Go Niners!

pavement, cake

Yesterday I was downstairs reading and I heard Mark shouting at the TV. I  came up and he said, "The 49ers beat the Falcons." I said, "So they won the Super Bowl!" Ha ha ha, except I wasn't joking. I know about as much about sports as he knows about Texas sheet cake. And yet somehow it works.

Such great and interesting comments on the last few posts I'm going to address some of them here.

1. A commenter and now a friend have asked whether The Homesick Texan is a reasonable book for vegetarians and the short answer is, not really. You'd be stuck cooking around the edges of the book. There are some cheese dishes and one enchilada recipe featuring mushrooms, ricotta, and spinach (although it also calls for chicken broth.) It's a pretty meaty book.

2. I can't wrap my head around this vegetable oil pie crust. Why aren't we all using this recipe all the time? Is it because of the unappealing words "vegetable oil?" That seems possible. Anyway, I just mixed up another batch, this time adding sugar, and the oily doughball is resting in the refrigerator prior to being employed in Lisa Fain's grandmother's chocolate pie, which is Fain's favorite dessert. Tonight.

Also, I pulled out my copy of Cooking for Mr. Latte by Amanda Hesser on the recommendation of witloof, because it contains a similar v******** o** tart dough.  As soon as apricots come in season, I'm making this tart. Flipping the pages I remembered how much I loved this book when I acquired it back in 2003. For about 6 months the only salad I made was Hesser's refreshing romaine, arugula, and dill chopped salad. Meanwhile, my friend Amy became fixated on the walnut cake.  Every time we went to her house, there would be the walnut cake. She fed it to her kids for breakfast. Once we went over and she couldn't get it out of the pan so she scooped it out in ragged chunks and served it with whipped cream and it was delicious. I think of it as Amy's cake and always will.

3. I have enjoyed having a big pot of chili around. Friday night Mark went to a basketball game, Isabel went to babysit, and I heated up leftover chili and Owen and I ate in front of the TV. We watched Queen of Versailles. I won't say much about this bizarre and improbably moving documentary because A.O. Scott already said it all better than I ever could. In fact, all I will say is that you should see it. Chili and Queen of Versailles. They kind of go together. A perfect Friday night.

4. The best fish tacos I've ever eaten were at Tacos Baja Ensenada in Los Angeles. They had crunch (unhealthy coating on deep-fried fish?) and a creamy, mayonnaise-like sauce. Crunch and creamy mayonnaise are now my personal preferences in fish tacos. The Homesick Texan's fish tacos, which I made the other night, satisfy with the creamy sauce, but aren't crunchy enough. You marinate tilapia (or cod) in a chile paste, quickly saute, and fold in tortillas with cole slaw. If you want to see a picture, they are on the cover of her book. They were good, just not my ideal.

5. Yesterday morning I made her pecan coffee cake (Mickey cake).

deck railing, cake

It's a very standard streusel coffee cake baked in a cast-iron skillet, fluffy and delicious. Her mother called coffee cake "Mickey cake," an allusion to Maurice Sendak's phenomenally creepy In the Night Kitchen, which Fain loved as a child. Fain: "I'm pretty sure In the Night Kitchen influenced not only my desire to live in New York City but also my love of cooking. A most significant coffee cake indeed!"

6. Yesterday afternoon, I baked her Texas sheet cake and even as I was mixing it knew I wasn't going to like it because it contains one of my least favorite combinations of flavors: chocolate and cinnamon. Strictly a matter of taste. I took the cake to my sister's house for Sunday dinner and the others scarfed it up with enthusiasm, so if you like chocolate and cinnamon, give the cake a shot. Recipe here. I prefer the Pioneer Woman's chocolate sheet cake, which is almost identical, minus offensive cinnamon.

7. Finally, before we got to the cake, my sister served a stupendous kale and brussels sprout salad. I ate fourths even as Mark was muttering, "brussels sprouts are not a human food." Like I said, somehow it works! The recipe for the salad is here.