Thanksgiving can also have tricks and treats

Happy Thanksgiving, American compatriots! If you're looking for something to do with that extra bag of cranberries you accidentally bought, I recommend sugaring them for a pretty table setting/delicious cranberry candy 2-hit combo.



My contribution to the dessert table this year will hypothetically be this Pear Butterscotch Pie from Epicurious. "Hypothetically" because it's in the oven right now, and it's looking a lot more like one of Mrs. Lovett's pies than the thing in Gourmet's picture, and we're out of tin foil so I can't tent the edges of the crust to prevent overbrowning. [Though really, if I manage to not set it on fire I'll be doing better than I have with Thanksgiving dishes in the past. (I apparently only bust out the en fuego accidental for special holiday occasions. It's the best hostess gift ever? It's thematically warm & stressful?)] Will let you know how it turns out!


In the meanwhile, a non-caloric holiday treat: a new episode of Consumerism WOW by Adam & me! Adam picked the things we talked about this month, including but not limited to this shirt design:

Thing #5


Lauren: Your dour demeanor so frequently belies your gleeful mood that you want to reassure people that on the inside, you are super excited about everything. OR you want to trick people into thinking that you’re super excited about everything so they’ll be off their guard for the unequivocal pants-kicking that you’re about to deliver them.

Adam: Well now that you explained about the pants-kicking my success rate at fooling people is going right in the toilet! And hey, I’m not dour, Lauren! I am inscrutably magi-cranky, thank you very much.


Visit Adam's blog to discover his nefarious consumer desires and learn some Science! He sure learned me about rainbows.

kickstarter and cobbler

My musically inclined friend Juliana, who also blogs at write.play.repeat. and Bear & Honey's Clueless To-Do List, is working on 2 new albums! They're going to be seasonally themed sorts of things, which -- I tell you in case you're unaware that Juliana is an incarnate of Mama Nature via a) the 80s and b) the Internet -- is highly appropriate.


She's using the faboo Kickstarter.com to raise funds, and you should toss monies her way 'cause I really want to hear what she's working on. Erm. And for other, less monkey-serving purposes as well (I guess), like "advancing the arts" or "I want advance-release copies of the albums and/or an in-home concert for myself." You can sample and purchase her previous EP and LP on CD Baby (I particularly recommend "Rattlesnake" from How to Take the Fall), though donating 25 bux on Kickstarter will earn you both of those AND both of the new albums once she's all funded and finished. Just sayin'.


In baking news, I've been making all the cobbler lately -- cherry, blackberry, and peach in just the past two weeks. I think the peach was the most successful -- I grated a maybe 1/4 tsp of nutmeg over the peaches and added maybe 1/2 tsp of vanilla extract while they were mascerating, and yeah. Heavenly.


I've been using a bottom crust from smittenkitchen's apple tart and a biscuit topping (with hard-boiled egg yolks instead of raw!) from her rhubarb cobbler. My only advice if you try this is to prepare a LOT of fruit -- ~3 quarts of cherries, blackberries, or other things that come in quarts, or at least 10 peaches or other pieces of single-serving fruit. Just mascerate whatever fruit you're using in 1/2 to 1 cup of sugar (depending on the natural sweetness of the fruit) while your crust & biscuits are chilling, then assemble, bake, and feel like a rockstar.

congratuations, Ian and Cheri

I spent my birthday weekend in Leesburg, Virginia. A friend from DC took me out in Arlington for beer & chili samples, and then got half a restaurant worth of otherwise respectable, upstanding citizens to sing Happy Birthday to me all impromptu.

But mostly I was there to hug my family and help my li'l cousin Ian celebrate:



My brain is convinced that Ian is still a scrawny 9 year old who swings a wicked pillow. So it was strange, just a little, watching his expression melt from nervous expectation into only mildly terrified joy when he saw his bride step into the setting sunlight on the garden path that would lead her to him, to hold his hands and vow her commitment and dab away his tears when he vowed his own.





Congratulations, Ian & Cheri. May you find such joy and comfort in each other every day.

road trip & birthdays: HUGE SUCCESS

A certain dreamthrum and I road tripped down to Florida a couple weekends ago for our friends Maria and Mr. Melee's (completely rockin' karaoke booth) birthday party. Goofy pictures forthcoming -- though you can spot a couple on Maria's blog. (That was Bon Jovi's "Wanted Dead or Alive" we're singing in this photo. I really, really wish I could know what line that was picture was snapped during, 'cause it was apparently v. serious.) In the meanwhile, a few places that made the trip nearly as rockin' as a dozen mostly sober adults completely nailing The Humpty Dance:


Young Blood Gallery & Boutique, Poncey Highlands, Atlanta, Georgia
I do a lot of gift shopping for like-mindedly indie-chic geeks at Young Blood Gallery 'cause they carry pop-punky household items, art, t-shirts, jewelry, and accessories that're handmade by mostly local artists and crafters. It's a sort of the Best Of Etsy In 3 Dimensions, so my friends get one-of-a-kind gifts and I get to support rad creative people. Win all around. This time, I found a shirt for Mr. Melee featuring a giant plant destroying a city (in the style of Audrey II?) and a block-print cupcake tea towel and a pretty, leafy silver necklace for Maria (none of which are featured in their online store, or I'd link you to them.) There are sometimes even parking spots available out front. Check the sale table by the cash register for reasonable prices on shiny things.


