A drive-by cupcaking

You know what it's like: you're sitting in your office cell, feeling snacky. It's too cold to walk far, plus your energy is already low, and the only in-house options are the woefully inadequate (and slightly squashed) granola bar in your desk drawer, or the suspiciously non-perishable items in the vending machine.

And you think: Wouldn't it be perfect if a truck selling awesome cupcakes just happened to stop right in front of my office right now???

Something like this, perhaps?





Smarty Diane, who runs the Cupcakory truck, came up with the idea of Request-a-Visit Thursdays, in which interested companies could set up a time for the truck to stop by. So we made it happen for our department (and, by extension, the entire building).

Here's Diane, remaining super-nice and very calm, despite the long line of hungry cupcake fans.



The cakes went fast: red velvet sold out while I was still in line. My haul ended up being salted caramel, birthday cake (with the sprinkles), Almond Joy, Nutella, and peanut butter and chocolate.



I should note that they weren't all for me!

In the end, the Cupcakory truck visit was so popular that Diane sold out and some sad co-workers were left cupcake-less. So we're planning a return visit later this month.



Apparently it can't come soon enough.

Be-Ro gingerbread recipe: Good British baking

I don't have a huge collection of cookbooks, but among my prize possessions are three editions of the Be-Ro Home Recipes book. It's a slim little volume, published by a flour company founded in the north of England in the 1920s. My oldest volume is from 1957; my newest, the fortieth edition, is from 2007.



I like them because they're a link to my childhood, and to weekends spent baking butterfly cakes and drop scones with my mom.

And they're a way to chart changes in British baking: there's no quiche or pizza in the '57 book, though there is something called milk bread (1lb plain flour, 1 tsp salt, half a pint of milk, mixed well and baked for an hour at 375-425 degrees — how's that for an exact science?).

The '57 has exactly two recipes that call for chocolate, while the '07 has 15. Simpler cakes like walnut and cherry are still with us, but now stand alongside coconut-lime loaf and peach-butterscotch pudding (um, eww?).

Some things are constant, though: Victoria sponge, Welsh griddle cakes (amazingly on page 9 of all three editions), Swiss roll.

And all three have a type of gingerbread, which is what I was hankering for today. I wanted to go with the '57 recipe, but wasn't sure about measurement; how much milk is in a teacupful?



Instead, I went with the most recent edition's gingerbread recipe.

English baking recipes measure by weight instead of volume, so a kitchen scale is a good thing. As this gingerbread is so good, I decided to convert the measurements so I could share it with y'all.

Warning: This gingerbread contains a lot of sugary, buttery goodness. If your name rhymes with Taller Green, do not attempt.

Start by heating the oven to 300 degrees, and grease an 8" square pan (unless, like me, you use silicone. What did I do before silicone??)

Two cups flour
A pinch of salt
Two teaspoons of ground ginger (or three if you want it super-gingery)
One teaspoon of allspice
One teaspoon of baking soda
Half a cup of light brown sugar
Half a cup of molasses
A quarter cup of golden syrup (treacle)
One! Stick! Of butter!
Half a cup of milk
Two eggs, beaten

What is golden syrup, you ask? It's like molasses's blonder brother; in Britain it's used in baking, and you can also spread it on toast like super-sweet honey. You can find it at Amazon; one can goes a long way.



Sift the flour into a big mixing bowl and add the rest of the dry ingredients.



In a small saucepan, combine the molasses, treacle and butter. Heat it slowly while the butter melts, but don't let it bubble.

Important note: This part smells uhhh-mazing. Be sure not to miss the chance to inhale deeply over the pan. It's like hot buttered rum without the booze.



Once the butter has melted, take the pan off the heat and add the milk. Then let it cool completely before adding the eggs (so you don't cook them) and stirring everything together.

Pour the wet ingredients onto the dry and mix well. The batter will be quite runny. Pour it into the baking pan (or rubber square, if you will).



Bake for an hour, or until a knife comes out clean.

Let it cool in the pan until you can't bear to wait any more. Slice it into generous squares while it's still slightly warm. You might need a fork, as it's sticky. This is good.



From reading other recipes containing treacle, my guess is that this will improve with age. My other guess is that this won't be around long enough for us to find out.

2011: A year in (tasteful, tasteless) review

Everyone else seems to be doing end-of-year lists, and I'm nothing if not a bandwagon-jumper, so here's my run-down of most memorable Things Consumed in 2011.

It's hard to do a rated list, because this year was a challenging one: Some things were painful to eat, some things had no flavor, and anything consumed in the last few months has been the Best (insert ingredient here) Ever, purely because I could taste it.

