Pocket Aces

This is not a recipe blog. Ok, today it is.

I have two copies of the venerable Joy of Cooking - the nice, clean revised version that Marc got me (at my request) for Christmas one year a long time ago. The other, yellowed with age, was my grandmother's. Sitting in her kitchen in Council Bluffs, Iowa, after her death, one of my aunts - or maybe it was my mom? - came up to me to let me know I could come pick something from her jewelry box. But I didn't want my grandmother's jewelry - I had my eye on the tattered copy of Joy. It left with me that night. I love this book - both versions - because it's simply the best reference there is for determining how to cook anything. And my grandmother's version is so charmingly old-school - you can find Nettle Soup, or Braised Heart Slices in Sour Sauce. WTF! I know! I love it. I'd never cook it, but since we've already established that I don't cook from recipes anyway, it's just the wonderfulness of reading about all the things one could do. It's CRAZY. Also, if I want to make a true Bearnaise, you know that's where I'm going.

So, this recipe is from the revised version. Just FYI, there is a Lightning Cake in the old version, and while it looks to be generally the same there are a few changes I'm glad they made. For example, I don't routinely stock cake flour.

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Lightning Cake (Revised Joy Of Cooking, pg. 930)

This is a German Blitztorte, named for the speed with which it can be produced. It is quite a simple lemon-scented yellow cake, delicious with or without the topping. [...] Have all ingredients at room temperature, 68 to 70 degrees. Preheat the oven to 350. Grease and flour one 8x2 inch round pan or line the bottom with wax or parchment paper.
Whisk together thoroughly:

1 cup all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt

In a large bowl, beat until creamy, about 30 seconds:

8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter

Gradually add and beat on high speed until lightened in color and texture, 3 to 5 minutes:

1 cup sugar

Beat in 1 at a time:

3 large eggs

Beat in:

1 teaspoon grated lemon zest
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

Stir in the flour mixture just until smooth. Scrape the batter into the pan and spread evenly. If desired, sprinkle the top with a mixture of:

1/3 cup chopped or sliced natural (unblanched) almonds or other nuts
1 heaping tablespoon sugar

Bake until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean, 30 to 35 minutes. Let cool in the pan on a rack for 10 minutes. Slide a thin knife around the cake to detach it from the pan. Invert the cake and peel off the paper liner, if using. Let cool right side up on the rack.

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Some things to note:
I used salted butter and the cake was not remotely too salty. Even if I had unsalted butter next time, I'd probably still use salted, because I will do my best to reproduce this cake as perfectly as possible. I also did not use chopped nuts or standard sugar as a topping, but instead lightly (but thoroughly!) sprinkled turbinado sugar (aka "raw sugar") over the top before baking. I took it out of the oven at 29 minutes, but I suspect my oven runs a bit hot and I have a tendency to overbake and dry out my baked goods. The sugar had added the perfect sweetness and crunch, and was all the topping I needed, at least until the strawberries showed their pretty faces. Which leads me to tell you - I loved this cake because it's simple. I don't really like frosting, and I do chocolate in small doses. (Yes, I am female. Really.) This cake was moist, just dense enough, very subtle with the lemon, and perfect for just picking up a slice with my hands to eat for a snack. Marc loved it too, and no doubt wonders if this was all some lovely dream he will never be lucky enough to have again. I hope that won't be the case. After all, all the ingredients in this cake are ones I found in my pantry on a busy Thursday night, which means they are already in heavy rotation.

Enjoy!

Greetings, Earthlings.

Do you know what I just did? It was the craziest thing. Marc and I were driving home from work late this afternoon (yes, I work now.) (yes, I work at the same place as my husband.) (yes, I know that is a recipe for disaster - more on that later.) and I was feeling BAD - queasy stomach, headache, that droopy-bone tiredness. As we were driving home, I thought back to 2004, the last time I worked in the city. I was working at Maryland General, and Marc and I would commute into Baltimore together from where we lived in Annapolis. I was pregnant, only 8 weeks or so in, and feeling terrible. The whole ride into the city in the morning would consist of me nibbling graham crackers and sipping ginger ale, a walking cliche - it really was the only thing I could stomach. I would get to work and moan at my desk and be so happy I had a student to go do evaluations for me because my usual iron stomach that allowed me to stand the smell in some of those hospital rooms was long gone. And by the end of the day, when I would drive down to Fell's Point to pick him up, I was so bone tired that I would stumble over to the passenger seat and invariably fall asleep five minutes into the trip home. For about four months, it went like that. And if I didn't know better, I might have thought that I was pregnant today given how I felt. But I do know better, and no, I'm not.

