Shaped Cakes, or, Obsession Breeds Specificity

A few years ago, I was looking to use up my pretty but aimless supply of origami paper by turning it into greeting cards. I went online to look for a pretty "Happy Birthday" rubber stamp and accidentally stumbled into the Rubber Stamp Subculture, the general feel of which (from my admittedly only cursory toe-dipping) can be summed up well by the name and logo for one of the stamping sites:

I was a little freaked out by it. I just couldn't imagine living a life where I needed to spend $8.30 for a stamp that says "Housework can't kill you...but why take the chance?" How many times could I possibly need to express that sentiment to a) need a rubber stamp to do it for me and b) make the ROI worth it?

But, of course, every subculture can look batshit crazy to an outsider. That's what makes them so adorable/scary.

The more time you spend thinking about one subject, the more specific you have to get about it. You can't be vaguely obsessed or generally obsessed, the mind just doesn't work like that. It's inevitable that if you spend a big part of your waking days thinking about one certain thing, you're going to get very very detailed about it in a way that is baffling to an outsider or a more casual participant.

So I should not have been surprised this past Sunday morning, as I idly shopped for a mini-bundt pan whilst sipping my morning coffee, when I stumbled onto the hints of a baking subculture that I might be eventually joining: the shaped cake community.

There are some obvious ones (stars, flowers, basic holiday shapes). But if you keep searching you find a few highly-specific cake pans that I realize are for kid's birthday cakes but are still a little baffling in their specificity...

Trucks, footballs, ships, I can get, but tractors, stadiums and octopi? Is the market really crying out for those (at around $30/pop)? (Although I must admit there is something aesthetically satisfying about the stadium...it's a good shape for a baked good.)

Amazon gives users the cool option of uploading a picture related to its products, so users have for finished product made with some of the cake pans on offer. There were, however, no pictures of user-created cakes for those three pans. Draw your own conclusion.

And then there are the less obscure ones that nevertheless are still designed for the obsessive. Because no one who is not completely and utterly batshit for baking is going to even attempt the likely heartbreak of trying to make a 3-D Santa...

or mini-castle set.

Regarding the Santa - it's hard enough to draw the likeness of a human face with a sharp pencil, but a pastry bag? OMG, why not just kill yourself now? It'll end in tears, I tell you!

And for the mini-castle, I look at all those little details and miniature turrets and all I see is the inevitable agonizing failure of the cake breaking off or never coming out of the tiny corners in the pan.

But of course as I write this, I know the likelihood is I will someday be up at 2:00 AM trying to make some perfect cake for some event...maybe a bunch of pineapple-shaped mini-pineapple upside down cakes, since I'm on a quest to find the best one ever...

(Although I would draw the line at this pineapple Bundt cake pan.

Now that is just a bridge too far. Plus what is the point of a pineapple-shaped cake pan that would be structurally incapable of supporting a pineapple upside-down cake? You serve this at a party, you're going to have a lot of confused guests.)

To be completely honest here, I actually do already own a silicone rosebud-shaped cake mold that was an impulse buy when at a discount store. I bought it in a shopping fog about a year ago and still haven't used it. But I guess whenever I am ready to fully tumble down the slippery slope into serious crazytime baking, I am already equipped for the trip.

I could probably go on and on, but will end now with this Zen koan of a cake pan. A cake pan...shaped like a cupcake. It's a cake pan designed to look like another form of cake. I think the universe just folded onto itself.

Which part is more fascinating?

I can't decide.  Is it...

Sex-crazed adolescent oysters?

The existence of oyster herpes?

The existence of a French "oyster crisis team"?  (Which I told the Gay Husband and Heather, I sort of imagine to be like a team of Gallic Charlie's Angels in SCUBA suits, but I am revising that now to Gallic Charlie's Angels in SCUBA suits wearing the Steve Zissou knit cap.)

Here's the story on Reuters.

Overcooking

Is there a working stiff on the planet who needs this on a weeknight?

