October 2005 Archives

Nope. It's just that I hopped on that beet salad bandwagon. Tejal, Tom Colicchio, all the cool kids are doing it.

What little wonders beets are. The sweetest vegetables on the planet that taste great with the stinkiest of blue cheeses. A fantastic, princess pink color and a fantastic dirt taste. What can't that little root do?

Well, it can't peel itself, that's for sure. I've read a lot lately that it's easier to roast the beets then scrap off the peel. And it's true, that soft roasted skin slides right off. The problem is that after a beet comes out of a 425 degree oven, both it and it's skin are finger-searingly warm. So having done it both ways, I've decided that I prefer to peel prior to roasting. If I'm serious about not staining my hands, I'll peel in a sink of cool water. But I usually don't mind a little pinkening.

Plus, I really think they taste better this way. If you roast with skin, all the good flavor of olive oil, salt, herbs, balsamic and whatever else you roasted them with gets scraped away. When roasted denuded of peel, all those lovely flavors infuse the little roots, making them fragrant and sometimes gently caramelized around the edges. Ready for salads or side dishes, or even greedy snacks with pink-stained fingers.

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In almost all of my old schools, the casual questions after the written entry exams were the same: what books are you reading, what about our current political affairs, and finally, a question that even at age five I found distasteful, what fruit or vegetable would you be? From this answer, which I made up on the spot and connected to cultural identity, they picked out the good apples.

Because the question still haunts me, it occurred to me while shucking them tonight that no fruit or vegetable could possibly be happier than the broad bean. Why?

It is tucked in a soft, downy pod. Not alone, but with friends--but they're not cramped, oh no, just four or five smooth little beans per pod. And when you're playing the Garden State soundtrack, shucking broad beans, blanching them, and shucking them again, your mind wanders and you've plenty of time to consider how cosy this set up might be and who would make it in your top five people to be stuck with in a broad bean pod list.

And then your work is squashed up with Pecorino and lime juice as a side to maple roast sweet potatoes and roast Cornish Hen covered in crispy miso skin and your boyfriend says, "you made a top five list for who you'd want to be stuck in a broad bean pod with?" And you say, "er, no...that would be wierd."

Notice the n. The story begins with it.

Well, actually it begins with my brother, whose sweet tooth is for things that reached the height of their popularity in the 60's. Isle Flottante, Tiramisu, Treacle Tart, Swiss Roll, Crepes Suzettes, and most of all Baked Alaska--which I've made with everything from mango kulfi to Cherry Garcia, boozy layers of macerated fruits, toasted nuts, genoise, and leftover chocolate birthday cake. He's passed on a bit of respect for those things served in enormous dishes, scooped up and plopped in front of all the kids waiting with a spoon in one hand, a bowl in the other. Yes they're messy and a bit lame, but they're also delicious and asking to be messed with.

So when my chef asked, "who wants to be Sara Moulton's assistant for the Baked Alaska class this weekend?" I jumped and squealed "I do, I do!" Because I like Baked Alaska. O.K, and because she's on the Food Network and used to work with Julia Child. He handed me the list of ingredients, prep and tools the next day, titled Baked Alaskan. There's the n again.

At first I thought it a misprint, but a flip through Sara's Secrets for weeknight meals revealed otherwise with..a shout out?

Sara Moulton does not seem the type to give shout outs in her recipe books, and then, certainly not to Ad Rock, MCA or Mike D. But sure enough, the tiny lady with the pink frosted glasses named her recipe for the classic ice-cream and sponge layers covered in meringue and torched after one of the lyrics from the Beastie Boys' To the Five Boroughs album that came out last year.

Went to the top and never went pop and
Came back down but still not stopping
I'm not even asking, "Yo what's cracking?"
Serving MC's on a platter like baked Alaskan
So start packing because I'm back in
The game of hiphop representing Manhattan

It's all in the n, a subtle addition that single letter, but it makes all the difference. Like using double chocolate chip cookies rather than a soaked sponge. And raspberry sorbet instead of ice-cream. And a meringue from dried whites instead of a Swiss meringue warmed vigourously on the stove.

When I first got the recipe and looked it over, getting ready to prep it for the 60 people that would be in the class, I thought, hey that's not Baked Alaska, that's just an ice-cream sandwich covered in meringue. Which it is. And that's really what she's all about: encouraging cooking and making even the most frightening of French desserts accessible to everyone.

Cooking with her, just for a half hour, was really fun. She joked around with the audience, gave her Thanksgiving gravy recipe, affectionately impersonated Julia Child, and had me demonstrate each step of the simple dessert and answer questions about sorbet stabilizer, types of meringues, glucose powder and such.

And now, if someone who didn't know asked me what a Baked Alaska was, I might say, well it's no big deal, just an ice-cream sandwich really, covered in meringue and torched. Because essentially, it is.

Photos courtesy of a Ms. Sandy, thank you!

The pastry kitchen at work is a veritable keebler elf factory at the moment, with everyone preparing and keeping up with the In the Kitchen event weekend. Tonight, Hubert Keller, Michael Mina, Roland Passeau, my chef, and loads others served a dinner for about a hundred people in the ballroom which benefitted Meals on Wheels.

So it's nice to come home to Glyn and a really simple, tasty dinner of roasted beet salad, and a dessert with which I had absolutely naught to do: five spice caramelised pineapple with lime cream. No sauce smearing, no quenelling, no weighing, no sprinkling, no mixing, testing, tasting, cutting, freezing--just licking caramel off the plate and being offered seconds.

And tomorrow, a cooking class with Sarah Moulton...

Here's the thing. . . I'm just not that enthused about Craft. It feels a little like heresy to admit it when the restaurant is so important, so beloved by so many people whose writing and palates I respect, but it's true. When I first read about it in Amanda Hesser's Cooking for Mr. Latte, it looked exciting. I love that share bites, family style of dining and the sort of mix and match format of the menu seemed fun. But the more I learn about the restaurant, the less interested I become. After reading the recent post on the subject at the always delightful Amateur Gourmet and perusing the menu at menupages.com, if I was in New York, it probably wouldn't be on my To Eat List.

It's not that I don't think the food looks yummy, because I certainly do. I've been reading through chef Tom Colicchio's Craft of Cooking, and most of the recipes look as though they'd be delicious, particularly when made with lovely, high quality farmer's market ingredients. In some ways, that's precisely the problem. It all looks very much like the kind of food I cook myself; fresh ingredients in simple preparations. Beet salad, roasted Atlantic salmon, sauteed sugar snap peas these are many of my favorite foods, but for all the to-do I keep hearing about Craft, I guess I just expected something more. Particularly considering that these dishes are $16, $26, and $11 respectively.