Anyway. I was feeling pretty inexplicably awful and Marc and I were plotting what to do about dinner - I had some steaks planned, which he could easily handle, and I would muster up the energy to boil corn, then go lay down. He lamented briefly that I had forgotten to get some shortcake to go with the strawberries I'd gotten at the farmer's market this past weekend. I mumbled something and pretended to not care about it when suddenly all I wanted to do was make sure those strawberries got eaten while they were still in their prime, and the next thing I knew, I was digging through my vast cookbook collection for a cake recipe that I could make with the limited contents of my pantry and my small reserve of energy.

You should know - I don't make cake. I don't really bake. Sometimes I try, but my results are always, in varying degrees, subpar. It's all too precise for me, the girl who loves to read recipes but refuses to actually use one. So I found a cake recipe - Lightning Cake, it was called, perfectly - and was pleased that Marc didn't bat an eye at this strangeness because it was indeed strange. And I made that cake and do you know what I just did? I was feeling like I was coming down with the plague, and next thing you know, I made a fucking AWESOME PERFECT LITTLE PIECE OF PERFECTION of a cake. It was the craziest thing.

And then I felt tired again, and went and lay down.

But then! Oh, hi! I felt like sharing it, and what do you know? I know someone who used to blog, and she looks a lot like me. Well, actually, since it's been about 3.2 years since last she blogged, you should know that in that time she's lost 15 or so pounds, started earning paychecks, has shinier hair and whiter teeth, ran a marathon, planted some semblance of a vegetable garden and found the cure for the common cold. In her spare time, that is. (I'll let you wonder if any of those are actually true.) (Sorta, yes, no, only a 5K, yeah, and if only.)

I'll bet you were at the point where you were like, "That's it. There's no point in coming here anymore. I'm so happy that checking her lame ass site is one less thing I have to fit in my day." No, I'm not talking to you, but I am talking to YOU and YOU over there, the only 2.4 people who bother coming around here anymore. See, and now I've pulled you back in. A little nonsense from my fingertips, and you're mine again. Oh, the power.

When I logged into TypePad (helloooo, old friend!) there was a little article winking at me on the main page. "How To Increase Traffic To Your Blog". TypePad, why must you mock me?

So, yeah, I'm a working girl now. Not THAT kind of working girl. The other kind. I have a nice little part-time flexible gig that only remotely relates to anything I used to do in my former life and that is to say that I can no longer wear scrubs to work. Which is bittersweet, because while scrubs are hardly flattering, it's tough to beat going to work in your pajamas. It also means that I spend a good deal of time scared to death that I don't ruin this big new thing I've taken on while on the surface trying to have all the confidence in the world that of course, I can do this, why would you ever think I couldn't? And I'm not trying to be cryptic - I'm not sharing details of my new job because while it's not likely I'd be dooced, there is still the whole matter of this blog containing my political opinions and the occasional tendency of my fingers to hit a pattern of keys that comes out F-U-C-K and there's nothing I can do to stop it, and let's not even mention the drunken photos of myself or that one shot of my kids in the shower. Wholesome, world-saving people they are, over there in that place where I sometimes work. Why risk it?

Besides, I'm not going to be writing about work, because that's boring. The only reason you needed to know anything about it was so you could understand that it is what has been keeping us apart. But no longer! We have much to discuss, you and I.

I don't really remember what I was talking about when I started this post. The frog has descended on me again. I should go back and reread it, edit it, likely cut it all out. Yes, I meant to say "frog" up there. I said it because I sometimes substitute "frog" for "fog", like, "It's so froggy outside". I do this only around people from whom I have no expectation of being taken seriously. Obviously you are a subset of those people. I'm sorry I had to admit this to the 2.4 of you. Aren't you glad you don't have to speak to me in real life?

