Wine(cake)&(cream)Cheese(icing) Party!

One boring day in the fall of last year I was reading my faaaaavorite (only) blog, Jezebel, and came across a contributor’s go-to cake for parties and such. I thought, “Man! Wine AND cake!? together?!” And made a point to try it the next time I had access to a bundt pan. As it turned out, I brought it to my first Christmas away from home at my brother’s fiancee’s family’s house, and it went pretty well, seeing as the only thing I knew about these people at the time was that they liked wine.

This cake is very easy to make, and comes out consistently nice. It is very sweet and works well after dinner with about any sweet wine alongside it. Here is my version of the recipe:

Ingredients:

Any yellow cake mix you prefer

1 Large box instant vanilla pudding

3/4 cup Cream Sherry of your choice

5 eggs (I know, shocking!)

1 cup oil

I usually mix it all together in no particular order, and sboom! A bright yellow batter appears. Your oven should be at 350°F and your bundt pan should be buttered & floured. The cake expands by 200% in 50 minutes, and I usually find that’s just enough time.

Here’s the fun part: as soon as the cake comes out of the oven, you should begin poking it a ton on top (which will be the bottom, of course) with a toothpick, and proceed to pour a slightly-opaque mixture of 1/2 cup Sherry and powdered sugar directly into the cake. Don’t worry, it all goes in and stays there. You should expect this cake to be extremely moist for a number of reasons: pudding, eggs, and liquor
Now. The original recipe for this cake comes with instructions for a Sherry wine & powdered sugar glaze, and normally you’re supposed to let the first round of sugary wine soak in, then do the same pokey exercise on the top, but my advice is not to bother. Instead, I recommend you screw the wine glaze for the top. The Sherry flavor is alllll up in there already. There’s enough, I promise. What you really want is a little contrast: cream cheese icing. yes.

I could not contain my excitement upon coming up with this idea, and needed to try it immediately. The change from wine glaze to cream cheese frosting or icing is just perfect. There’s the ridiculous sweetness, reigned in with a nice creamy, cheesy, not to mention much prettier, topping.

Use your favorite cream cheese frosting, as long as it isn’t from a jar.  I used a random recipe from the internet that was a little loose and not quite stiff enough, plus I forgot I was considering adding this new Vietnamese cinnamon my mom just got. I’ll let you know next year how it goes when I finally try it!

Oh, and every time I go out to buy the ingredients for this cake, I end up thinking about the possibilities for a chocolate version, or any other version, really. Chocolate pudding, Devil’s Food cake, and coffee liquor, anyone??

Free Crabs!! tomorrow.

This evening my parents and I went to Joe’s Crab Shack in Station Square, Pittsburgh, where there’s a huge hilarious sign out front that says, “FREE CRABS ….. Tomorrow!” The strange part (also known as a mindfu*#) was that we saw a kitchy sign at a local six pack shop after that said, “Free Beer!!!…  Tomorrow!”  Basically, I love coincidences.

And now for the food. Overall, I was very pleased getting crabs tonight (haha, how many more can I squeeze in here… HAHAHA HOW MANY!?!?!). I felt fortunate that my parents taught me to crack crabs at a young age, because now it isn’t as upsetting and disgusting as it could be for a person who now recognizes all the muscles, crustacean-y bones and joints and all that good stuff. Luckily, I suspended my disgust at dismembering a poor captured crawler, and pinched all those pokey limbs with my bare hands.

So, apparently when you go to Joe’s for crabs, you get this wonderful unique display before you called a “Crab in a Bucket.” I loved that I got a big, perfectly cooked, ear of corn, two not-over-boiled red potatoes (maybe there could have been three, and my mom mentioned there could have been a roll somewhere on her plate), and two halves of a sexy-steamed Dungeness crab, all thrown haphazardly inside a fishing net in a silver bucket. This was my first time eating Dungeness, and I have to say, though the Snow crab has a sweeter flavor… lots more meat, and a more satisfying crack-open comes from the Dungeness. Thumbs up all around, even to the surprising purpley-red meat which surprised me. I thought all hard-shell crabs would be that lovely bright red and white, but no.