I completely get that quality ingredients simply prepared are beautiful things, but that just seems excessive, particularly for food that is so plainly presented, basically just food on plate on table. I even understand that a person's eyes and palate can become exhausted from plate after plate of elaborate, fussy food and that such a person would long for carrots that taste like carrots and that aren't garnished with crispy fried leeks and a drizzle of tomato oil. In a city like New York where every type of luxurious food is available around almost every corner, a city where the population is constantly seeking out the next new taste, a city where crudo has been done, foam is almost passe, and even smoothies are flavored with yuzu, perhaps less is more. But for me, when I eat at a restaurant marked by five dollars signs in the guidebooks, I want them to do a little more of the work for me. I like tasting menus specifically because I don't have to choose the courses and combinations. My favorite chefs are ones who combine flavors and textures in ways that challenge and surprise me. The idea of lamb on one plate, turnips on another, lettuce on a third, all chosen by me, presumably to complement each other and make a full dining expierance leaves me a little cold. I guess I dine out to enjoy the chef's craft, not my own.

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Today is Monday, the first day of my work week. And I find myself wondering if there is anything sweeter than being woken up by someone you love, shuffling over sleepily to plop down on the floor cushions, and seeing good coffee poured, milked and sugared just as you like it, in your favourite green cup. Not for me, no, my morning coffee is a daily monument to love.

I remember the day I bought my Bialetti in Boston; it was the most beautiful and promising thing I'd ever seen and I used it every day. Slowly, it lost its shine. And the tiny man with his finger in the air who seemed caught at the moment of an unspeakable epiphany, faded. The inside stained brown, the rubber seal asked to be replaced, and one week while in Lisbon, I neglected it dirty in the sink and a velvety green mould welcomed me back.

When Glyn and I first began to see each other, it was all late nights cooking and eating together: snacking on waffles my roommate brought back from Holland, feeding the bread doughs (Sponge Bob Yeasty Pants), sealing raviolis with apple, onion and Taleggio, tunnel boning and roasting tiny quails, turning out liquid centred panna cottas, and quiet snacks of cucumber sandwiches and rose milk at four in the morning. It's easy enough to stay up late and stir rose syrup into cold milk for someone you love, but at 6:30 in the morning it's quite another story.

The bleeping of the alarm snatches us back from dreams. The room is dark, outside is dark, the kitchen is dark and possibly cluttered with dirty dishes. The garbage has started to smell. Without slippers, the floors are cold on our toes. Turning on the light is sharp and painful, as is the noise of the coffee grinder and the clanks of the pans. Then there's the business of finding the green cups and saucers, the tub of brown sugar, and a clean teaspoon. There are never, ever clean teaspoons.

I could not get up and face this, when my head is heavy and my dreams still palpable, for just anyone.

Whose turn it is to rise and conquer the stove top espresso is a daily, silent agreement we make with each other. And always, the one who leaves the bed first to turn on the stove and returns triumphant with the smell of dark roast caught in their hands, is truly a hero.

Nothing brings out the procrastinator in me quite like the prospect of grocery shopping. I will find any excuse not to do it, which doesn't make sense because I actually like grocery shopping. But I will do laundry, reorganise the cupboards, make the bed, call my parents, clean the bathroom, paint my toenails, make several pots of coffee, read my book and finally be driven to my laptop to write about it--rather than get in the car and drive to Safeway for a few things.

Yes, I know I've nothing but three green apples and one onion that's starting to mould on one end for fresh produce. I know my cheese box is a collection of hardening rinds and crumbles, all the bread is stale and San Pellegrino is on sale four for five. But I just can't be bothered to go. Call it laziness, but it's also a good way to use up all the stuff lying around that would otherwise be forgotten and tossed out after a good grocery trip.

So, not wanting to, er, waste anything last night, I cobbled together a salad: dried stale bread in the oven with blood orange olive oil, salt, and pepper, then softened the bits of Sumi goat cheese with a knife and spread it on the little golden croutons. I chopped the nasty corner off the onion and cooked it in some butter and reduced sherry vinegar, added some sliced apples, and put it all on top of some mixed baby greens. Not too shabby, considering.
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It's funny how when you first start to see or hear about something, you suddenly see and hear about it all over the place and wonder what invisible forces are at work (evil networks) and why you never noticed it before.

In the case of the Cosmic Alignment of the Panade, it began with a subtle, seemingly random opening of page 230 in the Zuni Cafe Cookbook. There it was: three recipes for three panades. I read it over, and yeah, it looked like a good way for a stale loaf of bread to go. Then, maybe a day later, Glyn mentioned being drawn to the same recipe and wanting to eat it. O.K, no big deal. Then, the very next day, I read a post on a blog, Orangette's Sog Story, her experiment with the very same recipe from the very same book. Freaky, I know.

My father might say three is a powerful number. I would roll my eyes.

My uncle might say that the universe has brought this dish to me, or that I've brought it to myself, or that I am the universe, or that in fact, the universe is baked into the cheesy crust of the panade itself, and therein lies the lesson. And I might even believe him, it's that good.

If you love bread, and you love pudding, a panade is just that, a loveable savoury bread pudding--from the same rustic begninnings and as simple, unphotogenic, and filling as it's sweet counterpart. Because real bread goes stale and hard (and doesn't stay soft forever like supermarket bread), people thought, out of necessity, soak it, layer it with cheap vegetables and bake it--they had no idea that after years of evolving, it would become such a versatile, delicious, and comforting meal for people who didn't have to soak old bread in liquid to make it edible.

So first I made a vegetable stock with a green apple, some carrots, celery, onions, parsley and mushroom trimmings. While that was going I sliced and caramelised onions with smoked chilli powder, sauteed mushrooms with parsley and sherry, and cooked some maple sausages. All this I layered between pieces of a stale baguette and pressed down so there was room to make more tasty layers. Finally, I poured over the boiling stock and grated cheddar. Then I baked the whole thing covered for an hour and broiled it uncovered till golden.

The crust was crisp and chewy, the centre soggy and powerfully flavoured with the stock. The caramelised onions, sausage and mushrooms had been squashed by the swelling bread as it rose like a souffle and the flavours had been swapped and evened out deliciously. I'm planning another one tomorrow but with a higher filling to bread ratio, and baked in a shallower dish so there's more crust per soggy centre. But it's all good.

