Salted caramel hits the big time

The NY Times dining section traces the trajectory of salted caramel from French gourmet goodie to high-end American foodie treat to mass-market taste sensation.

Merry Hanukkah and Happy Christmas!

Here at the Gateau household we're cheerfully celebrating Hanukkah and Christmas simultaneously (with a little Winter Solstice thrown in on Sunday for good measure, via a red velvet cake with a sun decoration and Happy Birthday to the Sun sung together). I have latkes frying while a pork roast with port-coffee cream sauce is in its final stages. Plus, Mr. Gateau made his wonderful Three Sisters Stew that I missed at Thanksgiving, and we have broccoli. I'm posting between latke flipping and snorts of eggnog with the good rum.

Tomorrow we'll have our annual chocolate chip pancakes with bacon, and then head to the grandparents, who will be doing up a standing rib roast, and I'll probably make some Yorkshire pudding to go with.

Happies, dear readers!

In which we expand our horizons

After enjoying our Sweet and Savory Baking class over the summer, Ms. Cake and I decided to sign up for another cooking class as soon as possible. This being NYC, land of a zillion activities and opportunities, a zillion people are having the same idea you are, so everything is oversubscribed immediately. We weren't able to sign up for another class until mid-December, but the wait was worth it. Last Saturday night we spent 4 1/2 extremely pleasant hours learning all about Thai cooking, preparing numerous dishes in teams, and then eating our feast with a selection of wines and Asian beers.

As an extra bonus, the instructor was Chef Jane, who had taught our baking class. Chef Jane is cheerful but firm, and really seems to love not just food and cooking but also teaching non-pros. The class was large, and everyone seemed happy to be there, unlike our last class when we had to share our workspace with a miserable couple who seemed to hate all of humanity, including each other.

After a discussion of Thai ingredients, flavors, and cooking techniques, we broke into groups to start cooking. Our team was assigned sticky rice with mango (unsweetened, and served as a side dish rather than as a dessert), tapioca with young coconut (over which was served another team's fried bananas with black and white sesame seeds), summer rolls, and whole steamed fish with tamarind sauce. Ms. Cake was in charge of preparing the fish, and I made the tamarind sauce, which is a thing of fabulousness. Really, that sauce would probably make artgum eraser taste delicious.

Other teams worked on Pad Thai, chicken with green curry, chicken satay with peanut sauce, hot and spicy shrimp soup, green papaya salad, cucumber salad, and grilled shrimp with cilantro and chiles. By the end of the cooking session, we had three cooking stations covered with dishes of food ready to eat.

My sticky rice got overcooked, and neither of the Pad Thai executions were terrific, but it didn't matter, because there was so much good food to eat. Idiotically, neither of us thought to take photos, but trust us, it was a beautiful spread, and delicious. I'm searching for a good place in my area to buy some of the necessary ingredients, but if need be I'll just make a pilgrimage to Queens and stock up on curry pastes, rice paper wrappers, and other necessaries.

Meanwhile, the top tip was to use a Japanese wasabi grater to grate ginger root. It won't nick your fingers, it's quick and easy to use, and it catches all the ginger flesh and juice while eliminating the stringy bits.

Yes We Can.....eat at Olive Garden

Ms. Cake and I decided this was the year we could no longer sit on our asses and watch the election unfold around us, so we signed up with the volunteer lawyers' arm of the Obama campaign to do voter protection in a swing state on Election Day. We were assigned to the southeastern Ohio operation, and so the day before the election we got up at the crack of dawn and flew to Columbus, OH, rented a car, and drove to Athens, the home of Ohio University, for training. In honor of my respect for Barack Obama and my love of fatty foods, I wore my "Donuts and Bacon: Taste We Can Believe In" t-shirt, a gift from my friend Jeffrey. Fortunately, my fellow travelers found it as amusing as I did (I was a little afraid the overly-earnest might find it offensive, but not that afraid).

