Just Can't Quit Ya

Financial report from Jenny's Bread Pudding Business, which has expanded to include the following products:

1. Bread Pudding, with homemade Challah
2. Sour Cream Walnut Coffee Bundt Cake, with Sugar Glaze
3. Coconut Chiffon Cake with Cream Cheese and Buttercream Frosting, and Grated Coconut
4. Berry Tart with Short Dough Crust and Vanilla Pastry Cream, with or without Painted Dark Chocolate on Crust

• initial investment—baking supplies (pans, tins, papers, dough cutters, bakery boxes, string, etc., including one mistake of a tart pan I did not use, worth $25): $275.99
• food supplies, as of today: $462.95
• total receipts in my manila envelope (excluding extraneous taxi, video, and "Bead World" receipts): $738.94

• Total intake, via invoices (excluding three orders gratuit, worth approximately $58): $666.05

• TOTAL LOSS SO FAR (not including hours of labor, which I have yet to calculate, but I could): $72.89
• Other side of the coin: Payback so far, not including my initial investment: $203.10, on my way to making back my initial investment of $275.99, and then maybe, maybe, I could begin to make money. Inch by Inch.

Note: There are several variables at work here, including:

1. I have not included in my costs: cleaning supplies, including dish detergent, floor detergent.
2. There are several receipts from last minute, unfulfilled mise en place shopping at my corner deli, where I have asked for the receipt, which I then have not itemized, so I'm not 100% sure that each of those items have gone toward my baking.
3. At same said deli, there is a very sweet worker who would really like to go out with me, and though I have told him I can't join him for a beer, a number of times, he seems to give me recession prices, often charging me only 1/3 of what the price is (though I'm sure the deli's not losing at all), so I don't ask for a receipt then, so 100% of food supplies have probably not been accounted for.
4. Perhaps I can knock out 2 and 3 above, and call it even.
   

Weekend Homework

Aaaah! New assignment from the gourmet takeout across the street: Coffee cake bundt cake with walnuts and drizzled glaze...Guess I know what I'll be doing with my single self all weekend. Plus, they want to call my brand Jenny from the Block (since I do live across the street), but asked to see my butt first, just to make sure the phrase fit. (And let me tell you, no one's asked me that for a while.) Grade: at least passing, I guess.

But Jenny from the Block? Hmmm...

Alexandria Speaks

Design: Alexandria, D.J.'s tween sitter

Take Two

Back by quasi-popular demand (two requests), I am now returning to the IFC. Got a midweek batch of B.P. in the oven; an inconsistent selling rate at the gourmet takeout across the street; a new, relatively lucrative (!) freelance copywriting gig on my computer (book covers for the publishing house); a daughter who I apparently put too much pressure on, so I'll no longer be going public, completely bustin', over her achievements, and in particular, her rash of upcoming performances; another surprise business venture I've yet to mention though have been sitting on for years, but suddenly my one-of-a-kind Lost and Found tween jewelry collection is possibly a wanted item at a seriously hip East 9th Street store; and a bunch of other stuff I guess I'll get into eventually. I also still maintain a two times per week Tracy Anderson Method Mat Workout DVD average, but that's probably the last you'll hear about that.

Shout out to N.M., funist, who inspired me (didn't take much) with his...UNSOLICITED ADVICE (trademark 2008, J.K.).

The Irreverent Family Cookbook

School's Out

Special Thanks!

Here's a sincere shout-out to my loyal blog followers, official or otherwise; any and all comment writers; my birthday celebrators; my mom for her present; my sister C. for being my most ardent fan, and E. for joining in at the end; Dee, the super cool bakery couple, the restaurant lifer, J., Monique, the three assistants, and the single mother of three who stopped coming after a while; the generous family, without whom I could not have managed the class; Alexandria, who picked up the Saturday slack; anyone and everyone who ever bought or will buy my bread pudding; the folks at the gourmet take-out across the street; my taste testers, aka, my landlord and neighbors; the cooking school on 7th Avenue and 14th Street; and mostly, to Chef Nola, one bitchin', life-altering chef and mentor, who always kept things cool in the kitchen.

Dedication

To My Daughter Judy,

Thank you for picking me to be your mother.

Moving On

Let's review (I had a beautiful photo to present for just this moment, but it's not uploading. Darn!):

• I finished my thirteen-week one hundred-hour baking and pastry arts class. Certificate in the mail.
• I met Chef Nola, who is really a special person. Plus Dee, the super cool bakery couple, and the rest.
  
• I gave myself a D+ for my participation in the Tracy Anderson Method Mat Workout DVD, based solely on my attendance record. I still think it's a great (albeit monotonous) workout, and will try to continue on with it as I prepare for summer in the city.
• I'm selling Jenny's Bread Pudding with homemade Challah at the gourmet take-out place across the street. So far, it's a small but potent runaway success.
• I had six loyal followers on my blog. Hollah!
• I've begun the transfer of my blog to book form. New variation on a title: How to Make Bread Pudding.
• I made eclairs. And petit fours. And puff pastry. And tarts. Pies. Breads. Cakes. Cookies. Rose decorations. And more.
  
• I've moved on from my previous Challah recipe (will leave that recipe in the sidebar, however, for old times' sake), and am back to my textbook's Challah, which turned out excellent this week. In fact, my bread pudding looks amazing this time around.
• I still don't have a guy, though there are two possible set-ups on the horizon: one with an upstate inventor who has his own waterfall (though I can't seem to manifest that rendezvous), and one with the bass player from...Joan Jett (who've I've been told I resemble). The yentl there wanted to know if I thought he was cute, but honestly, I couldn't tell with that big U.S.A. tattoo on his arm, and his hair all red and spiky around his head. He kind of looked like a big grenade. (P.S. My phone broke yesterday when I dropped it on another mystery call from you-know-who-you-are. As if I hadn't gotten the message already!)
  
• I still don't have a new job, or more hours of the old one. My copy editing is improving, though. Now if I could just stop leaving the books until the last minute, I'd probably be much less stressed.
• I have a few new baking tools, including a cool digital scale, a three-ounce ladle, an ice cream scooper, a mini ice cream scooper, a new pastry brush, a box of decorating tips, and even a dough cutter! Plus, of course, my Top Chef kit, my Fourth Edition Le Cordon Bleu Professional Baking textbook, and my yellow spiral filled with copious notes and handouts, one of which includes my now top-secret recipe for Jenny's Bread Pudding.
• I can put together a bakery box. Kind of.
  
• Mise en place: I'm giving myself a prize for most improved.
• D.J. continues to amaze—me, herself, and the world around her. Today begins the first rehearsals for her debut at Lincoln Center. I am so grateful.
  

Yes!

Totally sold out by six p.m. yesterday!

Have new tips from Chef for improving my bread making, so I'm going to try that again today, 'cause the cafe already wants a refill.

Yes!