I don't think a recipe is necessary, since so many things can be layered between the stale bread and any kind of animal or vegetable stock can be poured over to cover it, and any good cheese grated on top. But if you're looking for one, Judy Rodgers has three in her cookbook and we all know three is a powerful number.

That questionable pile of chocolate something started out as Alton Brown's ever so rich and sinfully easy Chocolate Lava Muffins, until I began tinkering (the recipe can be found at http://www.foodnetwork.com/food/recipes/recipe/0,,FOOD_9936_21729,00.html ). Obviously, when we start messing with things, things do not always turn out how we expect.

On a lazy Sunday afternoon, when the sun is filtering through the blinds and one is curled up on the couch, halfway through a Dorothy L. Sayers novel, it's natural that one might desire a little chocolately treat. However, in such a languid state of mind, one might also crave ease. Mr. Brown's muffins seemed a natural choice. I've made them before with great success. They take no time at all and create a bare minimum of dirty dishes. As I began to melt my Scharffen Berger bittersweet, I remembered a jar of wonderful raspberry jam in my fridge. "Ah-ha!" I thought, what could better complement rich chocolate better than tangy raspberry? This was my first mistake. When filling the muffin tins, I added a blop of jam to each, expecting that the gooey chocolate interior would now contain a fruity surprise.

Also, I baked them for a minute less than when I last made the muffins, hoping to ensure maximum lava-ness. This was my second mistake. When they came out of the oven, I noticed that jam had bubbled up around the edge of each muffin. I began to suspect that something was wrong. In my worry, I only let them sit for a minute or two before trying to unmold them, desperate to see how they'd turned out. This was my third mistake. Instead of neat, firm muffins with a fruity, gooey treat inside, I had a heap of chocolate disaster.

Turns out, the jam layer prevented the top and bottom of the muffin from sealing together. The center was very liquid, probably as a result of jam and slight undercooking. At first, I felt defeated. What an ugly mess, I thought, what a waste. Before I throw them away, maybe just a taste. Revelation! This was so much more than a muffin.

My spoon was filled with chunks of warm, dense cake and velvety chocolate custard streaked with tangy raspberry. The shape was wrong but the taste was oh so right. So I dished some of it up on a plate and added a little scoop of ice cream and relished every unattractive bite.

Next time, I'll bake it in ramekins to skip the folly of unmolding, top them with a dollop of creme fraiche and call them Bittersweet Chocolate and Raspberry Custard Cakes. Sometimes things not turning out as we expect can be the mother of invention.

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So, dear readers, I'm sure you've been biting your nails with worry. . . where has Tasty Martha been? Well, trust me, the answer to that question is far too complicated to breach here, so let me just say that after a whirlwind of friendly visits, family tragedy, work drama and hours and hours spent in airports, I'm back.

And I've got tons coming up. Including but not limited to: a muffin that wasn't a muffin, maybe I just don't like pot roast, certain airports are certainly tastier than others, Aziza, Delifina, and the Girl and the Fig. Stay tuned!

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Less than a year ago, when I graduated and moved to London, I stopped in used bookstores, foraging through the dusty piles of books. No, not for cookbooks, but for poetry and other such nonsense. Because before cooking school and the sudden value of my taste buds, I chain smoked, wore all black, sat around in coffee shops across Boston snapping my fingers, taking notes in my moleskin and making Foucault references. Not really. But I did spend an awful lot of time reading, writing, editing, critiquing, analysing, not sleeping and otherwise thinking about writing and being part of a community of writers--which I didn't realise I was, and I now miss. A lot.

I feel very far away from Boston and who I was there. Because autumn here--at least I think that a week of grey means autumn--is a pale, ghostly shadow of an autumn in Boston. I can smell it. The leaves in the Public Garden, coffee, friends apartments, gin, my stripey blue scarf, the dusty hotness when the radiators gurgle, duck shit, more coffee, and warm freshly printed paper. Everything cold and golden. Then the snow.

Meeting and talking with Robert Creeley and Stephen Dunn in class was as exciting then as meeting Harold McGee was last week. Now Mark Strand, who didn't want to mess with Julia Child--who would?--has been bullied out of my bookshelf along with almost all the other weedy little writers I love. And only Shel Silverstein and Roddy Doyle remain amongst the big, hard backed cookbooks.

When Lee, who is now sculpting in New York, got in touch with me a few days ago, she first asked me if I was still writing. I wrote back, yes. That within the food world there can exist the same issues of newness, narrative voice, language, aesthetics and so on that we explore in literature. In cooking, we sometimes take part in the same trends, movements, ideas, and concerns over authenticity, story telling, and culture. But it's umm, edible. What I'm getting at, basically: it's all the same crap .

To escape the 300, 000 visitors expected at pumpkin fest , we booked a reservation far away for Sunday night dinner. South down Highway 1, along the ocean, following the cliffs, through the hills and forests of Santa Cruz, and into the cosy, beautiful dining room of Manresa in Los Gatos.

Crystal, Glyn and myself shared a table in the middle of the room next to an enormous vase of, what I thought were entirely too powerful smelling white lilies. Though my companions didn't mind at all, I found it invasive. The evening began at 7:30 with a savoury petit four plate of red pepper pate de fruit and black olive madeleines and ended at 11:30 with the same exact plate of goodies, but this time strawberry pate de fruit and chocolate madeleines--a lovely touch I thought, and delicious too. I do love pate de fruit , classic or not.

In between, there were oh so many, many things. We began with a "Kir Royale" of cassis sorbet, lime granita, and champagne jelly, set very softly. A tiny cube of deep fried chestnut and foie gras that melted in my mouth. An oyster and morsel of sea urchin set in the shell with a firm oyster jelly on top, Meyer lemon zest, and a dollop of creme fraiche. A soft boiled egg with vanilla syrup and an acidic cream on the top served with an entirely too tiny spoon. That's just the amuses bouches! Although each one was plated nicely, and very tasty, the wait between each course was really hard to take. And this was a theme of the evening, as were the infuriatingly tiny spoons. Imagine one perfect, salty mouthful of exploding foie gras, then an agonising wait for another mouthful of anything. At first it's playful, teasing even, but after the ninth course, well, it's just plain cruel.