A New Deal Cafe, Gainesville, Florida
Adjacent to Mildred's Big City Food, New Deal has longer hours and a lighter menu (lighter on the belly & the wallet), but shares a lot of Mildred's highfalutin' kitchen & waitstaff. They feature local ingredients and have an incredibly craveable dessert selection. Also, they gave me an I've-been-living-in-Atlanta-too-long wake-up call: We ordered fried squidbits, a tasty if overly toasted sandwich, the seafood special (a creamy, just-tender risotto with shrimp & andouille), 2 double espressos (road fuel), and a big slice of Chocolate Corruption cake for Maria. And our bill was like 40bux. So, yeah. It's maybe 10 minutes in off of I75, but completely worthwhile. Especially during patio weather. If you save room for dessert, one of my favorite things on this planet is their Chocolate Mousse Bombe, but you shouldn't try a slice unless you want to be addicted for life.


Ha Long Bay Vietnamese Cuisine & Dim Sum, St. Petersburg, Florida
We go to Ha Long Bay for dim sum every time I'm in St. Pete, and their steamed buns are some of the best I've ever had. We always go for late breakfast/early lunch, get iced coffees (the kind that come as a sort of DIY kit, with a tiny single-serving brewing pod of the strongest coffee imaginable laced with sweetened condensed milk, a long spoon, and a glass of ice) that I promptly crack myself out on, squee about the adorable toddlers there with their families, order too much food, and receive stern judgment from the creatures temporarily living in the wall of aquariums that separate the far end of the dining room from the kitchen. If you go, you must order the steamed barbecue pork buns (caramelized chunks of pork in a smoky-sweet sauce, encased by perfect pillowy bread), the steamed ginger-pork dumplings (bright and juicy ground pork and ginger in a delicate wonton wrapper), the fried rice-dough dumplings (piquant ground pork and leeks wrapped in my favorite-ever thick, chewy rice dough with a crisp, crackly outer coating), and the steamed custard buns (creamy, uberthick custard in that terrific pillowy bread). Mix your own dipping sauce from the vinegar, soy, and chili paste on the table, and don't be afraid to ask for explanations when choosing dishes from the friendly cart attendants (the young man who works there speaks the best English, but all of the waiters are happy to help).


Kroaky's Karaoke, Sarasota, Florida
Recently taken over by a tiny lady manager who kicks proverbial ass, Kroaky's has both a public stage and private rooms for karaoke. Maria & Mr. Melee rented one of those private rooms -- basically a huge table with wrap-around booth seating but with full walls for privacy, on one of which a flatscreen is mounted. Though the controls for the system were a little counterintuitive and most of us were at least a little inebriated, we killed about as much Bon Jovi, Journey, Lady Gaga, Little Mermaid, Fergie, Fiona Apple, Deee-lite, and Little Shop of Horrors as you might imagine a group of dorktacular 20 & 30-somethings would. Their song selection is extensive -- the only thing we really missed was RENT, which, honestly, was maybe better for the Universe anyway. The wait staff were attentive to and genuinely amused by us, the drinks (non-liquor only) were reasonably priced (including awesome beer specials, like $3 Abita and Terrapin bottles), the room was clean and well-ventilated, and although we didn't try anything from their food menu, it did exist. If you like the singing part of karaoke but are hesitant about the being-on-stage part, I highly recommend finding a place with booths as nice as the ones at Kroaky's. And friends who rock as hard as ours. Though if you have to settle for slightly less-rockin' friends, no one will blame you.

restaurant: Prohibition

It's Prohibition -- you've heard rumors. An underground pub. A hidden door, accessible only by entering a secret code in an inconspicuous phone booth. Inside, amidst the dark woods, rich leather, cozily low ceilings, and sepia-toned lighting, bartenders sharp in vests and ties serve cocktails to men smoking cigars at the bar and ladies lounging by the fireplace.

Okay, on East Andrews in 2009, it's schticky. The fireplace is electric, there's a flat-screen above the bar that's likely to be tuned to a basketball game, and UK-style phone booths, while not entirely exotic in the Brit-pub–loving Atlanta metro area, are not even vaguely inconspicuous. But honestly, it's no more artificial an atmosphere than any of the other bars in Buckhead or Midtown sport, and the quality of the cocktails is worth the kitsch.

Before I tell you more, full disclosure: A dear friend of mine, Darrell Autrey (seen here in full-speed-mixing mode), was hired on as one of Prohibition's bartenders, so A) I'm probably biased, and B) I went on the very first night that the place saw customers, so the staff was still gaining their pub-legs. A few things could've gone better, but the drinks were spot-on.

Among the five people in my party (which I mention as so to look less like a complete lush), we sampled their:

• Ramos Fizz, which is their take on a silver gin fizz: A light, creamy, refreshing gin & lemon juice & egg white cocktail made with an additional hit of tart raspberry liquor. Don't be afraid of the egg, or the gin. This drink has converted everyone who's tried it on both accounts.


• Fancy Tequila Cocktail: Made with Lunazul tequila and fresh-squeezed citrus juices, this, out of everything we tried, was the drink that made me grin involuntarily upon tasting. It's everything good and pure about margaritas.


• Aviation: Gin + maraschino liquor + lemon juice + crème de violette = a juicy SweetTart. Try this if you'd usually order a Cosmo.


• Dark & Stormy: They make this popular rum & ginger drink with a kick-yo-mamma-strength ginger beer, rum that adds just enough sweetness, and a squeeze of lime. It's simultaneously spicy & soothing.