International Day

Dee definitely wins top International Day entry with this beautiful Italian cake I can't remember the name of. It's marble pound cake, sliced, soaked in Amaretto, molded in a bowl, filled with layers of both plain and chocolate whipped cream, refrigerated overnight, and finally turned out on the plate the next morning. Was truly delicate and delicious. Congrats!


My contribution, Grandma Piggyback's Brownie Pie, was frankly only so-so (though Chef did ask for another large piece to go), and I had a bitch of a time making a nice looking slice. The restaurant lifer brought some kind of sandwich cookie with caramel filling that someone else made for him (what-the-?!), and though people raved, I still haven't tried mine yet. Monique looked so pretty and fresh in her street clothes, and she made a Haitian pudding with crackers, sugar, buttermilk, and fruit, which was actually very good, though not the most attractive color. The super cool bakery couple never showed, and I think we were all kinda disappointed.

Before the tasting, we talked about our plans post class, and the soon-to-be-divorcee, who arrived with no International offering, received her own personal Chef-over, a tough-love encounter similar to the one I'd gotten last week. I do hope she heeds Chef's words, though, which seemed to be spot-on, and the whole scenario reminded me of the Pulitzer Prize-winning play, Rabbit Hole. Though I did not love this play, I often think about the question it raised, which is: Under whatever duress you find yourself, could you dare to imagine living your same life...differently?

"Somebody Told Me" by The Killers

photo: The generous mom who, of course, came to see D.J. tap in her school's talent show.

OMG, D.J. is an amazing tap dancer!

NIMBY

Yes, Chocolate Bar has moved into my backyard. No joke.

I knew they were returning to a spot right around the corner from me, and that my neighbor to the left was to be their landlord, but I never realized I could see right into their kitchen. Further, they're having a party tonight, so I thought I'd mosey on over and see what delectable hot chocolate drink or Jacques Torres bonbon I could score. Not! It's a private affair. With a bouncer, guest list, umbrella holder by the door, and everything. I mean, who is the chocolate crowd, and how cool do you have to be to step under that umbrella? I'm actually a bit insulted I couldn't get in. How's that for a low blow.

Still, their mini chocolate croissants—fresh from Balthazar—are the perfect size, and I'm seriously going to have to control myself every time I walk by, which is about fifty times a day.

Must check on my bread pudding sales.

Checklist

• Have twenty-three four-ounce fantastic looking bread puddings in my tiny refrigerator right now, midway through their three-hour cooling process. My Challah seemed to work just right, at least visually.
• Hired one of D.J.'s young tween sitters, Alexandria, to make the Jenny's Bread Pudding logo. Was supposed to arrive before today's delivery, but has been postponed until next week.
• Wrote up my first invoice, though wonder whether or not I should've put C.O.D. on the thing.
• Emailed my Bread Pudding update to a growing distribution list, and called a few others. I quickly shut down the personal updates, though, when the two brothers at one of my corner delis had no idea what I was talking about, and apparently don't even like bread pudding.
  
• Figured out who bought at least half of last week's order, so that's actually making me kind of nervous they won't sell out as quickly this time 'round. (Visualization exercise for myself, and/or anyone else who's into it: They sell out. Quickly. With lots of compliments. Maybe someone even inquires about a private, separate, larger order. Some very cute man enjoys his pudding, and asks to meet the baker, Jenny. Oh, and I get a call from that editor-turned-agent regarding her strong interest and excitement in my blog/book, which she agrees should be called Bread Pudding.)
• Created my mise en place for tomorrow's class assignment (B.Y.O.Dessert) for International Day. I don't feel very international these days, so I've opted for...Grandma Piggyback's Brownie Pie (http://theirreverentfamilycookbook.blogspot.com/2009/02/grandma-piggybacks-brownie-pie.html). It's not the most professional looking item, but it is freaking great, so that's that. Maybe I'll dust it with confectioner's sugar. I'd also bring vanilla ice cream if the taste tests weren't going to be first thing in the a.m.
• Wrote off the recent series of unsatisfying phone calls with my Italian ex. Sadly.
  
• Asked for a two-day extension on my latest vampyre copy edit.

Prizewinner

Surely Grandma Piggyback wins the prize, posthumously, for most prolific contributor to The Irreverent Family Cookbook's original recipe collection. Further, she's right in there with the dysfunctional spirit of the thing—she wasn't my father's mother for nothing—and was definitely the most memorable cook, with all the right sensory trappings, of my growing up.

Sometimes I think I feel her on Halloween night, when the veil is thin between this world and the next. (Next time I'm at the bookstore, I swear I'm going to write down the page number of Grandma P.'s spitting-image Diane Arbus photo I described early on.) In the meantime, I'm offering up a final IFC recipe of hers, a very down-to-earth coffee cake.

GRANDMA P.'S COFFEE CAKE

"Excellent cake—topping even better."

—my mother, Grandma P.'s daughter-in-law

1 cup Presto flour, or any cake flour
1 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
scant 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
pinch of salt
2 eggs beaten, then add heavy cream to measure 1 cup

Topping:
5 Tablespoons brown sugar
2 Tablespoons softened butter
1 Tablespoon heavy cream
Chopped nuts

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Prepare topping: Beat together butter, cream, and sugar until smooth. Add nuts and stir until well blended. Set aside.

For the cake, mix together dry ingredients in a bowl.

Add egg mixture, with vanilla, and beat until smooth.

Pour into well-greased 8-inch square pan. Bake 30 minutes. (Check after 20 minutes.)

Pull cake out of the oven and immediately spread with topping.

Place under broiler until melted and browned.

Cool before cutting in squares and serving.

'Nuff Said

The cafe dude doubled the order from last week!

B.P. Email Update, Week 2

Hi guys,

Well, last week's Bread Pudding sold out (!), so they're booked again for this weekend (under the name Jenny's Bread Pudding, btw), and will be available from Friday late afternoon through Sunday evening. This time, however, I made my own Challah, so that should amp up the item even more!

So, if possible, and you're around Jane Street and Eighth Avenue this weekend, or you want to send friends and family to Bonsigneur there, do feel free to stop by and sample again.

And if you bought my B.P. last week, I appreciate it! Thanks so much!

Jenny

(Just in case—the pudding's supposed to be heated up, and then turned out, bottom side up, on your plate, for full enjoyment!)

Here's the link to my blog, which tells the whole backstory, and more....www.theirreverentfamilycookbook.blogspot.com

D.J.'s Poetry Breakfast

Four Haiku for Middle School

(I plan to read these
Four Haiku for Middle School.
Must check with her first.)

Middle school is a
lot different than before.
I embarrass her.

I love to watch her
dance so pretty. It’s hard work.
Have you seen her jump?

Her friends know me, but
talk about embarrassment.
That’s her hiding there.

I might think I’m smart,
but she is smarter today
than when I was young.

When Harry Met Sally

Sorry about the not razor-sharp photos. Will try again next week, our last week, even though yesterday seemed like the fat lady was singing on my thirteen-week, one hundred-hour baking/pastry arts class. I am kind of sad it is over.