The other thing you get to do at Joe’s, is choose among 6 different preparations for your Crab in a Bucket, which were: Joe’s Famous Dry Rubbed BBQ, Chesapeake Style, Garlic Herb, Spicy Boil, Simply Steamed, and Fire-Grilled. I debated between Joe’s Famous and the interesting, smokey Fire-Grilled flavor and opted for the latter. Surprisingly good because I thought it risked to be too salty to taste the crab meat, but not at all. Very good complement to the Dungeness who held her own just fine.

This flavoring also covered the corn & potatoes, which leads me to discuss my genius father. Being the daddy-o he is, obviously he went one step above us and ordered what is called a “Steam Pot” of which there are 6 varieties that take on themes like Orleans, Long Island, Bean Town, and Old Bay. My dad chose the spicy Cajun, his taste exactly. The good news is that he wasn’t disappointed at all in the spice level (trust me, he’s a tough man to make sweat with spiciness), and said it was exactly what he expected. Dad’s Cajun Steam Pot came with several shrimp, a sausage with a deep Andouille flavor, another set of corn and potatoes, and of course, lots o’ crab. Here’s the kicker. Toward the end, what a spice lover he is, Dad shaved his corn down into the bottom of his “pot,” shelled his shrimp, sliced his sausage, and even extracted the last of his crab for the purpose of making sure he got all the flavor together in his last pile of food. At first glance it seemed as though he’d made a jambalaya or paella without the rice. Very clever, Dad. And since I’m pretty sure he wants to make his own, I say this woman sounds discerning enough. Good luck.

And of course, we must briefly discuss the downsides of the dining experience. I’d say it’s more common than not to encounter over-priced drinks at seafood restaurants, and this was no exception. If it weren’t for the mason jar I got to keep, my strawberry rumonade would have been almost completely disappointing. It was too sweet, too small, and obviously there wasn’t enough rum for an $8 drink. Mom’s version had the lovely sweet tea flavored vodka, which was a good choice because at least you know you’re in for a sugar rush. My only other complaint is minor: I like dining outside when it’s warm enough and not too breezy, and especially when you have a nice view of a Pittsburgh river and children playing in the fountains, but unfortunately food like crabs attracts flies. I had to bat them away several times during my meal. But that’s really not Joe’s fault.

INTRODUCING MY RATING SYSTEM.

The maximum score for any restaurant is 12 Cheers.

There are 4 possible Cheers for variety and/or satisfaction level of the menu, i.e. does this restaurant provide what it’s said to provide? or do I wish I had more options? or am I overwhelmed with options that have no theme whatsoever?

There are 4 possible Cheers for the quality and overall satisfaction with the food itself. This will take into account the company with whom I am dining, and even other diners’ plates at which I get a glance. If they’re smiling and chowing down, more cheers all around.

Finally, there are 4 possible Cheers for the general experience of the restaurant. This is basically the wildcard. If I have a bad drink, the salad is lame, or if I like what the waitstaff is wearing, how my plate is presented, or if the food was sourced locally, this can all affect the experience score.

Insert drumroll here…

… and it’s 8 Cheers for Joe’s Crab Shack of Station Square, Pittsburgh, PA!

The ultimate group dish

We were sitting at a round table before or after a game of In-and-Out, an awesome card & dice game we recently invented.  Somehow we all ended up voting our all-time favorite ingredients into an imaginary dish, to see what could be made out of them. I wanted to call the combination that resulted “Dinner for Breakfast” but looking at it now, it doesn’t make that much sense. It’s pretty much just dinner. But it does a nice job rounding out influences from cities I’ve grown up in. Here is a Wisconsin Cheesesteak. Enjoy.

Adam’s ingredient: Cheddar cheese (I’m going to add the detail that it’s produced in Wisconsin)

Adam Yaari’s: Bratwurst (again, produced in Wisconsin, ideally a mixture of pork, beef, & venison)

CJ’s input: 1 egg  (ceej would say scrambled, but I say over-medium in this dish)

Sam Price loves steak (and we’re going to have it shaved like on a cheesesteak)

Alita makes a wonderful addition of sour cream, this is starting to sound great.

Peter adds fennel which caused me to search around for the various ways I could integrate it, then he changed his ingredient to the expensive fennel pollen specifically, making things even more complicated. In the end, I think I’m going to go classic, and add fennel seeds to our brat.