(The point at which abandoning my home and riding the rails seems like an easier option than cleaning up.)

Is there a working stiff on the planet with three jobs and no dishwasher who needs this on a weeknight?

***

As much as I love that the internet has allowed anyone and everyone to have a voice, I must admit there are things about the timbre that voice occasionally takes that get on my nerves. 
 
One in particular is where the author is ostensibly trotting out some personal foibles in order to poke fun at himself or herself.  But, in fact, the writer is actually using the guise of self-deprecation as a means to self-aggrandizement.  It's sort of "Let me tell you about this ever-so-terribly embarrassing thing I did (that really points out how precious and adorable I am)."  (Giggle, twist curl around finger coquettishly.)
 
I should find an example, but then actually calling a real person out on it just seems meaner than I want to be right now.  So maybe you will to go with me on this if it doesn't ring a bell. 
 
Anyway, point is, I realize that this blog could sometimes seem like that too.  Like my descriptions of cook-a-thons aren't really the sometimes mildly-embarrassing public admission of what is at best questionable judgment or tenuous grasp on the limits of the space-time continuum, and at worst, actual compulsions.  Rather, they are, in fact, as I have possibly not-jokingly been accused of (on my own blog!!) bragging.
 
Well, I am certainly susceptible to occasionally getting a big head about things, but most of the time my descriptions of what I'm up to are, genuinely, like notes from a science experiment and a way to process and then fix in my own mind what I learned.
 
Today, I am writing a post about a cook-a-thon that isn't to that end.  However, though this might sound like I am about to enter into "Let me tell you about this ever-so-terribly embarrassing thing I did (that really points out how precious and adorable I am)" type of anecdote, I want to clarify right now: I am actually truly irritated with myself.
 
All I wanted to do was use up the baby broccoli I bought and did not use for the Fourth of July.  That's it!  Okay, and maybe make some pesto since I also had a lot of basil left-over and I would hate to waste it.
 
I didn't mean for this to happen:

(THREE bowls.  THREE.  Not 1 million.)

I couldn't just make the pesto (and freeze it for later), I had to make a pasta salad.  And I couldn't just make a PASTA salad, I had to once again make a whole batch of lentils to go into it for some added protein.
 
And I couldn't just make one big stir-fry and use up the baby broccoli that way.  I had to split it into two dishes, and see how well it worked instead of broccoli rabe in the Broccoli Rabe with Bulgur and Walnuts.
 
Just to clarify:

• Stir-fry – vegetable chopping, rice cooking, wok-usage (which generally involves longer clean-up for me because it isn't really seasoned that well)
• Pasta Salad with Lentils and Pesto – How many components is that that require completely separate preparation AND their own cooking/prep vessel? 
• Baby Broccoli with Bulgur and Walnuts – Again, the bulgur is prepared, then the broccoli is steamed and only then are all the components brought together IN YET ANOTHER PAN.

As though this wasn't bad enough…I still had some Greek God yogurt and two limes that were on their way out so heck WHY NOT ALSO MAKE A SCALED-DOWN LOW-SUGAR BATCH OF THAT SHERBET?
 
Who does this?
 
I'm not saying I didn't enjoy the cooking while I was doing it.  I was happily in the Zone of No-Thought for about three solid hours. But I really had better things to be doing with the evening and at the end of that three hours, I had an entire kitchen of dishes that needed to be washed.

I guess if I want to find the positive in this, I could say it is yet more evidence for the new Universal Lesson that I keep getting on my soapbox about with all my friends.  My selection for This Month's Universal Lesson is: if you are a stimulation junkie/ADD-case/creative type, you better think of your brain as a very energetic puppy.  You can either give it structure and appropriate toys or you can expect it will start chewing your Laboutins and peeing on your suit when you are already late for work.
 
I need the Dog Whisperer for the creative side of my brain.  And, I suppose, it would be better if I took it for a little walk every day instead of saving it all up for a big visit to the dog park once a week.
 
