odds and ends

just a few odds and ends today. i have a ton of recipes to post that i've tried out in the past couple of months, but not the motivation yet to write about them. i'm in search of a good carrot cake recipe, so if you see one, let me know. i'm looking for a cake that uses either oil or butter, raisins, brown sugar (instead of white sugar), but not pineapple or any of that whickety whack. i just tried a recipe today and thus far i think i may have slightly overdone the nutmeg because it was microplaned fresh instead of storebought ground. more carrots, too, i think.

i have been looking everywhere for the november issue of saveur, which apparently newstands have ceased carrying. when did that happen? saveur is my favorite food magazine because it doesn't follow seasonal and general food trends as closely as gourmet/bon appetit, but instead profiles the food of different cultures. the november issue has an article about gingerbread in it - specifically, about the test kitchen trying out different recipes. i love gingerbread, and i want this issue. apparently cvs and star market do not want me to have the issue.

in a bit of good news, the price of butter has gone down to 2000ish prices. i remember when the price of butter went up in boston area supermarkets, to $4/lb - it was when the price of milk went up to $4/gal. it was also when i was food steward at lmf, so you see why i would pay attention to these things. well, in the past year or so, butter has always been cheapest at whole foods, but usually i would just wait until it went on sale at star market, then buy 6-8 lbs. yeah, that's right. i used to bake quite a lot. anyway, whole foods is still slightly cheaper - $2.39/lb as opposed to $2.79/lb - but now i can feel ok about buying butter at star while it's not on sale. incidentally, it is on sale this week, for $1.88/lb, but all the unsalted was gone by the time i got to the supermarket (at noon on saturday!).

i was walking home from 7-11 - a circuit that included the mit press bookstore since i felt too embarrassed to go to star market three times in a span of 15 hours - during which trip i spent an embarrassing amount for two bricks of cream cheese. i was reminded exactly why i never buy anything at 7-11, beyond the fact that it's simply out of my way. i like to walk home around 5 if i can, the back way (along main street) because there's a small "park" (a clearing with stone benches in it and a few miserable-looking trees) behind a restaurant. at 5, everyone has finished family meal and is sitting outside in that park smoking. while i'm not a huge fan of the restaurant being in my neighborhood (though the food is excellent), it's kind of nice to see someone using those benches, which had sat empty about 90% of the time before this restaurant moved in.

the "i hate gristedes" post

ever since the new york times posted its definitive recipe for chocolate chip cookies, i've been meaning to do a taste test between those and our trusty standby, toll house. we all know i'm a sucker for taste tests; the best ones that come to mind include the shaws whole chicken v. chinatown whole chicken (the chinatown chicken tasted surprising like a chinatown chicken you would get in a restaurant, which was really surprising to me) and the apple pie taste test, after which i swore off cinnamon in apple pies.

so, gristedes. i had decided to do three batches of chocolate chip cookies, since the gimmick of the new york times recipe lies in both proportions of sugar/flour/butter and also in how long the dough is chilled. the three batches are then: (1) the new york times recipe; (2) toll house, chilled as long as the ny times recipe; and (3) toll house, chilled the normal amount (about an hour, until the dough is firm enough to use). i went to gristedes to get ingredients, assuming that a supermarket would definitely have all of the ingredients i needed for my experiment. (because that's what this is, folks: a geeky experiment. so sue me.) of course, i was wrong, and this is why gristedes makes me hate new york. because they don't carry the chocolate chips i use in chocolate chip cookies, which is not an exotic brand and is basically carried in every other grocery store known to man. the brand, incidentally, is simply ghirardelli 60% bittersweet chips. i like the size and shape of these chips in particular - they're chubbier, and a little bigger and flatter, so they're more pleasing to the eye and consequently make them more attractive to eat. kind of like the way that arborio rice is more pleasing to me to eat than basmati rice.

gristedes: you cost me a day, and my curiosity has increased accordingly as time has elapsed. i'd like to point out that whole foods did not disappoint me, and that i was able to procure my non-exotic chocolate chips there. technically, the ny times recipe calls for feves, which are the flat chocolate disks sold with all of the bulk chocolate, but i didn't really have that much faith in my ability not to break them when stirring them into the dough, so i just used regular chocolate chips.