• A new thing that is possibly being called a Ten-Penny Piece: Drambuie, gin, a twist of lemon, and a bit of orange peel that's briefly introduced to fire on its way to your glass. Refreshing, herbal, and slightly sweet, this drink is everything I love about the retro craft-cocktail trend: it's yummy art.


• Tom Collins, with muddled mint: The addition of mint makes this version taste even less like alcohol than usual. Like dangerous soda pop.


• Mount Zoom: Aviation gin, cream, honey, and a dusting of nutmeg, which all together taste like a bright, snowy Christmas day. (No really.)


• A Cooley Sinister Proposal: amaretto and orange peel tempered by slightly bitter Cynar (artichoke & herb liquor), forming a sweet-but-not-too-sweet nightcap of a cocktail.

The food showed promise but a less complete delivery. Three sample dishes were being passed around:

• Lamb chops on the bone over a mushroom risotto: The heaviest of the three, and the most in need of work. The lamb, while perfectly (i.e., rarely) cooked was a bit greasy, and the risotto was salty and somewhat crunchy. With slight tweaking, it'll be every bit as warm and stick-to-your-ribs as it's intended.


• Thin slices of smoked duck breast piled against a salad of arugula and roasted corn with a creamy dressing (blue cheese, I think): The lightest and most balanced dish. The smoke treatment took most of the gaminess out of the duck and left it wonderfully tender, and the salad's play of sharp, bitter greens against sweet corn and mellow dairy simply worked.


• Crisped prosciutto wrapped around melty cheese (mozzarella, maybe), plated with a yellow heirloom tomato salad: This dish was the most craveable. Though a few of the tomato slices I got were mealy, most were good and bright-flavored. Dressed casually with a sprinkle of fresh herbs and perhaps a tiny bit of vinegar, they melded with the oil from the prosciutto on the plate. And the crispy prosciutto/cheese rolls were pornographically delicious, a combination of salty, crispy, fatty, and chewy that makes for the perfect indulgent drankin' snack.

They have an extensive cigar list that I can't speak to because I don't smoke -- if anyone who's been has any comments about it, let us (my readers & I, not the royal we) know!

The atmosphere was thematic and cozy, mostly. The music was jazzy and at that elusive audible-but-nonintrusive volume. The lighting was moody but not too dim to read the wood-bound, clear & cleverly written menus. The chairs at the bar were wide and comfortable, if a little low-sitting. My only gripe concerns that flat-screen TV over the bar -- it's distracting and (I am seriously saying this about a pub) anachronistic at best, and tacky at worst. I understand that sports are important to people, but it injures my delicate aesthetic sensibilities to see a classily-over-the-top theme smashed by such a direct reminder that it's all just play-pretend.

Overall, Prohibition isn't a place I'm going to call home -- like most of Buckhead, it's a wee bit outside of my nerd/hipster comfort zone and price range, and I'm sorta-definitely That Guy Lady about smoking in bars. (I'll put up with it occasionally, but I don't like it. Cigars are at least atmospheric, to a certain extent and in a themed place like Prohibition, but I can't abide that kind of pollution on a frequent basis, especially if I'm trying to treat my palate.) But for the kitsch factor, the cocktails, and to check out the evolution of the menu, I'll certainly be visiting again.

If you want in, I'd keep an eye on their website and Facebook page (dudes, I know). Or drop me a note, and I'll see what I can do.

no fate but what we make for ourselves

Okay, my post title is a Terminator 2 reference. And it doesn't even apply that hard to what I'm trying to get at. AN' WHAT. I like that movie. It's about family and Linda Hamilton's awesome arms and a mixture of practical and digital effects that continues to hold up to my aesthetic discrimination.

Perhaps you should forget everything I said after "family".

Families are mutable. Members are born or grafted in, and others pass or branch away. My closest friends & I call each other family nouveau, though at this point I feel like the "nouveau" is superfluous. When I spend time with them doing the most human things -- cooking, laughing, holding their children's hands, sharing our stories -- we are family.

This has been a strange, difficult year for me. I've come to virtual emotional fisticuffs with depression, anxiety, new loves and loves past, and sudden loss. But, luckily for all of us, the universe doesn't revolve around me & my tribulations, nor around any of my family members or their own troubles. For as much awkwardness and hurt as any of us experience, there are still days bright & brisk, grandparents lavish with hugs and gifts, favorite movies and games to re-experience, technically and calorically hazardous new recipes to attempt, dessert tables, espresso and sambuca, comfy pants, ready smiles. I will save these things up to remember when everything seems terrible, because the world is every bit as beautiful as I'm capable of helping make it.

thanksgiving panic planning

Thanksgiving is next week! I'm shocked, frankly, shocked. And trying to come up with something to bake.

Traditionally I've done a linzer torte, which is like a very large spiced almond cookie with raspberry jam-type filling and pain-in-the-tuchus latticework on top -- but my dear family nouveau includes a child with a nut allergy, so I figure that probably, grinding a bunch of almonds into airborne powder in their kitchen would be rude.

A couple years back I made my other favorite holiday dessert, my mother's apple cake (which I posted a pear riff on awhile back -- most of my friends dislike cooked apples). I'm bored with that, though! Hello, my name is Lauren and I am Short Attention Span Theater.

This pear-butterscotch pie, which The Kitchn kindly pointed me towards, is a serious contender. The only Thing about it is that I hate pastry crust. Hate. Seriously. Don't tell me it's not that hard. The salt in my pie crusts comes from my tears of suffering and humiliation. Yes, even the storebought kind. Hate. Pastrycrust.

