cheeses for us meeces

slapdash birthday cake, and making Italian grandmas upset

Every week these days feels like that tweet about one month ending and the next one beginning right away. I would really love a week (or month!) where absolutely nothing is allowed to happen, no responsibilities and the world is on pause. I’ve been compromising by just making a lot of lazy sandwich or pasta dinners after work and sitting around knitting while watching Star Trek. I don’t even have the energy to give you my thoughts on the cast iron pan discourse (maybe another time). Nevertheless, I still have a few kitchen highlights to share with you.

slick @dlicj

as soon as one month ends another begins. no break. they are relentless

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My birthday was last Saturday, and although it was a lovely, sunny day, I mostly just did things I might usually do on a Saturday: tidy the house a bit, play games on Zoom with my friends, walk to the brewery to pick up their new whiskey hazelnut porter. We did put up the Christmas decor though, and watched The Muppet Christmas Carol at the same time (the indisputable best adaptation of A Christmas Carol). I had a few pals and Jeff’s mom stop by to do gift drop-offs, which made me feel really special, and it was nice to have a little (albeit masked, distanced, and under 10 minutes) social interaction that wasn’t done via screen. Jeff gave me Link’s Awakening for the Nintendo Switch, because I currently don’t care about video games that are not Hyrule-related, and I gave myself the gift of not cooking dinner— we ordered pizza from Farina a Legna. I did, however, slap together a vegan birthday cake for myself in the afternoon.

I hadn’t chosen a cake in advance, mostly because I was tired by the very idea of more cake research, but also because I didn’t want to tie myself to something complex or time-consuming and then feel compelled to follow through if I wasn’t in the mood. So I just glanced through Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World for ideas, and settled on a 90s classic, the humble marble cake. This is one I recall my mom making often when I was a kid, and that I haven’t seen in real life since probably 2003. I didn’t know if my fond memories of it were because the cake was actually good, or just because it was cake and when you’re a child all cake is amazing, but I was willing to trust Isa & Terry and go for it.

I didn’t have a lot of Earth Balance in my fridge and I wanted to make sure I had enough for icing, so instead of the 1/2 cup of it the cake called for, I subbed 1/3 cup canola oil (the usual vegan cake butter replacement). It came out just fine, although it probably didn’t provide as tasty a base for the cake as the butter would have. I also didn’t really know what I was doing in terms of creating the marbling: I poured in all the vanilla batter first and then had to try to spread the chocolate batter around without turning the whole thing into a greyish, unpretty goop. It basically worked, though the cake was a little more ‘layered’ than ‘marbled’. But it was a moist cake with a nice crumb, and it somehow tasted even better the next day. To ice it, I made vegan buttercream in the food processor— my preferred icing method for everything not involving whipped egg whites— and doubled the vanilla, and added sprinkles to make it a party cake. I won’t say it’s my favourite cake I’ve ever made, but I will say that it’s pretty high reward for something so straightforward (which probably explains why I remember my mom making it often in my childhood). We finished it in three days.

On Sunday when I realised I hadn’t planned anything for dinner because I was too busy being excited all week about takeout on Saturday, I found some bacon in the freezer and thawed it out for a quick & dirty carbonara. Guanciale (cured pork cheek) is traditional, and many modern iterations use cubes of pancetta or prosciutto (more widely available), and all the recipe books say, “don’t use bacon! it will overwhelm the flavour of this dish!” I’ve made it with all of the above meats, and yeah, hickory- or applewood-smoked bacon might be a bit intense, but normal thick-cut bacon is perfectly fine. Maybe not if you’re trying to impress a cooking show judge or your girlfriend’s nonna from Tuscany, but it won’t be a problem, taste-wise.

Every time I make carbonara, I’m like, “This is so easy and good! Why don’t I make it more often?” The real answer is because it contains probably like two days’ worth of recommended caloric intake and zero vegetables, but it’s December and a pandemic so who cares about that. Timing everything right means this dish takes about 15 minutes, which is perfect for when I forget that I have to make and eat dinner. Aside from that, the only trick is ensuring your noodles and bacon/garlic/fat are warm enough that your meal isn’t served cold, but not so hot that they start to cook the eggs when you mix them into the sauce. I tip the frying pan contents into a bowl for a few minutes while reserving some pasta water and draining the noodles, by which time it’s usually cool enough to add to the egg and cheese.