so right now, two bags of chocolate chip cookie dough are slowly chilling in the fridge. the rationale is that the liquid ingredients absorb better into the dough with a longer chilling period, which i know to be true: the buckwheat cocoa nib cookies require overnight chilling because they consist of flour, butter, sugar, and cocoa nibs. you have to wait for the dough to get to the right consistency or it won't bake correctly. i'm curious to see just how much of a difference it makes, since i often chill my dough for up to 12 hours anyway, so that the butter doesn't melt too fast when you bake the cookies. for some reason, i find chocolate chip cookies with really flat edges to be kind of unappetizing. i don't really know why, and i know it's weird, but that's just the way it is.

my initial thoughts are that the doughs really are significantly different. the ny times recipe has more flour per tablespoon butter than the toll house recipe - you could tell with the two doughs that the toll house recipe was a lot goopier and harder to handle than the ny times recipe. i wonder if i should have used the typical brown sugar that i use - just dark instead of light - because the dough looked really pale to me, too. the last batch of chocolate chip cookies i made were at s+l's place, and i made those with billington's dark brown sugar, since that's what i'd bought at the supermarket (not a gristedes). they were a rather pleasing golden brown; using dark brown sugar definitely helps color-wise. i also happen to like the flavor of dark brown sugar, which is especially nice since i don't use vanilla extract. i can only stand to use real vanilla beans these days - i've discovered that i don't really like the flavor of vanilla extract, and that i don't want to obscure the flavor of sugar and butter with the vanilla.

well, that's about it. i'll report back about how the cookies turn out tomorrow.

r-e-s-p-e-c-t...

it's not what you think, but it's outrageous anyway. i'm not referring to your future loss of respect for me when i reveal that i love wendy's chicken products, brownies from a box, and kraft singles (each one of these un-foodie food loves is predicated on carefully-calibrated expectations that aren't really concerned with the pretentious gourmandism).

i'm referring instead to a matter of word choice - terribly poor word choice. i was reading a review of ko prime in the boston globe when i experienced a precipitous and large loss of respect for that newspaper: my brain registered having read the word "ginormous."* not only does this word look ridiculous, it's, well, not a word. if i were on the mit network and could check in the OED for you, i am 95% sure it would not be in the OED. seeing as a newspaper is a publicly accessible document that has wide readership, it's pretty much deplorable that (a) a writer would even think of using slang like that when any other word would suffice (say, "enormous") and that (b) the copy editor would not have caught that. and take note that the same sentence that contains the offending slang in it also contains the word "redolent." that is a real word, and one that could very well be describing food of some sort. "ginormous" is a word that a high schooler who doesn't know any better might use in passing conversation. "redolent" is not. i knew there was a reason why i don't read boston globe restaurant reviews. shame on you, boston globe.

*the offending word in its context:
Vegetable options include ginormous stalks of asparagus with hollandaise, and pea greens that are far too salty (a recurring issue here) but cooked perfectly and redolent of ginger; pea risotto, however, is overcooked.

a short ode to leftovers.

in the world of restaurant eaters, "leftovers" is a dirty word. it's the moldy mac and cheese festering in a tupperware in the back of your fridge, pushed out of the way by pudding cups and beer. it's the smell of mold spreading throughout your fridge as you put off cleaning it out. it's the stuff you intended to eat, but then forgot about.

in the restaurant world, leftovers become family dinners: leftover chicken parts, excess inventory from a food order, etc. fewer people ordered a dish than you expected and now you have a lot of something leftover.

restaurant leftovers are a little more interesting: it's the food you didn't make that you have brought back with you. the fact that it's from a restaurant - and thus "better" than what you can do yourself - transforms leftovers into a sort of secondary takeout.

but, my friends, if you think leftovers are horrible, then you are mistaken. i am eating my lunch right now: a "salad" of braised red cabbage, roast turkey, ricotta, and olive oil. all of these things are leftovers: the braised red cabbage was leftover from cod that we had last week, the roast turkey was leftover from my mother, the ricotta was leftover from something (...a long time ago but it was still good). the contents of your fridge, in simple combination with your staple kitchen ingredients, can be transformed into joy. combining leftovers is a different kind of thinking than shopping at the supermarket for specific ingredients; it's a lesson in constraints. how can you put these things together so that they'll taste good? and this journey often leads to new discoveries about things that go together. cooking with leftovers in a non-chop suey way will further your education in how and what to eat, and you will be happier for it.

