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.

Distracted.

The whole way home, I pictured the worst, and tried to determine if I had been careless.

Upon entering the grocery store, Riley noticed, for the first time, that mass of little vendor machines by the door. You know - mostly gumballs, a few huge gobstoppers, plastic bubbles holding fake spider rings. He was interested. I searched for something appropriate - yes, bouncy balls. Perfect. I thought back to being allowed the occasional gumball as a kid

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The above blurb is the first urge I have had to write something here in... well, I don't know how long. You can check the archives and count for me. But the small amount of time I tried to grab for this has been stolen by my children who have decided that naps are for pussies and were only willing to sit for two paltry episodes of the Backyardigans and just spilled A LOT of dried beans all over my kitchen floor (with gleeful cackles while doing so) and are now screaming about going outside to jump on the trampoline and I have relented, feeling guilty, so I have to go find pants (for them, not me) but I can't find any underwear for Riley because he has pooped or peed in I swear to God every pair he owns because he has forgotten that toilets exist and oh shit, now they are in the basement with me literally tearing things apart.

So I have to go do all that and dinner and baths and all I really want is a shower and to go to bed. But if you must know the ending to the story I was going to tell, you will have to be satisfied with knowing that it involved Riley chasing a dropped bouncy ball (yellow and pink!) into the middle of the parking lot where a car was being driven toward him, very slowly and about 50 feet away, but I calmly freaked the fuck out anyway, but that's over. More important is that after all that trauma, our bouncy ball survival rate since coming home a few hours ago is only 50%. So while I've convinced myself that CPS is not about to come knocking on my door, I am pretty sure that the Bouncy Ball Protection Agency is giving me the serious stinkeye.

You know what? I'm pretty sure the story came out better that way.

This is not the post you are looking for.

I actually have things going on, people. Real, actual TOPICS to discuss. Stuff, and everything. It could be truly great. But we'll never know, because every time I sit my ass down at this computer, suddenly blogging about all this things and topics and stuff is really not the thing I want to do.

I know. I'm sorry. Why do you even come here anyway?

Ok, ok. Here's something. One week from today, I will rejoin the realm of people who leave their house to go places other than the grocery store and - get this! - earn paychecks for it.

Discuss.

This looks awesome.

I had no idea I would be this excited about the Spike Jonze adaptation of "Where The Wild Things Are". Truthfully, when I heard about it, I was not pleased that anybody would attempt this. But WOW, y'all.

I'm not certain the embedding will work - it's been wonky in a few places I've seen it. If it doesn't work, go here.

Where I say nothing negative.

I love Stephen Colbert. (Yes, even more than Jon Stewart.) The End.

The Colbert ReportMon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c

Tip/Wag - Rush Limbaugh

Colbert Report Full Episodes
Political Humor

Rap Battle
NASA Name Contest

At least I'm not like Sam the Butcher.

I went to get some running shoes yesterday, and I wish I had thought to bring along my camera so I could document for you, my gentle readers, a truly revelatory moment in my lifetime.

They had me stand on one of those foot-pressure monitor things. (If they have a name, I don't know it. Google doesn't seem to either.) If you're familiar with the wet footprint test, it's like that, only with a big fancy screen and red lights telling where you put all the weight on your feet. It will also tell you about your arches, and if you pronate, and blah blah blah.

Wanna know what it told me?

I have extra-wide feet. A simple 'wide' won't do for me. No. I have fucking Sasquatch feet. Fred Flintstone feet, with higher arches.

And, you know, four more toes. But now that I know I have extra wide feet that require men's running shoes, I'm considering losing a few.

Ok, so I've looked at my feet my whole life, and honestly I've never thought they were that bad. I must not have too much of a problem with them if they're my photo up in the corner of my blog, right? So why do I feel like somebody came in the middle of the night and gave me MAN FEET?

I need to get a grip. It does help to know that my friend Bridget seems to not actually have a left foot. I call her "Flamingo" now.

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It would make my week if someone out there - anyone (except Marc, as he already knows) - got what I am referencing in my title. Do you know? Be the first to tell me in the comments, and I'll grant... a request. That's a little odd and vague, I know, but I did it last year so at least you know my crazy is a traditional thing. What I mean is that I'll post a picture of something you request, or perform some silly antic if you like, or write glowing reviews of you for all to see. You can name it. All you have to do is tell all of the class what I'm talking about with my title. Do be specific, please.

Or, you know, nobody will know or care or be reading, and I'll get over that someday. Maybe.

Careful what you wish for.

Because you just might get it. ON MARCH 2ND. A full two months after you wanted it. And on a day when you children are sick, one with a lovely ear infection and draining motherfucking eyes, so they CAN'T go play in your pretty fluffiness, thanks, though I'm sure our imaginary snowman would have been beautiful. Also, how much does it suck to have to ask other kids not to sled in your awesome sledding yard because your poor pitiful children will look out the windows and cry and YOU WILL FEEL LIKE THE WORST MOTHER EVER? A lot, is how much that sucks.

Yes, be careful what you wish for.

At least I've got good help. I hear that's hard to find. (He shoveled while also sick - because, you know, it always ends up that I'm the only healthy one around here. Anyway, whatta man. Love you, baby.)

Fat Tuesday

Thinking about New Orleans today. Yes, because it's Mardi Gras, but also because I've been reading some books on this gorgeous city lately, and have made a few ill-fated attempts at a trip down there.

Did you know that after your Bananas Foster during Breakfast at Brennans, you can go out to their courtyard (everyone in the Quarter has a courtyard. I want a courtyard.) and visit their turtle family?

 

It's possible that their brother was in the turtle soup. Don't tell them. And yes, I am talking about flaming alcohol and fruit (but mostly alcohol) for breakfast. 

 

Wrought iron balconies are everywhere. I want one of those, too.

 

And little cherubs peek out at you from all sorts of places.

It's hard to describe New Orleans. It's such a dirty, beautiful, romantic city. Anything that can capture your imagination can be found there.

 

History. More history than you can wrap your head around.

 

Tiny old bookstores with chairs to get comfy in and tall, tall stacks of books all around you.

 

Food.

   

The unapologetically seedy side. (At a bargain, even!)

 

Liquor.

 

Pirates.

 

And after all that carousing, you'll be pleased to find that New Orleans takes it's religion, and it's churches, very seriously.

Also, of course, music. But I don't have any pictures of that.

Next time we go down, here's what we'll do:

 

Wander around Jackson Square with the people and the music and the pigeons. Look off to the right there, where I might see a piece of art that's perfect for Mason's bedroom.

 

Get ourselves some go cups and become part of the entertainment. That's never been difficult for us.

 

Find a bar and lose focus. Also, eat some really amazing garlic oysters.

Happy Fat Tuesday. Laissez les bon temps rouler!

(Photos from September 2007)

Digging deep.

I know it's not Tuesday, but I leave you with this bit of ridiculousness:

You're welcome. Have a great weekend! (Mine is starting early. I hope it doesn't end with me wearing another Keystone Light hat.)