High- and lowlights of the day included getting accosted on Seventh Avenue by a crazy person at lunch. Some guy purposely walked straight into me, as if I knew him, or something. He kept walking and walking, until he had me backed up against a scaffolding pole, his middle finger in my face. And then he moved on.

Maybe he targeted me for being a bit out-of-sorts, 'cause earlier in class, before we went into the kitchen, Chef gave me a really, really, really hard time for not doing the sugar cookies for the cafe dude across the street from my place. For like a half hour or so. In front of the entire class. That I'd started a ball rolling, so why was I stepping out of the way when I encountered my first pebble? That the dude was my client, so why was I saying no to him? What kind of a businessperson did that make me? That the math could work in my favor. That it didn't matter I didn't think the cookies were so great. I mean, she also told me I had a gift for communicating, and could sell shit to a cow, but that I wasn't dreaming big enough.

But what blew me the most, I think, and something I'm still trying to decipher, was that she suggested I was a person who made stories out of stories (she's right), and I should just (basically) shut up and do the thing. I suddenly flashed onto the first-act cross-country scene in When Harry Met Sally, when Harry asks Sally to tell him the story of her life. She says nothing's happened to her yet, which is why she's going to journalism school in New York City. And he challenges her—so she can write about things that happen to other people?

And by the way, I don't think men and women can just be friends. Shout out to you-know-who-you-are.

Chef Nola

My Wedding Cake Turned Tea Party Hat Cake

Lou (the Assistant), Dee, Her Cake, and The Restaurant Lifer

The Super Cool Bakery Couple and Their Cake

S.R.O.

At rise: Sexy apron-wearing Jenny is still baking in her well-worn kitchen with the flour-covered red floor, making more of the super tiny bite-size sandwich cookies for decoration's sake for tomorrow's mini wedding cake. D.J.'s on a sleepover with that generous family.

Eight-thirty p.m. Phone rings.

"Hi, cafe dude...Well, that is great...Really?...Wow!...Can I make more for tomorrow...?"

[This is exactly how I visualized it—that they would sell out, and I would have ten more waiting to swiftly bring across the street.]

"Um, well, actually, no. I've got my baking/pastry class all day tomorrow, those tins you ordered used up all my batter, and I need twenty-four hours to get the bread just right...What's that? Jenny's Bread Pudding?...Well, yes. That sounds good...Let's call it a success, then, and reboot for next weekend..."

!!!

So, if any of you peeps bought my bread pudding, hollah!

Postscript: Head's Up! Email

Embarrassment alert: Do not look for the sugar cookies! They won't be there. (No comment.)
But all the more reason to check out the bread puddings, $3.50 each, which are there, starting...now!
Thanks!
Jenny

Instructions

Embarrassment!

Let me tell you the cafe dude did NOT accept the sugar cookies! I didn't even want to do them in the first place, but he asked for them, so I agreed. He suggested if I bagged them, etc., I could sell them, but I said no. Not worth the money and time at all. In fact, they're not even that great, though I turned the extra dough into delicious bite-sized raspberry jam sandwich cookies, which are NOT for sale.

Bread puddings accepted, however, and he seemed to like them, but I told him firmly that if there was a next time, I was going to use the smaller containers (as I'd originally intended) because 1) the price is better for me, and 2) they actually look more attractive if they're rising upwards in the smaller tins, as opposed to spreading flatter in the larger tins he'd insisted upon. Never mind the lower calorie count, 'cause the whole thing clocks in at an obscene 129 calories per ounce, approximately. Plus—this guy plays hardball—he was trying to renege on the heating of the puddings, which I quickly put a stop to. (Hey, I wasn't in the circus—or my father's daughter—for nothing.)

I'm debating now whether or not to warn my peeps, via another dorky email. Subject line: Embarrassment!

A Rainbow

Wedding Cake

I am exhausted from Take Our Daughters To Work Day. (And I thought our apartment was tight.) Jeez. I did not get much done, and we did not run into Tim Gunn at the salad bar. I also saw no other daughters in our office today, though I did notice a young girl riding the elevator back to work with her mother after lunch, staring wide-eyed at her Happy Meal box.

Meanwhile, I think I need to go to math trade school next, and figure out why this weekend's baking feat will go pretty much...unpaid for!

At the same time, I am preparing for my last day of baking/pastry class instruction on Saturday. (The class continues the following Saturday for a half day, but we're to bring in baked goods from home, preferably from our country. When I asked my mom for a suggestion, she offered up the idea of Southern food, which I cannot figure out at all since that is one place we've never lived.)

We'll be making mini wedding cakes, supposedly three-tiered though I think Chef's changing the concept to two tiers. We apparently must make vanilla/vanilla cakes, so my decorating idea includes raspberries, shaved chocolate, whatever design my new pastry decorating tips will release, and tiny red sugar hearts I bought at the famed New York Cake & Baking Distributors. I never had my own wedding cake—probably one of the reasons why thorn-in-my-side and I are no longer together—but this one is dedicated to the money-where-their-mouth-is amazingly generous family that takes D.J. pretty much whenever I need. Hollah!

Must go do Tracy Anderson now, and get back on board. FYI: It is definitely better to do the baking/pastry class with the workout sessions, as opposed to without them.

P.S. Of course Michelle Obama invited one hundred children to work at the White House today.

HI!

Heyyyy! This is Daughter Judy at your service!
So I'm at my mom's work doing the first "job" that my mom assigned me to do, which is to be the guest blogger, even though I have no clue at all of what to say....... um .........

I know that I really want my mom to take down that really unattractive picture of me that is posted in her cubicle. It looks like I'm crazy or something, and it gives the people at her work the wrong image.

I have met all the people at my mom's work. They are nice. I like Golden, she's kewl. And I forget this one guy's name but he likes ANTM and Project Runway, so we had a little chat. But that's really it. I might post in later but I doubt it!!!!! TEE HEE!!!!!

Bustin'!

I switched days this week at the publishing house, so D.J. and I could finally participate in Take Our Daughters To Work Day, something we seem to overlook every year. She gets to miss school, and I get someone to talk to at work! Plus, she's so cool, I look good just standing next to her, so having her with me will surely boost my status there. Plus, I told her if she was cooperative, at lunch, we could go to nearby Claire's, and/or try to catch Tim Gunn at the salad bar at one p.m.

In order to actually get some work done, though, I'm assigning her at least two tasks for tomorrow—one of which is appearing as The Irreverent Family Cookbook's Guest Blogger—and hopefully she can go on a Starbucks run with my boss's rocking assistant, Golden, later in the day. But at some point, there's no way around her checking out the multiple stock photography covers that line the bookshelves, cropped to the edges with "man boob" pictures (her description, not mine), and a bunch of lusty ladies.

Meanwhile, this was all just an excuse for me to say that D.J. was just asked to perform at Alice Tully Hall, Lincoln Center, in June. This from the semi-professional dance company she's in, where she's also appearing as Yoko Ono in their end-of-the-year event.