This is also the Thing about this s'mores pie, which also sounds wondermous.

Perhaps I shall grow some lady-balls and make one of these happen.

Unless you have any better, non-pastry-crust-related suggestions?

[pink ribbon goes here]

I try to walk a tightrope of a line when I'm writing this blog -- I talk about things and people that are quite dear to me, but for the most part, I don't like writing about my own life here. I've got Twitter, Facebook, and other personal outlets for that. So I'm not going to (re)post the bit I wrote about my mother's breast cancer here. If you'd like to read it, it's over at A Southern Fairytale, where the wonderful Rachel hosted a whole month's worth of guest bloggers for Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Many thanks to her for providing a space for so many stories and so much empathy.

And, folks: Do a breast exam on yourself, or on boobs that you love, once a month. Every month. Constant vigilance applies to more than just watching out for Voldemort & poisoned pumpkin juice.

shine on, Philip Clippinger

One of my close friends in town, Phil Clippinger, died in a car accident on the evening of Saturday, September 26th. He was probably on a Target run, getting reading to drive to a Decemberists concert in Athens, but had only gotten a mile away from his house when he was caught in a downpour on a tricky curve of highway on-ramp, hydroplaned, and ran off the road.

That guy dressed as the Joker in the picture of me as Harley from last Halloween? That's Phil.



I'm so glad I have this silly picture.

We're a tight group, my friends here in Atlanta. [We have a group name (the Nexus) and a battle cry (call: "Dekalb living!" response: "WHAT WHAT!"). Yeah, we're those people.] The amount of support that everyone has given and received has been quintissential of how a family acts. We are a crazy, dysfunctional, kinda incestuous family, and I don't know how I would've gotten through the past few weeks without every one of these marvelous bastards I call my friends.

It still doesn't make any sense to me that Phil isn't a present, local part of that family anymore. That he's not going to call me about coming out to Fellini's on his dinner break, that he's not going to keep me on the phone for an hour describing details from his new Joker Batman video game, that he's not going to try to convince me how much fun I'd have at Bonnaroo, that he's not going to show up late to whoever's party with a case each of Sweetwater 420 and diet Coke.

I love him, all his faults and mine included, and I'm not sure that I ever expressed to him how much I do.

A thing that everyone seems to have been saying is that there isn't enough time, that we need to make more of an effort. To be with each other, to celebrate the things we share, to find joy where we can.

Phil was such a joyful person. When I think of him, the first thing I think of is his laugh, frequent, free, deep, and a little bit sly. Despite being disappointed by the (many) things in his life that didn't go quite as he wished, he found a way to laugh about pretty much everything, and I don't think I ever heard him say anything negative about anyone. (With the exception of Shia LaBeouf, who, to be fair, costarred in three films that stomped all over some of Phil's favorite things.)

Phil's Facebook page has a lot of lovely stories and pictures that've been posted by friends and family. His obituary was in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution on Tuesday the 29th, and they're currently keeping a guestbook online.

A few friends have posted memorials on their own webspaces: Merlin, Matt Anderson, and CJ. If anyone else posted one or knows of another one, post a comment with the link and I'll publish it, too.


In lieu of flowers, Phil’s family has asked that donations be made in Phil’s name to Juvenile Diabetes Foundation, The Faustman Lab of Massachusetts General Hospital, or the charity of your choice.

I’d recommend a donation to Child’s Play, the gamers’ fund & toy drive for children’s hospitals. Phil loved playing games, especially ones that involved messing with his friends’ minds, and he didn't get the chance to teach the next generation the simple, Machiavellian joy of screwing their friends over hardcore within the context of a game, where said friends can’t be too pissed about it. (Hypothetically. I’ll tell you a story sometime about a game of Munchkin). A donation in Phil’s name to Child’s Play is a small assurance that sick kids will a) have fun distractions, and b) learn to be clever dicks. He would've appreciated that.

Phil's flickr -- myspace -- facebook -- livejournal

recipe: snickerdoodles

I visited my mother's parents every summer when I was growing up. My Grandma Lou baked every day: loaves of butter bread, cinnamon rolls with walnuts and maple icing, fruit pies, angel food cakes, oatmeal raisin cookies, snickerdoodles. My memories of her bright, busy kitchen are a huge part of why I find baking and baked goods such a comfort.

A good friend of mine, Phil Clippinger, died in a car accident on Saturday, September 26th. (I've had a memorial post in the works for weeks, but haven't been ready to talk publicly about everything yet.) The week after his death, I spent a lot of time baking -- it kept me busy and fed my friends -- but on the morning of his funeral, I found myself with a kinda hilariously Jewish need to bake. The funeral was a huge Catholic mass, with a choir, and kneeling, and billows of incense smoke pouring through the thick slant of sunset that fell over his coffin. It's not like his family was sitting shiva. And it's not like I'm really that Jewish -- only half my family is, on my father's side, and I don't even observe the high holy days unless someone else does the planning. But when I woke up on the morning of Phil's funeral, I had to make something to bring to his family. And snickerdoodles were the most comforting thing I could think of.

This recipe makes ~3 dozen chewy, buttery, cinnamon-spiced cookies, and can easily be doubled if you need to feed everyone.


Snickerdoodles
Adapted, as usual, from smittenkitchen.

