tea and cake or death
apple cake, squash chili, and still more mushrooms
With the double whammy of BFCM at work, and watching the coronavirus numbers get worse and worse, it’s been an absolutely exhausting week. We had to go to Costco on the weekend which was obviously a nightmare, but at least the parking gods blessed us with finding a spot immediately, and now I have another 20 kilo bag of flour and the big jar of kalamata olives again. We also went to Gourmet Warehouse, which has long been a Christmas shopping tradition for me, but between the gigantic lineup to get in and trying to safely navigate the narrow aisles amid staff and other shoppers, it wasn’t quite as much fun as it usually is. On Sunday we drove to my mom’s to drop off some Christmas shopping I’d done on her behalf, and it felt so bizarre to stand on the porch with our masks on, letting the cold air into her house as we found it difficult to wrap up our conversation and say goodbye.
When we got home, even though the fridge was full of food, Jeff and I decided we deserved takeout. The first place we tried to order from was closed on Sundays. The next place was so low on staff that they told us on the phone they couldn’t accept takeout orders until Tuesday. Finally we settled on a Malaysian place we’d never tried before, and our food was ready to pick up in ten minutes and they put in an adorable note that almost brought me to tears… though to be fair, I feel like my emotional state as of late has been ‘able to tear up almost instantly over anything’. But it was a nice reminder of the connections that are still there to be made.
As I mentioned before, I normally would be planning and prepping dinner and cake for upwards of ten people for my birthday dinner and movie night, and although I do plan to make a cake, I don’t plan to do a zoom watch of any movies or any other facsimile of my usual party this Saturday. Instead, Jeff and I are just going to get takeout and put up our modest Christmas decorations. I know a lot of people got started on their decor early this year, which I 100% understand, but I wanted to save it as a little treat for myself. And maybe I’ll put on one of my favourite Christmas movies, Little Women [1994]. No, I will not be taking comments at this time.
The end of November arrived seemingly with the speed and force of a fighter jet, and I had yet to make my cake of the month. Seeing as I was also intending to make a cake for my birthday a week later, I wanted something that was not too fancy or dessert-like in order to not get sick of cake (a real thing that can in fact happen). I recently accidentally ordered three pounds of ambrosia apples when I thought I was ordering 3 apples, so I liked the sound of this cardamom apple cake from Half Baked Harvest. I thought we had cognac to use in it, but we didn’t, and while digging through the lesser-loved bottles in our bar for something to use instead, I realized this would be the perfect place to use the Obstwasser (a gift from Jeff’s mom, who is Swiss). Obstwasser is an apple-pear schnapps and needless to say, it doesn’t see a lot of action in a house whose inhabitants mostly drink beer, wine, or whiskey.
I added a little cinnamon to the batter, because apple baked goods don’t really feel complete without it. And if you don’t want to buy a litre of buttermilk to use 1/3 of a cup of it, I used a scant 1/3 cup of yogurt topped off with a bit of soy milk and it worked just fine. Baking it in cast iron was nicely rustic-feeling, and saved me the grief of mucking about with our bizarre springform pan sizes. It came out beautifully moist from the apples and with crisp caramelized edges (just a warning, they will be soft on day 2 if you keep the cake covered), and the cardamom spicing was subtle but lovely. The Obstwasser flavour was more noticeable than I expected, and not in a bad way! I chose not to add the confectioner’s sugar since it looks really great on its own, and definitely has more of a coffee cake than dessert vibe. You could comfortably eat this cake for breakfast without feeling like you were participating in something forbidden*.
In my ‘make use of these abundant vegetables before it’s too late’ furor of August and September, one of the things I made was the red version of this roasted enchilada sauce. It was amazingly flavourful and spicy, but I was still recovering from the kitchen carnage trauma of the salsa verde enchiladas at that time, so I put it in the freezer for another day. Also in the freezer was a container of squash that I’d roasted some time ago, so I took that out and used a loose version of this burrito recipe from Oh She Glows (without the rice and cheese, and with jalapeño instead of red pepper) as the filling for the enchiladas.
Since the sauce was already made and the filling only uses one pan, this took a more reasonable amount of time and created far less dirty dishes, though I did manage to get sauce and filling all over the counter while assembling the enchiladas. I grated cheddar and manchego overtop and baked for about half an hour at 350, then a minute under the broiler to brown the cheese. After a good run of soups and stews, it was nice to switch it up with something a little different that’s still comforting, and this very much hit the spot. My only regret is that it used up all the sauce, so I won’t be able to rely on my past self the next time I want enchiladas.
Chanterelles just keep being on sale, so I just keep buying them. On Tuesday I was tired and didn’t want to make dinner, but I wanted to use the mushrooms up before they got gross, so I begrudgingly fried them with onions, garlic, and thyme for a quick pasta. I used linguine and scooped the noodles straight from the cooking water into the pan— off the heat, but still warm— once the mushrooms were done cooking. Then in went some lemon zest and juice, fresh basil, and a can of oil-packed tuna, as well as a little more pasta water and a dash of cream.