So instead of a Top Ten countdown, we'll go (mostly) chronologically.

Hospital food
In January, I spent a week on the cancer ward, and became a little too familiar with hospital food. I'll be honest: I find it hard to even look at the images in this post. Especially the last one. It took a while before I could enjoy a golden sunrise without thinking about processed cheese squares.

I have awesome friends
Why? Because they recognized that the best way to respond to my illness was by bringing me food. Precious few of their gifts were healthy (ha!) but they were suitably high-calorie and, of course, delicious.

Losing it
I can't talk about this year in food without mentioning the three-month period where I was unable to taste anything. Yes, it gave me a new appreciation for the subtleties of the palate and the distinctions between flavors, but mostly I learned that having no tastebuds is the opposite of fun. And it's very nice when they come back again.

Home cooking
Not a single incident, this one, but a variety of memorable dishes made at home. Or at the house we rented in Gloucester, where the vintage kitchen was a perfect place to make blueberry cobbler, lemon meringue pie, and beef Wellington (The Boy's birthday-meal request).

And also a great location for inviting friends to share steak with chimichurri, grilled chourico, and various salads.



Back at our apartment, I got into a baking Thing, and managed to fill the freezer with chocolate-zucchini cake:



and peach cake:



My intention with the latter is to save it for the crummiest winter day possible. Nothing better than eating summery peaches during a snowstorm.

British food
Between finishing treatment and going back to work, I had a small window of time to zip back to England so my parents could see all my limbs were still attached. Even though my tastebuds weren't completely recovered, I still managed to eat ev-er-y-thing.

Which includes the obscene Sunday lunch, including baby's-head-sized Yorkshire pudding, at the Toby Carvery:



My dad at the gravy station. STATION. Because one type of gravy is not enough.



Dessert was Eton Mess, a bucket of meringue, cream and fruit:



Celebrations
There were lots of reasons for good times (come on!), including The Boy's grandmother's hundredth birthday; the wedding of our good friends Eric and Nicki, with a fabulous reception at Oleanna; and my almost-completely recovered sense of taste, with an incredible dinner at Journeyman.

Honorable mentions
I don't write about everything I stuff in my face, obviously. But I do record a large quantity thereof. Delicious things I had to capture for posterity this year included:

This treat, almost (almost!) too gorgeous to eat, buttery with a hint of lemon, from The Cookie Countess:



Rich, sweet figs stuffed with peach brandy ganache and covered in dark chocolate from Capone's in Cambridge:



And a stunningly complex housemade fig vermouth at Island Creek Oyster Bar (very small-batch; there was only one bottle left when we tried this):



You know, despite evidence to the contrary, I feel as though I've been very lucky this year. Yes, there were long-drawn-out moments of suckiness, but there were also a lot of extremely fun times and reasons to be thankful, especially for The Boy, and for friends and family.

I'm also very grateful to everyone who posted supportive comments on this here blog; I'll probably never meet most of you, but your kindness meant a huge amount during a tough time.

So happy New Year — wishing good health, happiness and delicious food to all!

Liquid lunch, but not the fun kind

So far I've been extremely lucky as far as chemo side effects are concerned. Apart from a short dizzy spell early in the week (for which I have happy little brown pills), everything has been fine.

Well, more or less.

Every day brings a slight change: On Monday I felt great, and ravenous, eating everything I could get my hands on (especially good cheese; need I remind you of the orange Americana served for breakfast in the hospital?).

Tuesday started out okay, but late in the afternoon it felt as though someone had snuck into my mouth with steel wool and started scrubbing.

That night, The Boy made a delicious-smelling stir-fry, but I could hardly bear to have anything touching my tongue.

Yeah, this is a thing that happens. Mucositis.

See, chemotherapy works by killing cells that grow and divide quickly, which includes cancer cells — but also many other types of fast-growing cells (which explains why hair loss is often a side effect). Among the fastest-dividing cells in the body are those in the mouth and throat, which makes sense: they're constantly being scraped away by food, so have to bounce back quickly.

You know when you drink, say, really hot soup, and you take the roof off your mouth? It feels like that, but (as I'm learning) it takes more than a day or so for the cells to recover.

And one of the main challenges is dryness. I'm now carrying a water bottle everywhere, and waking several times a night, painfully parched, to chug from it.

So what's a girl to eat?

At the beginning of treatment, my nurse practitioner recommended stocking up on Ensure Plus. We dutifully picked up a six-pack of Creamy Milk Chocolate flavor; my intention was that it would be for emergencies only. Because, really, have you seen the ingredients?