INGREDIENTS

1 1/3 cups all-purpose flour (use a full 2 3/4 cups if you're doubling)
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp cream of tartar (If you don't have this, omit the baking soda and use 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder to substitute for both)
1/8 teaspoon salt

8 tbps (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
3/4 cup white sugar
1 egg, room temperature

1/8 cup sugar
2 tsp ground cinnamon

METHOD

A half hour before you get started, set out your butter and egg to allow them to approach room temperature.

When you're ready to start, preheat your oven to 400° F, and prepare a cookie sheet with butter, parchment paper, or a silicone baking mat if you're into that kind of thing. (I've got a nonstick sheet that things come off of pretty well all by itself -- I've found that greasing it just makes the bottoms of cookies burn, and putting down parchment or a silicone mat prevents cookies from getting good & crispy on the bottom, so I leave mine alone.)

Measure out your dry ingredients (flour, baking soda, cream of tartar, and salt) and whisk them to combine.

In a larger bowl, measure out your butter and sugar. Beat them with an electric mixer on medium speed for 2 minutes, or until they've begun to lighten in color and increase in volume (this is called creaming and it's how air gets into the batter, and thus what gives cookies their awesome chewy-tender texture -- if you creamed the mixture for a couple minutes more, you'd end up with a more airy, cakelike texture in your cookies). Scrape down the bowl then add your egg, and beat the mixture on low until the egg is fully incorporated (1 minute or so).

Pour your dry mixture into your wet mixture and stir manually until everything's incorporated. If the dough seems too sticky to work with, add an extra tablespoon or two of flour.

Combine your cinnamon and 1/8th cup of sugar in a small dish, bowl, or ramekin -- something you'll be able to roll balls of dough around in. Stir to combine.

Use a table spoon (like, a thing you'd eat with) to scoop out a bit of dough -- think something maybe 1 inch to 1.5 inches in diameter, or a bit smaller than a ping pong ball. Roll it between your palms gently to shape it into a ball, and then drop it into the cinnamon sugar mixture. Roll it around to coat it with awesome, and then place it on the baking sheet. Flatten it into a disc maybe half an inch thick and ~2.5 inches in diameter. Repeat with a bunch more cookies! They shouldn't spread too much, so you can place them ~2 inches apart or so on the sheet.

Pop the sheet in the oven and bake for 8-10 minutes (or until ~1 minute after your kitchen starts to smell like awesome, or until the cookies have puffed up and then deflated, or until poking one gently on the top yields slightly springy resistance). Allow the sheet to cool for ~5 minutes once it's out of the oven, and then transfer the cookies to a cooling rack until they're just cool enough to serve.

To mix ahead: This dough freezes better if you don't coat it in cinnamon sugar first (the sugar coating may melt when the cookies defrost). So if you're mixing ahead, just roll the dough into balls and freeze them: Either wrap them in plastic so they aren't touching and seal them in a baggie/container, or freeze them on a sheet pan for ~1 hour before tossing them in a baggie/container. Defrost them in your fridge for ~1 hour, roll them in cinnamon sugar, and bake more or less as usual (you might need to add a minute or so to the cooking time).

recipe: chocolate chip pecan brown-butter cookies

These cookies were inspired by a brown-butter cookie that Maria (MommyMelee) makes, my personal quest for the Ultimate chocolate chip cookie, and a random craving for pecans. They bake up thick and soft, with a crisp-crunchy edge and a nutty richness from the pecans and browned butter.

For anyone who's never done it, browning butter is magical, and something I think I want to do for all my recipes that call for melted butter from now on. Similar to how toasting nuts or searing meats brings out their full flavors, gently cooking butter before using it in a recipe deepens the taste and color of the final product. The outcome in these cookies is a decadent and craveable comfort food.

Chocolate Chip Pecan Brown-Butter Cookies
Adapted from Deb @ smittenkitchen, who adapted it from AllRecipes.com.

INGREDIENTS

3/4 cup (a stick and a half) unsalted butter

2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt

1 cup packed dark brown sugar (light would be fine too)
1/2 cup white sugar
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1 egg
1 egg yolk

2 cups semisweet chocolate chips
1/2 cup pecans, finely chopped

METHOD

First, get your butter browning: Cut your butter in chunks into a small, shallow pan, and set it over low heat. Really low. Just above "warm", and certainly not as high as medium. The idea here is to just toast the butter -- you want it to melt & separate, and then get just hot enough so that all the milk solid bits sink to the bottom, and then cook just long enough so that those milk bits caramelize, becoming fragrant and turning a lovely warm shade of golden brown. The whole process should take maybe 5 to 10 minutes, and your butter should bubble but never go above a simmer. Stir it frequently to keep all the milk bits from sticking to the sides or bottom of the pan. When the color has deepened and the butter smells like maybe you want to stick your face in it, take the pan off the heat and set it aside.

Meanwhile, or afterwards if you don't like multitasking, preheat your oven to 325°F. Take your chopped pecans (I like them to be pretty much minced with a few slightly larger chunks 'cause I don't like too much crunchy texture in my cookies, but you can adjust to taste -- I'd say anything up to pea-sized chunks would work), spread them onto a baking sheet, and pop them in the warming oven for 5-10 minutes or until they're fragrant and have slightly deepened in color. Set them aside.

Measure out your dry ingredients (flour, baking soda, and salt) and whisk them to combine.

In a separate, larger bowl, measure out your sugars and add in the browned butter. Beat them together with an electric mixer for about 2 minutes on medium. You're looking for the mixture to increase a bit in volume and lighten a bit in color. Add the vanilla and eggs, and beat for about a minute until the mixture is creamy and well incorporated.

