking. I think some of you should make this cake because making cake is good for the soul.

Nectarine (or any fruit, really) Cake
adapted from Gourmet Magazine, September 2009

• flour........................125 grams
  
• baking powder........10 grams
  
• salt..........................good pinch
  
• butter.....................115 grams
  
• eggs.............................2 whole
  
• sugar #1.................170 grams
  
• sugar #2...................20 grams
  
• vanilla extract............5 grams
  
• almond extract...........2 grams
  
• fruit...............................to taste
  

Combine dry ingredients. Beat butter and sugar #1 until light and fluffy; add eggs one at a time; add extracts; add dry ingredients and beat until just combined. Slice/segment/ensmallenate fruit. Pour batter into greased springform pan (9") and spread evenly; stud with ensmallenated fruit (next time I make this I will be pushing fruit under the surface of the batter as well as piling it on top); sprinkle sugar #2 on top. Bake in a 350 degree oven for 50 minutes.

Some ideas I've been toying with:

Use pears and add some star anise;
Use figs and add some chopped pistachios;
Add vanilla bean;
Add candied almonds.

Play around with it, the recipe is a cinch!

The Nesting. It Begins.

There have been murmurs, rustlings even. It was around the time pillow cases for the couch were purchased that suspicions should have aroused. Also when mother-in-law was invited over "just because." It is true, I baked for the neighbors, but that could have been a fluke, a one-off. After all, the excuses are legit: there is no prep table and the counter space in upstairs kitchen is limited. Still, now that there is a 32qt. stockpot on the stove with water in it ready for boiling, and now that the pantry has been stocked with 6 jars of jam, it is probably time to admit that I have nested.

Devoted partner is not necessarily a devoted picker of his own fruits. I am. I know that there is no true cost benefit and that instead of simply buying fruit I now have to pick it myself, but as anyone who has ever seen me spend 10 minutes going through the cherry bin at Union Square picking out the individual cherries I want could guess, I like having the kind of quality control that pick your own fruit provides. I tried a brand new farm because they had Honeycrisp apples (which are really really good) and because they also offered raspberry and blueberry picking as well as pears. It was like one stop shopping for all my in season fruit needs. I had not done much raspberry consuming all summer and knew I wanted to have some jam, so I beseeched devoted partner and he charmingly acquiesced (devoted partner likes picking apples which are easy and fun and he likes to eat them - devoted partner does not like eating raspberries and finds picking them from tiny low to the ground thorny bushes a pain). It was a rainy crappy day so we had the farm essentially to ourselves and 4 pounds of raspberries and about 35 pounds of apples later, we were returning home in a very sweet smelling Subaru. I made the jam Saturday night. Please note how cool the golden raspberry jam looks.

Saturday was also a big deal because we made some progress towards being able to see one another after sunset. Having been utterly failed by traditional home decor stores, we stopped at, no joke, Goodwill, to get temporary lights. I find it disturbing that for $5 we could get lights that didn't offend us any more, stylistically, than those we could have gotten at Crate and Ethan Barn for $150. So, now we have tide us over lights with the added hipster cache of having gotten them at goodwill (sadly there was very little in the leopard print clothing department).

Much as I adore summer and wonder at how I'm going to be able to make my tan last until winter vacation, the cool weather is finding me snuggled into a leather chair with my feet tucked beneath me knitting and watching DVRed episodes of Top Chef as I spread homemade jam on bread. The last bite of that nectarine cake will be my personal symbol of the changing seasons. I'll probably make the next one with pears.

At Least It's A Beautiful Day For A Drive

Alongside our traditional bathroom reading of National Geographic is a book devoted partner got, half in jest, called something like: Great Things About Living in Greenwich; essentially a compendium of things the resident should know about. I have eagerly perused its pages searching for the hidden nuggets that will make me excited about living in a white glove community, and have jotted down a couple of items here and there for more investigation.

Having been given today off, then, I decided to head to a neighboring town, back in New York in fact, whose butcher got high marks from the guide. It is true that Greenwich has a perfectly adequate in-town butcher, but his offerings, while they have been tasty, have also been predictable, and my guide to great Greenwich told me this other butcher was worth a 20 minute drive because he had more exotic fare. I like exotic. I had already conjured up visions of squab and ostrich and wild boar and was composing recipes in my head on the drive over.