Pudding Problems

Do not want to be a downer, and maybe I'm not in a chipper enough mood today, but now that I've shopped for ingredients for the bread pudding and sugar cookies, suddenly, my prices seem way too low. Either that, and/or I need a minimum number of pieces per order. Another issue: I wanted to make the puddings in four ounce containers, and the place is asking for larger pieces, so there's a big loss right there. Haven't even figured out the sugar cookie prices, as they weren't my original intention, but since the cafe guy wanted them, I said okay. Seems like this endeavor is turning out to be exactly what I didn't want, a lotta work and barely any money. If I'm lucky.

I realize this is only the first order—and a trial one, to boot—but I'm already seeing there's no room in my budget for the middle man, and at this rate, I should just have a bake sale outside my house once a week in the summer. Is that legal? Or better still, the mother of a sweet friend of D.J.'s said she wanted to order bread pudding for her birthday party...

Email Head's Up!

Hey guys,
I'm conducting a trial sale of my bread pudding and sugar cookies this weekend at Bonsigneur (Jane Street and 8th Avenue), though I won't be there, from Friday night through Sunday afternoon. If at all possible, and you and your friends are interested and/or in search of a delicious treat (I highly recommend the bread pudding!), feel free to stop by, so the folks at Bonsigneur can see that my baked goods could sell!
Enjoy, and thanks!
Jenny
And for background info on this whole venture, check out my temporary blog, www.theirreverentfamilycookbook.blogspot.com. It's only going to be around for a few more weeks...

"Who Will Buy?"*

Well, the story across the street with the bread pudding is: I'm going to make a few pieces, along with my sugar cookies, for trial sale this weekend. The guy, who btw has a different young lady on his lap every time D.J. and I look, wasn't too enthused about my prices, and was totally trying to lowball me. But nothing's settled between us (and I don't mean his lap), until we see how/if the sales go.

As such, I think I better spread the word, so maybe some of my friends and/or peeps can head over there this weekend and stock up. Word up, peeps! Jane Street and Eighth Avenue, Friday night through Sunday afternoon...

* from the musical Oliver

Last Call

My class, and this blog-in-progress, will be coming to an end soon; the plan was always for a limited run. So this is your last chance—last call—to submit any or all Irreverent Family recipes. Special mention: Cathy—what about Grandma Piggyback's Chocolate Macaroons? Seems like you might have a few of these...

P.S. The Fruit Torte was absolutely delicious, if I may say so, and probably the best cake I've ever made. The chiffon cake layers? Fourth time was the charm.

P.P.S. To the editor-turned-agent/baking enthusiast who seemed so happy to check out my blog: Hollah!

Elegant

Here's my morning's impromptu apple pie like item (the crust being the leftover short dough from yesterday's Fruit Torte). Still haven't tried the cake yet, though did give half to the father of the family D.J. and her dad stayed with over Spring Break.

I know half is a tad tacky, and I would've been happy to have thanked, impressed, and gotten the thing out of my house all in one fell swoop, but I need to at least try it, professionally speaking, of course. So I cut the pretty cake in four pieces, mixed and matched the quarters, and gave the it's-too-long-a-story-to-tell-you-how-I-know-him dad the two best.

D.J., by the way, and one of the young lads she stayed with—how can I put this?—seem to share a great appreciation for each other, and together went to his middle school's Friday night dance. No one took a photo, though I'd asked many times (aaargh!), but I know the boy wore a seersucker jacket, D.J. wore a super cute new skirt and caused a mini uproar in the boy's social sphere, and overall, the father of the lad told me the two of them were "elegant. Just elegant."

Class Was Hard Today

Not sure why I was on the verge of tears much of the day—actually do know—but was thrice called out by Chef, mostly because my work station was too messy, or I was asking too many questions, or I was wasting bakery box string, which apparently any kitchen boss I'd have would not tolerate. (My saving grace: the mini chiffon cakes I made from the excess batter were voted unanimously fantastic, and I sent them home with Chef.)

Meanwhile, while trading love and domestic stories with student Monique during lunch, we realized four of the six women in class were either divorced with children, divorcing with children, or living alone with children. I admired her attitude of surrender towards men's ability to break hearts, and then move on. "Sometimes I think that's their job."

My specialty cake, Fruit Torte, which I think looks pretty, from bottom to top:

• short dough, docked and baked
• raspberry jam
• yellow chiffon cake
  
• combination vanilla buttercream and cream cheese frosting
• yellow chiffon cake
  
• combination frosting
• fruit

Other Options of the Day:

• Red Velvet Cake with Vanilla Buttercream Frosting
• Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting
• Mocha Torte with Chocolate Buttercream Frosting
• Yellow Coconut Chiffon Cake
• The cool bakery dude started making something similar to mine with the short dough bottom, but then made a Genoise cake, covered it in meringue, set a blow torch to it, and it was beautiful.
  

Memories

photos: Dee

Specialty Cakes Tomorrow

Cake decorating week photo: Dee. Holla!

Sugar Cookies

Shout out to any interested party: I realized why today's sugar cookies were different than I'd expected. The other times I made them, I used all-purpose flour, but this morning, I used cake flour, which the recipe calls for.

The dough was much stickier and harder to roll, and they spread upon baking. Whereas before they were smooth and shortbread like, and not unanimously popular, these are softer and chewier, and not nearly as far off from the sugar cookies at Columbine cafe.

Restaurant Interview Epilogue

Not to be completely undone post my b.s. interview, after cleaning up my crazed dessert house, I decided I could not let all those pretty treats go to professional waste. So I approached the owner of the gourmet take-out place across the street, who agreed to see them, but when I assembled and then delivered my third dessert sampler of the day, he seemed stunned.

He said that he liked the box just as is (meaning my combo one bread pudding; two chocolate/chocolate cupcakes, with a hint of pink sprinkles on top; and four sugar cookies, two with raspberry jam and two without), and I had a mini Susan Boyle moment (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lp0IWv8QZY). He then added more compliments even, saying it was the best home-baked sample he'd ever seen. But I was pushing the bread pudding, 'cause they have leftover bread there every day, I think it's the most delicious of the bunch, and is the cheapest, easiest, and fastest to make (though I really wouldn't want him heating it up in the microwave).

So now I'm waiting for the taste test results, and in the meantime, I figured out the mathematics of the possible exchange (must confirm with Chef Nola), and I've got several figures in mind, each one making me a profit. One glitch: I'm only guessing how many bread puddings the full recipe makes (from which I've calculated serving size in both weight and price), but I've erred on the side of caution, and the price is still reasonable for him, even if he sells the goods at one hundred percent markup.

Of course I realize this is all in my head right now, and he could not like the pudding (hardly), or think he could make it cheaper himself (he could), because he decides my prices are too high (I'm not lowering them). My mother told me not to quit my day job (thanks, Mom!), not realizing that that's a big part of what this is all about.