Put down the beater, and mix in the dry ingredients by hand (well, by spoon/spatula, unless you really want to use your hands). Then gently fold in the chocolate chips and the toasted pecans. The dough will be soft and sticky, and at this point, you could refrigerate it for up to 24 hours before baking. (David Leite, who I trust in all things, researched & recommends refrigerating cookie dough for about this long to allow everything to combine & settle into itself. Guys, I don't have 24 hours' worth of cookie foresight. If you happen to, though, let me know how the refrigeration thing works for you.) If you find the dough too sticky to work with, cover the bowl with foil/plastic wrap/a large plate and pop it in the fridge for 10-20 minutes.

Next, use a spoon to scoop up a ping-pong ball sized or slightly smaller bit of dough, and roll it gently between your palms to form a ball. Drop it on a cookie sheet (greased or covered with parchment paper if you like) and flatten it out a little so that it'll cook more evenly. Leaving about 3 inches between cookies, fill your cookie sheet and bake for 8-12 minutes, depending on the size of the cookies and whether the dough has been chilled. (You're looking for the cookies to puff up and then deflate a bit -- an undone cookie will yield easily if you gently poke the top of it, and leave a sort of darkened, bruised-looking indentation, and will feel very soft. Gently poking the top of a done cookie will offer slight, springy resistance, and won't leave an indentation. Erm, relatedly, please use caution if you're going to go reaching into ovens to poke at cookies. Honestly, erring on the side of underdone is okay. They'll continue to cook a bit once they're out of the oven anyway.)

Once they're out, let the cookies cool for a couple minutes on the baking sheet, then remove them to a wire rack to finish cooling enough to shove in your mouth serve.

If you're going to put another sheet of cookies in to bake immediately, wipe down your cookie sheet with a clean, damp cloth or paper towel first (this gets the crud off the sheet and also cools it down enough so that it won't par-bake the new round of dough before it even hits the oven).

If you'd like, you could freeze the dough for baking later -- I just roll the dough into cookie-sized balls and wrap them in plastic wrap so that none of them are touching, then stick the whole caboodle into a ziplock bag or Tupperware and shove it in the freezer. Alternately, if you have the space in your freezer, you could place the dough balls on a baking sheet and let them harden in the freezer for an hour or so, after which they shouldn't stick to each other and could be placed directly into a ziplock bag/Tupperware. They'll keep in there for at least a week. Just remember to either let them defrost in the fridge for a few hours before baking, or to adjust your baking time (maybe 12-18 minutes) if you're doing them straight from the freezer.

recipe: silver (pink) gin fizz

Darrell Autrey, Concentrics Intoxicologist and Magician-at-Large,* likes making people drunk happy. Okay, happy and probably a little bit drunk. Especially if you're a friend of his, which I am, which is both terrific and terrible, gastronomically speaking. The former because he teaches his friends how to make delicious, classic cocktails, and the latter because we then drink delicious, classic cocktails all the time and get all drank & chubby.

My current cocktail obsessions all involve gin -- Bee's Knees, Aviations, French 75s, and, perhaps the most kitschy and shiny, Silver Gin Fizzes. A Silver Gin Fizz is a slightly sweet gin + citrus + soda cocktail that boasts a slight creaminess and a gorgeous foam head thanks to the inclusion of a raw egg white in the cocktail shaker -- aaaand I'm sure I just lost some of you. But it's not gross, or slimy, or egg-flavored, and I haven't caught salmonella from one yet. (Though I'm pretty sure that the first time I saw a drink made with an egg white, the part of my brain that's still stuck in college with my roommate Juliana screamed "WATCH OUT, THE DRINK HAS CHICKEN".) See, look how pretty they are:

(Photo by Jeremy of dreamthrum.com!)

This particular Silver Gin Fizz got its pretty-in-pink color from the blackberry-infused gin that our crafty & wondermous friend Melissa made with a bottle of mild, lovely New Amsterdam gin, about half as many/much fresh blackberries by volume, and a week or so of patience. She didn't add any sugar so the gin is tart and berrylike, which plays well with the lemon in the Fizz -- but plain ol' gin would absolutely work just as well.

Silver (Pink) Gin Fizz

INGREDIENTS

1.5 oz. gin
1 oz. fresh-squeezed lemon juice
1 oz. simple syrup
1 egg white
Club soda to fill
Bit of lemon peel (for the zest, and for a garnish if you're fancy)

METHOD

1) Prepare a champagne flute (or other tall, skinny glass) by rubbing a piece of lemon peel, yellow side down, across the rim.

2) Fill a cocktail shaker halfway with ice. Measure out your gin, lemon juice, simple syrup, and egg white into the shaker. Cover the shaker, and do a little dance using the shaker as a stand-in for your handheld percussive instrument of choice. Strain the contents into the prepared glass, and gently top the mixture off with club soda. Should you happen to have fancy knife skills, garnish the foam with a curl of lemon peel.

3) Get drank in style!



*Due to irreconcilable differences with their Midtown landlord, Concentrics has temporarily closed Trois (Darrell's most recent bartending ground) pending the discovery of a new location. If you're visiting a different Concentrics location in the meanwhile and find a bartender in a bow tie, ask him for something fabulous and tip him just as fabulously!

restaurant: Abattoir

I eat mostly vegetarian food -- I feel healthier when I do, I think it's more environmentally responsible, and having worked for a nutrition textbook publisher for a year or two means that I know too much about how the human body handles animal fat versus plant fat. If I'm cooking for myself, it's always vegetarian (at least half 'cause it's just easier) and I'm more likely than not to buy meatless meals in restaurants and from the frozen section.

