Food Gone Wild!

The end of one year and the beginning of another is a time rife with reflection and revelation. Here is mine: I have a problem. I'm hoping that, by talking about it, I'll be able to finally get some help and work through it. The problem has flared up over these past weeks and is now completely raging out of control.

I can't stop cooking. 

Yes, I know you all have suspected this for some time. I'm not talking about your average weeknight dinners; I'm talking about multi-course, elaborate, balls-to-the-wall extravaganzas. App–salad–entrée–dessert. I can't stop myself. My kitchen has been overused so much that I actually murdered my KitchenAid mixer and both my ovens in the space of two days. But has that stopped me? No. Whip that cream by hand, boy, whip it!

It may have begun manifesting itself during the Thanksgiving Decathalon of 2011, but things really ramped up when my family's usual Hawaii Christmas became unexpectedly domestic. My L.A. sister and I hosted, and most of the big Important Meals were at my home. This included the Welcoming Ziti Dinner (antipasti–caprese–roasted peppers–beef ragu–peach pie–struffoli), the Christmas Eve Feast of Seven Fishes (calamari–mussels–octopus–linguine al vongole–broccoli rabe–crab–salt-encrusted branzinos–pear/cranberry ginger crisp) and the the Christmas Day Gorge-a-thon (standing rib roast–Yorkshire pudding–sweet and sour onions–shaved brussel sprouts with burrata–spinach pomegranate salad with pancetta-wrapped, blue cheese-filled dates–marquis au chocolat). It was like three Thanksgivings in a row.

And now, some Italian Food Porn:

THIS is struffoli.

During Fish Five of the Seven Fishes the ovens pulled a mechanical "Grandpa's gotta lie down right now" moment and died. Who knows what happened (a serviceman's coming out on Thursday). Surprisingly, it didn't throw me. I looked at the six whole fish un-crusting in the left oven, and the crisp un-crisping in the right, and found a moment of grace. "This is what happens sometimes, we're not a restaurant, no one is getting upset, there's plenty of food, Allison made a coconut cake, let's roll with it!"And fifteen minutes later the ovens woke up and forty-minutes after that we had a delicious final course.

A little help with the fish.

A LOT of help with the meals.

Will someone stop this man, and his 17-lb roast?

Unfortunately, I haven't found a way to stop the momentum derived from that moment of grace. New Year's Eve, our friends bring over a wonderful fish soup and corn muffins, but I feel compelled, with no beaters and an inconstant oven, to add to the meal corn blinis with caviar and creme fraiche, an endive-cress and goat cheese salad and a bittersweet almond torte. Plus fresh cranberry margaritas. Today I thought, "No cooking on New Years! I'll buy it all from the Farmer's Market!" but somehow I found myself making a roux for the homemade macaroni and cheese with pancetta. My Fine Cooking magazine featured it on the cover! It looked easy! I had the cheese and the bread crumbs! Of course, not as easy as just opening the Annie's packet of cheese and add it to the boxed pasta, no, I had to frigging MAKE THE MAC & CHEESE. All the while planning my black-eyed peas and chard dinner. My hands are raw from the number of pots and pans scoured. The refrigerator groans every time it's opened, the dishwasher is threatening to quit, and so is Doug.

The ironic thing is, it's all very well and good to cook for the masses who come to dine, but who am I cooking for now? Benjamin is famed for surviving on air, and Doug and I are trying desperately to return the holiday poundage we've received during Christmas. Someone's gotta stop me before I cook again! My kitchen is trying to send me the message ("She canna take much more of this, Captain!"), but it's not getting through. I envision myself in a chef's coat covered with blood and sweat and chocolate as I dice and sauté and deglaze myself into oblivion— the culinary equivalent of "The Red Shoes." 

Admitting you have a problem is the first step, yah? So I make a resolution— lay off the ladle. Surrender the whisk. Cook simply, and less.

At least until Chinese New Year.

Have a sweet 2012!

PS. I had a wonderful, underhanded birthday surprise which involved no cooking at all on my part! (Well, almost no cooking). You can read about it here.

Baking With Disaster

I almost entered into a baker's hell this weekend; you know, that particular lower circle where you're asked to make a birthday cake for a 40th birthday party and you spend hours on a new recipe and then find that it's becoming an utter catastrophe and you might have to start over from scratch and then you discover your cake shrinking just as your find out that almost double the amount of people are coming and you just might have to impale yourself on your offset spatula? That hell. Don't worry, it won't be a horror story; there will be a feel-good ending to this post. Eventually.

Why did I choose a recipe I had never done before? I violated one of the basic rules of baking for others: NEVER MAKE A NEW RECIPE FOR A SPECIAL EVENT (actually, this is one rule I break regularly; you'd think I would have learned). I decided on a Marquis au Chocolat, which is a chilled chocolate mousse cake, because the birthday gal was a lover of chocolate AND a Francophile, what could be more perfect? And, no baking! Here, this is what a Marquis looks like:

Yeah, well, what kind of parchment paper
makes that lovely cross-hatch design,
huh? HUH?