Meanwhile, I'm at a loss for what to do with twenty-four delicious but misshapen unfrosted chocolate cupcakes.

Nap Time

This was my baking sampler (two identical boxes, one atop the other) for the job interview this morning, which, by the way, I did not get. She hired two people yesterday—first come, first served, apparently—and asked if I didn't want to keep the desserts to show to someone else.

"No, I'm good," I said. "I have like forty cupcakes, two dozen cookies, and a lot of bread puddings with homemade Challah at my house right now. I spent thirty dollars on ingredients, had to make the cupcakes twice, the cookies didn't come out as I imagined, and I didn't get any sleep, particularly after my Italian ex called me last night for the first time in well over a year and we spoke for almost two hours. No, I don't have my own bakery, but I agree they look amazing—thank God I didn't bother stuffing the cupcakes with vanilla buttercream frosting as I'd planned—and yes, I made these in my kitchen."


"Good luck," is how she responded. "That's the most important thing."

Explicit Language and Content, Seriously

Since last week, I have gone from spunky, witchy virgin to adventurer chick with a penchant for cougar loving. I'm not talking about me, by the way. These are the heroines in the books I copy edit, and I know I should be happy to have this job, but seriously—cougar fucking and sucking? And the writing, oh, lordy...! Further, I have to get in the mindset of each author, to stroke their style (so to speak), but jeez, sometimes I have to practically rewrite these things. (Plus I'm in a bit of a tizzy 'cause I thought my current couple had already fucked, but now I'm at a point where it's their first time again, so I'm going to have to query the kinda scary career editor and ask her if ramming and releasing means fucking—because I'd say it does—and to keep a head's up for that moment. For consistency's sake, of course.) Genre fiction is apparently the respectable way to define this vast body of work, so I guess I'll stick with that for now.

Did I mention I have a baking interview later this week for a kinda cool East Village bakery/comfort food restaurant? (See most recent sidebar poll.)

Cool For At Least An Hour

Leavened Bread, Continued

The bread is now in its proper braid-on-braid form, and the timer's set for the last sixty minutes of proofing. I've no poppy seeds, but that's okay. I also realized I added too much yeast, which doesn't explain the low-rise factor, but nevertheless, moral of that story is: make sure to double-check the adapted recipe amounts.

(I swear I'm working this blog [as Jay Manuel from ANTM says], "like the rent is due tomorrow," and it is. Well, not tomorrow, but in three weeks or so. And you know what I mean.)

I Did Not Get A Visit From The Easter Bunny

Within forty-eight hours, I've seen and/or heard from the last three men who've swooped in and out of my life over the past ten years. One of them has D.J. with him somewhere near Thompkins Square Park, and with that thorn-in-my-side, combined with an almost overdue copy edit—think bondage and cougar shape-shifting—I've decided to make the ultimate in Passover irreverence (though not my initial intention): challah.

However, I couldn't decipher the recipe from my Cordon Bleu textbook—damn, must make a list of questions to ask Chef before the course is over—so I researched a few recipes on the web, and finally came up with "Challah Recipe from the New York Times," adapted from I Like to Cook.

By the way, I'm currently in the fermentation stage, and it is not working. It's barely bigger, at all. And the sixty-minute timer just went off. (Frankly, I'm not sure it was correct to knead the dough for ten minutes, as per instructed.)

Spring Break

Guest Blogger!

I was going to write something about baking to impress, and how that's not worked out so well for me lately, sic my latest attempt at Pots de Creme Au Chocolate* earlier today. This is not a new recipe for me, and I really can't say what happened, except maybe I should buy an oven thermometer.

Then, with the leftover egg whites, I again attempted the thin 3-layer yellow chiffon cake I made for my sister a week or so ago, the one that came out like a HUGE layer cake. Well, it is extremely thin this time, but now I've got four mottled pots de creme on the kitchen table—dang, cause the other eight look amazingly smooth, like glass—and a HUGE but very thin yellow cookie waited to be frosted, or simply broken into little pieces and dipped in coffee. Oh, and there's a seder for eleven people I'm supposed to bring dessert for in about five hours from now...

Meanwhile, my comment-writing sister chimes in, and wants me to post the following as a comment, but it's too long for that, and also it's pretty funny, and definitely has the Irreverent Family Cookbook spirit. (My only comment: Uh, C., the sliced cake display was my idea, rendered at nine a.m. yesterday morn, if I may be so bold...) Anyway, here she is:

Last night I made Grandma P.'s Sponge Cake to bring to Seder at a friend's house. I would have made a flourless chocolate cake, but my friend said I couldn't use dairy ingredients because some of her relatives who would be at the Seder don't mix milk and meat, at least at Seder, and I didn't want to make the cake with margarine. I had tried the sponge cake once before and it didn't turn out well, but I watched my California sister make it successfully, so I figured I could do it too.

I started by separating 12 eggs. I put the whites in the small bowl of my mixer and let it whirl at high speed. Almost immediately I was covered with eggs whites, as was the counter, mixer, and floor—I had put the beater attachments in backwards. My husband, who had just cleaned up the kitchen after dinner, was not happy. Undaunted, I measured the egg whites that had not flown out of the bowl and estimated that there were four left. I then separated 8 more eggs and started again. All went well until I tried to remove the cooled cake from the pan—it came out ragged and sunk in places, definitely not presentable.

After consulting with both sisters (the California one happened to called late last night from the airport on her way to Spain) and several colleagues at work, I sliced the cake, cut off the ragged parts, and displayed it on a pretty platter. Before serving, I decorated it with whole strawberries and served it with a strawberry sauce similar to L's Strawberry Compote, but cooked briefly and then cooled. I had first attempted to make a strawberry sauce with local strawberries I had frozen last spring, but the sauce tasted strongly of freezer burn. So I left work early to go to Whole Foods to buy non-local strawberries (from California) and had a run-in with a padded pole in the crowded parking garage. My husband was not happy about this either, especially since this was the third time in eight months the right side of my car has needed body work. (Coincidentally, the second time, which was not my fault, happened the day before Rosh Hashanah).

Everyone thought the cake looked and tasted good, especially with the strawberry sauce. It was one of four desserts for thirteen people, not counting the candy, so it wouldn't have mattered much in any case.

This was the first Seder my husband and I spent together without any of our children, parents or siblings. Although I missed being with family, we had a very nice time. Lessons learned—make sure the beaters are put in correctly, a padded pole can do a lot of damage, and go with what you've got—it will be fine.

Grandma P.'s Sponge Cake

My California sister has the original recipe card in Grandma's handwriting—this is the information she gave me.

12 eggs
1 1/2 cups sugar
rind from one lemon
1/2 glass orange juice (I used 1/2 cup)
1 cup matzo cake meal
1/4 cup potato starch

Separate eggs.

Beat yolks well. Add sugar, then grated lemon and OJ.

Sift cake meal and potato starch together. Add to yolk mixture. Mix well.

Fold in stiffly beaten egg whites.