I'm going to lay down now.

What the 'L'?

Wow. What a terrible title. And you know what? I'm not gonna apologize for it. Live with it.

So it's a meme-y time of year, it seems, and they just go 'round and 'round. I like them, particularly for the kind of day/week/month when I don't have anything topical to ramble about. This one is about listing 10 things you love that start with a particular letter. I grabbed it over at Jambalaya, and the lovely wordnerd assigned me the letter 'L'.

I gotta say, 'L' was hard. I had to get Marc to help me out. I should have had 'B'. 'B' would have been a no-brainer. Here we go, in no particular order:

1. Lilacs. Not my favorite flower, visually - that honor goes to the short-lived peony - but hands down the best smelling.

2. LOST. Oh, come on. Too easy.

3. Licorice. Specifically, red. Specifically, Twizzlers.

4. Lipstick. Clinique, Raspberry Glace. I've worn the same color since high school. I'd think that was a little sad, maybe, except that I can't seem to find another color I've liked as consistently.

5. Louisville and Lafayette, CO. I wasn't born there, and I've lived other places since, but this is my hometown. They are two distinct little towns, with rivalries and everything, but really it's all one place. A certain someone I know who uses a lot of exclamation points will likely jump in the comments to list the differences between them like I don't know them, but I will just say that with time and distance, in my mind they are one now. It's where I grew up.

6. Libraries. What's not to love about a library? Stacks and stacks and STACKS of books. In college, I loved those little study carrels. Like a little private world with your books. Trouble was, then, I wasn't always reading for pleasure. I think I need a study carrel now.

7. Lennon, John. Looking purely at the Beatles years, I'm a Paul girl. But John's solo career, despite (or maybe because of) being tragically shortened, certainly packed more punch.

8. Liquor. Yes, there, I said it. I like this, and this, and sometimes even this. And just to show that I'm an equal opportunity boozer, I drink more than my share of wine and beer too.

9. Literature. Well, duh.

10. LISTS! Of stuff I love! Top 10 lists! Top 100 Songs of Any Year lists! Top 10 list of all the lists I've ever made! Bring 'em on!

For posterity's sake, here are some 'L' items I considered, and discarded: lollipops, limbo, lampshades, Louisiana, love, little things, lemonade, Little Debbie Nutty Bars, laughing, linens, and life. Not that I don't love those things, of course. Life is great and all, just - zzzzz.

Also, Marc lobbied hard for lesbians. When I resisted, because, you know, it's not that I don't love lesbians, it's that I don't LOVE lesbians, he tried to appeal to the wordsmith in me by going for the double word score with lipstick lesbians. I was so tickled, I almost gave it to him. Almost. Besides, I told him, I already talked about lipstick.

Wanna play? Consider yourself tagged. Ask me in the comments, and I'll give you a letter.

Fried food makes the people come together.

I've always read about the Tuscan tradition of eating squash blossoms, but had never come across any to try. Until, that is, I found a bunch in the pumpkin patch. After checking with the owner (who hadn't heard of fried squash blossoms, and therefore did not know of the wonderful bounty right there in his pumpkin patch), I made off with a bagful.

 

Egg wash, light flour and parmesan cheese batter. A little kosher salt. Lovely.

 

Make sure and save a handful of parmesan for sprinkling. You MUST sprinkle.

 

If this isn't a unifier, I don't know what is. Maybe I'll write it in on the ballot. You know, I can fiercely argue politics and still want to give the person I'm arguing with a hug when I'm done, provided I liked that person to begin with. But if this is too fried, too decadent, too weird for you? Well. I'm not sure we can ever truly understand one another.

Mmmm, Chinese.

• One order of shrimp toast (the kid loves it)
• Chicken lo mein
• General Tso's combination platter (w/ egg roll)
• Taiwanese rice noodles w/ veggies
• Hot Crispy Shrimp

Ask for extra hot mustard, please. And good fortune cookies - no stupid ones. Have them check. I'll expect this all promptly delivered at 5:30 sharp, or no tip for you.

(This exercise in creative writing is brought to you by What To Do When You Aren't Interested In Actually Blogging Because You Are Too Busy Enjoying Being Not Busy, Inc.)

I'll come around to see you once in a while.