Notice the precise, clean lines; the delicate touch required for this simple-looking dessert. Precise & Delicate: two words which have no point of reference in the James Sie world of baking. Haphazard & Sledgehammer-like— that's more my style.

Still, I forge ahead, oblivious to my own limitations. I use a recipe from "Pure Chocolate" by Fran Bigelow— a cookbook I've used many times, but with varied results. I mean, I love all the gorgeous recipes in there and want to make them all, but I think it's one of those cookbooks that pre-supposes a finesse that comes from years of trial and error. Because, as my sister Allison pointed out, baking is a lot like woodshop. It takes a lot of dowels of wood on a lathe before you can come up with a perfect candlestick holder. You shouldn't expect to be able to figure out all the nuances on your first go. Yet here I am, melting my chocolate and separating eggs. Hubris, thy name is Marquis Au Chocolat! 

Once you make the mousse, after all the whipping and folding, whipping and folding (and an unfortunate over-processing of egg yolks and chocolate which threatens to granulate and break but which I manage to save with some hot whipping cream) you pour it into a loaf pan which has been lined with two sheets of parchment paper that have an overhang which you will use to lift out the cake after it's been chilled. Unfortunately, I've got parchment on a roll, which is hard to cut precisely, and a sloped glass loaf pan. "Eh, it'll be fine," I think, trying to fit the curling paper into the pan, "It's just chilling in there, what could go wrong?"

Here's what could go wrong:

What have you done to my baby??

The next morning I take out the cake, and, oh, it's a poor, poor thing. The wrinkles and folds in the parchment paper has created a brick of sadness. It's not an elegant birthday cake, it's a birthday TURD. Allison puts it more colorfully, if not more kindly: "It's like a literal Yuletide log, like after a big Yuletide feast." Yes, thanks for that, Ali. Oh, the cake looks like it should be floating in formaldehyde. Cutting the edges away is not an option; there are some deep gashes and it's too little as it is. I stare at it in horror, much like Mia Farrow does at the end of Rosemary's baby. What can I do with my runty chocolate abomination? 

I'm paralyzed. I could make another cake. I HAVE to make another cake. I'm Julianne Moore and I'm going to throw the cake in the trash and go to some hotel and take pills while water washes my bed away and Philip Glass will JUST NOT STOP with those violins. Surprisingly, it's Doug who comes to my rescue and talks me back from the edge. He quietly takes the knife from my hand, wets it in warm water and starts gently, slowly, smoothing the sides of the cake. Where the hell did he learn to do that?  Being mousse, it's quite malleable. Soon, he's ironed out most of the egregious slashes and has even mortared up some of the dents. It looks much better:

Still, what to do to make it, well, presentable? There's no frosting to hide behind. A Marquis' strength lay in its simplicity and elegance. I have a boatload of options in my head, but no clear path. After about fifteen minutes of babbling ("I could do cocoa powder, or chocolate shavings, what do you think about topping it with a cloud of whipped cream? Raspberries?") Doug is clearly at his limit for culinary empathy. You can tell by the glazed look in his eyes. Luckily, there's another ally. I hop into my X-wing and dart over to the Dagobah System to seek advice from a Jedi Master; or, less floridly, I send a message via Facebook to my friend Dawn Bach. 

"Help me, Obi-Dawn Kenobi,
you're my only hope."

I know Dawn as an actress and a musician, but I've discovered, via Facebook photos, that she's a wonder at fondant and cake design. Don't know is she sells them or gives them away or stuffs them in an attic with her embalmed mother but if precision and elegance is what I need, she's the Master. 


Luckily, she seems to be as happily obsessive about baking as I. After about twenty messages back and forth, she comes up with the idea of toasted almonds strewn at the base and some raspberries for color. Strewn...? THAT'S my style! I can strew! And then I think of my sister's scatological log comment, and  it clicks...


It was my "make it work" moment. I got very concentrated, and careful. I went with a more rustic woodland theme. Some shaved chocolate, some toasted almonds, and voila:

Doug made me lose the grape leaves:
"All Top Chefs need to learn to edit."

I guess it takes a village to make a cake. And it reminds me of another essential baking rule: YOU CAN ALWAYS COVER UP YOUR MISTAKES. Especially if you're being rustic.


When I got there it turned out to be more like seventeen people, up from 10-12. I didn't know if this pound cake-size cake would stretch that far, but, by god, it did! A small half-slice, a dollop of hazelnut whipped cream dotted with chocolate pieces and raspberries and a half-Pirouline lain in between; it was more than enough. There were even a few slices left! Most important, everyone loved the taste, which, in the end, is what really matters. 