The first meat course, a light foie gras royale set in an espresso cup and covered with broccoli puree, olive oil, and a little broccoli floret. First time I've had foie gras with broccoli, a nice combination I thought. Shame about the tiny spoon.

Next, my favourite fish course: a very simple plate of thin pieces of Striped Jack with olive oil, lemon, sesame seeds, and a julienne of nori and horseradish. The fish tasted lightly smoked.

Then an oyster--yes another one, I have to admit I was somewhat disappointed to have another oyster course on the tasting menu--a Point Reyes oyster with a Taleggio foam and two slivers of apple.

"I'm sorry, house milk?" I asked the runner after he described the foam as thinned out with "house milk." To which he smiled and said, "well, no, just like, like normal milk I guess" Hmm. The dish was offensive smelling, as Taleggio will be, and I just wasn't able to enjoy that particular combination.

The sea bass was cooked perfectly and came with a crisp skin and a centre still slightly under. Next to it, salmon roe and cucumber folded in the slightly chewy envelope of milk skin. I really liked this strange combination. And so ended our fish courses.

The first of the meat courses: a creamy piece of sweet bread with Chanterelle vinaigrette and celery puree--could have sworn it was parsnip. Then roast duck breast with chestnut puree, baby turnips and Anjou pear. Finally beef, cooked in suet with a chickpea frite and some slices of what I think was Matsutake. The smell of suet was somewhat unpleasant, like veal stock.

A pre-dessert of super salty yogurt sorbet with rose-water jelly, pomegranate seeds, and orange segments followed after another long wait. I have some years of salty lassi drinking behind me and really loved the flavours in the slender martini glass--but the other two found it overly salted for a dessert. The French toast with brown butter ice-cream, caramel apple pieces, salty, crunchy nuts, and an apple chip worked very well stacked neatly on the plate. I love salted caramels, and I love French toast in a sexy little dessert, I'll always remember this as one of my favourite restaurant desserts.

The espresso cup full of hot chocolate topped with a marshmallow disk and some table-side shavings of Tonka bean didn't work so well for me. The hot chocolate tasted simply of a warm ganache--and the marshmallow was placed so that cutting into it pushed the liquid out and made a mess of the whole thing.

Overall, I really enjoyed the food--which teetered between challenging me and pleasing me, which every girl enjoys--and I might go back to enjoy the interesting things I saw a la carte but unfortunately, the service did not meet the level that the food reached. Our sommelier, who opened a bottle of German Riesling to take us through the fish courses, told us he would return to help us choose something to take us through the meats courses--but then disappeared completely. In fact, no one offered us wine pairings with the meat courses or dessert and I had to ask for an espresso. "I was just about to," our sever said, somewhat defensively, just as she dropped the petits fours in front of us and I realised sadly that it was too late, and the meal was already over.

No one asked how the meal was going or whether we needed anything until after the bill was put down. I was very disappointed with this, especially considering that we were doing the tasting menu. My chef and others told me about their great experience so I can only assume that this is either because my party of three was young and maybe slightly awkward in a dining room setting, as cooks will be, or that front of house was in a general state of messiness and carelessness just for one night.

During Antoinette Bruno (starchefs.com editor in chief) presentation on food trends, it was casually brought to the audience's attention that Harold McGee was seated among us. A few heads turned, and turned back. I have to admit I gasped and smiled stupidly and tried very hard to concentrate on the slide photograph of a Thermo Mix but instead spent the rest of the lecture looking sideways at the tall, grey bearded man in glasses. The one who changed the way I think about cooking. The one who did away with myth and nonsense and empowered cooks. The one who graciously listened to Glyn and I gush like school girls after the presentation. The one who warned us he might take up to a week to e-mail us back. E-mail us back?

He talked about putting dishes in context, using these new techniques to tell a story rather than simply showcase the technique. I did quite a bit of nodding. And smiling. Not that I don't agree, I was just a little star struck. Which is probably an appropriate thing to feel at a StarChefs.com event.

The Rising Stars Revue saw the same mirrored and velvet curtained room in Teatro Zinzanni on pier 29, completely transformed. Greeted by champagne, caviar and warm crab cakes served on yellow tiles, guests followed the shimmying of a saucily dressed wait staff to where the chosen chefs and sommeliers from the city offered their single tiny dish and accompanying drink for all to taste, as follows:

David Bazirgan from Baraka
Foie Gras Torchon

Paul Piscopo from XYZ at W Hotel
Sardine Farcie Provençal

Stuart Brioza from Rubicon
Guinea Hen Terrine with Brioche Butter

Daniel Humm from Camden Place
Sea Urchin Cappuccino with Dungeness Crab

Chris Cosentino from Incanto
Octopus Crudo

Melissa Perello from Fifth Floor
Pan Roasted Duck Breast, Duck Confit, Fingerling Potato Hash

Christophe Hille from A-16
Home-made Cavatelli with Ragu and Ricotta Salata

Dennis Leary from Canteen
Roulade of Lamb with Romesco and Bitter Greens

Robbie Lewis from Jardiniere
Maine Diver Scallop, House Pancetta, Meyer Lemon, Roast Garlic-Parsley Nage

Christine Law from Postrio
Poached Pear Baba, with St. Andre and Black Pepper Ice-Cream

Boris Portnoy from Winterland
White Coffee Parfait, Coffee Earth, Fig Gastrique

Marika Shimamoto Doob from Fifth Floor
Chocolate Velvet Mousse Cake with Brown Sugar Bananas

Duggan McDonnell from Frisson
Fountain of Youth
Pernod El Camino Real

Bill Bunn from Teatro Zinzanni
Hoffman Chicken Breast stuffed with Far West Fungi Wild Mushrooms and Prosciutto di Parma

Elise Fineburg from Taste Catering
Trio of Chocolate

Sommeliers Jennifer Knowles from Rubicon and John Ragan from Campton Place had tables set up and sent you to the right chef according to what they poured you.

The highlights for me:

The gorgeous 1920's vintage slicer set up at the Incanto table. A heavy looking red machine that sliced the frozen octopus right onto the plate.

The frothy pink sea urchin foam ladled from a giant pot which looked like a prop from Macbeth but tasted of ocean and mushrooms.

The little scoop of black peper ice-cream that looked sweet and gentle and innocent, but burned beautifully.

Boris Portnoy exclaiming "the coffee earth, the coffee earth is a trick!"

And Harold McGee. Did I mention I met Harold McGee?