taking liberties with relish

it's just past midnight and i'm sitting down after spending the past six and a half hours running around the kitchen. i'm tired, but it's a good tired; i've ended the day having made a nice diagram in illustrator, fed five people an excellent dinner, and of course, since it's wednesday, i watched project runway.

lauren and i had planned on making dinner this week, and she left the menu up to me. this is an exciting fact because this is the first time i've actually planned a menu with days to spare - the past several days, i've just been picking stuff out at the supermarket. i'm not sure how i came up with the idea of a relish - and i use this term loosely - but it was probably the combination of two things: one, our current obsession with fresh corn; and two, the thought of pork chops and the first thick-cut pork chop i ever had. i don't remember how old i was - either in middle school or early high school - but my parents took my sister and i out to dinner with them and my dad's boss. we went to the vault, which is near government center and has since gone out of business. this was also the first nice restaurant i'd ever been to, with the whole crumb-scraping deal, dark colors and leather and wood. the pork chop i happily ate definitely had some kind of relish on it, where by relish - lauren and i discussed this - i mean something between a garnish and a salad. it's something full of diced things, and is probably kind of crunchy.

so now we come to my relish. well, i had decided on thick-cut pork chops (not on the bone - the supermarket didn't have exactly what i wanted), so for the relish, i thought we'd do corn, onions, tomatoes, squash, and thyme. for a starch we'd do more onions, some butter and thyme, and pasta, with a side of roasted broccoli (because this is the easiest way to cook broccoli). and for dessert, a chocolate cake with the rhubarb-ginger jam i'd made a couple days ago, and whipped cream. i thought about making a trifle, but it was too much work - the past week or so, i've been really exhausted from work for no reason. so i envisioned a chunk of cake, dolloped liberally with jam and then cream.

i didn't really have a set plan of how to go about making dinner, so i started with the cake. then i moved onto vegetables; we did the onions with the thyme, sauteed the zucchini until it was al dente, and tossed them together with raw corn, diced tomatoes (fresh, because diced tomatoes from a can are only useful for pasta sauce), salt and pepper. then i did the pork chops in the skillet, 9 minutes per side. in truth, i should have trimmed them so they were prettier and cooked more evenly, but i was tired at that point and just went with it. they did brown nicely, though, especially in the all-clad skillet (i knew there was a reason why i bought it besides pure vanity regarding its physical beauty), which made quite a nice gravy. i was, as i had said, feeling a little lazy so i just deglazed the pan with some port wine, added a little chicken stock, and then dumped in the leftover gravy from the pot pie we made a couple days ago. let me tell you, rubbing your pork chops with salt and pepper before you brown them makes a huge difference. that was a good sauce if i say so myself.

dessert ended up being a sundae type of affair, where i made a bunch of stuff and let people choose what they wanted. the chocolate cake was pretty good, if uninspired (i used richard sax's recipe, since i knew the man can't go wrong). to go with it, we had the rhubarb-ginger jam and whipped cream, but i also had bought some plums, so we macerated those in sugar and cointreau, and then i made some hot fudge. for someone who grew up on hershey's syrup and packaged hot fudge, real hot fudge - which is really easy to make - is a dream. a lovely, happy, sunny one. i had mine with everything but the plums, and it was quite good.

and now the kitchen is spotless, the trash has been taken out, and the dishwasher is running - i guess putting the oven on the clean cycle will have to wait until tomorrow. oh, before i go...i was looking at chocolate cake recipes online, and i found one for a "deconstructed black forest cake." well, dear readers, i heartily disapprove of deconstructed food. i mean, if i wanted to eat all of the components separately, i'd do that. but when i eat a black forest cake, i want to eat a black forest cake, not a chocolate cake with stuff on the side. honestly - would you want to eat a deconstructed sandwich? there's a logic to a layer cake like there's a logic to a sandwich - the point being the combination of things. someone put those flavors together because they're good together, as opposed to separately. hmph. i question the people who make "open-faced ravioli" - isn't the point of ravioli that it's this little pillow of pasta that encloses something good? yeah. presumably you might want to know what exactly is in your pasta or your layer cake, but that's what a cookbook is for.