Bake 1 hour in medium oven. (I used 350.) Cool 5 minutes, then turn upside down until cool.

(*From Debra Fioritto Weber, Your Guide to French Cuisine)

Uh-oh

This may be it. This may be the dramatic moment I was looking for. At least for the sake of this blog. As for life, I can tell something is brewing. Something is definitely cooking at work (no pun intended, maybe), and even on the home front, and my story's climactic moment, somewhere between now and three weeks from now, is about to happen. I can feel it. I am sensing it.

Have I mentioned: I have a bit of a knack? For making up things in my dramatic writing, and then they come true? Uh-oh. I'm suddenly having a flash. I am not kidding. I'm having a deja vu, and it's rolling something like this:

• The above paragraph is almost an exact replica of a piece of the opening monologue from a now-dormant play I wrote last spring, (that I mentioned even, early on in this blog/story), Donkey Dilemma, wherein the heroine, a feisty woman named Tuesday, gets into trouble at her tabloid writing job because she keeps writing things that come true. She begins to manipulate her "gift"—of course, the play is a kind of a fantasy—and all sorts of trouble ensues. I could go on, but the point is: I've already written those words! Which is exactly what the play is about! But here I am in real life. Not a character in a play! OMG. Aaaah!

W.O.W. II

White on White

Taming the Cougar

It's Saturday night, and I'm alone in the apartment with a vanilla vanilla cake (and two of those crazy copy edits—i.e., Taming the Cougar—I can't bear to look at right now). Untouched. Unphotographed even ('cause my camera batteries died). Cannot lure any old boyfriends over here, even for a piece of cake, and certainly can't snag a new one sitting at home (though G. Carlin once mentioned that after the age of 35 or 40—cannot remember—it's a bit weird/off to be calling someone your boyfriend*). I was hopeful last week after I dragged myself to a party in the East Village, because some cool Woodstock/NYC couple I met mentioned they knew someone they wanted to introduce me to, and the description of the guy—think inventor!, attractive!, divorced father of an eight-year-old boy!, looking for love!, lives in a pod (?) next to a waterfall!—sounded very promising. But I haven't heard from them since, and cannot seem to contact them, either. Yentl these people are not!

Today, while en route to find cake boxes on 7th Avenue, I was mistaken for a nurse, and then a butcher (true, the couple had just been to see an astrologer). I laughed about it to the class afterward, but later when I got home, I shoved my cake in the mini frig, and ran out and bought a new dress. Course I'm going to have to wash it at the laundromat down the street, 'cause I've decided I don't want those people touching/ripping apart my apartment anymore, and I've negotiated a small rent decrease (and the addition of a closet in D.J.'s room!) in exchange for them leaving me alone.

Additionally on the clothing front, I've decided not to wear my chef pants. I can't deal with them, and I don't like working and trying to create beautiful and delicious things while wearing a non-neutral hideous checkered bag with leg holes attached. Last week I told Chef I left them at home, but this week I didn't bother saying anything.

So now, I'm about to hit the third act of this baking/pastry journey, and turns out, maybe I'm just one of those dramatic characters who just doesn't change by the end of the story. In fact, isn't my dismissal of the pants proof of that? Is that possible? That a person wouldn't change in three months?

Practice, Practice, Practice

Today was cake decorating day, via a yellow butter cake and vanilla buttercream frosting. I went for the whole white on white thing, leaving the artificially colored frostings and decorations in the dust, for the rest of the class to use.

Note: Seems I am not that great of a cake decorator, though I did learn how to make flowers. I think I need some serious practice, though, because soon we'll be making tiered wedding cakes, and I would like to improve upon today's lopsided, heavily tunneled cake and kinda smeared frosting.

P.S. Apparently they'll be no boxes to bring home the wedding cakes in (cannot figure out that grammar, sorry!), so the bakery couple is offering delivery service, for a fee. (I don't think that's a joke.) They were awesome cake decorators, and taught everyone how to make flowers. The wife Evie said she's been making flowers for thirty-four years, and then her husband (who apparently she thanks God for every night) frosted his cake in about thirty seconds.

It's Quiet Here

Tomorrow is baking/pastry arts day 10 out of 13. There's a vacation the following week, and the last class is only a half day, so seems this whole trip is winding down a bit. But I still need to keep up, and that includes getting back in the Tracy Anderson Method Mat Workout DVD spirit!

Forget my height-challenged chiffon cake yesterday; I tried to smooth things over via a nice presentation, some berries with whipped cream, and on-the-spot sugar cookies, topped with a dallop of raspberry jam. That seemed to work pretty well, but I cannot get it together today.

Never mind that my landlord, possibly the least thoughtful home-improvement guy in town, and his really cute but not so nice lackey handyman (who once set fire to the stairwell above me), finished off my tea fixings before they ripped D.J.'s room apart later in the evening, trying to uninstall our old washer/dryer, in preparation for the arrival of a new one today. Don't even ask what they found under the appliance, or how I begged them not to tear off D.J.'s doorframe, and today, when the new one arrived, it could not even fit through the front door. Now I'm left with a huge hole in D.J.'s room, a torn-up washer/dryer sitting in my kitchen, and a landlord who's out of town for the weekend, and won't return my calls. Never mind all that. Oh, but when my thorn-in-my-side ex-husband had the nerve to ask if he could crash in my tiny pad for one night on his latest last-minute trip east, well, I could have offered him the washing machine, or the hole in the wall, but instead just told him I did not feel comfortable with that. And where the freak did he think he was going to sleep? Don't even ask. Aaaargh!

Must focus on...must concentrate my energies toward...oh, right. Butter cakes tomorrow.

First Cousins Once Removed

Whoops! (Behind Lincoln Center, a long time ago.)


Jeez! (Totally a bison! Unknown parking lot, also a long time ago.)


D.J. and Gretel across the street from our house, this past Monday.

P.S.

Cannot speak in generalities, but no, I should not have cut the cake tonight. Did I mention my crazy half refrigerator, that's new even?

Seems the frosting froze, I guess, so when I used my Top Chef knife, the frosting kind of broke up and off the cake in pieces. I am irked! Should totally have left well enough alone, and at least presented something that looked smooth, even if it was freaking GIGANTIC!

Grand Fours

Okay, I don't want to get all wedding cake on anyone, but I just spent the last four-and-a-half hours trying to recreate last Saturday's 3-layer chiffon cake petit fours, and I see the whole concept of mise en place goes way deeper than getting one's ingredients together:

1. My beautiful brand-new digital scale only weighs out to a tenth of an ounce—how could I not have noticed that?—so I may have come in a bit off on active ingredients such as baking powder, and:
   
2. I should have cut the recipe in quarter, not in half, or:
3. had a bigger pan, because:
4. though the batter was delightful, the pan was too small, so the cake is HUGE, as in about three or four times the appropriate height, making it:
5. not a petit fours, but a grand fours!
6. I also had not written down the chocolate variation for my buttercream frosting recipe, so:
7. I called Chef Nola for instructions, and left her a garbled message, I'm sure. Meanwhile:
8. I completely broke mise en place, and went to the store to buy strawberries as a garnish for the frosting I decided to make that I did have the recipe for—simple buttercream frosting, after which:
9. Chef Nola returned my call, laughed a bit, gave me the chocolate proportions, then suggested I:
10. put the cake in the freezer to make it easier to cut (I couldn't believe it actually fit in there!), and sent me on my way.

