Once upon a time, there was a young(ish) food writer who wanted nothing more than to go to a cooking club potluck. Sadly, each month on the day of the meetup, there was always something that got in the way. Usually, it was the same thing.

“I have to work.”

While she tackled her workload, visions of au gratin pans and Corningware platters danced through her mind, always in theme with the cooking club’s genre of the month. Once, it was Chinese food. Then Italian. As she wrote (and wrote and wrote), she thought wistfully of what she was missing out on.

“How I wish I could go,” she would say.

Then one day, she got her wish. Her absentminded fairy godmother had come back from a long vacation, tanned and ready to jump back in the game. It was time to go to the potluck.

This time, the theme was 1950s food.

“So, what are you going to make, muffin?” her Valiant Boyfriend asked.
“Hmm,” she pondered for a few moments. “Baked Alaska!” she declared, disregarding that the party location was a 45-minute drive on the freeway, and that the local news had declared it the Hottest Weekend of the Summer.

No, in this fairy-tale world, transporting a Baked Alaska in a steaming-hot car down the 405 on The Hottest Weekend of the Summer wouldn’t be a problem at all. So it began.

First, a batch of brownies came out of the oven and cooled on a rack. Then, chocolate mint, chocolate and vanilla ice cream was smooshed into a plastic wrap-lined bowl, layer upon layer until the bowl was full. Then, the platter of brownies was placed on a plate, the bowl inverted and the excess brownies trimmed. A cloud of egg whites and sugar haloed the ice cream, and a mini-torch containing the fires of hell singed the meringue with a brown crust.

The baked Alaska was finally ready for its entrance at the party. All three piled into the car to begin the trek, with Valiant Boyfriend at the wheel.

But oh, what a perilous journey it was! The Baked Alaska, tried as it might, seemed as if it was no match for the harsh, stagnant heat. It melted. A lot.

Knowing that the poor dessert was on its last leg, Valiant Boyfriend weaved in and out of lanes, dodging slow cars and crammed interchanges, while food writer scanned the horizon for signs of lurking police cars. It seemed as though the journey would never end, but at last, all three made it to the party. As for the Baked Alaska, its health was grave: A gaping hole and melting ice cream pooled at the bottom of its plate. Into the freezer it went for a recharge, and (much) later, it was as good as new. It was a showpiece dessert, and everyone lived happily ever after. (Click on “Read the rest of this entry” for recipe.)

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Hey all, I had a column published in The Orange County Register today. It’s not available on the newspaper’s site, so here it is! Enjoy, and thanks for reading!

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You can tell a lot about a person by the way he takes his chocolate mousse. A chocoholic may often choose bittersweet chocolate over milk or white, while daring palates may choose fruit- and alcohol-flavored mousses or those with herbs and spices over the traditional versions. A voracious eater will inhale a mousse no matter how rich it is, licking remnants off of his spoon while other diners at the table will slowly relish every bite. (It’s fun to watch and analyze your friends.)

Traditionally, the French mousse au chocolat is made with melted dark chocolate and egg yolks, using egg whites to lighten. Modern versions call for things like whipping cream and even gelatin to achieve the desired airy state. Purists may claim that the only real mousse is the traditional one, but in reality, you really can’t argue that any of the recipes that steer away from the original are wrong. The beauty of mousse is because there are literally hundreds of recipes out there, so you can choose a recipe to suit every mood and accommodate every taste.

A close cousin of chocolate mousse is the chocolate pots de crème, a dessert that’s baked and served in lidded pots. (Since most of us don’t have these traditional pots on hand, we can achieve the same baking results by using espresso cups and covering the custards with aluminum foil.) The ingredients are almost identical to those of the mousse (eggs, chocolate, cream), the reason being they are both in the custard family of desserts. Making a mousse almost warrants making a pots de crème, based on that fact alone.

The following recipes omit the use of raw egg whites, using whipped cream to lighten them instead. While a mousse is light in texture, a pots de crème is dense, with an almost chewy mouthfeel. A mousse is put directly into the refrigerator to chill, while a pots de crème is baked in a bain marie, or water bath, before chilling.

I like to serve the mousse and pots de creme side by side, for a “chocolate two ways” dessert – thought it might be a bit too rich for those not completely addicted to chocolate.

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Am I too late for this bandwagon?