central square + gentrification

from stuff@night (my comments at the end):
From fast to fine
Hot restaurants, tasty events, and the buzz on Boston's dining scene

BY LOUISA KASDON

Only a chef-owner as gutsy and farsighted as Steve Johnson — formerly of the Blue Room — would look at Central Square’s old Burger King space and see a potential site for a fine-tuned urban bistro. Until last spring, the site had all the hallmarks of mid-Cambridge grunge: a seedy Mass Ave storefront and even seedier patrons. No more. Johnson is well under way with a new project, the Rendezvous at Central Square, a near-100-seat bar and restaurant that will showcase his elegant, earthy European palate. If construction continues apace, the new restaurant will open sometime in early October and serve dinner seven nights a week. It will have a full liquor license, a big bar for eating and drinking, a communal table, and a menu rooted in Johnson’s French culinary background. We’re talking real restaurant, with an atrium, bright skylights, banquettes, trained waitstaff, and prices from the low $20s on up. With this one new restaurant, Central Square could be on the cusp of a neighborhood reinvention.

For decades, Central Square has been the multi-ethnic ridge of Cambridge, slightly tawdry and joyously funky, but lost in a zone just beyond Harvard’s reach and not quite in the crook of MIT’s arm. It’s home to a fair number of pubs and bars, lots of Indian and Asian budget eateries, and the Middle East and Phoenix Landing. Other than to visit Central Kitchen, however, no suburban gourmet has ever looked up from his or her newspaper and said, "Hey, honey, let’s go see what’s new in Central Square."

That could change very soon, and Rendezvous could be the catalyst. Although it’s still a construction site, the new space’s bones are emerging — and the bones are good. It’s a big space, airy and crisp, like Eastern Standard in Kenmore Square. One side will feature banquettes for fours and sixes; the central area will have traditional dining tables. The front window will house a big communal table for all those cozy Cantabrigians who like to dine en masse. The bar will serve liquor, of course, but Johnson emphasizes that it’s to be a dining space where people can drink, rather than a drinking space where people can eat. "This is a restaurant with a bar, not a late-night place," he says. "We’ll be done with dinner by 11 and mopping up the floors by midnight. Central Square has enough bars."

Although he wasn’t in a hurry — after all, there was a lot of good sport fishing from his boat in Bristol, Rhode Island — Johnson had been seeking a new location since he left the Blue Room more than two years ago. He’d casually considered every space and potential concept from Boston to coastal Rhode Island. But Johnson always had a hankering to work close to his home near Central Square. One day last April, after looking at restaurants for two years, he was walking down Mass Ave and saw a for-lease sign in the window of the former Burger King. "I’d looked at every space in the city by then, worked with all the usual suspects, the realtors and landlords," Johnson recalls. "And here I was just ambling by and saw a phone number to call." The process has been fast by anybody’s standards, less than six months from beginning to end — including getting the blessing of the neighborhood association, often the most difficult part of opening a new restaurant in Cambridge.

The Central Square Business Association is overjoyed by Rendezvous’s impending arrival. It’s been hoping for a wave of gentrification in Central Square, but one that would re-invigorate the area without erasing its ethnic complexity. It invested in new parking lots (three public lots are within a block of the new restaurant), installed sidewalk benches, and improved the streetlights. Central Square merchants had been unhappy for years that the old BK was owned and operated by an absentee landlord, out of touch with the kind of clientele his franchise was attracting. Recently, a new owner bought the building; he hopes to turn the property into a source of neighborhood pride, and has been diligently working with Johnson to make sure his new tenant has everything he needs to succeed — most importantly, a full liquor license. At the Licensing Commission hearing, Johnson got the green light from the city with no muss or fuss.

Of course, it’s a gutsy move. The site is definitely not an "A" location. Only a chef of Johnson’s reach and reputation could turn an old Burger King into a destination that will woo the kind of diners who go to the South End, but only because all the bistros there have valet parking. On the other hand, Mass Ave has an appealing, almost Parisian grittiness, what with the Middle East next door and the scads of interesting characters who make the scenery more interesting than in Newton.