But I also love food -- and all kinds of food, including animal products. Bacon, cured meats, a good rare steak, sausage, everything that lives in the ocean preferably still raw, gamey things like venison and duck and goose.... I don't consider meat an everyday consumable, but well-prepared and on occasion, it's a wonderful treat.

For my friend Darrell's birthday, a few of us went to Abattoir -- a trendy newish Atlanta restaurant from the schmancy Star Provisions people that focuses on locally, responsibly sourced meats and whole-animal use.

We basically ordered the left (small plates) side of the menu. Or, okay not quite. But we shared around:

• The chicharrones (which are Spanish-style pork rinds, and were airy & melty. Yes this is where we started. I wish I could say it was nutritionally uphill from here, but then):



• The lardo crouton (their version has thick grilled bread and heavy spreadings of melty fat -- like the best bread & butter you've ever had except even less healthy. It came topped with pickled onions, which really made the dish).



• The steak tartare (which had such lovely seasoning that it seemed refreshing instead of rich. Was terrific with the crisp garlicy toast it was served with).



• The charcuterie (which came with 4 cured meats and was possibly my least favorite dish of the evening -- not bad at all, just not particuparly impressive. Skippable, I'd say, though the venison one was delicious).



• The 3 terrines (pig feet, lamb, and pork -- the simple pork was the best of the 3 and the one I'd order again. The lamb was also nicely seasoned if a bit mild in flavor, and had pistachios in it for a bit of textural fun. The pig feet one was sort of dull, honestly).



• The potted chicken livers & foie gras (so, so rich and very slightly sweet. Counted as dessert).



• The potted lamb rillette (lighter than the foie gras, which was quite nice -- I'd recommend this one to people who want to try a jar spread but don't want anything too heavy).



• The watermelon fennel salad (I am maybe obsessed with savory watermelon dishes right now and this was excellent, LOTS of fennel, very refreshing).



• The beet ricotta salad (which made me love beets -- or at least learn that I don't hate them like I thought I did. Though I suspect that lovely homemade lemon-mint-flavored cheese would make anything more tolerable).



• And of course, what with all the spreadable things, all the table bread ever (so fresh from the oven I burned my fingers twice, but it was crusty-tender and made me want to work on bread-baking projects).



• Oh and lots of little pickled green beans for contrast & palate freshening.

We also had a bottle or two of Domaine la Garrigue '06, a red from the Côtes du Rhône region. Excellent, interesting wine -- cherry-fruity without being sweet, and with an herbal sort of undertone like licorice. It was one of the cheaper bottles on the menu at $20, seems to retail for $10 to $15, and I'd definitely recommend trying it if you can find it -- maybe not for sippin' on, but definitely with meals. Tartly acidic & dry, it paired really well against all the fatty, rich things we were eating. Hooray for the birthday guy being an excellent bartender who knows how the wine works.

We also tried a glass of the Oberon Wheat Ale, which had such a huge orangey scent and was so clean & light on the tongue that it was just what I needed to cut the fat towards the end of our meal, when even the perky wine started feeling a bit heavy. If you're not a wine person but want a little booze with your meal, this beer would be a more than acceptable alternative.


For all of that, our celebration only ended up costing some $35/person -- which isn't an amount that I would generally spend on a meal, but for a special occasion and with all that booze was actually reasonable. I've easily spent more than that at other schmancy restaurants in Atlanta and walked away hungry/otherwise unsatisfied. Aside from wanting to eat nothing but salad for five days afterward in compensation/benediction, there was nothing unsatisfying about our experience at Abattoir.

Other notes: Free parking in the White Provision deck. The staff was very pleasant, helpful, friendly, and attentive-yet-unobtrusive. Reservations recommended. Dress code is trendy/preppy-casual. You should go here.

the littlest zombie

Things that maybe you're not thinking about when you're trying to make a relatively healthy banana bread-based, raspberry-filled, red crab-themed birthday cake for your just-turned-one-year-old daughter to have a traditional cakeSMASH photo-op with:

• Red food coloring is incredibly insidious for something that's water soluble. Sure it'll wash off, but first it will get everywhere.


• Banana bread has a sort of lumpy, spongey texture. Like zombie-flick flesh.


• Crushed raspberries have a definitely lumpy, clumpy texture. Like zombie-flick brains.


• Giving your generally low-sugar'd child free reign to eat cake is like giving a tiny lady who doesn't drink often a pint of hunch punch: drunkenness will ensue.


• If Lauren is the photographer, she'll think the carnage is hilarious.

From Aurora's First Birthday Party

Glad I could be part of your bash, Aurora. Happy birthday! And congratulations to your mom & dad for making it through your first year with their brains intact.

family photos

I was That Yearbook Staffer in high school. With the old analog Canon AE-1, the free access to as much film & developing as I could use, and the resulting paparazzi tendencies. I've cut back since then, for the general good of my bank account, the betterment of my conversation skills (it's hard to carry on witty repartee when you're trying to be a silent & invisible photoninja), and the protection of the not-so-innocent, except for on special occasions. Like y'know when my best friends have babies.

I might not get the film developed for 8 months, though.

Happy 8th month in the world, little Moose. Miss you & your big brother & parents -- hope I'll see you all again soon!