I love how there’s basically unlimited combos of things you can add to pasta to make a perfectly fine (and often delightful!) meal, because that means it’s always there for you no matter how tired you are or how little food you have in your fridge. If you have olive oil, chili flakes, a few cloves of garlic, and spaghetti, you have a tasty plate of food waiting to happen in less than 20 minutes. Similarly, a can of tuna (or white beans if you don’t eat fish) and a lemon is a great starting point to make a basic pantry dinner feel both satisfying and sophisticated. You can match whatever else you might have around: capers or olives, a handful of mushrooms, some arugula or spinach that’s starting to wilt, even just some parmesan or pecorino. If you, like I once did, believe canned tuna is just for sandwiches, let this convert you.
It’s been so cold and wintery lately (almost like… it’s winter?) and I realized I hadn’t made chili probably since last winter, so I revisited a cold weather favourite: this vegan pumpkin red lentil chili. The original recipe is for a slow cooker, but I’ve always made it on the stove because I don’t have a slow cooker. (The one time I tried it using the ‘slow cooker’ setting on the instant pot, the lentils were still crunchy after the allotted time, and I ended up having to pressure cook it to finish it off. I have not used the instant pot’s slow cooker function since.) Plus, since the slow cooker method just involves dumping all the ingredients in at once and simmering them for a long time, I feel like you get a little more complexity by frying the onions and peppers, and toasting the spices before deglazing. But if you do have a crock pot, I’m sure it would work nicely!
Before making this the first time, I wouldn’t have thought cinnamon, cloves, and cocoa powder would be welcome additions to a pot of chili, but rather than making it taste like baking, they do a lot to darken it up and create an unexpectedly rich and nuanced flavour. I like to use ancho chili powder instead of a chili powder blend here; there’s a depth to the spice and a lightly smoky flavour that goes really well with the other warm seasonings featured. You can also use any type of squash purée, or even sweet potato, it doesn’t need to be pumpkin. I always seem to have a bit of squash left from something else (in this case, the enchiladas) that’s not enough to do much with, and since this only calls for a cup, it’s the perfect way to finish it off. Sour cream is the most essential garnish, I think, but I also really like it with some cilantro and a bit of shredded cheese, or some pickled red onion.
Media:
Although I’ve linked to Alicia Kennedy’s writing here before, I think this is the first time I’ve felt the need to write about another newsletter: her piece this week, “On Service, Part 2” is simply too cutting and important. She spoke to 14 people who work in food and hospitality to hear their stories of working during the pandemic. As someone who’s always had close family and friends in the food service industry, it’s both unsurprising and enraging to read the tales of restaurant owners playing fast and loose with their staff’s safety, and customers treating workers as less than human… but heartening to hear about places that made choices that were almost certainly bad for business in order to put their employees’ needs first. Our society’s lack of care for service workers’ well-being is something that, again, existed long before COVID hit, but the pandemic has intensified it and made it impossible to ignore (assuming you’re not a monster).
I really encourage you to read these anecdotes and ideas (there are even more on Twitter), especially if you don’t have a close relationship with anyone in the service industry. The focus of food writing and our interaction with restaurants (especially in the time of the celebrity chef) has always been on the creator, the owner, the chef… with next to no regard for the other people who are there day to day doing the work. It would be amazing if the pandemic led us to a shift in the level of expectation versus compensation for the work that is being done in hospitality: that is, if service workers could finally stop being overworked and underpaid. It is also long past time for a mental shift towards regarding these jobs (and really, all jobs in the category capitalists love to refer to as “unskilled labour”) as inherently valuable to our society, and worthy of our respect.
“I don’t want to see any lionizing portraits of great chefs who made it out of the pandemic financially unscathed. Who would give a shit about that? I want workers to feel like they deserve respect and care for the position they’ve been put in this year.”
We may not have the power to instantly fix the system, but we have the power to not patronize places that mistreat their employees, to support unions, to petition our government representatives for changes that would drastically improve conditions. And in the meantime, we can be kind and respectful, follow guidelines, and of course, tip well. If we value the importance of restaurants in our social future, we must also value— and not just performatively— the people whose labour makes them possible.
Thanks for reading— if you enjoyed this newsletter, please share it with someone new! Also thank you to the people who’ve sent gifts or money for my birthday, and the kind feedback on my writing! I really appreciate the love and the understanding of the work that goes into this newsletter (although it is work I enjoy). I am definitely looking forward to a future where I get to make food for other people again and invite them into my home… what a novelty.
In honour of the start of the holiday season, here is a collection of “secret” family recipes shared out of spite because the creators were evil homophobes! Enjoy!