Johnson has hired as his chef Deepak Kaul, who cooked with him for three years at the Blue Room before moving to San Francisco to cook at Jardinière, a restaurant very much in the tradition of Alice Waters & Co. The GM at Rendezvous is Nicole Bernier, another Blue Room alum. "It’s great to work with people I know well," Johnson says. "It feels like a Blue Room reunion." The menu at Rendezvous will be more French than fusion, and will have fewer Asian influences than the Blue Room during Johnson’s tenure.

Urban storefronts are like dominoes: when one store changes hands, it sets a chain in motion. A new chichi bistro like Rendezvous may be the key domino to regenerate Central Square. If it could happen in Kenmore Square, it can happen anywhere.

* * *
i wonder what the person who wrote this is like. i wonder if they know what happens when a neighborhood goes through gentrification. i wonder if they know that central square is good as it is - that something that might be good for one neighborhood is most definitely not good for a different one, because they are inherently different. i would really like to know if she thinks anyone who lives in central square and loves it would ever use the phrase "chichi bistro" in a positive manner.

"satisfies like meat"

i just came upon this article in today's nyt which, among other things, sports this phrase: "Alda Fuortes de Nitto...cooks eggplant that satisfies like meat." as i thought about that, i wonder what it is that meat means to us (us meat-a-tarians, that is), and how we view it. should eggplant satisfy like meat? why would you want to liken eggplant to meat, anyway? it's an entirely different thing - should it then be treated completely differently?

since i'm not vegetarian i can't say, but i wonder if they think of certain things as replacing meat - like the vaunted portobello mushroom cap, for example. i would hope that they don't - that it's just a different way to eat. the way that phrase is worded implies that meat is a necessary component of one's diet, or possibly the most important one, while it really isn't. or maybe it's trying to say that there are things in general that satisfy like meat, using the word "meat" to signify the important part of a meal. but is any one part of a meal "better" or more "significant" than the "meat"?

for me, meat has become an increasingly optional part of a meal. i certainly do like it - a lot - but it's no longer the mainstay of dinner. i suppose i think of meat more as a flavor now, rather than a necessity. sometimes i want it, sometimes i don't, and a lot of the time i'm too lazy to cook it or too cheap to buy it.

produce heaven

if you guessed that i am referring to california, you would be right! i had always scoffed at the idea that california is a mecca for fresh produce, but it turns out that i was in the wrong. i was also wrong in my assumption that the entire state looks like LA. northern california is really quite beautiful - partly settled, partly wild. and i love the fog. it makes golden gate park seem even wilder - with that edge of the slightly savage. anyway, the produce. well, perhaps it's because i was staying with jessica's family, but the way that people value produce is wonderful. and maybe it's just me, but people just look happier on the street than they do in chicago. the air in san francisco and environs is great. air quality rank: (1) san francisco, (2) boston, (3) chicago.

so the produce actually does taste better in california. i would absolutely love to have fruit trees in my backyard - the lemons from jessica's lemon tree are so pretty! other people have orange trees, too. mmm... we also went to berkeley bowl, a supermarket in berkeley that is like whole foods, but with a lot more things in bulk, and a lot more produce. i've never seen such beautiful strawberries in my life! and there were so many mushrooms you just can't get on the east coast (that i know of).

we went to the ferry building in san francisco as well, which is more of a museum of gourmet food than a "i can afford to buy stuff here" type of place, but it's not touristy yet (though it is very yuppie). the mushroom place had huitlacoche - sorry if the spelling is wrong - which i'd never seen before. i bought some truffle oil (at $34.95/gram, or was it oz?, the summer truffles were far too dear) to take back to the east coast with me. i like beautiful artisan foods, but i also like affordable food - i have no idea who could afford the lifestyle that the ferry building represents. for all that i like minimally processed foods, i'm still a big fan of white flour and sugar.

i think i ate better at jessica's house than i did all summer. we were never huge on produce at home - as chinese people seem to be more concerned with meat, and vegetables to go along with the meat - and so being in a produce-oriented household was a welcome change for me. especially given my horrible diet during the summer. i don't know where people get the idea that fresh produce in chicago is good. i guess i just don't know where to go. at any rate, i think i have a better idea of how i want to eat during the school year, when i have to start cooking for myself. bread and cheese, here i come....oh, i do love cheese.