Recently, we watched Supersize me, which is absolutely terrifying. In the extra footage, the author of Fast Food Nation mentions the high quality burgers served at In-N-Out. Meat from shoulder and ribs only, never frozen, buns made from sponge, fries cut and cooked to order etc. So, naturally, we stopped on the highway for burgers: a double double for Glyn and a cheeseburger for me and and order of extra crispy fries to share. Pretty tasty. And there's talk of a secret menu...

Considering its unfortunate chemical defence system and unpleasant lingering stink when overcooked, cabbage has managed to do really well for itself. As far as leafy greens go.

Beginning, according to the myths, in the Gods tears, cabbage cured hangovers in Rome, blessed newly weds through the middle-ages, fed the Irish through the famine, was snubbed by the European aristocracy for causing gas and so toured Asia, got pickled, spent a number of years traveling by ship extending the family, then finally came to the height of its fame in 1983 when after being implanted with a diamond, it gave a pudgy armed, squishy faced, loveable baby to the world: me! And those popular dolls, coincidentally, same year.

I don't want to make the obvious Irish cabbage and potato link, but it is true, Glyn likes cabbage (and loves potatoes). I think successive blasts of potato blight--worsened by a Whig government's refusal to take any responsibility--cruelly killing off a million people, will make a nation take their subsistence seriously, even a hundred and fifty years later.

I, on the other hand, didn't value cabbage growing up--one too many watery school lunches. But I've changed my mind: cabbage is cheap and delicious and makes a fantastic salad finely sliced with carrot and mint, crushed roasted peanuts, and a really simple dressing of brown barley miso, brown sugar, smoked chilli powder, rice vinegar, soy sauce and sesame oil. I soaked the chopped cabbage in cold water to crispen it and get rid of sulfury smell and taste, then drained it and mixed everything together.

It's not very Irish, I know, but it's tasty and satisfying after a long sunny walk on the beach; and gives a fresh crunch and mustardy sweetness to a lazy meal of spicy jeera chicken and warm crusty bread.

(1129 lbs is 513 kg!)

Last night I met Crystal at Cetrella for drinks--I had something inappropriately named and delicious made with gin, campari, and vermouth. And then since we'd already eaten, we got a cheese plate of Mt Tam, a ripe Epoisses and Ticklemore to share with some sweet wines. With the pianist playing, the drunkards dancing, I forgot, just for the evening, that the pumpkins were all around us and the beast was in his cloak of darkness.

Now in the sunlight, they're everywhere. Even on my days off from preparing for our pumpkin tasting menu at the restaurant, I cannot escape them. The colourful lumps line every shop window, every doorstep and every garden of this little town. The signs are up on every corner: expect heavy traffic during pumpkin fest. And then Glyn pointed out the most enormous pumpkin I've ever seen just across from our building, I can't believe I didn't notice it myself. It's the winner, the beast, on display.

See, the pumpkin festival is kick-started by the great pumpkin weigh-off. The biggest, fattest, heaviest pumpkin wins five dollars per pound of flesh. To me, this is essentially American. Like using the expression kick-start. And the timing of these celebrations is perfect as my mum just became American a few days ago.

During the ceremony she swore an oath to the country and the constitution--probably with her hand on her chest, probably worried she was saying it wrong--led by the president from a large TV screen set up in front of the room full of nervous foreigners. And now something that I never imagined is true: my parents are American. Both of them. They celebrated at an ice-cream parlour downtown.

And though they do not sound American--they have that sort of Kenyan British accent, touched by Indian relatives and maybe spanked ever so gently by the East Coast. And they do not look American, as Americans often ask them where they're from and then swoon over the exoticism of their answers. And they do not act American--whatever that means--I thoroughly enjoy the image of them as Futurama Amy's parents: cowboy hats, jeans and sneakers, power walking down main street--my mother adjusts her Old Glory silk scarf--towards the pie-eating contest they've been training for:

"Think positive! Visualise the pumpkin pies!"

Some collect coins, stamps, baseball cards. Some hoard what will never increase in value, their own hair, toenail clippings, urine. If you ask me, collectors are always a bit disturbed, a bit obsessed. I collect menus (who doesn't nowadays?). And sometimes, I take them out, examine them like a lunatic, and rant to whoever cares to listen. So, here goes.

I agree, the most important thing is the quality and cooking of the food. But the menu, the menu is an old fashioned kind of promise. It comes to you before you meet the food and says: "we're a good family, go on and take the girl," but with colour, font, placement of price, with things left out as important as things in bold, italics, and quotations--but hopefully not in quotations because that would suggest unbearably playful sarcasm, or that the "foie gras" is in fact a joke about the stuff (I'm not laughing, are you?) . The menu says a lot. But then again, you don't want it to say too much.

In California, it's popular to name your farmer and variety of fruit on the menu. This makes for very long descriptions. Denver Farms Silver Lady Organic apple and Mermaid of the Meadows honey with Organic Crusty Ranches beef tenderloin garnished with a long list of local things with funny names.

The thing is I do want to know where everything is from, I really do. I want to know everything. I want to know every foam and jelly, every reduction and smear of sauce, every oil, every herb, every unidentifiable sprinkle on my plate. And I want to know exactly where every animal and fish is from--but maybe the servers can carry around all that information in their noodles and just share it with me at the table.

Historical information that appears on the first page of the menu can also be a bit of a nuisance. That they got their name from the goddess of an ocean or a 16th century French inventor belongs on a pamphlet. And pamphlets belong on the street. And people who hand out pamphlets on the street belong in giant foam hot-dog outfits.

"Why the hell does it say mi-cuit next to the Halibut?" my brother, also grew up in France, fluent in French, might ask. "Because half-cooked sounds like a lazy cook serving up a health risk in English" would be my reply, or, "because French technique words are a crutch for sophistication on English menus." And sadly, I think both are true. English is not the language of gastronomy.

But there's enough French already among the waiters, chefs, sommeliers, stewards, and patrons. I think that English menus should be just that, English, and not entirely taken over by French words, unless they're in France, or unless there is no English equivalent. Surely jelly is just as valid as gelee? Why use the French word anglaise--meaning English in French, but really meaning custard--on an English menu, rather than the English word custard--meaning custard in English. Eh?

If the form is not relevant to the taste, why mention it at all? Whether it's a brunoise or a julienne? A quenelle or a dollop? The food is not its presentation or form, the food is the food.