Here's what Wikipedia says about some of those ingredients:

Choline chloride "is mass produced and is an important additive in feed especially for chicken where it accelerates growth."

Sodium molybdate "is used in industry for corrosion inhibition ... It will explode on contact with molten magnesium. It will violently react with interhalogens (e.g., bromine pentafluoride; chlorine trifluoride). Its reaction with hot sodium, potassium or lithium is incandescent."

Potassium iodide "is a precursor to silver iodide (AgI) an important chemical in photography. KI is a component in some disinfectants and hair treatment chemicals."

Mmm. Something my body needs anyway.

But at this point, attempting to eat pretty much anything else was an ordeal. The leftover bean-and-kale soup that had been delicious on Monday night now felt like gravel, even after I whizzed it in the blender. Yogurt was better (especially frozen), but required some amount of tonguework, which I was not up to.

Okay, Ensure. You win.

But even in my debilitated state, I couldn't just chug it from the bottle. That is not how I roll. So I stepped it up.







Okay, it's not terrible. Sweeter than I would prefer, with an odd, chalky aftertaste; it's not something I would seek out for its taste sensation, but if you have to keep calories up somehow, there are worse things. Apparently it comes in other flavors, Strawberries & Cream and Butter Pecan (eww!) among them; I don't have an urge to experiment. Yet.

The worst of the discomfort lasted about two days; by Friday I was here:



(That's white and sweet pureed potato topped with Heinz baked beans and cheese)

And by Saturday lunch I was here:



(That's strawberry shortcake and tiramisu from Modern Pastry, thanks to Lovely Co-Worker Sarah).

This week, dessert comes first

I don't often write about food events, but this week I'm making an exception for something that is meaningful to me both personally and professionally.

May 3-9 is Boston Bakes for Breast Cancer, in which restaurants across Massachusetts offer a special dessert (that's the personal interest) to benefit cancer care and research at Dana-Farber (that's the professional one).

It's a huge amount of work to pull together; I've been following organizer Carol Sneider on Twitter for some time (@Boston_Bakes), watching as she works with restaurants and bakeries from across the state, bringing more of them on board. This year, more than 200 restos are involved. Here's the complete list.

Today, I got a sneak preview of what's in store, with a sample of an insanely good pineapple sundae cake from Mediterranean restaurant in Oak Bluffs on the Vineyard.



The top is a dense pineapple jelly, and underneath are layers of tropical trifle: meringue, cream, and fresh pineapple.



I wish I had photos of more desserts (because that would mean I'd eeted them all). Luckily, the Boston Bakes website has a slideshow. I'm particularly intrigued by Clink's baba au rhum (#12).

If you're planning to eat out at any point over the next week, it's okay to think about what you want for dessert first.

Afternoon tea at the Taj

Time to burst a few bubbles.

When the English talk of "tea," they mean the hot beverage whose consumption follows any activity of moderate exertion.

(Where I grew up, tea was also the evening meal. Dinner was what you ate at noon.)

Hardly ever, though, does tea involve tiny sandwiches and clotted cream and daintycakes. This is a still-vivid misapprehension about life in England: that everyone stops work at 4 p.m. for a pot of tea and some delicate snacks.

In fact, most people are too busy for anything more than a quick cuppa and a couple of HobNobs.

So when we went to the Taj in Boston for afternoon tea to celebrate my birthday, it was as much of a novelty for me as for anyone else.

There were teeny-tiny open-face sandwiches with egg salad and prosciutto-melon:



Smoked salmon dolloped with chived cream cheese and caviar, and little lobster choux puffs:



And cucumber sandwiches, built from translucent layers of refreshing green crunchiness:



And then came dessert: scones with clotted cream and lemon curd,



Macaroons, opera cake, financier, and a lemon tart finished with gold leaf,



and a horribly out-of-season strawberry dipped in dark chocolate.



Oh, and there was tea, loose-leaf, served in individual pots that sat on handy warming plates. That too was a novelty; where I come from, you keep your tea warm with a tea-cozy.

Happy birthday, Jean!

When I first came to the US and wasn't able to work, I started volunteering in an elementary school library (and herewith, a quick plug for the fabulous Cambridge School Volunteers).

Jean was the school librarian, and we got along really well. Getting to hang out with her was part of the reason I stayed in the same school for seven years, until I had a green card and a degree and had to find paying work.

We've been friends ever since — 16 years so far — and get together when we can for lunch, shopping, movies.