selfish baking and a supermarket rant

i should note that i began the day today with three chocolate chip cookies and a piece of carrot cake. mmm. good for my stomach, maybe not so much for my heart.

i realized that i never really bake just for myself - i either want to try something new out and then share it, or i am making something specifically for someone. so yesterday i changed courses from my original intent to make a carrot cake for the office and some chocolate chip cookies to mail to various people. i kept the cookies for myself.

granted, i am sharing the cookies with people who sit around me, but for all intents and purposes i made them for myself. selfish, maybe, but very satisfying. and there is the cake sitting out on one of the tables for people to partake. making something just for yourself (i made them to have as a snack and with my lunch at work) is a very different pleasure from making something for other people, but just as good, in a different way - in a way such that you know, hopefully, that you shouldn't indulge yourself too often.

so actually, the cake is pretty good. it's a typical carrot cake except that it uses fresh ginger instead of ground ginger, which i think i'd do again. i would have liked to have put currants in it or something (expressly because they're smaller than raisins) but i forgot to buy them, and even though the supermarket is only 2 blocks away there was no way i was going to go back when i'd just gone that morning. part of the reason why i made carrot cake was because i don't have an electric mixer, and thus don't want to attempt any kind of butter cake that needs the air from the butter being beaten. i was a little worried about the frosting, but it turned out fine since it was a warm night (or maybe it was just warm in the kitchen) and everything had been softened properly. ok, it's not totally smooth, but it's smooth enough for people not to notice.

we also don't have a grater, which ran me into more problems when i was making pesto (without a 100%-working blender) with parmesan cheese that needed to be grated. i just ended up mincing the carrots really finely with my wonderful new knife - not the ideal scenario but the one i had. upon putting the pan in the oven, i discovered that the rack is designed really oddly with a horizontal bar on top of the vertical ones (bird's eye view) so that nothing can rest on it flat and level. odd. i even checked and the rack was in the right way. i guess it's just because it's old. so anyway, the cake was kind of lopsided, but nobody noticed anyway.

i also made chicken and rice for lunch during the week (and i bought bacon on sale so i can have bacon and blueberry jam sandwiches!). i seem to gravitate towards chicken and rice any time i cook. in fact, every time i've really cooked anything for lunch, with the exception of the last time when i made pasta with chicken and red peppers, i've made chicken and rice: risotto with chicken, asparagus, and mushrooms, chicken and rice with morels, and yesterday chicken and rice with capers. hey, chicken is cheap. i think the best was the chicken and rice with morels - i omitted the garlic and ginger and it was just onions, wine, rice, chicken, and morels. it had a wonderfully clean taste... mmm.... the one i made yesterday was good, especially with the capers, which i wasn't sure were going to work. just not as good as the other one, which had the distinction of having chicken drumsticks and thighs rather than chicken breast (which was on sale when i last went to the supermarket).

i still haven't found a supermarket i like in chicago. maybe it's because i live in hyde park. but there is only one whole foods and one trader joe's for the entire city! hmph. i find boston to be a better food town than chicago because it's more consistent : you can get a nice dinner for $30 in boston, but not in chicago, where it's either $15 or $90. and there are more supermarkets! who ever heard of a downtown without a good supermarket? i haven't seen any supermarkets in the loop... people around here pretend that their produce is the best and that it's cheaper than other places since it's grown around here, but i'm just not convinced.

i did like the indian supermarkets in devon, though. devon is in the northern part of the city (and is really the name of the street). devon street is very built up and it's basically all storefronts, but step off onto a sidestreet and you are surrounded by small single-family homes. it has a somewhat foreign feel to it, i guess because all of the signs protrude out into the space above your head. there are four kinds of stores: restaurants, supermarkets, sari stores, and jewelry stores. all of the jewelry stores display their wedding jewelry in the front window, which is elaborate with all of the colorful beads and very yellow gold. makes you kind of want to be an indian bride (kind of being the important part here). i wonder where the indian supermarkets are around boston - there being so much indian food, there must be supermarkets somewhere.

ok, i need another cookie.

notes: this is a very moist cake, and it's pretty good, although i think i'd switch out some of the sugar the next time i made it for dark brown sugar, just to give it a bit more of a molasses taste to it. i liked the fresh ginger and would add more the next time i make it - make sure you mince it really fine.

carrot cake
cake
2c flour
2t baking soda
1t salt
1t cinnamon
2c sugar
1 1/4c canola oil
4 eggs
3c grated carrots
1 1/4c chopped walnuts
3T minced peeled ginger

icing
16 oz cream cheese
1/2c butter
1 1/2c powdered sugar
1/4c - 1/2c maple syrup (do NOT, i repeat, do NOT use pancake syrup)

[1] preheat the oven to 350F. butter a 9"x13" pan or two 9" cake pans.

