A Midspring Night's Feast

I love my neighbourhood. More specifically, I love my neighbours. They host these really great dinner parties and we all pig out and I usually get booze (or yummy sparkling fake booze).

On one Saturday afternoon in late May, we finally had one of the dinner parties that I’d missed so desperately during the school year. With my hair freshly dyed, wearing a new outfit, and with ambitions of a super-duper food blog rattling inside my skull, I set forth to make a pasta salad unlike any other pasta salad seen before by mankind (actually, that’s a lie; I was trying to copy the fantabulous pasta salad my aunt Debbie made for us the previous summer). So I spent a late morning/early afternoon chopping veggies, cooking pasta, stirring in fried onions and pesto, chopping fresh herbs, and finally placing my masterpiece in the fridge so the flavours could mature. Several hours later, I was rewarded with a pasta salad that smelled fantastic, but was practically flavourless. I was quite dismayed at this, but thought, “What the hey, it looks pretty and the veggies taste good”. I would have put in more pesto but the salad was already drowning in it. So I brought it over anyway.

My mom, being surprisingly supportive of my food blogging efforts (even though it was another thing to help me spend time on the computer), took loads of pictures. She even got artsy (see picture of biscotti dough in her Kitchenaid) and insisted on getting pictures of me actually cooking. There’s one she took of me looking over my shoulder, which she calls “The Sexy Chef”. I took pictures of her hands rolling biscotti dough.

Mom made some lovely cookies for the party as well. Not only did she try out a new recipe for almond biscotti that I think we found on the internet, she made double-chocolate cookies with marshmallows in them. I think she's really Martha Stewart in hiding...

Music for this post: "Come on! Feel the Illinoise!" by Sufjan Stevens

Oh, so painfully artsy! Mom took this. I take it as evidence that my love for all things artsy is genetic and totally not my fault.

"The Sexy Chef" redux, courtesy my sweet self. That dough smelled fantastic...

I know it's hard to tell, but mumsy used multicoloured marshmallows. There are very few things in this world more satisfying in this world than chocolate and rainbows mixed together.

This is why you do not leave cookies unattended in my house... kidding, kidding! This is my attempt at being artsy, before I started chewing on the smaller one.

This was Mom's idea. I took photos of the salad with vines of ripe red tomatoes, but the contrast here is much better. You win, Mom.

Let them eat cake!

From my dusty archives...

Howdy from Cowtown, y'all! My cooking karma here, despite working for a catering company, is going down the tubes, so any updates for the next little while will be stuff from earlier on in the summer, which may have appeared in my first food blog or livejournal (though an exception or two might wriggle its way in). Such is life.

I don't care HOW hot summer is; I cannot live without my cake! That's how I've found myself slaving over hot ovens with less-than-miraculous results in the merry months of early summer.

My first foray into fancy cake-ing was going to be an angel food cake. I had wanted to make one for my grandmother's birthday, but I didn't have enough egg whites on hand that day, so I made her a chocolate cake instead, which was enjoyed by all.

So, the next day, off I went to the supermarket, returning triumphantly with two cartons of egg whites in hand. I got to work rather excitedly on a lovely day in May, around noon (I asked Mom, who is an awesome baker, a few questions while she was home for her lunch break, I admit). I used Alton Brown’s recipe, because I love Alton Brown and his show Good Eats, and it’s much less stuffy than the Joy of Cooking. I used almond flavouring, which made the cake smell totally divine, but came off a little too strong, since I think I used too much. I recall chatting with my dear wifey Anne while my cake was cooling on the dining room table. Unfortunately, the method of using a funnel to keep the top the cake from touching the table was in vain, since my beautiful cake collapsed and was unsalvageable as a whole cake.

This was a rather sad experience for me, and I now know better than to let a cake that hot be tipped upside down. But all was not lost! Thankfully, trifle is fairly easy to make and the perfect use for angel food cake.

Then along came June. For the first bit of the month I was employed, but then I was offered a job in Calgary. In my haste to relocate, it was determined that a party was necessary for not just my going away, but for my father’s birthday and my uncle Dale’s surprise visit.

In my family, parties tend to involve my mother serving a meal to a large group of people, and this was no exception. I volunteered to make my father a birthday cake, as I’d found a very tempting chocolate cheesecake recipe in Nigella Lawson’s fabulous cookbook “Feast”. This was my first time attempting a cheesecake, but I don’t think I did too shabbily. Unfortunately my uncle “helping” me with making a white chocolate glaze ended with us cooking a lot of the white chocolate, which explains the odd white smear on top of the cheesecake. I assure you, it tasted lovely, especially with some fruit salad on the side.

Angel Food Cake (From Alton Brown’s Good Eats)

1 3/4 cups sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup cake flour, sifted
12 egg whites (the closer to room temperature the better)
1/3 cup warm water
1 teaspoon orange extract, or extract of your choice
1 1/2 teaspoons cream of tartar

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
In a food processor spin sugar about 2 minutes until it is superfine. Sift half of the sugar with the salt the cake flour, setting the remaining sugar aside.
In a large bowl, use a balloon whisk to thoroughly combine egg whites, water, orange extract, and cream of tartar. After 2 minutes, switch to a hand mixer. Slowly sift the reserved sugar, beating continuously at medium speed. Once you have achieved medium peaks, sift enough of the flour mixture in to dust the top of the foam. Using a spatula fold in gently. Continue until all of the flour mixture is incorporated.
Carefully spoon mixture into an ungreased tube pan. Bake for 35 minutes before checking for doneness with a wooden skewer. (When inserted halfway between the inner and outer wall, the skewer should come out dry).
Cool upside down on cooling rack for at least an hour before removing from pan.

Cook's Note: Since they're easier to separate use the freshest eggs you can get.

Oh, and my soundtrack of choice for this post? Cake, of course!