silver
a green cake, and filling the fall freezer in the last gasp of summer
On Sunday, Jeff and I had to go back to Park Royal to exchange one of the things I bought last time we were there, because even though it was two of the same product in the same size, one was cut so badly that the fit was entirely different. I got the exchange done no problem, but I left frustrated, knowing that even though I showed the clerk how it was defective, there’s a 97% chance it just got put back on the rack for someone else to be disappointed by. It’s part of a larger problem of capitalism’s push to make more things for cheaper; clothing and electronics are some of the worst offenders, as fast fashion and planned obsolescence create terrible amounts of waste and resource depletion in addition to the cost to the consumer having to replace things that previously would last years. But we see it in the food industry too, in things like shrinkflation (as any potato chip aficionado knows) and the narrowing ratio of actual chocolate that appears in some chocolate bars, just as an example. We pay more for everything now, but everything we have to pay for keeps getting worse.
We broke up the rest of our day of errands with another visit to Beva Brewing for lunch, and this time we were smart enough to split one of their massive sandwiches. On the way out, we spotted a thrift store we’d never been to, and they happened to be having a 50% off sale. We poked around for awhile and ended up leaving with two shirts and a merino sweater for Jeff and a t-shirt for me (all vintage), crystal port glasses to replace the IKEA ones we’ve fallen out of love with, and a stack of CDs, all for about $40. I overheard an employee talking to another customer saying that the owners were hopeful the sale would get rid of some of the furniture and instead mostly people were coming in to buy clothes— but can you blame them? If a new t-shirt costs $25-30 and might not last more than a year, why not buy a used one for $6?
I cooked a lot this week! Early fall, I think, is the time I feel most inspired to be in the kitchen. Maybe it’s tied to some human instinct that there’ll be less fresh food in the coming months, but something about those first cool days in September always has me roasting vegetables for sauces, buying huge bunches of herbs at the market, digging out the soup pot from where it’s been collecting dust for three months. I love the sense of accomplishment I get from being able to fill my freezer and pantry with things that are in season now and won’t be very soon.
As promised, Kayla and I made the Watergate cake last Friday. I’d just gone to the dentist and Kayla had just paid twenty-five hard-earned dollars for a stranger to trim her bangs, so it felt like a good time for a reward. This cake seems to have existed in some form or another before the Watergate scandal, but some enterprising marketer apparently renamed it, published it in a book of recipes (along with the similar ‘Watergate salad’, one of those terrifying molded gelatin creations with canned fruit and marshmallows), and it became so popular that stores literally had trouble keeping the pistachio pudding mix, itself a new product in the early to mid-70s, in stock.
We had to visit two grocery stores to get everything we needed because Superstore was the only place that seemed to have pistachio pudding mix, and then we set to work. Not that it was much work just whisking eggs, oil, and Sprite together and then dumping two different powders into the bowl, and lastly adding shredded coconut and chopped nuts (I used half pecans and half pistachios, because I’m not rich). We were both surprised that the pistachio pudding mix also had actual pieces of pistachio in it. The batter was violently green, though it faded to a dull yellow with baking. The only other change I made was to line the pan with parchment rather than grease and flour it since it’s nice to be able to just lift the whole thing out of the pan to cool. Cooling the cake took awhile, because it was so large, so in the meantime we watched some Star Trek and drank the surprisingly good cocktail I made for a warm afternoon: tequila, lime juice, and a fresh basil leaf, topped with the leftover Sprite.
When the cake was cool we made the frosting using regular whipping cream instead of the milk/Dream Whip combo. Maybe that’s not very 1970s hostess of me, but I have my limits. It whipped up super quickly and turned out amazing, definitely my favourite part of making this. For texture reasons I think I would use less nuts in the cake batter if I made it again; the carbonation makes it quite airy, so it’s easy to see how structural failures could happen when you also have nuts throughout. Overall though I was really happy with this and I encourage you to try it if you want a pretty easy and tasty baking project for a party or potluck that’ll also give you a topic of conversation for a few minutes.