We had a bit of arugula left from Saturday’s takeout (they kindly put it in a paper bag so it doesn’t wilt on top of the hot pizza before you get it home), so I threw that in for a bit of vibrant bitterness in such a rich and creamy dish. Sometimes tradition matters, but sometimes the most important thing is making your plate of food as delicious as possible with the elements at hand.

bucatini: what if spaghetti were also a straw?

I needed to make some use of all the apples I keep getting in my produce bin this time of year, and a friend recommended these apple and cheddar scones from Smitten Kitchen. I know some of you are probably of the mind that scones are just worse biscuits, but they don’t have to be! Dry, dense scones usually happen for the same reason as dry, dense muffins: overmixing the dough. If you can resist, they will come out of the oven soft and lovely. These begin with half-baked pieces of apple, presumably so that the scones don’t fall apart in a soggy mess in the oven, and a generous amount of grated white cheddar— I used 2-year aged which was excellent. And I’m not sure if the apples I had were just very tiny, or if the apples she used in the recipe were massive, but I needed 4, not 2, for a full pound.

I usually like a more savoury type of scone (cheese & chive is my fav), and while I love apples and cheddar together, I’m not a big fan of apple pie and cheddar, so I skipped the sugared top for these. And I think apple peel is nice so I didn’t bother taking the skin off, though I used honeycrisp apples so if you’re using a hardier variety like granny smith or pink lady you’ll probably want to. I cut the dough into 8 instead of 6, because I wanted them smaller and apparently I’ve become one of those people who changes everything about a recipe when I make it. But Deb is right that these are addictive: salty-sweet, with crisp outsides and soft flaky insides, and little gems of apple throughout. I do appreciate that there is an addendum for baking these straight from the freezer, because while we could probably eat all eight over the two days she claims these will remain good, it’ll be much nicer to think of them in a few weeks and be able to eat some without making them again from scratch.

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Media:
I’ve never been an Ina Garten disciple, but I liked reading this profile of her by Julia Moskin. Regardless of if you follow what she does, you’ve probably seen clips of her cooking during the pandemic, drinking out of a martini glass the size of a plant pot, chiding her husband Jeffrey, pouring heavy cream into things. The piece gets to the heart of why her audience is ready to go to the mat for the Barefoot Contessa, a wealthy, white New York woman with seemingly no particular niche or special skillset:

““I find cooking hard,” she said. “I’m not a trained chef. I love cooking, but it is not easy.”

It’s a simple truth, but shared by most home cooks. And that’s what she brings to the screen, combining the enthusiasm of a student and the authority of an expert.”

A lot of cookbooks fall into two categories: basic recipes that assume you are trying to make food as quickly and simply as possible, or recipes from experienced chefs that assume you have some intuition and confidence in the kitchen. Her appeal exists in the in-between space: for people who may not know exactly what they’re doing enough to necessarily trust themselves to “salt to taste”, but still want to make nice food. I think probably most of us want that, and to have someone we trust show us it’s ok if sometimes you just want to eat a lot of cheese.

Now, as we move into December, I start putting on Christmas (or Christmas-adjacent, like Go and Gremlins and Little Women) movies while I take care of holiday-related tasks: wrapping gifts, putting up lights, writing cards, baking. These obviously aren’t specifically food-centric, but it’s a time of year that heavily features food, so if you’re making a holiday movie, it’s almost impossible not to include it in some way. I do find myself noticing the feasts and other food-related moments in different films— like Amy in Little Women sadly returning the orange to the centre of the loaf of bread they’re giving away, or the coveted entire cheese pizza Kevin orders himself in Home Alone. I would love if you’d share your favourite seasonal movies with me in the comments, along with notable holiday food moments you can think of in film!

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