And no quotes, even in fantastic Chinese restaurants. "Every meal is enjoyed five times," or something, was on the first page of Kai's menu. A really good Chinese meal in London. Enjoyed five times. Do they mean regurgitate? Four times. Or save the menu to read four times over? Anyway, who cares, it's just the bleedin menu. I've had plenty of good meals without a menu.

Because every once in a while, there are only chalk boards leaning on the damp walls of an Irish fish market in Kerry, or a series of disturbing drawls from a toothless waiter. And you can't exactly ask your waiter to come home with you. Well, you could, but what's the point, he'd never fit in your menu folder--which is worth having because months later, like a crumpled cinema ticket gone through the wash, the menu brings back the whole fabulous evening.

I remember that although it says pheasant, we were actually sent the lamb course from the a la carte first, that although it says panna cotta of sea urchin, my lactose intolerant friend had a salad with shaved black truffles. I remember wanting to lick the teasing drizzle of mushroom sauce off the plate it was so good and the smell of the fancy soap in the bathroom, I insert the amuse bouches and pre-desserts by memory and then, like a pressed flower, I tuck it away.

Tonight we got home at midnight, which is too late to cook anything but Glyn's Extraordinary Disappearing Carrot Salad. It's one of my favourite snacks at the moment--a cold, fresh balance of sweet and acid reminiscent of the thick gingery dressing found in Japanese restaurants. The leaves are crunchy and cold, the dressing warm with chilli and ginger. It goes well with anything, and also makes a simple light meal on its own. I demand the salad so frequently, that Glyn has suggested, gently, that I learn to make it myself. Fair enough.

It starts with a teaspoon of white miso and brown sugar smoothed out with rice vinegar. To this thick liquid add a trickle of sesame oil. Then grate in green chili, shallot, ginger to taste. Grate in one or two carrots and mix everything with baby greens. Sprinkle with toasted sesame seeds or, if you're lucky enough to have them lying around, some crunchy wasabi peas.

In 1971--year of the India-Pakistan War, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and my parents' high school graduation--Main Street, Half Moon Bay showed signs of decay, and needed to be revitalised.

So the Half Moon Bay City Council appointed a group of concerned citizens to a new organization: the Main Street Beautification Committee. They organised the first annual Pumpkin Festival to attract visitors picking Halloween pumpkins thinking they could get money out of them to put back into the crumbling town. Even in 1971 they called it old-fashioned--because city folk like that kind of thing.

It worked. Now 200,000 people come to the town on October 15th and 16th to celebrate with endless pumpkin patches, pumpkin pie-eating contests, pumpkin weigh-offs, a haunted house, and local restaurants with pumpkin tasting menus--yes, the committee would be proud.

After my initial disappointment--none of the pumpkins on display are good for eating--I was told about Farmer John. That's his name, really. He has a booth at the farmer's market across the street from my apartment on Saturdays, and a farm on highway 1 that sells vegetables and fruits.

Pumpkins are awkward, lumpy looking things. They take up space and they're heavy. And so it's important that they be delicious. These pumpkins are tasty. Sugar Pie has a slightly stringy, watery flesh, but a sweet taste. The Candy Roaster is very starchy, smooth, and sweet as candied yams. The Lumina has a pale skin and soft, dry center. He also has Altantic Giants that grow up to 400 pounds, Cinderellas, Red Kabochas, Funny Faces and he's happy to talk about each one.

The festival's not here for another week and I'm told that those two days will be insane. So I'm planning on stocking up on the goods now and letting them ripen in a dark cupboard in the kitchen. During the festival, I'll be home, just off main street, away from the tourists and pie-eating contests, happily snacking on pumpkiny goodness.

Farmer John's Farm
850 North Cabrillo Highway (Highway 1)
Half Moon Bay, CA
(650) 726-4980

Stephen and I have cleaned our wee butts off the last few days; my mom is coming to visit, and she's staying with us. Truly, nothing makes as young woman think about soap scum and bookshelf dust quite like the knowledge that her mother is coming to stay. Stephen cleaned the kitchen before he went to work this morning, and I'd planned on avoiding that room completely, for fear of the mess I tend to leave in my wake.

Alas, I woke up hungry, but not for a bagel from the coffeeshop down the block. What, I wondered, could I make for lunch that would be warm and satisying but also quick and easy, and, most of all, not messy?

It was then that I remembered the carefully portioned homemade chicken stock in the freezer. I'd been saving it to make risotto, but this seemed like a low-level emergency, and I thought it would be happy to sacrifice itself to the cause. I sauteed some onion and garlic with a diced carrot and rib of celery. When it was tender, I put in two baggies worth of the amber-colored wonder, still frozen. A few minutes later, it melted and came to a boil, I added a few handfuls of arborio rice, and simmered it until the rice was tender. I finished the soup off with frozen peas, a dollop of heavy cream for richness, and a sprinkling each of parsely and dill for freshness.

As quick as that, I had a hot and comforting lunch. But, perhaps more importantly, I'd only dirtied one saucepan, a knife and my smalled cutting board. If it wasn't for the fantastic aroma lingering in the apartment, you'd hardly know I'd cooked at all.

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I get so tired of reading about food personified to such heights as the "playfulness" of the papaya, the "ultrasensual" mood of the chicken, the "stubborn" shrimp, or the "dignified" daikon. It's poncy nonsense and I don't like it.

But, when I smell white truffles, a dizziness takes me over and I slip into a dream. I have fallen over, leaned on walls for support, and terrified people by sniffing the air like a dog, rolling my eyes backwards like some drunk and gurgling something not unlike tongues. This is not because they contain the same steroid compound as men's armpits and male pig's saliva--that would be black truffles. And armpits aren't really my thing. It is simply because white truffles are magical.

When I saw a basket of white truffles in Draegers, I was shocked. There they were with all the other mushrooms, stored correctly in individual plastic containers, with rice, to absorb excess moisture. I lifted one to my nose, opened the lid, and sniffed. And then I turned into a cartoon, carried around on the air by my nose. Happily.

I stood dreaming near the tomatoes: I was walking my dog through the forests of Piedmont, twigs cracking under my boots, my pockets full of truffles, the smell on my fingers and in the soil, the spores floating, settling, and spreading the truffle love. I've read about the truffle scuffle and I imagine it like that.

But it's not like that. Truffles are dangerous things. They disturb people. Fathers pass the burden of a lifelong search for truffles to their sons. Rival hunters poison the well-trained dogs of their competitors just before the season begins. Territories where they're known or suspected to be underground are guarded with rifles.

