My husband’s birthday is tomorrow. Every year I bake him a cake from scratch. Well, no that’s not true, every year since we got married and moved in together. When we were dating, I didn’t even have the gas turned on in my apartment. There were cobwebs in the oven.
I wish I could say that was a joke.
Anyway, cake. Each year I ask my man what he wants. He always comes up with some complicated request, and I take one look at the 50-step recipe, and then decide to make chocolate cake instead. Chocolate cake with raspberry filling. Chocolate cake with cream cheese icing. Chocolate cake with strawberries and cream.
This is why I cook the same dozen dishes over and over again.
This year, I decided to make something different. The only problem is that I don’t know what to make, and I’m running out of time to decide. And then it occurred to me – Bon Appétit.
Long time readers of the Cowardly Feminist know I am one of those awful people that loves Christmas. I decorate, I mix cocktails from Halloween to New Year’s, and I cook. So last year in the midst of my holiday frenzy I ordered a subscription to Bon Appétit, which I quickly discovered is useless. First, I don’t eat meat, and it’s a fairly meat-based foodie mag. Second, a lot of the shit in it requires equipment I don’t own. And while I’d love to have the doo-dads to make my own bread or pasta or whatever other Martha Stewart-y dish you can think of, there is no room in our kitchen for the necessary gadgets.
Third, and this is seriously the most important on the list, practically every recipe in the stupid magazine takes forever to make. For. Ever. When they say 45 minutes of prep time and 30 to cook, they be some lyin’ sons of bitches.
What was I talking about? Oh, I should probably cancel my subscription, because as you can see, I haven’t taken any of the magazines out of the plastic since January. I don’t even know why I have them.
Shit, y’all. I’m a hoarder.
And also? We all know I’m not going to look through any of the magazines for a recipe, don’t we? I’m going to make another freaking chocolate cake.
I would happily accept any chocolate cake you would make me. I keep magazines I haven’t read yet for a really, really long time. At the beach this year I brought a long a year-old Glamor and I STILL didn’t get around to it.
Yeah, it seems silly to keep them. I think I’m going to bring them to a nearby senior center.
What drives me nuts is when a recipe starts talking in chef-speak, when they could just as easily put it in English.
“Blanch the almonds while the eggs are being vermillified. Constrep the tomatilloes until fling vern the gnerrkin.”
I read that shit, and instantly the recipe becomes:
“Drink beer. Repeat”
Vern the Gnerrkin, incidentally, is the name of a fictional Swedish minstrel I just made up.
“Yumpin’ yimminy, Vern the Gnerrkin!” the maiden fair exclaimed. “You make me tingle in my fervin-nervin!”
Fervin-nervin. You know, even with four syllables it’s better than vag.
Oh I love that too.
Constrep…hee.
Hahhaha, well I’m sure it’ll be a delicious chocolate cake anyways.
Hope so:)
The “necessary doo-dads” for making both bread and pasta are flour, water, a rolling pin, a stand mixer (yes, these do take up some space, but they’re so incredibly useful they’re worth it), and possibly milk or eggs, depending on the recip
sigh…recipe. Seriously, all the rest is superfluous. I make homemade pasta a few times a year, with no pasta maker or ravioli crimper or any of that other fancy stuff. I have made bread before, but not for a few years. You actually don’t even need the stand mixer for pasta. It’s a scam to get you to buy more junk from the companies that advertise in the mag.
Not that they’re super easy to make (pasta takes a few hours, simply because of the drying time; and bread needs to rise), but people made these things for thousands of years without specialty equipment.
As for the cake…any of those chocolate cake with [frosting filling whatever] sound delicious to me. He eats it, right?
Um, yeah, I’ve heard how they used to cook without equipment back in the day:)
I make bread several times a year, that shit is time consuming, but good. Pasta? No way. To tell you the truth, even if I had a pasta machine I wouldn’t make it. We bought a juicer a few months ago and I have yet to juice a single thing. My husband uses it, and I will happily drink the juice, but I don’t want to clean the mess. We also bought a toaster a while back because my husband will use the gas burner to toast things, which leaves crumbs everywhere. I thought I was doing him a favor. He hasn’t used it once.
