POETRY

It is about time I do some baking, but I don't even have a hand mixer, let alone sugar, spice and everything nice. Or flour for that matter. That's what happens when you travel. So here's a poem in recognition of the word part of my blog. With any luck, I'll be baking with my mom this week. She is the banana bread queen of Wynmoor, Florida.

FOR MY MOTHER


Mommy sits at my breakfast bar
I see her reflection in the shiny black granite
That covers my new kitchen cabinets
She is small but her back is straight
She eats her food one bite at a time
The granite mommy does the same

I watch her as she gracefully eats
The good food we have prepared
There are fresh vegetables and
Little bowties like my father once wore
My heart is full of love and yearning
I want to take care of her forever

Stay here, I plead to the mommies
Who shake their heads in unison
Affirming their independence
Much the same as I once did

EGGPLANT PARMESAN

Every October, Boulder artists open their studios to the public. This self-guided tour lasts two weekends, but it was 3 pm on the final day when I joined the parade of people looking for yellow "open studio" signs. And oh, the studios and secret gardens I saw!


Behind one small house, I found painter Elizabeth Black in a trailer. The stone path to her studio opened to a huge garden & grape arbor as well as a Christmas tree orchard. I could buy her art or a jar of her honey (take a jar & leave your money in the box). What a delight to find this magical garden in the middle of town.


The light rain didn't deter me or anyone else for that matter. It was hard to park and the small studios were crowded. But, people were enjoying the day and buying handcrafted items fresh off the shelf. It was a wonderful distraction from the bad economic news.


Artist Linda Faul, one half of the spagetti sisters, lives on a mountain top just outside of town. Linda paints landscapes and buffaloes (Univ. of Colorado mascot) and she's been commissioned to paint the holiday star that shines over Boulder each winter. I buy a small painting to go with the eggplant parmesan that she is serving at her open house. Linda and her sister Claudia come from a big Italian family and their recipes have been handed down from parents and grandparents. Linda's kitchen is filled with comfort food, family and friends. When she calls "mangia," I obediently eat two plates of eggplant parmesan.


This is like the food I ate growing up in N.Y., not far from the town where Linda & Claudia lived. Our neighborhoods were filled with 2nd generation Italians and Jews, and the Nanas and Bubbes still cooked for their families. My grandma would arrive with jars of stuffed cabbage & borscht and squares of rice pudding that my dad pretended to like. For me and my sister, there were treats like rugelach, Barton's chocolates and apple pie-cake.

My sister, Iris, is amazed that I remember the name of my grandparents' apartment building (the Mira Mar) in Brighton Beach. She finds a picture in the Brooklyn Library archives. The building, adjacent to the wide boardwalk that leads to Coney Island, had two small shops where my dad bought us Italian ices and steaming hot knishes: potato, kasha and his favorite, cherry cheese, wrapped in white paper. They were almost too hot to hold and when you did take a bite, the flaky strudel-like outside broke apart releasing a sweet or savory filling that I haven't tasted in 40 years. No wonder I remember the building so well.

Heads Up !

I want to thank Allison Marshall for her creativity and the time she spent designing a new header for my blog. She's done beautiful headers for other bakers and I am pleased to pass her name on to you. Her website is: allisonjstudios.webs.com

BOULDER CHEFS ON TOP CHEF

Two Boulder chefs will compete on this season's Top Chef. But, they are not only from the same town, they handle kitchen duties at restaurants owned by the same chef & restauranteur, Dave Query. So if you are in Boulder, Colorado, check out Hosea Rosenberg' fare at Jax, a too-noisy seafood place on west Pearl. Nevermind that your table abuts that of other diners - take a look at what they're eating for an idea about what to order. On the same block, Melissa Harrison is sous chef at Centro Latin Kitchen. Get a table on the bustling outdoor patio.

DORIE EXPLAINS HOW-TO-MAKE CARAMEL

It is pretty clear from advance posts that making caramel is risky business. Your sugar mixture cooks longer than the suggested time, fails to turn deep amber, and so you give it a quick stir. Instantly, you turn to stone. But didn't Dorie warn against stirring in her recipe for Caramel-Peanut Topped Brownie Cake?

Sure she did, but part of the fun of baking with Dorie is experimenting with her recipes. Like the blogger who made a white chocolate brownie cake or the baker who topped her cake with pecans.

My cake, baked in an 8" square pan (Dorie suggests 8" springform), came out dry, especially around the edges. It caved in the middle, but Dorie warned about that. I baked it for 40 min (Dorie suggests 40-45). I cut all the edges off & decided to make 4 individual cakes. That left lots of trim for tasting - not that I wanted more after the first few bites. The cake is only mildly chocolately. There are much better cakes out there and I decide not to bother with the caramel topping given the mixed reviews on this cake from other bakers. (For a good chocolate cake see my post from September 19, 2008: "Talk Like a Pirate Day.")

What could I do with my mini cakes? I checked Dorie's book for inspiration - no help there. But I recently bought a book for $9.99: "The Essential Dessert Cookbook" from Murdoch Books (no author credited). Great recipes, gorgeous pics, and chapters on pies & tarts, ice cream, fruit & baked desserts like creme brulee. The instructions, tips & photos make this book a real steal, particularly because there are 4 pages devoted to caramel including decorations like spun toffee. I could tackle caramel with this book as a guide and so can you. But what about the organic raspberries I just bought at Whole Foods for $3.00? Do they really go with caramel?