The next ingredient is from Doug who obviously wanted to give me a hard time: nerds.

(I used to have a picture of Snoop Dogg with a huge box of nerds here, but the image won’t stay… so nevermind. Here’s just plain Snoop eating a huge steak.)

I would probably use their delightful tangy-fruity flavor to create a lovely side beverage, because this dish is sounding nice, and nobody is going to ruin its midwestern goodness.

Finally, the ingredient I added, after looking at all those previous, and considering the fact that I have never been able to choose a favorite food EVER, was bread. I’m choosing to add a nice strong crusty Italian bread, so that you can pile on some steak, drizzle a little of this Wisconsin cheddar cheese sauce and have one bite. Then your next bite can be a slightly spicy venison bratwurst dipped in sour cream or a medium egg yolk. It’s basically a huge deconstructed sandwich that reminds me of burgers like the Double Bypass Burger at the Heart Attack Grill in Chandler, Arizona (not that I’ve been there), or this nice tall sandwich that you may remember from watching the Travel Channel, which has two grilled-cheese sandwiches for a bun. YUM.

Hello world!

… and the obligatory “I never thought I’d have a blog” comment…

Here I am. Writing a blog. I’m going to get over this immediately, starting now.

The reverse culture shock hadn’t had a chance to set in when the next opportunity for the exhilarating disorientation associated with moving… again… presented itself. I had about a week left in Italy, and found out I would be moving to San Francisco the next year because my beloved had been accepted to a master’s program. The first things I thought were: Well, they’re definitely going to have farmer’s markets there, and How will I ever afford a place without a shared kitchen?

It had been a big year for me, making ends meet on an intern’s paycheck, forcing myself to ignore the vast possibility for travel within the Schengen States, and reading menus twice and three times before deciding what to eat because the decision was such a hard one. every time. I made up for all this suffering by doing what I could with a cookbook, the internet, the groceries I could afford, and very few cooking utensils. I mean, there were two identical “steak knives” in our kitchen that served as all-purpose cutters of anything. I couldn’t commit 2-3 euros on a big knife for the 8 months because, 1) it would surely disappoint me for that price, and 2) I would inevitably need those 2-3 euros for a beer to go with my weekly soccer match. (FORZA INTER!!!!!!!)

Despite these challenges, I still managed to experiment a bit with things I had put off while living in way more disgusting conditions in the row houses of Lancaster, Pennsylvania during and after college. But we need not discuss such matters. In my little kitchen in Italy, I taught myself and practiced making breading for frying chicken, zucchini, and eggplant, and made tons of different kinds of soup, the most impressive of which is my Creamy Chicken & Lemon. I took advantage of ready-to-cook options in the butcher’s section of the Italian grocery store, and by this I mean these stores will tie a sprig of rosemary and several nice fat slabs of pancetta around your 1, 2, or 4 lb. pork roasts. I just threw one in the oven one night until the outside was crispy (and incredible) and ate the entire pound myself. Events like this remind me why it’s important to eat a little meat every day so as to avoid intense and ridiculous meat cravings.

The days of unintentional vegetarianism and poverty are over now, and it’s on to see what the other half of the homeland has to show me. I will be looking into the raw food movement, observing the affordability and availability of legitimate organic produce, and simply the general food trends as compared to those of the North East and Midwest. I may find that we Americans all do it the same way, we’re all fed by Sysco, and we’re all going to eventually become obese and cause the peninsula to separate into the ocean. I doubt it, I hope not, and I am also very optimistic about what America can do to become a healthier nation.

There’s that side of me, and then there’s the side who would eat bacon every day if I thought that was acceptable. I come from a city with a rich culture of halushki & pierogies, Pittsburgh, went to school in the land of cheese steaks, outside Philadelphia, and was born in the cheese state itself, Wisconsin. This combination of food origins is definitely on the heavy side. There have only been a few plates in my life that I have not cleared. Eating everything is what I was taught was polite, and waste is advised against. Since returning from Italy, however, I become full more easily, and pay much more attention to digestive processes. I wonder what changes will occur in me once I’m submerged in yet another, different food culture. Can’t wait. Cheers!