Because toasting on the burner gets a more even, crustier toast.
I get Bon Apetit, and read it while I am on the treadmill at 5:30am. Which is really just cruel. I have used their recipes as recommendations for cooking, but I don’t think I have ever followed an exact recipe.
Cooking Light magazine is far more useful in this department. And they often focus on non meat oriented meals. But truly, I look most things up online now if I am looking for something new. I love cookbooks, but using them is another story.
Yeah, I look most things up online myself. But during the holidays I’m a sucker for those, ’100 easy treat’ mags.
Well, I’ll admit I make pasta out of necessity. There’s this thing called “turkey noodles” that are, apparently, only available in a very small slice of the country, but they are the ONLY kind of noodles one should EVER make chicken noodle soup with (no, there’s no turkey involved in making the noodles, but they are frequently served as a side with turkey, smothered in turkey gravy). Because I can’t buy them, I make them…4 times a year, and freeze enough to make a batch of CNS once a month until my next turn at making them. I suppose they’re a little easier to make because they’re SUPPOSED to be thick, so you don’t have to try to roll them out and then cut them super thin.
Oh, and just for you, my veggie lady, you can make TOFU noodle soup that is *almost* as good as chicken noodle soup.
I use chickenless chicken myself:)
I’m a fan of the “dump a bunch of shit in a big pot and heat” approach to cooking.
And the correct answer to a cake conundrum is usually cheesecake or almond cake with a fruit sauce. At my previous workplace we had a birthday buddy system and because I’m the best birthday buddy ever I made homemade almond cake with homemade blueberry and cherry sauces. Made the cake into a US flag since it was a July 3 birthday.
Homemade almond cake sounds divine.
Almond anything is good in my book, yum.
Just rock the choc, darlin’…Bon Ap be damned!
Oh I will. It’s hard to go wrong with chocolate.
I will happily take a chocolate cake with filling/frosting for my birthday! It’s in February. You have plenty of time.
I do the same with mags. I have a subscription to Cooking Light, Entertainment Weekly, Parents AND Parenting mags. I hardly ever even glance at them, and if they come in plastic, in plastic they will usually stay. Even if I DO get around to flipping through and see something I want to make/read/do……I never get around to ever actually doing it. Magazine fail!
I finally cancelled our Travel and Leisure subscription after realizing we hadn’t taken one out of the plastic in almost a year. Oh well.
I don’t get here often enough, damn it. My children hog the computer in a way that is simply ugly. Also, I am afraid of them. So, please don’t think I stopped loving you, Vesta. It’s the fault of the children.
Oh! Closure! I need closure! I need to know what kind of cake you’re going to make! Hey, it’s my dad’s birthday tomorrow! I was going to make him a big ass cheesecake, but it would appear I’ve purchased NONE of the required ingredients.
That is very funny about your Bon Appetit magazines!
I am always happy when you stop by!!
I’m still going with chocolate, but this time it’s a chocolate mousse cake. Good luck with your cheesecake!
I love to bake! Go check out http://www.browneyedbaker.com. It’s my favourite baking site. Most of her stuff is pretty straight-forward and don’t need any fancy gadgets. Anything I’ve made from her site has been a hit…there’s even a couple awesome chocolate cake recipes. (The Irish Car Bomb cupcakes…a lot of steps, but SO worth it. I got my whole department buzzed before lunch.)
Thanks for the suggestion!! And Irish Car Bomb cupcakes? Wow, sounds dangerous.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY HUSBAND OF VESTA!!
Drat! I’m a day late! Look up “Earthquake cake” also called “Hurricane cake”. That is, if neither of you are lactose intolerant. It involves cream cheese. It is delicious, and anything but plain. Also does not require frosting.
…and cake is neither my favorite dessert or favorite thing to bake, but this one is fun. Next year…
Cream cheese, mmmmmmm.