Chaunce,

HAPPY BIRTHDAY… I wish I could be posting about a cake I made for you, but alas, you’re so far away…

So, I know I promised recipes with brain food, namely, fruits and veggies, but let me be honest, the sweet stuff is so much more fun (And I also am more likely to remember to photograph it!). This cake has strawberries…kind of. I concocted this for my friend’s birthday. I have made a tradition of making cakes for all of my friend’s birthdays (well, in DC, at least), basically letting them either pick the specific cake (ie. my roommate chose Strawberry Shortcake) … or just a few flavors and then I go culinary Picasso on them. This friend was particularly indecisive, but she wanted “either something with chocolate, strawberries, or ice cream.” As an aside, I need to explain that I follow absolutely no rules when I cook, meaning actual chefs and people who pray to Julia Child probably would have a panic attack if they watched me in action. Seriously, I am like the Joan of Arc of cooking (likely to be burned at the stake? or a visionary? you decide.) This cake is the perfect example. I start by making a Valentino cake, which is a variety of flourless chocolate cake, in a spring-form pan. (Recipe below). I let it cool, then topped it with some soft strawberry store-bought strawberry ice cream, froze that (frozen flourless chocolate cake… the horror!) and then topped it with essentially a butchered version of my great great grandmothers chocolate frosting, and followed up by having the audacity to refer to it as “ganache.” It really looks like ganache, just isn’t. My roommate and I then had a long discussion about the fact that someone had to invent bread, and it was probably an accident, and DEFINITELY a happy accident, so perhaps my unorthodox cake would be of the “discovery of bread” variety.  And, lo and behold, I think I discovered bread. Because the cake was awesome.

So here we go:

Valentino Chocoloate Cake:

Ingredients:

1 pound of semi sweet chocolate, roughly chopped- I used Nestle’s morsels, because thats what I had on hand

3/4 cup butter

1/4 cup coffee

5 eggs, seperated

Directions:

Preheat oven to 375.

1) Melt chocolate in double boiler, add 1/4 cup coffee

2)While the chocolate/coffee/butter mix  is cooling, butter an 8-9″ springform pan; line with a parchment circle, then butter the parchment.
Separate the egg yolks from the egg whites and put into two medium/large bowls.

3)Whip the egg whites in a large bowl until stiff.
4)Beat the egg yolks together, and add  to the cooled chocolate.

Fold the egg whites into the chocolate mixture in batches. Continue until no white remains without deflating the batter.

Pour batter into the prepared pan.
Cool cake on a rack until cool enough to top with ice cream

For the Ice Cream:

Walk to the grocery store. Select most appealing strawberry icecream. Leave out of the freezer for a little over an hour. Spoon on to cake.

For the “Ganache”

Ingredients:

6 squares Baker’s chocolate

1.5 cups sifted confectioner’s sugar

5 egg yolks

8 tbsp butter

5 tbsp hot water

directions: melt chocolate in double boiler. remove from boiling water and add powdered sugar and hot water gradually, blend. Then add the egg yolks one at a time, beating well after each. Add butter and continue beating until smooth. Will be runnier than “The Chocolate Cake” frosting, because of the small amount of sugar, resembling hot fudge sauce. When cool, pour on top of cake (in spring form pan) and freeze overnight, or until set.

Today’s obsession? Sushi costumes.

Hi Chaunce,

As if we didn’t have enough reason to eat fresh fruits and veggies (like…they taste good, smaller waist line, no food coma??), I recently came across another strong argument to keep up the healthy habits. According to a study in the Journal of Alzheimer’s disease, people with a large produce intake perform statistically better on cognitive tasks, independent of age, gender, level of education, and body mass index. Talk about food for thought: produce makes you smarter (and might even offset the effects of your cocktail concoctions).  The “high-intake group” ate about 400 g of fruit, or about the mass of 4 apples. All the more reason to embrace your foodie-dom and your love for Tennessee tamaters. I’ll follow up, soon with some recipes to bulk up the brain.

Chaunce

scary.

