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Dinner on the L train to Brooklyn - wow!

NY Times Article on Sugar is Toxic

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Hi Elise,
OK, the NYTimes Magazine published an article called Is Sugar Toxic. And we agreed not to read it. But then The Ethicist was inane (actually the ethicist said that something very similar to something I had done, was, in fact unethical) and Frank Rich is no more and the sugar article was #1 on the list of Most-E-Mailed Articles so I started to peruse it. Apparently sugar, in sufficient quantities, is toxic and I had to read the entire article to determine just what the sufficient quantity is, or really, what the insufficient quantity is. I want to know the maximum amount of sugar I can consume that will still be insufficiently toxic.
The writer doesn't say. More research is apparently needed. At one point, he says that health experts would be thrilled if we all returned to the good old level of 40 lbs a year. Sounds like plenty, right? Pass me those mini-eggs. Actually, 40 lbs a year is only 200 calories a day. That doesn't sound like very much. I guess I'll only have 2 mini-eggs.

If I'm going to limit myself to 200 calories a day, well, I'm going to need to ease into this, start slow, cut back over time. And I'm going to have to figure out how many sugar calories are in everything I eat. That chocolate cake for instance, how many of the calories come from fat? I would have to look at the recipe, do some math, how many tablespoons in a cup, how many cups of sugar in the cake? In the frosting? Then divide that number by the number of pieces I'll eat in one day. And what if I want to have just a sliver before bed, two bites in the morning. That's a lot of math. Then I would have to do that for everything I baked. And if there were chocolate chips in the cookie, that would require research (how many sugar calories in a chocolate chip ? In 3 oz. of bittersweet chocolate? I guess I could start baking exclusively with unsweetened chocolate) and even more math. I'm going to need a few more mini-eggs before I get started.

Chocolate Cake

Amos: don't you want to document it before I cut it?
Elise: no, it's just a chocolate cake.

Actually, no. This is cake nirvana. Cake bliss. Cake ecstasy. Cake heaven. Cake ambrosia. Cake luxury. Cake silk. Cake cashmere. Cake vicuna.

This is cake that makes you wish you had a hole in your stomach so you could just keep putting more and more in without getting full. But cake that is so amazingly good that you don't want to eat more than one piece because you don't want to spoil the perfect memory of it. Cake that makes you think dark thoughts about your husband when he walks anywhere near the side of the kitchen where it is. Cake that makes the newly gluten-free masses curse their mothers and throw their better selves overboard as they reach for a forkful, just another forkful.

Cake: Rosie's Famous Sour Cream Cake Layers from Rosie's All Butter, Fresh Cream, etc, etc

Frosting: one of the ones from the white Silver Palate - chocolate chips, butter, heavy cream and powdered sugar. I made two batches and used the leftover to make fudge.

Feeling Blue

I bought blue potatoes at the farmers market last week. The potato seller has a bushy dark beard, a big smile and a rainbow colored hand knit hat. He always recognizes me and we chat about the 17 different kinds of potatoes he grows and what each is best for. When I steamed a variety that he had said was best for frying  he said, well duh. I never did take direction well, as you know. 

The blue potatoes perhaps shouldn't have been mashed but I couldn't resist. They looked weird but tasted great. 

Remember this?

 Sure wish I had some now...

Cooking By Latitude

Hi Elise,
I was visiting Mom and she had made a yummy chicken curry for dinner and I wanted to bake a cake. We got on the topic of banana cakes and I've made one before, 3 layers with cream cheese frosting. Banana cake sort of seems to go with curry. We are at the same latitude anyway. But Mom only has one cake pan. One nine inch round pan. She doesn't even have a spring form. (do you think we are adopted?) So I searched around a little, (she does have an excellent cookbook collection) and found a recipe for banana upside down cake. I like fried bananas and I love bananas foster, so it seemed like this could be a good thing. To be on the safe side, we'd serve it with whipped cream.
You probably already realized this would be nasty. You probably thought that as soon as I mentioned banana upside down cake. The whipped cream made it edible, but it was just one dimensionally sweet, no nuance, no subtly, no surprises. I even added orange zest to the batter, which made it taste like a banana upside down cake with some orange zest stirred in.
There are two things to do in a situation like this. One is to just leave it on the counter and let Mom throw it out once I've gone home. The other is to just leave it on the counter and let Mom throw it out once I've gone home and then think about what went wrong and how it could be improved. Some possible improvements
-better bananas, these were a little firm and dry
-some spices
-serve with ice cream
-serve with butterscotch sauce
-make the cake with apples
-make a coconut cream pie, still within the correct latitude

The chicken curry was really excellent. And now I know what to give Mom for her birthday. Although then I would probably get gardening tools when my birthday rolled around.
Love, Margaret

Dinner