Lindacakes

I'm in agreement with Mike. What our so-called culture is lacking is tradition and/or discipline, especially the sort that benefits. We have it our way and it's a rather sloppy, self-indulgent way. How about switching to a Shakerato? You'll be glad you did!

For anyone in New York or passing through, Bonnie Slotnick Cookbooks has several shelves devoted to American Regional Cooking.

I've never owned one. I can't imagine having the counter space for such a coffin-like object. I don't like the way the food tastes when only the water has been cooked. What are you going to do with the counter space? For popcorn, I recommend the Whirly Pop. Note my abhorrance to extra stuff in the kitchen, and yet, the Whirly Pop rules.

Oh, my God, thanks to Johnny, I think this is the most salacious food porn I've seen in a long time.

Holly forgot to mention that quantity of lobster counts. It is important that there is enough lobster stuffed inside the bun that it would take a major effort to keep it in the bun. It needs to overflow.

Excellent! Thank you, all good tips. I saw that amazing encyclopedia of Cajan and Creole food in NO, and didn't want to lug it home. What a beauty! I did find a good thread in the Louisiana regional about cookbooks, some good tips there. Thanks for the Hawaii leads -- I was in Hawaii earlier this year, and just loved, loved, loved the food. My third trip, and somehow the food this time just was superior, down to the mac nut pie from Costco.

I just got back from my first visit and I'm no expert. I'll tell you what I liked: Arnaud's. Not considered one of the top-line restaurants, but it was my experience that many of the highly rated restaurants were highly overrated. I liked the wait staff in particular, they made lovely recommendations. I like to ask for recommendations and I HATE it when I get bad ones or half-hearted ones. I had a dessert that was a very light crepe, filled with cream cheese and rolled into a tube about the size of your finger. Covered with a brown sugar/butter/pecan sauce and with whipped cream on the side. Would never have chosen this from the menu, the waitress recommended it, and it was divine. An amazing taste and texture. I liked the physical space very much. Open, airy, classic New Orleans. Nola. I was suprised by this. I wasn't crazy about the atmosphere but the service was very nice and the food was exceptional. I had fried chicken served on a bed of mashed sweet potato with (again) a brown sugar/pecan flavor in there. The mixture of the crispy texture with the smooth mashed swee' taters, the mixture of the sweet and the salty was just divine. Loved it. I would have loved to have tried Bayona. I have been in the Monteleone ground floor, not the rooms -- I can't spead for them. The location is right and the hotel is nice -- home to the famous carousel bar that does indeed spin as you drink. I did not care for my Sazerac there. Arnaud's made a superior Sazerac. Have a happy anniversary!

I just got back from my first visit to New Orleans. This is what I like about life, something unexpected comes out of nowhere and you're in love: Creole food. I asked a bookseller there what he thought the definitive Creole/Cajun cookbook was and he said Paul Prudhomme's Louisiana Kitchen. Do you agree? This opened up another appetite for me -- I've already built a library of classic cookbooks, but now I can relive the joy by building a library of American Regional Classic Cookbooks. Another example: Charleston Receipts. So here's some ideas: Hawaiian, New England, Californian, Southwest, Southern. Any candidates?

OK, I'm a sissy, but I hate cleaning the food processor. The blade. The bowl. The pusher thing. The thing that fits in the pusher thing. The food processor itself. Which is all shiny chrome and on public display so I polish it up. I would rather wash all of your muffin pans, with a Q-tip, than wash my food processor. Watch me chop by hand, mamma!

I also buy used magazines on eBay. I like to buy a whole year, hand them to my partner with the request to drop one of them on me each month. It appears to me as though they've just been delivered. I blame the rise of Rachel Ray and the T-Shirt Cooks (whatever that show is where they cook in their t-shirts, each in a different color). Everything must be Fun! Fast! Simple! Like my mind! I got a free subscription to Bon Appetit because I bought the cookbook. Ended up throwing them away as soon as they came in the door, without even looking. I switched to Saveur. I got a big bang out of the butter issue.

The only thing I like better than rhubarb is buttermilk. I'm there, as soon as I can get some. I think I'll do a buttermilk smoothie with my rhubarb sorbet. Try a cardamom lassi sometime, delish. Randi, your pie is supreme. No matter how many times I do them, I have to follow a picture to do a lattice. I'm dyslattix.

I went to a poker game later that same night, and was informed that my earlier experience was a rhubarb rhubarb.

First, a question: when does rhubarb season begin? I think of it as May, but the 2008 portion of this thread started in April. I went to the farmer's market this weekend specifically for asparagus and rhubarb. I saw one stand with one box of rhubarb and kept going, thinking I'd find more. Wrong. By the time I got back to the one farmer who had rhubarb, half of the box was gone! The woman who was at the box was not sharing, so I had to reach around her to grab some. We were after different things, though, because I was picking the reddest, smallest stalks. Once the rhubarb box was all mine, I was joined by another woman. She was making a rhubarb pie, but she wasn't feeling very chatty. Still picking out my stalks one by one, I became aware that a uniformed person from the Culinary Institute was standing by with a huge stainless steel bowl, ready to buy out the farmer. I managed to grab three pounds. One pound went to my usual rhubarb cake, now thought of as rhubarb shortcake. It's only an 8 x 8, but this is a four serving cake in my house. Two pounds went to rhubarb sorbet -- I used the recipe from Epicurious. Wowee is that beautiful and delicious. I think I'm going to serve that on top of a bowl of sugared strawberries or mixed raspberry/strawberry. If you Google rhubarb sauce, you get all sorts of ideas.