The yellow chiffon sheet cake is in my refrigerator now, all cut and 3-layered with chocolate buttercream frosting and thinly sliced strawberries in between. I'm sure it'll be a tasty midweek afternoon treat, meant for tomorrow afternoon's visit from my sister, but it looks kind of ridiculous, and now I realize I forgot to ask Chef Nola if I should wait until tomorrow to cut it, or do it now...

Pop Quiz

Q: How long does it take for one almost-duke, sexy-night-and-day Brit to finally penetrate his beloved Welsh virgin peasant?

A: 610 pages.

BFFs

I Was Wrong

The tricolor Italian cookie was fabulous, rich and just right—you couldn't even taste that fake color—while the vanilla strawberry shortcake-like thing was way too dry and sweet. Plus, I found another what-I-think-is a 3- or 4-layer white or yellow chiffon cake, with either buttercream frosting and some kind of lemon filling, or just buttercream frosting, and the cake is basically raw. In either case, not that good.

I was right about the mocha chiffon cake, though. Freaking good. (I gave away the chocolate cakes, so cannot attest to their greatness.) And now I will try to cram in the rest of my witchy romance novel for the day, so I can get down to some Tracy Anderson, and try to make it to...2 times participation this week. (That, I admit, is really not up to par.)

Just 'Cause II

Mix 'n Match

C-razy!

Well, the bakery couple did not disappoint with their teasing, and the wife said she felt like crying when she opened her box and saw my cheesecake. But they agreed it tasted very good, and their family ate all of it, which I take as a real compliment.

Meanwhile, we made about a thousand things today, but I wrote my name on my box this time, and when I got home, just shoved it in the fridge.

Theme of the day, Petit Fours, manifested as:

• A weird tricolor Italian "cookie," with thin layers of almond-based cake, dyed red, yellow, and green (lost me right there), then layered with raspberry marmalade and topped with chocolate ganache. (Dee and I made the green layer.) There are several of these pieces in my box in the refrigerator, which I believe will go untouched.
  
• A three-layer mocha chiffon cake—mine and Dee's—filled with chocolate buttercream frosting, cut into tiny pieces. Looks really freaking good, but needs more coffee flavoring. Also, I choked on the decorations, and basically ended up sprinkling a mix of cocoa powder, powdered sugar, and chopped hazelnuts on mine. Dee did some very precise piping on her half in chocolate fudge icing, taken from the bakery couple, who made:
• A three-layer chocolate chiffon cake, enhanced with chocolate fudge icing, with Dee's and my chocolate buttercream frosting underneath their top layer of icing, then decorated with beautiful chocolate buttercream flowers. I think they wished they did not have to share.
• A two-layer yellow chiffon cake, with vanilla buttercream frosting and fresh strawberries in between. This looks very tasty to me, though is not the prettiest, and did not make it home in one piece.
• Chewy coconut macaroons. Both the bakery couple and Dee made these. But one batter was too thin, and the other too thick, so they mixed them together, and I did not grab too many of these on my way out.
• Lemon cookies. One student got in trouble for making them really, really huge, but I think she was coming apart at the seams because she's suddenly getting a divorce. I tried to soothe her as only a fellow divorcee could, but I ultimately backed off 'cause she looked like she was about to do some serious damage with her pastry bag. She did not work with a partner today, but did have a fab new hairdo.
• Sugar cookies, which I made. They're frankly nondescript, but not bad (actually pretty good), but certainly no match for the ones from Columbine cafe. I think I was supposed to make a lemon glaze for them, but Chef Nola was completely undone at this point, so when I mentioned their plainness, she told me it was my choice to make them. Okay.
• Another very nicely piped cookie from the restaurant lifer (who says he doesn't eat sweets but kept picking at my mocha chiffon cake scraps, and also told me today he was the man), but I have no idea what it is.

Recommended

In case you haven't checked out my stand up comedy sidebar, I highly recommend the Dave Chapelle bit entitled, "Grape Drink." It's short, and seriously funny. I just watched it myself, in fact, to cheer up from the fact of another night having gone by, spent in the throes of a b.s. romance novel.

T.T.T.H.

Oh, dear. My world is crashing! My tiny world! I thought I was so clever, but just found, via a boredom-inspired vanity Google search on myself, a two-year-old blogspot entitled The Irreverent Cook. The food (mostly baked goods), and enormous repertoire of recipes looks really, really, really good. Plus, she may have just turned 18, 'cause she's apparently very excited to finally be able to vote.

Okay, then.

Should get back to real work now. I have a very important, career-bending appointment with an incense-buring Welsh virgin, her stunning lover-to-be, his period-date-rape-drug-administering jilted fiance, and overall, plenty of "shameful warmth pooled between each of their legs..."

Erin

Useful Ratios

In spite of last week's kinda dud class, Chef Sub was a funny guy, with Carla Hall-like sensibilities—"That's just love in a bowl," he said of my 32 ounces of whipped-to-shiny-stiff-peaks egg whites—and here's a useful, simple, tasty formula I picked up from him:

For graham cracker crust: mix 1 pound crushed graham crackers, 8 ounces sugar, 8 ounces melted butter. Press in pan to form a 1/4 inch-thick crust, and bake for 10 minutes at 350 degrees. Make sure to cool it then, in preparation for pouring in cheesecake filling (not spooning in, like mine needed to be, due to over-whipping of full batter to compensate for initial under-creaming of cream cheese). This makes more than 1, and I'm supposed to be able to add up the ingredient weights and then figure how many crusts that makes. Extra credit reward of one pie crust (plus cheesecake filling) made especially by me for those who figure that out. (Where's my math student, seamripper2, when I need her?)

And here's one for custards (from the week before): 6 whole eggs, 6 egg yolks, 1 quart cream. Apparently, that's all you need to know to make any kind of sweet or savory custard, though I forget why and how. Must take better notes, which I did at the beginning of the course. Luckily, I've got my pita bread-making process well recorded.

Love in a bowl: one part J., one part whoever-you-are, results unknown, though I have high hopes.

Shout out to J.J. and her friend from the range (though I'm talking to myself here): just follow the recipe, wait with the patience of a baker, and it will come. Or better yet, make up your own recipe, write down all the ingredients (not kidding), and see what you culinary alchemy you can conjure up!