I so rarely go to Donald’s Market now because it’s no longer convenient in my daily life, so when I stopped there after my dentist appointment to get cake supplies I also couldn’t resist poking around what produce specials they had going on. I picked up some cheap local basil and Italian eggplant as well as some tomatillos, because they don’t often show up at places I frequent here so it’s been awhile since I got to make salsa verde. I originally had tacos in mind, but when the time came, I didn’t have a lot of the fresh items I usually like for taco toppings, and I remembered making enchiladas with verde sauce a few years ago. I have a recipe I wrote out for them at that time that I need to tweak still, but I will publish it here at some point. The rest of the sauce went into the freezer for another time.
Making enchiladas isn’t hard exactly, it’s just that it seems to use every possible form of dish as you prepare the different elements. If you use canned beans (or shredded rotisserie chicken, if you’re going a meat route) and pre-shredded cheese this is lessened, but I, a fool, cook my beans in the instant pot and shred cheese in the food processor. I might have used a box grater if I hadn’t already used the food processor in making the sauce, though. Anyway, the filling I made for these was just some pinto beans mashed up with broth, lime juice, and spices, to which I added some sautéed onions and mushrooms. The oven time is the perfect opportunity to begrudgingly plough through the sink full of dirty dishes.
As long as the market keeps having fresh local corn for a dollar an ear, I am going to keep buying it, and probably grilling it. This week I had part of a loaf of sourdough to use up, so I made it into croutons for a corn and tomato panzanella. The panzanella recipes in Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat are great; you can just adapt the basic method around the season and what you feel like putting into it. I macerated some sliced red onion and made a quick tomato vinaigrette while the corn was grilling, and let some of the croutons soften in the dressing while cutting the corn from the cob and slicing the tomatoes. A few torn basil leaves and some grated pecorino to finish, and it’s ready for an unseasonably warm Saturday night on the balcony.
Another summer favourite I wasn’t mad about having one more excuse to make before it’s too cold to care about it is this charred eggplant pasta salad. I love a nice vinegary, garlicky pasta salad— the base sauce here is a walnut and sun-dried tomato pesto, with sherry vinegar (if I’m out, I use champagne or red wine vinegar) to balance its savouriness. The recipe uses ricotta salata, but I like feta or goat feta, and I’ll often add some cherry tomatoes, if I have them, for a little extra substance and acidity. The light char on the eggplant is so satisfying. My biggest tip for this dish is to follow the recipe’s directions about the pesto. Unlike a basil pesto, which you can blend to your heart’s content, this one will become a blobby, gummy paste if you add the sun-dried tomatoes and oil to the the food processor, rather than what you want: a slightly rough and separated-looking sauce. I love radiatore here but any pasta shape with some nice ridges or curves to pick up the pesto will work.
After the cake was gone, I felt bereft of having an after-dinner treat and wanted to make some cookies. I’ve been defaulting to the buffalo chip/kitchen sink cookies recently but wanted something a bit more elegant this time, and found these earl grey sugar cookies in my saved recipes. The vibe is similar to the lavender snickerdoodles I like making, only these infuse the butter with the tea rather than just blending the leaves into the dry ingredients. This makes the flavour stronger— lavender flowers are already pretty potent so it’s not needed there, but earl grey is a bit more subtle. I didn’t have oranges, so I used lemon zest, like a few of the commenters. I also, like several of the commenters, found the amount of sugar for rolling to be comically large. I made the mistake of ignoring my initial instinct to use less, and now I have a huge bowl of it left over that I’m not sure what I can do with, since the batter had raw eggs in it… but the cookies came out lovely. In general I think I prefer a smaller cookie, which should totally be doable by reducing the bake time by a few minutes.
Also this week not worth photographing: a big patch of pesto for the freezer made with my 2-for-$3 bunches of basil, and which allowed me to use up the end of a chunk of parmesan. Some fresh tomato sauce made with lots of olive oil, served over linguine with the joy of grating from the new parmesan block. The first soup of September, roasted tomato with basil and a little cream, and with a grilled cheese I nearly burnt because I got distracted chatting with a friend about The X-Files while it was in the pan.
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