"And to think I was going to throw you away!
Now Mommy loves you!"

I averted catastrophe, but if you'd like to see those who did not, check out Cake Wrecks, a VERY entertaining site. And if you want to be truly creeped out by a cake (I mean American-Horror-Story-kind-of-creeped-out) check out this icky baby and especially this one (don't say I didn't warn you!).


Now, I just need to make about 19 more of these puppies, and I'll be able to get it right!

REDEMPTION

30 Transformer All-Spark Cubes, made of devil's food cake with a whipped cream filling and a hard chocolate coating. Took 3 days, but it turned out pretty much how I wanted it to. I think I've found my baking niche: intentionally rough and ugly baking designs. Mud and stone-looking confections, I'm your man.

I wouldn't last half a day on "Top Chef: Just Desserts," but at least they taste pretty good, and you don't have to worry about cutting pieces— slap a block onto a plate and call it a day. This will probably be my last large format themed birthday cake; I think parties for the entire class may be coming to a close this year. We'll see... you may be seeing a giant Iron Man Chest Plate done in marzipan come next September 29th.

I have been practically sweating chocolate this past week, what with this and the fiasco of the school birthday treats (see previous post) but I will say this: having made, and made over, and made over again, chocolate cake, I feel like I have an intimate relationship with the medium. I can whip up a devil's food cake without fear, understand the zen of pouring melted chocolate. Nothing like a little forced experience...

Next challenge: getting that damned rolled cake right! There is a homemade Yodel with my name on it... or at least a Ring Ding. Yes... Ring Dings...

Nine Years

How could shame blight such a wondrous day? I should be posting the delicious baked treats my son will eat for his birthday celebration at school, a photo of me holding a plate of homemade Yodels, those chocolate-covered mini cake rolls. But no, there will be no such photo springing up on Facebook, only this old one of my face covered by the Alien of failure...

Spent last night trying to make those little treats, and maybe it was the spongy, ragged cake layer that refused to roll without disintegrating, or maybe it was the melancholy marshmallow filling that didn't freeze well in its threadbare carpet of devil's food cake and spent the night weeping, but when I tried to dip this forlorn mass into the melted chocolate this morning the cake and the filling each decided they were unfit for such a union and had better part company, leaving me with shapeless mounds of hardening chocolate covering only a gooey memory of cake.

No photo. A media shutdown; there will be no evidence of this disaster.

I shuffled upstairs and told Doug I was throwing in my chocolate-smeared towel and would do what he advised all along: I was going to (shudder) bring to school (wince) Store Bought Cupcakes.
Oh, the ignomy.

Moving on to brighter things:

He's nine! My boy will have spent eight and a half years with us, his lucky lucky parents. It's hard to believe it's been this long, but I'm not bemoaning the rush of time. I don't mind the years passing (well, for him, anyway) because it just keeps getting better, he gets better, and funnier, and more thoughtful. Yes, homework is now officially a Nightmare, and I know adolescence is just around the bend, but right now he's just the coolest kid to be around.

A couple of my favorite things he's said this year:

He was watching this video from Green Day— Boulevard of Broken Dreams ("I walk these empty streets, on the boulevard of broken dreams... I walk alone, I walk alone") —


—and he turned to me and said "He's not walking alone, he's got all those other guys with him!"

Third grade really ramps up the homework, and it's been, as I said, a Nightmare, with math facts, spelling words, extra projects, graph charts, Kumon, chapter books and word problems relentlessly nipping at poor Benj, not to mention two hovering parents who want to make sure he's doing everything he supposed to be doing. Doug was in the car driving him to school and trying to make him study his spelling words for a test later that week. Benj refused, Doug gently/strongly suggested that maybe he could just look over the words  and spell them aloud, Benj refused, Doug suggested gently/implacably again that he should reconsider, Benj will have none of it, pouting, squirming, shouting, Doug continues, Benj has had it, yells out, "I wish you and Baba would get a divorce and then I would live with Baba and you can roam the Earth alone!"

(A pretty biblical allusion for someone living in an Atheist/Buddhist household, don't you think? Of course, I like this story because I come off pretty well. Poor Doug didn't know that I had quizzed Benj on his words not 15 minutes prior to them driving off. And now he's got to roam the Earth alone, like Cain...)

Benj gently remonstrating Doug for getting frustrated with his mother: "You shouldn't get mad at her. You know, she's all alone now and Pop used to do all these things for her and now she has no one." How empathetic is that?

On the flip side, he was listening to Doug's mom spinning out of control on the car's speakerphone and he asked her, very simply, "Hey Mimi, why don't you let God take care of it?" "What'd he say?" the minister's wife asked. He repeated it. "Huh. Well, I better go," she said, and hung up.

From the mouths of babes.

Happy Birthday my amazing boy. May your years ahead be sweet ones, and better-shaped than my yodels.