Wouldn't it be better to fill my little cakes with raspberries and frost them with chocolate mousse? Like so:

My dessert cookbook has a beautiful picture of Hazelnut Roll with Rasberry Cream. The filling is simple to make:

Whip 1 cup of whipping cream until stiff (it helps if your bowl and beaters are cold)

Set aside half of the whipped cream.

Fold the following into one half of the whipped cream:

8 mashed fresh berries, 1 T of sugar & 1/2 tsp vanilla

Make chocolate mousse using the remaining whipped cream:

Melt together: 2/3 C of semi-sweet chocolate and 1 T of unsalted butter

Stir 2 heaping T of the whipped cream into the chocolate mixture to lighten it up

Let it cool for about 10 min, then fold in the remaining whipped cream

FILL THE CAKES WITH RASPBERRY CREAM & A FEW WHOLE BERRIES. FROST THE FILLED MINI CAKES WITH THE CHOCOLATE MOUSSE. SPRINKLE ALL OVER WITH CHOCOLATE CRUMBS & TOP WITH A SUGARED RASPBERRY. (I made crumbs from the cake left over when I cut out four mini cakes with a donut cutter.)

Tip: keep the filled cakes and the whipped cream in the frig as you make this recipe, so they hold their shape.

AN INCREDIBLY GOOD DESSERT AND LOOKS FABULOUS.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY IRIS

This weekend, Dorie and I visited my sister in Chicago. I got an aisle seat but Dorie traveled in baggage with tomatoes, chard, basil and arugula from my garden. Adding more weight were a super-sized zucchini and my Dimply Plum Cake. The plan: 1) I'd cook a fabulous dinner for my sister & her husband, 2) we'd eat the DP Cake, and 3) we'd bake a TWD recipe together.

We did all the fun things sisters do. We had morning coffee with pumpkin bread, took a bike ride, shopped at Nordstrom's Rack, had pedicures at a fancy salon (the best foot massage I've ever had), walked & talked. We took a mini-tour of downtown Chicago on a gorgeous Saturday afternoon & checked out niece Emily's apartment with views of the city & nephew Mike's (& Steph's) cool loft-style space in a converted pencil factory.

We did our share of eating, including dinner at Cafe Ba Ba Reeba http://www.cafebabareeba.com/), a bustling paella - tapas bistro in downtown Chicago. Great service - our waitress was attentive & other servers hovered about our table bringing endless tapas & signature dishes of chicken paella plus calderos, a rustic soup-like stew of rice & mushrooms.

Did I eat too much? Sure. This was a two-handed dining experience. White sangria in one hand and tapas in the other. Tapas of note: calamari, riojo short ribs, eggplant with goat cheese. I did not think I could eat another bite, but a real baker wouldn't pass up a slice of birthday cake from Dinkel's. Dinkels has been a Chicago institution since 1922 & is still run by the same family (with computers now). This was a deep dark chocolate experience with alternating layers of chocolate cake, thick fudge and whipped cream with strawberries.

This being Chicago, we watched sports with my brother-in-law. But, what were they thinking when they built that saucer-like stadium inside Soldiers' Field? We also watched the 1st Presidential debate, candidate interviews (real and fake), and all the bad news on the financial crisis. When the news became too depressing, we made apple cake and rugelach.


Rugelach (p.150) is a family tradition. My grandmother made hers with yeast dough & apricot filling. Dorie's cookies are smaller so you can eat more and equally tasty. We made a double recipe and 2 kinds of fillings: a) chocolate/walnut/rasberry jam filling, and b) chocolate/gourmet nut-fruit mix/apricot jam filling. I was surprised that we all preferred the apricot version. Seems that Grandma had it right all along!

THE SURROGATE BAKER

My 1st blog award !

The bakers at TWD have decreed that it is time to bake Dimply Plum Cake. It would be poetic justice if the cake with the worst name in the cookbook received high praise. But, no. Bad things happen to good people. Bad names beget bad cakes. There are dimply thigh jokes & bad reviews of this cake. When Tuesday arrives, I make sushi and post a picture of Nancy's cake. Nancy at Dogs Eat The Crumbs loves this cake. She made 2 cakes (peach and plum) and I figure that she is my surrogate baker.

But Nancy encourages me to bake this cake. Because she has given me a blog award, I cannot let her down. I will bake the cake making a few changes suggested by other bakers. I will bake it an extra 10 minutes, use cinnamon instead of cardamon, add 1/2 tsp almond extract and use white & wheat flours. I also add 1/2 C of ground almonds and 3 T of fresh OJ. The batter tastes soooo good. I have no idea about the cake itself. I'm flying to Chicago tomorrow for my sister's birthday. She has a new coffee maker and I'm bringing the coffee cake & the same birthday card we have exchanged for years.

In her book, Dorie says the cake is best eaten the day it is made, that the texture changes on day 2, but it becomes moist again on day 3. I'm shooting for day 3.

Hot out of the oven

50 minutes earlier

60 minutes earlier

An extra 10 minutes to clean the pantry !

THANKS NANCY FOR THE AWARD. I WILL PASS IT ON !