Memory Lane

I still haven't gotten over the jumbled class from last week, with that crazy sugar angel food cake. Plus, I can only imagine the teasing I'll receive from the bakery couple when they learn the truth of what really happened to their cheesecakes. (Don't forget—the wife had already tied up her boxes, and then helped me with mine, so it's not like it was all my fault!) Anyway, my disappointment as such, I'm sending myself back in time with a photo I just received from Dee (apparently she was having computer trouble for a while), of a more successful venture: my bread pudding, which I will definitely make again. Particularly now that I finally bought a digital scale (not cheap). No excuses now!


photo: Dee (holla!)

Mind Your Own Bakery

If I Wanted To Have Some Kind Of Side Bakery Business, I Could Call It:

1. The Bakery
2. Baked Goods (L.A. Frannie points out the stoner suggestion, though.)
3. D.J.'s (Sounds like a diner.)
   
4. D. Jew D.'s
5. J.'s B.
6. Help!
7. Arrived!
8. Amandina
9. 50
   
10. Tiki (I don't mean to imply Hawaiian goods. That's an inside joke I share with D.J.)
11. Ya Tiki (Ditto.)
12. Men Only (Asynchronous.)
13. I Like To Bake
    
14. Coffee Not Served Here
    
15. Pie Lady (That may not be my specialty.)
16. Not Cookies (Except I might offer some, now that I know how to make uniform bakery treats.)
17. Uniform Bakery Treats (Does not sound right.)
    
18. Salt (Taken.)
    

These really don't seem like bakery names, eh?, with the possible exception of The Bakery, and Baked Goods, though I've already nixed that one. I like Amandina, but that's a bit similar sounding to the name of the tiny cafe, Columbine, just north of the Franklin Street stop on the number 1 line. They make the most fantastic, melt-in-your-mouth very-large-but-I-could-still-eat-two sugar cookies (only available after one p.m., by the way, which I learned about the hard way).

Plus, I would have to okay it with my cool tween sitter, Amandina, without whom I could not have done D.J.'s birthday party. Holla! (Obviously, names have been changed or altered here to protect the...innocent.)

Amandina. Amandina. No. Even if it didn't almost rhyme with Columbine, it sounds like an off pronunciation of almonds, which I wouldn't use very often—D.J.'s no longer allergic, but I shy away from them in general now. No, not Amandina.

And while I think The Irreverent Family Bakery might look amusing on paper, it's too awkward to say. It doesn't sound very delicious, and suddenly, the name of my blog, possible book, and overall New Year's project is a bust. Despite all my yapping, the recipes and foods therein are supposed to be delicious! Aaaah!

Imagine: At rise, loving man and woman eat tea and toast at small round table in chic urban kitchen before work one morning: "Honey," the woman says, "could you pick up some of those eclairs we love at the Irreverent Family Bakery on your way home tonight? You know how I get after I eat those..."

D.J.'s Birthday Summer of Love Mural

12 Years Goes By Really Fast Sometimes

Wish I had taken a picture of the beautiful cupcakes I made yesterday for D.J.'s party. Okay, I did have to make them twice, after realizing I had not added enough flour to the first batch (and they weren't then going to morph into some kind of cool flourless cake). But I was really glad I went the extra mile (i.e., had to prepare a new mise en place), because they looked and tasted fantastic. And furthermore, chalk one up for tools of the trade and me giving up my rebellious streak (no matter what the subject matter), as I finally bought myself an ice cream scooper so I could make the cakes a uniform size. And it totally worked! They were perfectly rounded on top, and really pretty. Plus, that top secret recipe is top secret I guess for a reason—they are just almost too good to be true!

Meanwhile, I am fried, behind schedule on my latest historical romance, and just got a call for work on another, more racy one (Do I care if this manuscript is a BDSM story? the production editor asked me*), with possible conflicting deadlines, among other things. Am still meditating on the cheesecake/angel food cake class, but right now, I think I need to lie down. In silence (save for Con Ed drilling directly outside my window). Wish me luck.


D.J. has chocolate icing on her nose, and that black-and-white fabric on the walls was part of the '60s hippie pad thing D.J.'s N.Y.C. B.F.F. (1 girl to the right of D.J.)'s dad designed, but I had to execute, as he ran out the door after dropping off the fabric on his way to do one of his many Obama-esque good deeds (literally).

* "No," I replied. (Shout out to Miss J. T. H., or any other friend of D.J.'s who may be reading—and you know who you are: that is X-rated material, so cover your eyes! Not kidding.)

"Don't Get All Wedding Cake On Me"

OMG, can't talk. Must continue to get ready for D.J.'s party, but that was one crazy, mixed up day. Chef Nola was not there. Two students were missing. We mixed 32 ounces of whipped-to-stiff-peaks egg white batter with our hands. My cheesecake was a bummer because I didn't cream the cream cheese long enough. "Don't get all wedding cake on me," Chef Sub said. I guess that's chef speak for being a diva. (Put me in my place.)

Then the whole way home, I was griping to myself that someone had taken my angel food cake, which looked pretty darned impressive at practically a foot high, but was so sugary—2 pounds worth, I kid you not—I was going to throw it away anyway. But when I got home, not only was it the wrong cake—my cheesecake was beginning to look good at this point—when I opened my second box, turned out I had taken G and E's two beautiful, much, much, much better-than-mine cheesecakes. One even has a chocolate swirl on top.

I tried to call their bakery number uptown, but no answer or machine. I'm really sorry, G & E!

Frannie

Here's an I.F. pudding-like dessert recipe from L.A. Frannie, originally a New Orleans girl. Now she's one of those all-round how-does-she-do-it type women, and she and her mom, another hottie, are both great cooks, if you like seafood gumbo, or shrimp creole, or anything else of the I-wish-I-could-make-mine-taste-like-that home-cooking variety. But word is, Frannie's grandmother was the true bomb, and this is her recipe.

L.A. FRANNIE'S GRANNY'S NEW ORLEANS CUSHAW

"We had this dessert a lot when I was growing up in New Orleans. Just a scoop on the side of your dinner plate made the rest of the baked, stewed, roux-laden starch go down easier." —L.A. Frannie

1 medium size gooseneck striped squash—any squash will do, but there's a yellow and green striped variety that my granny always used
1 egg, beaten
1/2 cup sugar
cinnamon to taste
nutmeg to taste
1 teaspoon vanilla
speck of salt
1/2 cup milk
1 Tablespoon or so flour or cornstarch

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Wash squash well, and cut in half. Scoop out seeds and membranes, and discard. Cut remainder of squash in pieces, and boil in water in large pot until soft, approximately 30 minutes. Drain, then spoon out flesh.

Mash squash in large mixing bowl, and add remaining ingredients. Mix well.

Spread into an 8- or 9-inch square baking dish, and bake for 30 minutes, or until nicely browned on top. Serve with a spoon right onto your meal plate, if you want to be authentic about the whole thing.

"One Sunday in my grandma's kitchen, my Uncle B., schizophrenic and very vocal, must have missed out on the cushaw. Because I remember the entire dish ending up on the side of the refrigerator, and that was the end of that Sunday dinner. I was glad I'd gotten mine." —L.A. Frannie