Luckily, for once when I run smack dab into my own frustrating tendencies, I actually have the happy reassurance that I have already taken action to do something about them. I have made three big moves over the past couple of weeks to start giving myself the space for just that kind of regular creative and physical activity to serve as an outlet for my brain's rambunctious energy.  

And, once I'm done being irritated with myself, I can see that the evening wasn't entirely without its culinary merits.  For one, I did now have several days worth of meals out of the way.

For another, I was able to make all three of the main dishes entirely with things I had on hand; I didn't have to go to the store for anything.  And I pretty much just threw everything together on the spot, only referring to the Bulgur recipe because I like the end result so much just as is.

(Clockwise from left: Pasta Salad with Black Lentils, Pesto & Sun-Dried Tomatoes; Baby Broccoli with Bulgur and Walnuts and Baby Broccoli and Shiitake Stir-Fry.  Not pictured: three hours of my life that I needed to spend on other things.)

On Chow.com when you create a profile, they have you answer some standard getting-to-know-you type of questions.  My answer, from probably about December of last year, to the fill in the blank of "I really wish I could…" was "Cook without thinking so hard."  It's nice to see I am making some real progress with that.  Now if I could just exercise some judgment about WHEN I am cooking without thinking so hard, that would be awesome.

Fast, Junk and Questionable Food News

On an endorphin rush from tonights installment of the 30-Day Shred, I blasted through 800+ items in my previously-neglected food blog reader.  Here are the highlights of the news related to food you probably shouldn't eat but probably sometimes want to.

Chow has a list of 10 frozen drinks for summer, and, actually, most of them are really probably not fast, junk or questionable.  But I was DEVASTATED to learn that Mr. Misty frozen drinks have been renamed Arctic Rush, which sounds to me more like some kind of mentholated deodorant body wash aimed at men aged 18-34.  This wasn't even apparently its first renaming, which means I am very out of touch with the goings-on at Dairy Queen.

Also on Chow - Burger King now has a $200 burger. Proceeds defensively and pre-emptively going to charity.

The SuperTaster (James Norton) on Chow taste-tests, well, questionable food.  This entry is on "shelf-stable ice cream floats" in a bottle.  As he notes, the product was plainly inevitable:

If there’s one thing that parents dread with the coming of each and every summer, it’s the incredible challenge of making root beer or orange soda floats for the kids. We’ve all been there: First, you have to buy vanilla ice cream. Then you have to buy soda. But, wait, there’s more: You have to put a scoop of ice cream into the soda. It’s crazy, right? And who’s going to clean the spoon?

And rounding out the Chow update, here's a brief one, but a caution!  Think carefully before you click on the link in this Chow post.  It takes you to a picture of French fry-coated bacon on a stick.  NSFA (Not Safe For Anyone)

Do you need your bacon portable, but are afraid that French fries simply won't be adequate protection?  Slog has a picture of bacon in a can.  Rolled in its own paper towels.

Epicurious has news of the temporary Hydrox comeback, and a Hydrox cookie contest.  Is it uncool to admit that you sort of like Hydrox better?  I've never really admitted it to myself, but I'll say it now.  That's right: I like Hydrox better than Oreo cookies.  They are crisper.  You don't know what you got 'til it's gone and then temporarily brought back.

Potentially winning the Most Questionable award for this entry, Lego Fun Snacks (gummy fruit snacks shaped like childhood toy and choking hazard Lego blocks) are featured on Accidental Hedonist, who predicts, "Next up for Kellog's - fruit roll-ups recreated to look like shards of glass."

You can add Pringles can designer Fred Baur to the growing list of fast and questionable food notables who passed away recently but whose relatively long life spans belie the idea that the foods are questionable at all.  Of course, we don't know how many Pringles Mr. Baur actually ate in one day, but he was proud enough of his can design enough to have a portion of his ashes buried in a Pringles container.  Which I find oddly touching.