From family nouveau

go Team Girl

Life is being all contrary right now which means less writing around here, but haylookit: My dearest ladyfriend Maria is trying to pack for BlogHer (I'm either jealous of or terrified for her), so she asked me to guestblog over at Mommy Melee today!

She has, like, a readership. Of grown-ass, possibly responsible adults. And I wrote about some t-shirts I kinda want. Hiiiii.

It's weird! I've known Maria since... for a long time? Since mid-college. Mostly when I think of her, the top of my brain is still filled with visions of tequila shots and 80s nights at Market Street Pub, of so much awful André and Jesus Christ Superstar, of playing Halo until 4 in the morning and roadtripping to anime conventions and continually losing games that involve karaoke.

And we still dabble in most of those things when I visit her & her family in Florida (though we spring for slightly better sparkling wine during our schmoopy JCS screenings). But from underneath my memories of all that, it always bubbles up in my mind that these days, Maria has shaped herself a career out of freelance writing and design, and of loving her two ridiculously photogenic & funny boys and husband, and of having some sixteen-hundred people be really fascinated by all her Tweets, apparently.

I'm so proud of her.

Kick social butt in Chicago, Marialady. And if anyone from Project Runway doesn't appreciate your bowling chic, don't worry, I'll be there in spirit to sneak up behind them like the pinkest, sparkliest ninja there ever has been and stick plamsa grenades to the backs of their heads for you.

recipe: Spiced Pear Cake

This recipe is based on a German/Jewish Apple Cake that my mother used to make around the holidays. She died when I was a kid, and her recipe box was lost in my father's & my resulting move to Florida -- we moved to be closer to my father's mother, who could look after me while my father was at work. When I started getting into baking in college,* I tried to reconstruct the recipe based on shoddy memories of being 6 years old and up to my little elbows in thin-sliced, cinnamon-sugar--coated apples. It never quite came out the way I remembered it, and it wasn't until I was 25 that I thought to ask my family about it -- upon which I received a recipe card in the mail in about a week, hand-written in my grandmother's neat script with the kind of blue ballpoint that she'd always come back with a box of after visiting her State Farm agent.

It'd be lovely for Thanksgiving -- the cake comes out super-dense & moist with a sort of buttery toffee flavor, and the spices are classic fall fare. I modded the recipe to use pears instead of apples 'cause I've got a lot of friends who don't like cooked-apple texture. (The pears are nice, but I still recommend apples -- and the fruit is sliced so thin that it ends up more soft-caramely than pulpy/mushy anyway.) It can be served warm or cool or chilled, with ice cream if you want, or a melted chocolate drizzle maybe, or plain and with coffee.


Spiced Pear Cake

INGREDIENTS

4 medium pears
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
pinch of ground cloves
1/4 cup sugar

2 eggs
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup unsalted butter, gently melted (but not hot)
1/2 vanilla bean, scraped (or 1 tsp vanilla extract)

1 cup flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt


METHOD

Peel the pears and slice thin (but not VERY thin... maybe 1/8th of an inch. thick enough so they don't fall apart on you). In a bowl, toss the slices gently with the spices and 1/4 cup of sugar and then set aside.

Beat the sugar and eggs together with an electric mixer until the mixture lightens and expands a bit in volume (maybe 2 minutes?). Add the butter and beat for another minute or so, then stir in the vanilla. (You could do all this with a whisk if you needed a workout.)

Sift together the dry ingredients. Stir the dry mixture into the wet mixture (adding it in 2 or 3 batches works well) until the batter is smooth. Grease an 8x8 baking pan (if it's not nonstick) and pour in the batter. A 9-inch round should also work.**

Now is a good time to preheat your oven to 350.

Take the bowl of now-macerated pear slices and discard some of the pear juice/melted sugar that's collecting in it -- you don't want to add too much moisture to the cake. Then, starting about 1/8th of an inch in from the outer edge of pan, lay the pear slices down on top of the batter one at a time, parallel to the sides of the pan, overlapping each slice just a bit. Go around the pan in a ring, and then start a second ring inside the first, overlapping the rings a bit, too. Keep going until you fill the pan or run out of fruit (hopefully the former). This will be a pain in your ass.

When you're done, pop the pan in the oven for ~60 minutes. (If you ended up using a 9x9 pan 'cause you're a naughty baker like me and don't own all that many pans, try ~40 minutes.) When it's done, the cake should be pulling away from the sides of the pan and poking up between the pear slices, which should be golden-caramel-brown, and a toothpick near the center should come out clean. Allow pan to cool at least 15 minutes before serving, but it's even better the next day. Preferably for breakfast.


SUPER-SEEKRIT SHORTCUT & OTHER NOTES

If you wanted to, you could chop the pears into smallish chunks instead of slicing them all fancy, and just kinda scatter the macerated chunks over the batter. But the fancy slices really are pretty.

If you're going to use apples, I like Granny Smith 'cause I'm quaint like that but any tart, firm, baking-approved apple would be okay. Just slice the apples VERY thin if you're doing the fancy slicing thing -- ~1/16th of an inch, or as thin as you can get them consistently and still be able to handle them. And add up to 1/4 cup more sugar during the maceration process, and make sure the mixture sits for at least an hour. Apples are stubborn.

The spices you add to the fruit are a flavor adventure (i.e., spice to taste). I think 1.5 tsp of total spice is a good amount to aim for, though.

* Man I wish I didn't know enough potheads that this sounded less than innocent.

** Baking 911 has a good pan-volume chart for use in emergency substitutions.