Because apart from smelling "just divine" and tasting like "heaven itself," they are worth a lot of money (1 to 2 thousand dollars a pound), cannot be cultivated, and grow only in a few places in the world--and there, only in symbiosis with trees. White truffles come mostly from Northern and Central Italy (although I've sniffed some pretty intense ones from Oregon).

And so it began to disturb me too, this lump of veins, this expensive collection of spore bearing cells. The more I sniffed, the more I wondered who would miss it if I slipped it into my pocket? A truffle can't belong to anyone, a truffle belongs to the earth! I must free it from the bright lights of the grocery store, release it from its plastic prison, take it to my apartment, fulfill its destiny and shave it onto scrambled eggs.

But Glyn suggested buying the truffle when the season was better established--late October to early December--the prices will be slightly less and we'll have time to plan what we want to do with it. This is, of course, a brilliant idea.

Until then, it's truffle oil from Far West Fungi in the Ferry Building, a strongly scented and rather delicious shadow of a white truffle. But still a mere shadow. Last night, after work, at about midnight, Glyn made me one of my all-time favourite snacks: scrambled eggs on wheat toast. Just two eggs cooked very wet with a blob of butter, a bit of whole milk, a few drops of the truffle oil, spread on some toast. Salt, pepper. It's really tasty.

Or, forget all of that: the "inner fragility" of the "teasing" and "manipulative" truffle, is "piggybacked affectionately" by the "sensual" scrambled eggs. "Whimsical" toast adds an "exquisite textural contrast" and lends a "humble" quality to this otherwise "bourgeois" snack.

I had a birthday! With a cake! And candles! And balloons that look like inchworms!

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A knife sharpener comes around once a month with the ultimate shaggin' wagon for anyone with a knife fetish: the ceiling and walls are covered in knives, several stone wheels whir like crazy, and it doesn't smell of patchoili. Also, the sharpening is pretty good.

The van comes around once a month from The Perfect Edge. No, it's not that first and after, unattainable state you receive your knives in--when they're sharp enough to shave a fingernail, scratch-free and gleaming with the dark magic of their creation. It's a shop/therapy/clinic for your knives: leave them for a night or two and all nicks, broken tips (gasp!), uneven sharpening are smoothed away lovingly. I sent in a few neglected knives and got them back sharp, beautiful and happy. So now when it comes time to buy new tools, this is where I go.

It's a small store, but filled with toys and books, and two full walls of knives. Best of all, there's a demo table where you can play a bit with potentials. Tara, whose store it is, knows each knife in the way Mr Olivander knows the composition of every wand in his shop. It's freaky. She listened carefully to what Glyn wanted--what tasks specifically the knives would be for, price range, and personal preference--and then reached knowingly into the random corners of the shop, pulling the knives she thought were right from the magnets in the middle of the wall, under the demo table, and inside cabinets. Glyn was then able to brunoise courgettes with each knife as it was explained to him.

Tara talked about folded blades, printed blades, layered blades, pointed and rounded slicing knives, hand-polished bevels, why there were enormous price differences between all of them and finally recommended a ceramic sharpener to take care of the one that felt right.

We came home with new colourful plastic peelers, a half size boning knife, a beveled slicer, magnetic knife guards, parchment paper, and a pair of tiny curved scissors. There's a discount for anyone in the industry on sharpening, and though they don't believe in sales, the prices are always decent.

The Perfect Edge
1640 Palm Ave, San Mateo, CA 94402
(650) 349-2665
closed on sundays

Today is special. The honey cake has rested a few days and aged into a proper birthday cake. It's now sandwiched and coated with a sharp ginger frosting, and sprinkled madly with coloured sugar. It's ready for Martha's birthday.

For the first time in months, I'm working a lunch service not dinner. That means lots of things: I'll see Glyn for more than ten sleepy minutes, I'll be out in the daylight in the afternoon with all the other humans, and best of all I'll be meeting friends for cocktails to celebrate Martha. Hooray!

When I saw the wildly coloured pinatas hanging outside the Mexican pinata and candy store in San Mateo, I did a u-turn (on a one way road) to get a closer look. The sunlit aisles were full of interesting treats: corn crisps, fresh cactus and serious chilies. I imagined the birthday kid who, red-faced after many a swing at the giant paper Shrek, was rewarded with a cascade of crispy pork rinds and dried habaneros...

But there were also various things made of cajeta--caramelised goat milk--which I once made a huge pot of for a New Year's party. The milk, boiled down with cinnamon and sugar, condenses and caramelises to something thick, sweet and goaty.

But past the lollipops and wafers, wrapped caramels and pixie sticks, it was the unfamiliar pile of dark rounded cones that beckoned. No, I'm romanticizing, they look like barnyard turds--piloncillo is an unrefined Mexican cane sugar that reminds me a bit of gura. Gura, or jaggery, is an unrefined Indian sugar made by boiling cane juice down to a dark orangish mass. I made snacks of the stuff as a sticky fingered kid with brown butter and hot chapatis.

I bought a bag of about 10 small cones of piloncillo for 58 cents! So with a light caramel flavour, and at a millionth of the price, it may replace the soft muscovado I normally put in my coffee. But probably not.

Stephen is working from 4:00PM to 1:00AM today, which leaves me with quite a bit of quality time with myself this evening. After a week of work stress and baseball-tension (no one makes me wring my hands quite like the Red Sox) and before a long weekend with my mom visiting, the timing seems fortuitous. I'd planned on eating some spaghetti with garlic and olive oil and maybe a tomato salad then curling up for a long evening on the couch with a book. Then I remembered a little treat stashed away in my freezer. A few weeks ago a made steak frites, a dish that is surprisingly time-consuming and dish-dirtying for simple bistro fare. I bought three steaks, cooked two, and hid one away for some later occasion.

Tonight turned into that occasion. For my solitary dinner I had the unintentionally alterative Strip Steak with Stilton-Shallot Butter. I've always liked doing luxurious things for myself for no reason, and this dish seemed to fit the bill. However, it's also simple enough not to mess up the kitchen when one is dining alone. In deference to my own extreme fondness for the cocktail and to Julia Child's assertion that the secret to her long life was red meat and gin, I also had a Bombay Sapphire martini, not too dry.