Having arrived at the Holiday Inn Express for the training session a bit early, we had time to kill and needed lunch. Off the same parking lot was an Applebee's, which Ms. Cake had never patronized. I assured her that you can get a perfectly respectable lunch at Applebee's, and in fact I happen to enjoy their "Oriental" chicken salad with crispy chicken quite a bit. So we had that. Could not get a cup of coffee because the Athens area was under a "boil water" order due to a water system problem, so we made up for it with extra Diet Coke.

Following training we needed to head to Zanesville, the location of our assigned polling place, but first we needed to lay in sustenance supplies for the remainder of our time. We were expected to staff our polling places from opening to closing, and could not be assured we would have access to meals, so we went to Wal*Mart, also a first for Ms. Cake. Of course we went into a major fugue state and found ourselves loading our cart with necessaries such as cute notebooks, candy, and so forth. But we also bought relatively healthy snacks to last us through the election, like nuts, apples, dried apricots, carrots, Clif bars, Luna bars, juice boxes, water, etc. We also bought a small stool in case there was no other place to sit.

We drove from there to Zanesville, a very attractive drive on a winding county route, and arrived at the Comfort Inn just as night was falling. We were very pleased with the Comfort Inn, which was well appointed and clean, and discovered that our room was equipped with a refrigerator and microwave. We were also pleased to discover that our polling location was 5 minutes away, which would make getting there by 5:45am that much easier.

We were exhausted, but had enough energy left to want to sit and have a decent dinner. Within walking distance of the hotel was an Olive Garden. Neither of us had ever eaten in an Olive Garden, and we'd encountered enough New Yorkers sneering about the middle-American mediocrity of it to be dubious. But it was right nearby, and we weren't feeling picky anyway.

To our quiet delight, our dinner at Olive Garden was more than adequate and in fact quite pleasant. The only chain restaurant feeling to it was the presence on the tables of photo-illustrated dessert menus, overpraising the "decadence" of the chocolate desserts. But the lighting was soft, the tables large and well-spaced, and though the menu had some overly fatty and too-complicated combinations, we each found dishes that were appealing. Ms. Cake had a nice pasta with garlicky tomato sauce and shrimp, and I had steak simply grilled with olive oil and rosemary and served with roasted potatoes and vegetables. Certain it was going to come too well-done, I ordered it medium rare and had to send it back for a little more fire. We each had a perfectly decent glass of wine. One of the widely advertised offerings is the "unlimited salad and breadsticks." The breadsticks were a hit with Ms. Cake, and we were both happy to see a large, chilled bowl of tossed salad served family style, with chilled plates, and a nice vinaigrette. The salad was mostly romaine lettuce, and had the type of fixings you'd add when you make a salad in your own home. The waitstaff were incredibly friendly, and as an added bonus, we both got carded. The portions were, naturally, too large, but we had them wrapped and took them back to our room to eat as leftovers the next day.

We slept like the dead, then got ourselves to our assigned polling place before dawn, at a local Methodist church. We weren't entirely sure what to expect, but I can say that it was an honor and privilege to spend such an important day with the people of Zanesville, Ohio, who regardless of political affiliation were almost all to a person friendly, enthusiastic, and polite to these New York lawyers in their midst, and it was very gratifying to help ensure that anyone who was entitled to vote, who wanted to vote, was able to do it in our little corner of Ohio. We met old people and young people, Republicans and Democrats, country and cosmopolitan, international election watchers (who brought us hot tea), Vets for Obama, a gentleman from the VFW who was aiding the Obama GOTV effort, children with their parents, church members (who kindly let us use the facilities all day), a group of gay men who were seeking signatures on a petition supporting gay rights legislation, and all manner of good folks who showed up before early morning shifts or on their way home from school or with their entire families in tow to step up and vote.