I certainly don’t work for any published, pompous and thoroughly delightful food magazine, but sometimes I fully envision myself doing just that.  Maybe I would be invited to judge cooking shows and cause uproars in restaurant kitchens when I walk through the doors.  I imagine it involves lots of food grazing; a talent I’ve mastered very successfully,  meals at fancy restaurants and bespoke menus prepared for my colleagues and I.  Maybe I could even be friends with Martha Stewart!!  “Oh, you’re completely right, Martha.  The mint in this dish is divine!”

Sadly, I cannot do any of that today, though I do have some whole wheat cous cous I’m already thinking about for dinner.   I will instead give you  an unprofessional and biased critique of the recent “foodie” film Julie & Julia.  Have you seen it yet?  Can you tell I am obsessed with the word ‘foodie’?  I strongly urge you to drop what you’re doing now and high tail it to the nearest multi-plex.  The plot is quite simple:  New York girl cooks her way through the infamous Julia Child masterpiece “Mastering the Art of French Cooking” and blogs about it with great success.  This plotline is interwoven by the stories of Julia Child’s passionate endeavor to learn how to cook (in France, the culinary Motherland…according to the French.  True.  But you know how I feel about the French…) and subsequently getting her first cookbook published in America.  Holy shit!  The food!  The glorious, heaven sent, bathed in butter and professionally styled food that made me leave the theater with a stomach empty and yearning.  It’s a feast for the eyes and a wonderful way to spend two hours.   I have since read this was one of Nora Ephron’s main goals in her direction.  She succeeds.

I guess this is where the unprofessional critique ends because all I can do now is give away the movie and ramble on about everything in store for like minded food enthusiasts.  The film aside, I think that the Chaunce factor has turned a culinary corner.  Seven years ago, I have implicit memories of  afternoon snacks limited not only to the Church Street selection of  who-knows-what but an insane appetite for the post-binge addition of  KRAFT brand food (s).   Now, as if this needs pointing out, we readily share recipes on our trusty blog here.  And I, for one, shudder when I have to think of fast food and eating it for a meal.  In-N-Out burger excluded.  That is not to say that either one of us has, or ever will become, too good for a raid on the nearest refidgerator.  However, now it’s likely to be home made guacomole with roasted peppers instead of velveeta cheese and sodium flavored ‘shells’.  Luckily for KRAFT, children will continue to have unrefined palates and Chaunces will have phone calls from ex boyfriends that result in depletion of will powers.  Depletion of will powers lead one to ‘queso’ from a jar and other such novelty food favorites like ‘spirals’ and ‘toaster strudels.’

Here’s to Julia Child for her passion for food that spread like wildfire here and inspired countless Americans to get rid of the Pyrex and break out the chopping block.  And here’s to you and me and our blog and our ever growing (but not by pounds measured on a bathroom scale) love, admiration and appetite for food.  And libations.  Lots of Libations.

In honor of our years of the Macaroni and Cheese diet… I present to you:

7 Fun Facts About Cheese:

1) In England and New Zealand, the grilled cheese is known as a “toastie.” In Australia? A “cheese jaffle.” Add ham and a French accent and you have a “Croque-monsieur.”

2) If you want to impress your friends at Christmastime, serve them “Finnish Squeaky Cheese,” which can be made from reindeer milk.

3) Washington State University has its own cheese, named “Cougar Gold Cheese” after WSU’s mascot.

4) De Agri Cultura, a manuscript dating back to 160-ish BC, features a recipe for an early cheesecake called “placenta.” Might be festive for celebrating a new baby? Yum.

5) When he wasn’t busy fathering illegitamate children, Thomas Jefferson often served macaroni and cheese at the White House, and is sometimes credited with inventing the popular dish.

6) When prompting for a photograph, Koreans often say, “Kimchi” instead of “cheese.” In Thailand? “Pepsi.”

7) Greece is the world’s largest per capita consumer of cheese. The average Greek citizen eats 61 lbs of cheese per year.