Recipe Results: Passover Lemon Cheesecake

So I am a little late with following up with the results for the Passover Lemon Cheesecake I made from my friend Sarah's Seder last week.  While it had a lot to compete with...

...I think it turned out pretty well and that people were happy with it.  I think it was the first cheesecake I've ever made, or if I have made one before, I've obviously lost track of it.  The almond/matzo crust was delicious, and the filling was a solidly tasty cheesecake fillilng.  As I mentioned earlier, I doubled the zest and added a splash of lemon extract, and I am glad I did; I don't know if the cake would have tasted discernibly lemon without it.

The table is groaning under the weight of all that dessert, as you can imagine.  In addition to the cheesecake, Sarah's friend Tonya also brought a flourless chocolate cake and a special chocolate-matzo layer cake that is a recipe handed down from her mom.  Sarah also set out a chocolate Seder plate, which was cute, but nowhere as pretty as her real Seder plate.

Our friend and fellow book clubber Robin led the Seder, which was shorter, I gather, than most, but still special.  Much of the group has been celebrating together for several years, and one of their traditions is to have everyone say something that they would like to be free of in the next year.  It was touching to see how honest and open people were, even those, like Sarah's partner's older parents, who were experiencing this for the first time. Answers ran the gamut from the light-hearted (procrastination, a George Bush presidency) to the abstract (imbalance) to the very personal (self-doubt, needless suffering). 

Another book clubber, Shauna, and her fiance Brennan had tracked down a couple of funny Passover props - bags of plagues.  One bag had masks designed to represent each plague (darkness was a black mask, with little slits for the eyes, that was shaped like a cloud blocking a little orange sun peeking out the corner; boils, was, as you might imagine, a plain mask with red and pink polka dots - the first choice of the three-year-old girl in attendance).  The other had gag-type gifts, a squirting frog, a plastic cow with a disturbingly melted face.  It also had two little foam balls that represented hail.  However, we actually didn't need the prop; we happened to have hail that very day.

Driving over to Sarah's in the early part of the day, with the cool weather and happy anticipation of a festive event, it felt like driving to a Thxgiving or Xmas dinner, a feeling I normally don't have the chance to experience in mid-April.  The day was a good reminder of an extra bonus to having friendships with people of different backgrounds, religions, etc: more holidays to celebrate, more new food to try.

Recipe Results: Tom Douglas' Pan-Roasted Halibut with Toasted Breadcrumb Salad and Green Lentils

I was chatting with one of the cooking shop class assistants the other day as we tidied up after class, and she mentioned a cookbook from one of our local Seattle top-rated restaurants.  She said that the food was very delicious, but that many of the recipes were multi-component-oriented and complicated so she didn’t cook from it that often.

This statement was one of those innocently-delivered comments that nevertheless set off a nanosecond long maelstrom of intense thoughts.  This was the gist of it:

• Oh!  That’s a good idea, I thought, look for recipes that are simple and not complex.
• Wait.  I’ve totally had this conversation with myself before.
• Why don’t I ever remember to do this?  See how bright this person is, all careful in her recipe selection.  Why can’t I be like that?!  I’m so dumb sometimes!
• A visual memory of a short-and-sweet basic recipe from my favorite teacher drifted into mental view.  It’s dish that I loved when he made it in class.
• My immediate reaction to the idea of this short recipe was lack of enthusiasm, despite how much I liked the dish.
• I realized that my emotional reaction to completing a short and simple recipe is the same satisfaction I would get if I jogged around the block.
• I realized my emotional reaction to completing a punishingly long recipe is akin to the euphoric high you get after a particularly grueling workout.
• I remembered why I rarely pick short recipes and returned my attention to the conversation.

This is not to impugn the short recipe.  After all, if you have skillz, you don’t need a lot of ingredients or steps to make something amazing.

I don’t have skillz, though. 

So I gravitate towards the complex. 