[2] in a medium bowl, stir together the flour, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon.

[3] in a large bowl, whisk together the sugar and oil. whisk in the eggs, one at a time.

[4] stir in the dry ingredients, then the carrots, ginger, and walnuts.

[5] pour the batter into the pan and bake 45-50 minutes for a 9"x13" cake, less for a 9" cake.

[6] for the icing, beat the butter until smooth and creamy, then beat in the cream cheese. beat in the powdered sugar, then add 1/4c maple syrup and beat that in. taste it, and add more maple syrup according to your taste. be careful not to let the icing get too runny - i added about 3/8c.

[presumably this makes 1 2-layer 9" cake, but i made a 1-layer 9"x13" cake]

food etiquette and a pet peeve

food etiquette comment first. i have discovered that many of the people on egullet take photos of their food. i feel that the breach in etiquette outweighs the benefit of taking a photo of your food. after all, won't you remember it if it was memorable? ditto about taking notes. i guess i just feel that you're there to eat, not document. but, to each his own.

and the pet peeve: having spent so many years studying french, i can no longer stand it when people mispronounce words that are french. this is not an attack on specific people, but rather more a reflection on the american society's failure to make an effort to pronounce things correctly. i find that if i want to pronounce something correctly - ie, "au bon pain," "sur la table," "au gratin," etc - i cannot do so because people just won't understand me. and then i end up reverting to the american pronounciation, at which point the funny look i got from pronouncing something correctly transfers seamlessly to a look of instant comprehension.

food heresy

granted, this column from the Seattle Times, called "The Diet Detective," has some valid points, like moderation, but despite these cautions, it simply tells its readers to take all the fun out of eating. i find it utterly offensive. some excerpts:

"A few slices of bread and butter can add as many as 400 to 500 calories. If you can't limit yourself to just one slice, have the basket removed from the table. You can refuse it before it's brought out or ask for a plate of vegetables to munch on instead." maybe people should try to learn some self control, rather than running away from food.

"Avoid anything fried, creamy or served with a sauce and look for "broiled" or "steamed." If you're not sure how it's prepared — ask. Try oysters on the half shell (only about 10 calories per oyster), shrimp cocktail (about 22 calories per shrimp, including the sauce) or a broth-based (not cream) soup. Avoid salad sabotage by asking for the dressing on the side and sprinkle it on with a fork. Try fat-free or low-fat dressing, and avoid high-calorie add-ons like cheese or croutons." first of all, fried, creamy, or sauce-dressed things are fine in moderation. second, a salad includes the things it includes because it's carefully crafted to create a specific taste combination. take one of these things out and you ruin it. if you are allergic to something in the dish, or don't like one of the things in it, either order something else or take a leap of faith, be adventurous, and eat it anyway (this does not apply if you are allergic, though...).

"In fact, many of the steakhouses I called put either butter or oil on their steaks. But don't worry; almost all are willing to make them without if you ask." this is just wrong. you might as well give up on food right now and stick a needle up your arm to get your nutrients by IV. maillard is turning over in his grave.

"Never go to a restaurant without preplanning what you're going to eat." gosh, i guess this means that you're never going to a restaurant where they have no menu. what's the point in going out to eat something new, if you've researched it to death? eating at a restaurant is an adventure; if you plan everything out and refuse to be spontaneous, you're missing out.

"Ask yourself, 'Does the prime rib taste three times better than the sirloin or the filet?' because it often has three times the fat and calories," says Jayne Hurley, senior nutritionist at the Center for Science in the Public Interest in Washington, D.C." yeah, it does taste better - because of the fat.

"Save more than half the calories. These are typically the healthiest items on the menu, especially if you get the sauce on the side and they're not cooked in butter." that "sauce on the side" thing is just offensive.