Yesterday morning, 8 AM:

Driving to the Farmer's Market. This is my little ritual that I look forward to all week. A cool Saturday morning, me in the convertible, music playing as loud as I want. Look at that corn popping up!

Convertible hair. I don't mind a bit. On this particular trip, some songs I heard that made me happy:

• "Havana Daydreamin'" - Jimmy Buffett
• "Hello, It's Me" - Todd Rundgren
• "Peter Piper" - Run DMC
• "Hello Eugene" - Pink Martini
• "Love Stinks" - J Geils Band

Sirius Satellite Radio, you are a friend of mine.

These pretty little things are gooseberries. I ate them on the way home. Well, not ALL of them.

Because I was looking forward to having this for lunch. Grilled CBLT, made mostly from my purchases that morning. Yum yum yum yum yum tomato.

Other business:

Been super light on the posting round these parts lately, and I shore do apologize for it. (I don't know why I've tossed on a Texan accent, let's just go with it.) Firstly I was having a TypePad login problem that kept me from posting yesterday, but that's all better now. I also have just been crazy busy, and often have a lot of paint on my fingers.

But when I DON'T have paint on my fingers, I've been taking lots of photos, and have a few stories to share. I downloaded all 20 majillion photos from the past 2 months or so yesterday, and will be getting to posting them soon. Along with photos of my painted bathroom, which surely you are dying to see. (Yes, YOU ARE, dammit.) Promise.

I love living in farm country.

Farmer's market Saturday mornings. Pick your own strawberries. Goooood, good stuff.

Fresh strawberries on my cereal. I picked those little babies right off the... vine? No. Plant, I guess. Yummy.

Salad greens. Roasted green beans. Early tomatoes. Yum, yum, and yum.

I took the bulk of the strawberries I picked here and made some strawberry rhubarb sauce. Meant to be put over ice cream, which we did, but I personally like to eat it right out of the bowl, like strawberry soup. I have still MORE strawberries and rhubarb waiting for me upstairs to be turned into even more sauce. Last batch I made, I thought I made too much and gave some away to a neighbor. I will not be repeating that mistake.

Later this week, when it gets a bit cooler, I'm going back for peas. And probably more strawberries.

Have I mentioned "yum"?

Testing the theory that everything tastes good if you drink enough wine.

While at Disney, Marc and I were lucky enough to get 2 (two! DOS!) nights out to ourselves to go out for a nice meal, or frankly to do whatever the hell we wanted. Have I mentioned lately that I love my parents?

Our first night out was the first night we arrived, and we felt a bit tired after a day of traveling with the kids, but we did our best to rally and drive over to Universal and Emeril's Tchoup Chop to see what yummy things we could find there.

We sat at the food bar. We love doing this. I like watching the chefs in action - figuring out which station is which, watching a guy whip a beurre blanc together in two seconds flat, seeing things come to the pass and guessing which one is ours. We're so juvenile sometimes... we hunch together and say "Ooooooh!" if something gets sent back. It's all very entertaining. And the executive chef comes over for a chat. And they usually toss some extra little "tasting plates" your way. All in all, a good way to dine. (Unfortunately, nobody gets raw chicken thrown on them. "Hell's Kitchen" has ruined me forever.)

Mmmmm, the wine. There was food too, and it was excellent, but I didn't really get any good pictures of that because, duh, I was too busy eating it. Also, the lighting was not excellent for food. I know because I did a test shot, and the food looks like a pile of stuff you hope you don't step in.

But the wine! Always good for photo ops, that one.

So dinner was over, and we were still breathing the sweet air of freedom, so we decided to hop on the boat and head here:

Not our best decision ever, really. We first head inside, hoping for some mojitos, but the smell (what the hell WAS that?!) drives us back out. No problem, there's a little outside bar. Some teens are there dancing the macarena or something, but we do our best to overlook it. But the outside bar? No mojitos there. Not much of anything there, really. I try a daiquiri (I don't know what possessed me, honest) but it's so bad I can't finish it. Marc tries a Landshark Lager, and declares it horrible as well. We head back to the car. This is what we see when we get in:

Oh well. At this point, I can't wait to go to bed. Did I mention I liked the wine?