Strip Steak with Stilton-Shallot Butter
(Serves 1)

For the compound butter:

1 tbl. butter, softened
1 1/2 tbl Stilton (or other quality, stinky blue cheese) crumbled
3/4 tsp finely minced shallot
Scant 1/4 tsp minced fresh thyme
Lemon juice,
Pepper
Worcestershire sauce (optional, but it adds a nice depth if you're using unexceptional supermarket butter)

Mush together the butter, Stilton, shallots, and thyme. Season with a few drops of lemon juice, four good grinds of pepper and no more than two drops of Worcestershire sauce. Store covered in the fridge until dinner.

Classically, compound butter is formed into a neat log wrapped in parchment or plastic wrap. When it's just me, I don't bother with this step. Any leftover compound butter is wonderful melted over green beans.

For the steak:

Remove 1 strip steak from the refrigerator, rinse, and pat until very dry with paper towels. Let it sit at room temperature for at least half an hour.

Heat a heavy (preferably cast iron) pan over medium-high heat.

Pat the steak dry again. Rub it all over lightly with olive oil and generously season with coarse salt and pepper. Turn on the exhaust fan over the stove or open a window. Cook 2-4 minutes (depending on the thickness of the steak and how well done you like it) on each side. Don't panic about the smoke.

Remove the steak from the pan and let it rest, tented loosely with foil, for a few minutes. Slice it on the bias and serve with a generous dollop of the compound butter, a big green salad, and preferably, a cold gin martini.

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I've started reading M.F.K Fisher's biography by Joan Reardon. Fisher died in 1992 just before her 84th birthday, leaving behind years of graceful, intelligent, American food writing. I read The Art of Eating in college and was charmed right away, curious about her life. The lady had style. The black and white photos in the middle of the book are the first I've seen of her--and it's odd but people simply do not look like that anymore.

So the book--part long and informed People magazine article (who she went out with, who had a crush on her, what she spent money on, what clothes she liked), and part detailed collection of family histories. There are journal entries, excerpts from letters to lovers, and all sorts of naughty, juicy, little tidbits (subtitle is, after all, the lives and loves of M.F.K Fisher). There are also many, many footnotes that reveal where she fabricated, exaggerated, and lied in her writing and in her life. Reardon is taking her apart, chronologically, starting with the embellishments of Fisher's own birth, but she's doing it affectionately and respectfully, so I'm keeping on.

Everyone told me that summer in San Francisco would be dismal. I believed them, but it is one thing to logically understand wretched weather and something else entirely to actually wake up to it everyday. Four years of winter in Boston did a good job acclimating me to the reality of everyday being more depressing than the last. Still, summer in San Francisco required its own sort of fortitude. In my apartment merely blocks from a frigid, shark-infested beach, the fog was particularly pervasive. The sun might struggle out in Union Square, but at my house, the gray wooley blanket and desperate chill descended in June and didn't let up until the end of September.

But now that's all in the past. It's October and everything is lovely. I had a dream about a house full of pumpkins last night, but the weather doesn't even hint of fall. It's been around 70 degrees, sunny and breezy. Two days ago I put on a sun hat, walked to a playground, sat on a bench and read. Outside. It was fantastic.

But it reminded me of some weeks ago when everything was not so lovely and Stephen and I had picnic on the bed. I'd just gotten a new haircut and was feeling festive, plus Stephen had hurt his back and was in no shape to sit at the table, let alone help with the dishes. So I stopped by a couple of shops to pick up a few tasty nibbles to eat, Le Dejeuner sur l'herbe, or rather, sur le lit style, I guess.

I bough a roast chicken to eat smeared with green peppercorn dijon, a baguette, apples, grapes, three types of cheese (taleggio, aged gouda and cambozola, a sort of camembert innoculated with gorgonzola mold), and a big, purplish heirloom tomato that I dressed with olive oil and fleur de sel.

I spread one of my grandmother's vintage tablecloths on the bed, poured some wine and we ate everything with our fingers, Stephen propped up on a pile of pillows. And believe it or not, even though it was August in San Francisco, it almost felt like summer.

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Ten thousand years of honey collecting, eating, worshipping, offering, metaphoring, medicine making and I'm delighted by a spoonful. I often forget the fuzzy bees, reaching their proboscis into flowers, nectar passing through their esophagus into their honey sac, meeting between dark honeycombs to deposit the goods, and then pumping the honey in and out of themselves as it ripens with enzymes. I like think of it as I always have, bee spit.

A few weeks ago, I bought a jar of chestnut honey from the Ferry Building. It's dark gold from Lazio and has a serious toasty, caramel quality, almost like treacle. The flavour is very strong, so it can handle being cooked just as well as being eaten raw. Martha and Stephen gave me blackberry honey for my birthday--it's beautiful, much more flowery and fruity. And the last honey in my cupboard is in a tiny tupperware--just a few tablespoons of very liquid, local honey. Crystal gave me this, gathered from her family's beehives. It tastes boozy, disappears immediately into the roof of my mouth, and is just starting to crystallize around the edges.

If it's to be a good one, I start my day with a cup of coffee and a slice of toast with butter and honey. So tuesday and wednesday, I'll be more than happy to extend the sweet spread of food to lunch and dinner, to bring in a good and sweet new year. And it's the chestnut, the strongest of the three, that I'll use for the honey cake I'm baking this morning. This is only the second time I'm baking at home since moving here six months ago. Last thing I made was a genoise for trifle. It's just strange to bake at home before going in to work in a pastry kitchen--here, Carmen McRae sings to me in my pajamas as I measure flour out with half cups and spoons and talk on the phone. Very unlike work.

According to Glyn, and, for once I have to listen because I've never eaten or made it before, honey cake should be made a couple of days before being eaten to allow it time to moisten. So I'm baking now, saturday, to eat on tuesday. I asked him to get his mum's recipe, but he insists that she uses Evelyn Rose's. So I compared a few recipes: all of them use oil--not butter--baking soda and baking powder, coffee, and a mixture of warm spices. I tweaked a few into this:

DRY
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground clove
zest of 1 orange

3 eggs
1/2 cup white sugar

WET
1 cup chestnut honey
1 cup vegetable oil
1/2 cup espresso
1/4 cup Meyer's rum

in a large bowl, sift together all dry ingredients and make a well in the middle

in another bowl, (electric) whisk the eggs and sugar till they double in volume

combine all wet ingredients and pour gradually into the dry ingredients, whisking all the time to avoid clumps, last of all, fold in the egg/sugar froth

once smooth and combined, pour into greased cake tin and bake at 350 degrees for 30-50 minutes, or until done.