Since there is an expert involved, can I ask a bread identity question? Not really a bread, a pastry . . . When I was in Paris I fell for a pain au sucre (?) -- a round pastry the size of a small plate poked with a variety of finger-sized holes. These holes were filled with a mixture of butter and sugar, whipped together, a gritty melting butter. Yow. Very good. I asked when I got back, and some folks responded, and I looked for the recipes they recommended, but nothing was "it".

My mother taught me (without intending to) to love grocery shopping and the hunting and gathering of the best foods from various sources. She also made the acquisition, preparation and sharing of food a real adventure. There were memorable forays into cherry pies, canning tomatoes, making rose petal jelly, organic blueberry picking, root beer bottling, popcorn ball making, candy apple making, fudge making, etc. She encouraged me to bake from Jiffy box mixes and then Betty Crocker from an early age. I in

SuzySushi, I just got back from Hawaii -- how does the mac nut pie stack against haupia? On an eGullet tip I went to Costco and bought a mac nut pie. Wowee was that good, and a can of Qwip to go with it. I also enjoyed going through a drive-through window and getting two slices of pie. I like a state where you can get drive-through pie.

You are my best friend. I have Fee bitters -- okay? Thank you for the calls on all the rums. I'm not familiar with rum, I use Meyer's Dark when I need it for baking. Orgeat? Help me out. How do you make it yourself? Liqueur making is a new hobby of mine. Do you have music for the pupu party? You need pupu music.

I have to thank everyone on this thread for the pupu inspiration. I just got back from Hawaii, where I made it my mission to consume and draw (colored pencil) as many ridiculous drinks as possible. The drinks were sometimes accompanied by pupus. The best drink: a serving bowl full of various rums and fruits, centered with a little cup in which 151 rum was set aflame by a waitress who put the lighter back in her bra. The best pupus: served poolside, coconut shrimp, egg rolls and fried wontons. The coconut shrimp had a creamy coconut dip. Nice touch. The best discovery: I like a nicely built Mai Tai.

I'd like to argue against cheesecake for New York. I don't know anyone who is big on cheesecake. I'd vote for rice pudding or black and white cookies. It's difficult to speak for the entire state, though. I grew up in Ohio and I'd like to cast this vote: Glorified Rice. It has likely died away by now, but when I was a Cakelet growing up, many a church supper and potluck included it. White rice, canned mandarin oranges, canned pineapple, and miniature marshmallows held together in a salad-like consistency with Cool Whip. My neice and nephews are fond of some goop that I believe is Cool Whip and Jello mixed together. I've never tasted it, but I feel that it's the bastard child of Glorified Rice. I've only traveled through New Mexico, my opinion doesn't count, but I'd vote for sopapillas.

Does this mean, Chris, that at school, you are taking up space? I've waited years to use that joke . . . It's sort of like college is a fountain of knowledge where students go to drink. Can you tell me something about the chocolate wafers -- are these preferred because they melt faster? I always use great honking bars that have to be chopped.

I feel like Dorothy going up in the balloon. Food people rock. Snowangel, I will try your recommendations from Tea Source, thank you! I don't have a favorite yet, I'm jumping all over the place trying new ones. Any nice hot cup of tea is like a yoga session for me. MizDucky, wow, thanks for the peep treats recipe. I've got to try that sometime. I'm a real peep fan, it's a childhood scar -- my mother didn't put peeps in my basket, I had to mooch off the next door neighbor. So I grew up thinking peeps were only good enough for other people. I confess that I like the classic yellow best but the new white ones (albino peeps) taste better somehow, cleaner. If a ball of corn syrup and sugar can be clean. MarketStEl, if you send me your fruitcake, I'll have to donate it to that group that has a fruitcake toss every Christmas -- I have way too much fruitcake of my own! I am seriously fixated with the concept of PHILADELPHIA SANDWICHES. I will need to come back and eat more. Especially that eggplant hero thingy. SuzySushi, I know it. There's nothing like it, is there? It's gritty, it's shabby, it's not refined, but it's so . . . Brooklyn. My heart kind of broke when they put a Dunkin' Donuts on the block but it ended up okay because the old neighborhood people like it and I like the neighborhood people.

The End. Katie, actually, there are cockatoo fans out there but they are known for being the brats of the bird world. They chew like mad and they are very babyish. Which is how many people fall in love with them, when they are actual babies they coo and are very physically affectionate. Ernie is a black-capped conure -- the conures are known for being clownish and a little on the loud and bitey side. Ernie is the smallest of the conures, and therefore has a little less noise and a little less bite in him. If you are thinking about getting a bird, you'll need to do some research into which bird is right for you and definitely make sure you get a hand-fed baby. It makes all the difference in their sweetness. You can PM me if you have any questions. T-Square, word. Sugar free Girl Scout cookies don't count. Who knew that Girl Scout cookies were so territorial and so political? This is the end of my blog. I can answer questions in the morning. Thank you to everyone who posted and shared a kind word. I truly appreciate it. I had fun sharing some food and some laughs with you and I hope to meet you in person some day. I leave you with this.