Or maybe it’s because of the ADD, as counterintuitive as that might be.   It’s like how can’t ever read short stories, I bounce around too much and can’t relax my brain enough to pay attention.  But the long form of a novel seems to click me into deep focus and I have that lovely floaty feeling of loss of self (aka “being in the zone”) that you get from being really deeply engaged in the present moment of any activity.  The exact same state I enter in, oh, say, the third or fourth hour of a cookathon.

That big preamble is all to say that even I, though, have my limits, and Seattle food guru Tom Douglas just about reached them with his recipe for Pan-Roasted Halibut with Toasted Breadcrumb Salad and Green Lentils.

The title alone has too many words.  And it’s actually four components: there’s a Lemon Vinaigrette that’s used that’s not mentioned in that novella of a name. 

(You don't know the half of it.)

But if you think that’s as complex as it gets, you’d be wrong!

Because I also had to make stock in order to make the lentils. AND I had to make breadcrumbs to make the breadcrumb salad.  AND both the breadcrumb salad and the lentils are a two-step cooking process, where the main ingredient is cooked solo and then processed again with flavoring agents.  

(Approaching hour four)

In the recipe’s defense, I will say that other than the chopping of all the 1.2 million different ingredients, it was time-consuming , but due to a lot of unattended cooking time, not necessarily super labor-intensive. I realize this statement, coming from me, after reading the above preamble, is pretty meaningless.  Basically, although about four and a half hours elapsed between the time I started cooking and the time I actually sat down to eat, I didn’t feel completely exhausted and annoyed by the process. 

And I did choose to make two-step roasted vegetable stock and breadcrumbs from scratch on the day of cooking.  If either had been prepared prior, it would have cut down on the time considerably.  If you made a double-batch of lentils the first time, you could freeze them for another serving later, which would also make this dish a heck of a lot easier to serve on something other than a special occasion.

(Finished Breadcrumb Salad)

And you would want to because despite all the effort…this shit is delicious.  DEEEEE-licious.  There’s a reason why there are 1.2 million ingredients and 25 steps and four components in this dish.  Every component was tasty on its own.  I might take the lentil recipe and use it just for making plain old lentils for salads, etc.

(Finished Lentils)

And when you put them together, each complemented the other without any one asserting itself too strongly.  The crispiness of the breadcrumbs, the brightness of the parsley, the tang of the lemon vinaigrette, the seared smoky outside of the halibut, the tenderness of the inside, and the mellow earthy and herby lentils…it all worked together brilliantly.

(Yes, once again highly staged but this meal earned it)

I am fascinated by chefs for many reasons, but the ones who really get me going are those who seem to have something that really feels akin to magic, where you might know every ingredient in the dish, but when you taste it, it’s that mysterious alchemy of creativity where 1+1=3.  I’ve loved almost everything I’ve ever eaten at a Tom Douglas restaurant, and although I’ve only so far made two of his recipes at home (although I think this one counts as about seven), it’s pretty cool when you can achieve that alchemy yourself just by following some instructions.

But I’m not posting the recipe, mainly because lord.  This is long enough already.  It would take up the rest of this blog.  It’s in Tom Douglas' Seattle Kitchen.  If you have a spare weekend sometime and want to make it, email me.

Giving it 5-star Holy Crap rating for taste, but just with the caveat that you better be ready to log some serious kitchen time if you want to make it all from scratch..

Update on Sunday, March 29, 2009 at 01:31PM by Leslie Seaton

Looking for the recipe?  I see you Googlers!  Mr. Tom Douglas himself has now posted it.

Beauty and the Beets

I could neither resist taking a highly-staged photograph...

 

...nor then using that stupid pun for a title.

So they are here.

THEY ARE IN MY HOUSE.

Baby Jesus in the manger: are beets SUPPOSED to be that big?  I feel exhausted and overwhelmed.

I have found a few recipes I plan to try this week, but luckily, today David Lebovitz posted on on a subject near and dear to my heart today and one of his readers, Laura, left a comment that pointed me in the direction of this, which one could consider like an emergency exit from Beetsville.