Yesterday was Jean's birthday. Her daughter Alex and friend Mary had sneakily arranged a surprise dinner for family and friends, and The Boy and I were invited.

It was a very Italian evening; not only were half the guests born in Italy, but the menu was inspired by Mario and Lidia.

We began with marinated zucchini:



Amazingly tender stuffed cuttlefish with pine nuts and raisins:



And scallops gratinate with butter, lemon and sage:



Those, mind you, were just the appetizers. While we stood in the kitchen, chatting and nibbling and sipping prosecco, Mary casually threw together the main course, cavatappi affumicati.



We moved into the dining room, where the table was set with lead crystal and yellow roses and wine in carafes (y'know, rather than just plunking the bottle on the table as we do).



Oh, and place-cards.



Then there was a vibrant anise-citrus salad with honey-poppyseed dressing:



And homemade biscotti with almonds, brown sugar, cinnamon and cloves, which were good by themselves but positively danced with the Vin Santo.

And then the birthday cake: a zuppe inglese.



Think light, fluffy layers of sponge cake sandwiching chocolate and vanilla pastry cream. Assume the involvement of, oh, a dozen eggs.



It was a lovely evening, and we felt privileged to be a part of it. Thanks, Mary — and happy birthday, Jean!

The curd tart disappears

If you grew up in the north of England, your mum (and her mum, and maybe her mum) had a Be-Ro Home Recipes book, which was the Bible for basic bakery.

My mum has used the recipes for so long that she doesn't even need the book any more. It's all in her head.

It's a great no-nonsense resource for traditional pastries and puddings: pork pie, dropped scones, bakewell tart (an almond/ground-rice cake over a jam filling), toffee pudding (first ingredient: suet. Don't start), and the ultimate Christmas cake.

I have two: the 38th and 40th editions. Neither has a publication date. Only one has a barcode.




Check the not-very-PC photo of the woman passing on womanly skills to the girl while the boy looks on with satisfaction.



"I will make an obedient helpmeet!"

Anyway, back to the point.

For Easter, I decided to dip into the book and make something I hadn't eaten since I was a kid: curd tart. It's a very simple cheesecake variation; though the traditional method uses curd (which not even WholeFoods carries), it's often made with cottage cheese.

Stop going "Ewwww!" Just be patient.

Curd tart recipe
6oz short pastry

1 cup cottage cheese
4 tablespoons sugar
4 tablespoons currants
1 egg
1.5oz butter, melted
cinnamon and nutmeg
(I also added a little lemon zest)

Line a shallow dish with the pastry. Mix all other ingredients together. Bake at 425F for 15-20 minutes.





It's not dense like cheesecake; it's more like a ricotta dessert, with just enough of the nutmeg/raisin/creamy combination to feel traditionally English without it freaking anyone out. No lard here.

I noticed, though, that the curd tart recipe was in the 38th ed. of the book, but not in the most recent one. Pineapple upside-down cake was also missing (replaced by upside-down peach and butterscotch pudding—eww!). As was the toffee pudding and the malted fruit loaf.

Replacing them were a coconut lime loaf, a "monster-faced pizza" and the dubiously named Sticky Blobs.

It's not often I shed a tear for the passing of tradition. And I understand food trends shift and change. Still, I'm sad that recipes I grew up with are archived in favor of exotic flavor combinations and fun foods for kids. They're not even on the Be-Ro website's recipe list.

My 38th edition lost its staples a while ago; the cover is spotted with dry dough and the pages are stained and warped. But I'll hang on to it for as long as it's legible.

Like a disappointing blind cake date

Last year, I wrote about a project dedicated to revealing the differences between depictions of food on packaging and the goopy, suspicious reality hidden within.

Recently, I was ... well, perhaps fortunate isn't the right word. Point is, I was given a box of this:



Looks good, right? Here, get closer:



And now let's open the box.



In honor of the original German project, I attempted to recreate the photo on the packaging. But because I didn't have any raspberries, I substituted the packet of OxyFree 504 oxygen absorber (catchy tagline: "Do not eat!") that was stuck to the cake.

Now, I know no one is going to buy something if the photos make it look flattened and burned. But I'm certainly not going to turn to the Ya-Hoo! Baking Company the next time I need to order baked goods. Sure, their cheesecake looks deep and delicious, but is that the reality? How much makeup is it wearing?

Misleading photos are no better in food marketing than in online dating. If you're trying to attract someone with the promise of sweet deliciousness, you'd better be able to deliver. Otherwise there's no second date.

Oh, and did we eat the cake?

What do you think?