The changes are almost finished around here, and Tejal and I are pretty darned pleased. Stephen has been working his tail off to spiff this place up, and we think he's done an awesome job. Three cheers!
We'll be back to discussing the world of sweets and savories any day now, just as soon as Stephen teaches us how to post pictures. Turns out, we're not quite as savvy on the computer as we are in the kitchen, so he sort of has to talk us through the process as if we were infants.
About a week ago, my parents told me they'd sent a package of home made chocolates. Immediately, I began to check my PO Box more often, counting the days, waiting, and worrying.
I worried they'd overheated during the journey and melted into one big distempered glob, or been bashed to a pile of fragrant crumbs. I eyed the postal workers suspiciously. I waited and waited and then yesterday, the package arrived. The bag filled with chocolate was snug between two pieces of styrofoam shaped to protect, and then sealed in a hard box with an excessive amount of brown tape--my family leaves nothing to fate when it comes to transporting food.
The white chocolate, saffron, cardamom, salt and pepper clusters were intact. There was no paper, no note, but the smell came out and kissed me with a big "take care and make sure you eat right and don't forget your vitamins and all that, love mum and dad." Thank you! They're fantastic, and I sent a few home with Martha and Stephen to taste too.
There are few friends in whose company I can enjoy both a bucket of hot wings and an outrageously involved dinner with all my family . Martha and Stephen are such friends. And I've been lucky enough this year, living just outside of San Francisco, to be able to call them in the afternoon and say, "hey, still wanna come over for dinner?" And luckier still to hear them reply, "oh crap. Was that tonight?" and then, "yes."
We've had many an impromptu gathering this way around a table of food and wine, but it never gets less exciting for me to have them come over. Tonight, we started with tiny quail oeufs en cocottes with garlic panko topping. Glyn made cold sesame soba noodles with cucumber and spicy pork, a dish we had at a Schezwan restaurant months ago that, I think, he made better.
Finally, an experiment after hearing a lot about beet in desserts: chocolate, orange, and beet trifle. I used the chocolate cake recipe from a few days ago but replaced the caster sugar with icing sugar and baked it as a sheet--which worked beautifully. The cake was soft and tender, really moist, but not sticky at all. It cut easily into disks to layer between the orange cream and top with beet jelly. As Martha pointed out, the beet flavour was very subtle, but it worked with the orange and chocolate. Definitely needs more time in the lab before being tested on our favourite guinea pigs again.