At the end of the day we were wiped out, and a little apprehensive about the results. As we counted up the final tallies posted at our precincts, and took in the fact that Obama had solidly taken three of the four, we thought about the people we'd met, and realized that our narrow New York prejudices hadn't adequately prepared us to understand that guys in trucker hats with gun racks on their pickups and church ladies with seasonal sweaters would be just as likely as Williamsburg hipsters or San Francisco computer programmers or Vermont hippies to vote for change.

After that, we went back to our room and all but collapsed. We ate our leftovers and munched our snacks and watched the returns just long enough to hear that Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Florida were called for Obama before we fell asleep. Later, brief text messages and a call from Mr. Cake informed us that McCain had conceded. So no parties, no tearful embraces -- in fact, it took us a few days to really take in the magnitude of what had happened -- but my best friend and I did our small part together to help this happen, and got a chance to broaden our perspectives of our fellow Americans. And I'd do it again in a heartbeat.

Yes We Can. And Yes We Did.

So good, so cheap

Well, given the abysmal state of the world economy, pretty soon I'll have to rename this blog "1001 Things To Do With Giant Sacks of Rice and Beans." But until then, at least I can practice the time-tested household frugality of actually eating up the leftovers before they turn into unidentifiable mush in the back of the refrigerator.

The other night I'd ordered a pizza and tossed salad from a local pizzeria, then never gotten around to the salad, which fortunately arrived with dressing on the side. I ended up making a tasty dinner for myself of the salad plus about a third of the giant bowl of excellent rigatoni bolognese (with fresh ricotta on top) I'd ordered for lunch and not finished. With that I had the last glass in a bottle of white wine we'd opened for Canadian Thanksgiving (referred to as "grown-up juice" by Baby Gateau) and the kids had pizza with an advance preview of the Halloween candy for dessert. Cheap! Good! Thrifty!

Another dose of reality

We made a family trip to Whole Foods to pick up some stuff for Canadian Thanksgiving this weekend, plus things for a simple dinner at home (a nice jar of vodka sauce, some ziti, and the Whole Foods turkey meatloaf, that I remade into tiny meatballs and cooked in the sauce). As I was taking the baby out of the car, he said to me "Lindsey [his nanny] coming?" I said, "No, not until Monday." He said, "Evie [teenage babysitter] here?" Uh, I guess we've been going out too many Saturday nights.....

Anyway, the boys ate their ziti and meatballs with incredible gusto, so Mr. Gateau and I were trying to think of some similarly simple dinners that are quick to prepare and the kids will enjoy, but aren't too kid-like (for our benefit) and/or made of junk. Some ideas:

--chicken quesadillas with whole wheat tortillas, guacamole, salsa

--tacos or nachos made with the fancy organic taco shells or chips, turkey or buffalo meat, and decent quality fixings

--rotisserie chicken or any grilled/roasted meat with Near East rice pilaf and a vegetable

--chicken noodle soup

--chicken sausage and potatoes baked in one dish and served with grainy mustard

--beef stew or other crock-pot stew

Others? Anyone? Bueller?

Back to Reality

I haven't posted since we left Paris (final day report: baguettes with butter and jam from the less stellar bakery in the neighborhood, but still: Parisian Baguette! and lunch at attractive outdoor cafe in the Jardin du Palais Royal, which had a bit of a Moroccan theme: had soft drinks, a salad with hams and air-dried beef and a Moroccan tomato salad, and then sadly we were off). 

But it's been mostly back to reality -- take-out, simple meals (I made my standby white bean soup with red pepper-garlic swirl and we ate that for a few days). Today, though, is the first real rainy Saturday we've had in a while, and the first one of fall, so I've hauled out the Crock Pot and have just put up a brisket with slightly sweet, tangy sauce with plenty of onions. We'll have that with smashed red potatoes and broccoli. I also have the supplies to make giant chewy molasses-ginger cookies later with the kids. I may get ambitious and do mini brown sugar-apple cakes for Rosh Hashanah, but then again I may just lie on the couch and watch Battlestar Galactica.