Tea is Taken. Well, I’m tired. It’s time for a nice cup of tea. Today we’re going to have some Taylor’s of Harrogate Earl Gray. This is my favorite regular black tea. I’ve been drinking a lot of tea lately, and my new favorite source is: Tea Source Take a look at this wonderful cake of aged puerh. I just ordered one of these. Click for cake of tea. That’s some witchy tea, yeah? I still have some traditional fruitcake from Christmas, so I’ve sliced some of that. I think one of the reasons why so many people are turned off by fruitcake is that they slice it too thickly. I’m holding a slice up to the window so that you can see through it. The fruit glows like jewels. As it should be. Here’s the table set for tea and some handsome shots of nice fruitcake slices. Of course, Ernie wants fruitcake, too. Notice that he is stepping over a slice of apple to get to it.

Variations on Black Cake. There are endless variations on Black Cake. I change something about my recipe every year, trying to tweak an improvement into it. I screwed up last year because I tried to make my own burnt sugar. This is not recommended. Commercial burnt sugar is burned-er and better. You'll end up with a brown black cake that doesn't taste quite right if you make your own. Upthread, Hummingbirdkiss mentioned ginger -- question, what kind of ginger? I'm thinking I might add candied ginger to the chopped fruit, which would be different for me this year. I changed my peel, so that's different. I'm marinating the fruit longer, that's different. Every year another tweak. I have discovered that I don't like the cake before four months and I don't feed it with alcohol while it's aging -- I like a cake that tastes less of alcohol. That's a personal preference. Everyone does these things a little differently. Unfortunately, they are expensive and time-consuming to make, so your improvement progress takes years. But it's so much fun. I'm already planning next year's cake -- I've found some sources for dried peaches and plums that I want to try. I'm always on the lookout for new sources of dried and candied fruit. If you decide to make on and have any questions, you can PM me.

The Black Cake Recipe. What follows is my recipe for West Indian Black Cake. My version very closely follows Laurie Colwin's version from Home Cooking. Home Cooking on Amazon There's also a sequel called More Home Cooking. These are essays with recipes and a very good read. Marinating the Fruit Begin as early as possible – spring is good. Start by ordering the fruit from Vine Tree Orchards/Market Hall Foods and buying the alcohol. 1 pound raisins 1 pound currants 1 pound pitted prunes 3/4 pound glace cherries 1/2 pound lemon peel 1/2 pound orange peel 1/2 pound citron 750 ml bottle port 750 ml bottle of Meyer’s dark rum Finely chop all fruit in a food processor. You can add a dab of two or the port to help the food processor handle the fruit. The ideal texture is a paste with very small chunks of peel or fruit. Combine fruit with the rum and port. Place in crock or plastic storage container. Cover and leave at room temperature. Stir now and again. Mixing the Cake When you are planning to bake the cake, assemble the ingredients. Buy the burnt sugar essence from Kalyustyan’s. The day you are going to bake the cake, begin by mixing cake spice and processing the pecans. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and grease the pans and line the bottoms with parchment. NOTE: You may want to try baking the cakes at a slower temperature – 250 degrees for 3 to 4 hours. Cake Spice 1 teaspoon of cinnamon 1/2 teaspoon allspice or ginger 1/2 teaspoon cloves a few gratings of nutmeg Prepare Mis en Place 1 pound butter 1 pound brown sugar (light or dark) 1 dozen eggs 1 tablespoon vanilla 2 1/2 teaspoons almond extract 1 1/2 to 2 teaspoons cake spice 3/4 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon 1 cup orange marmalade (sweet, not Seville – use Smucker’s) 2 cups finely ground almonds or pecans (I used pecan meal) 2 cups plain dry bread crumbs 5 cups all purpose flour 4 1/2 teaspoons baking powder 1 teaspoon salt 6 ounces burnt sugar essence marinated fruit Cream butter and brown sugar until light and fluffy. Gradually beat in eggs 2 at a time. Mix in extracts and spices, including the burnt sugar essence. Add marinated fruit to the butter/sugar/egg mixture, and mix well. (At this point, transfer from large mixing bowl to plastic basin. Basin won’t stain.) Add nut meal and bread crumbs to batter. Combine flour, baking powder and salt and stir to distribute evenly. Fold in orange marmalade, then fold in flour mixture. Baking the Cake Pour batter into three 7 inch by 3 inch cake pans and two small loaf pans. Batter will nearly fill pans, cakes will not rise much. Bake cake at 350 degrees until done – about one hour. Remove cake(s) from oven and cool on a rack for 10 - 15 minutes. Invert cake onto cooling rack and carefully remove parchment paper. Cool completely. Wrap once with plastic wrap and once with foil. Set in cool dark place to age, for at least four months.