And… I suggest if you are longing for the days of Shells and Cheese  you try Fiber Gourmet’s Mac-mmmm-cheese. It disguises healthy low-cal, high fiber pasta as our childhood favorite.

You are pretty bangin. But fringe can go very, very wrong. I thought I’d face off your gallery of bang-a-licious-ness with some hair-raising photos of the dark side of the popular ‘do.

eek!

And, last, but not least…

I don’t know it it’s the bangs, in this case, I feel like its more the fact that I feel like Paris Hilton is the visual equivalent to the way drug-store brand body splash smells.

Nancy Sinatra- Bang Bang

so i’ve been wearing bangs for a while now due to FINALLY finding a great hairstylist here in LA who fit with me; like a glove lost at Steve’s bar.  Anyways, I go Thursday for a bang trim and I thought I’d share some of my ‘bangspiration.’  That’s an awful word but I’m curious to hear your thoughts.  I’ve been pulling these from fashion blogs I’ve found around.  I feel like Im going through a fashion revival of late.  Been really addicted to shopping lately.  Shopping and bars; a really good way to watch money dwindle.  

This last photograph is from French Vogue and I can’t really get enough of it.  Her shoes and jeans and the general grainy french-ness of the photograph.  Inspiration.

“The” Chocolate Cake

Ingredients:

7 egg whites

2 1/2 cups sugar

4 cups Swan’s cake flour

1 and 1/2 cups milk

1 tsp vanilla

4 tsp baking powder

2 sticks butter

1 tsp salt

directions: Cream butter until almost white. Beat in  sugar a little at a time, until creamy. Sifly flour, salt, and baking powder three times ( they were really specific about their sifting in the 1800s apparently). Add this to the sugar and butter mixture until smooth. Add vanilla and milk. Beat egg whites until stiff and fold into batter. Bake in two greased and floured 9 1/2 inch square bake pans at 350, 1 hr  or until done. (It took me 45 min)

For the icing (where the magic happens)

ingredients:

6 squares Baker’s chocolate

3 cups sifted confectioner’s sugar

6 egg yolks

8 tbsp butter

5 tbsp hot water

directions: melt chocolate in double boiler. remove from boiling water and add powdered sugar and hot water gradually, blend. Then add the egg yolks one at a time, beating well after each. Add butter and continue beating until smooth and “spreading consistency”

Yum. And healthy, too.

Sike.

Excuse my delayed return. My access to farmer’s market squash, peppers, tomato, and onions in Tennessee this summer has given me a lot to play around with.  I came up with an excelente chicken/ veggie fajita recipe, which I will now bestow upon you. I know you have an aversion to carbonation… but here’s a way for you to get a dose of corona with lime, sans bubbles.

Corona and Lime Chicken Fajitas

Ingredients:

for the marinade:

1/4 cup corona

4 cloves garlic, crushed

juice of 2 limes

for the fajitas:

4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cut into long strips

4 tablespoons olive oil

2 large or 4 small red, yellow, or green bell peppers

1  large onion

1 large squash

1 large zucchini

1 jalepeño pepper (nix this if you don’t want extra spicy)

1/2 tablespoon honey

1 tsp cayenne pepper

1 tsp cumin

1 tsp chile powder

juice 1/2 lime

toppings (all optional):

1 large diced tomato

1 small diced onion

spinach, lettuce or other greens

4 whole wheat tortillas, toasted

1 avocado, diced

low fat sour cream

black beans, heated

directions:

several hours before, combine marinade and chicken

at dinnertime:

chop veggies into similar size slices

split olive oil into two separate, large pans ( a grill skillet is great for the chicken)

turn both on high heat, and move the garlic from the marinade, half on each pan, allow to cook for a minute or so.

Add chicken to one pan, onions to the other

after one minute, add rest of veggies

while chicken is cooking, add honey and spices

allow all to cook for 4 more minutes, or until onions are translucent, squash is soft, and chicken is cooked

combine both into one pan, add juice of remaining lime, and allow to cook one more minute

Top and eat!