The butcher in the neighboring town (and since I have nothing against the butcher, I'm not going to mention it by name or town) had, literally, the exact same meat my Greenwich butcher has: filet mignon, sirloin, ribeye, pork chops, lamp chops, chicken. I asked about duck (not exotic in my mind at all); they can special order me frozen. What about duck fat? Also a special order. I didn't bother asking about boar or squab. I didn't whine like a priss and mention that the great Greenwich guide to good grub told me they'd have a better selection and that I drove here expressly to be wowed, because it's not the butcher's fault. He, like the Greenwich butcher, stocks what people buy. Just because I'm super snot-tacular about food does not obligate these butchers to stock things I, and I alone, will purchase when the mood strikes me.

I had a similar experience on the drive back home. I had passed a farmstand and told myself I would investigate on the return trip. The farmstand certainly looked like a farmstand and some of the produce looked like it may have come from a nearby farm, but most of the product was the same stuff you get in the grocery store: apples from New Zealand, grapes from Chile, figs from California; at prices higher than the supermarket. I know these nice folks are trying to make a living and I also noted that people lined up to buy their wares - I just wondered if I was the only one who noticed that the peaches and nectarines had stickers on them betraying far-off provenance.

And then something struck me which will take a little getting used to: the customers don't care. Not that they're bad or gauche or ignorant, just that this isn't a priority. Making the duck with blackberries recipe from Food & Wine isn't what any of them was planning on doing this weekend. When I remarked to my best friend that I had been surprised that the Whole Foods in Greenwich was actually smaller than those in New York, he didn't bat an eye when he said people out here didn't cook like that and thought that the good local strawberries would be good if only they were big and pretty and uniform like the Driscoll's. Sure, the Whole Foods is always packed, but I've been noticing that what the other shoppers are putting into their baskets are the prepared foods, organic snacks, and occasionally coffees, and not the raw materials with which they would cook their own food. So why would the butchers stock anything that couldn't be immediately thrown on a grill Saturday? Why would the independent grocers spend the time and money to amass local ingredients that wouldn't sell?

The Union Square greenmarket has spoiled me a little, as has seeing my fellow New Yorkers, a group of people who traditionally order Chinese as a way of life, shop for food they will ultimately cook. I'm not saying that none of my new neighbors cooks for her family, I am merely getting the feeling that what that cooking entails might be a little simpler than what I have in mind, and that the market supports that simpler, more traditional cookery.

This has not deterred me, however. I will now convince myself that, with a little leg work, I can buy directly from farms in the greater Fairfield area. I'll find the small farmer with his horde of ostriches, and the 4th generation family of heritage nectarine growers. This bucolic paradise exists if only I'm willing to drive, oh, 150 miles to amass the perfect ingredients for a single meal. Which would be really environmentally conscientious.

Or I could continue to make a once a week trip to Union Square to stock up.

This Crap Weather

I only wait for summer all year. Not just because of the weather, the tan, the excuse for frozen drinks, but because, for a few short months, my kitchen comes alive with bounty. Many delightful things are created and enjoyed, and the long long long winter months of cabbage and turnip seem but a distant memory. This summer had some problems not associated with the weather:

The fruit fly consortium in my old apartment kitchen did sort of turn me off cooking for a while - or getting anywhere near the kitchen or bathroom; one was avoidable, the other, sadly, less avoidable.

Perhaps you'd heard, but we moved. In between tossing everything out from the old kitchen and barely stocking the new, and not having the same kind of space, and not having a prep table, well, cooking elaborate things was not really going to happen.

But now it's September 1, and by my count I have at least 3 good weeks left of peaches, tomatoes, raspberries, peppers, corn, blueberries, plums, beans, well pretty much everything. And you know what? It all sucks.

Perhaps that's being a little too harsh, it doesn't suck, it's just not great. My longed for apricots from Red Jacket Orchards? I'm not even sure they're good enough to make preserves. The peaches? Had to be sugared on the peach cheesecake I made for my new neighbors. The cherries? Forget it, they tasted like, well, a month of rain. The tomatoes? Mealy. It is sort of breaking my heart because I know that it's about to be all apples and potatoes all the time before I know it, and I won't even have pleasant memories to guide me through the winter.

And while I could blame this predicament on my attempts to be local and seasonal, it's not as though those Driscoll berries taste like anything no matter what time of year it is. I just wanted a couple of good tarts, something visually appealing that I could enjoy while sitting in my backyard with a cold glass of something. I want to make and jar tomato sauce for the winter, but if the tomatoes don't taste like much now, I hardly think three months in a jar will improve them.

So, while today is beautiful, I think it's too late for this season of food (which makes me a little glad, actually, that we missed making reservations at Blue Hill at Stone Barns for, I don't know, the 4th year in a row, because as much as I think he's the cat's meow, I don't think even Dan Barber could turn this crap harvest around). I'm trying to look ahead to roasted chickens and apple pies.