If bacon has left the building and ham is the new swine product of choice, then I’m totally running a little behind on the up-and-up here. It’s like I got the memo that bacon was on the out, but I tossed it into a pile of other memos that include not wearing acid wash jeans after 1986 and how Pluto isn’t a planet anymore. Bacon is so last year, the memo says. Artisanal ham is what we’re supposed to be doing now. But guys, I dunno about this. The 80s can have its acid wash, but as for bacon and Pluto, I can’t let go. Not yet.

Pluto was that odd-tastic planet that was too faraway to see or understand until a few years ago. And apparently, scientists didn’t like what they saw, so it was hastily snipped out of textbooks and disowned by the planetary family. All because it was a “dwarf” planet. Harsh.

And bacon! What has it ever done to us to make us want to drop it like a hot potato? This bacon thing, to me, is not a fling. There is still so much to explore before we throw in the towel.

Fortunately, there are others that feel the same way with both Pluto and bacon. And if any of you bacon/Pluto fans are out there in hiding, you’re not alone. But we are indeed fighting an uphill battle, one that we may ultimately lose. But on the bright side, we can still keep bacon and the former ninth planet in our hearts. Pluto may have been nixed, but there’s still time for bacon to realize its full potential. And, if the meat candy’s decline is ultimately imminent, so be it. We tried.

But let’s send bacon out with a bang, shall we?

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This blog has seen better days.

There once was a vision for this pavlova. It was imagined as an elegant confection that would pay tribute to the very ballerina the dessert was named after. I’d stud the top with blueberries and glassy candied lemons, just as jewels and embroidery embellished the dancer’s costumes.

But then I ended up with this. It wasn’t quite what I had in mind.

I drew attention to each of its imperfections by piling on garnish after garnish in vain attempts to fix it. A haphazard spackle of boozed-up whipped cream, studs of blueberries and limp candied lemons do not an elegant dessert make. Especially if the candied lemons actually frown.

The fact that it’s delicious is the only reason I haven’t had my culinary degree revoked. But it’s hard to appreciate its taste when it looks like it took a head-first dive into the floor.

You’d think after all that, I’d have chucked it in the trash, stat. But here’s part one of two embarrassing confessions: It’s still in my refrigerator. Did I mention I made this three weeks ago?

For the past three weeks, I’ve noticed that its sides are falling and the blueberries have started fuzzing over, but for the most part, it still looks exactly the way it did when I made it (which as we all know, isn’t saying much). This thing is industrial. Its determined to keep itself together.

Which brings me to part two of two embarrassing parts: I can’t bring myself to toss it, because I keep thinking of ways to save it, even though I know it’s practically feral. And every time I open the refrigerator door, I think, if I could be as determined as this dessert, man, would I be a force to be reckoned with. But then I think, have I really just compared myself to a meringue?

Yeah, OK. I’ll throw it out.

(Click on “Read the rest of this entry” for recipe)
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By far, the recipe on this blog that’s received the most attention is the one for s’mores cupcakes. And why not? They’re certainly eye-pleasing, and they contain all of the essential campfire ingredients minus the “Survivor”-esque wilderness trek (an experience that’s harrowing for some, I’m sure).

Anyhow, in that particular post, I mentioned that the frosting can be used as a crème with strawberries or peach slices for a twist on the fruit ‘n cream concept. Forgive me if I’m drilling this idea into your memory by ways of yet another mention, but I really must insist. Especially when strawberries are involved.

When you pair strawberries and marshmallow crème (and we’re not talking the jarred marshmallow stuff), you’re getting two kinds of sweet. From the strawberry, there’s the light, floral sweetness the fruit tends to yield when fully ripe. The marshmallow crème offers more of an unnatural sweetness, like the stuff that was in the potent candy you used to be addicted to when you were a kid. It’s a fantastic combination, especially for those of us trying hard to keep our childlike qualities with every facial wrinkle we earn. These little nuggets of heaven satisfy both our inner kids and the grown-ups we’ve become.

Now, I don’t mean to wax poetic about marshmallow strawberries (because it makes me sound, and feel, like a total weirdo), but I can’t seem to better explain why I really love these little treats. So here’s the simple version of what I’m trying to say: They’re just awesome.

I call them tortured strawberries, because you do have to torch them, albeit very lightly. But they don’t look the least bit tortured, do they? They look kind of snug, all swaddled into little pillowy bundles. I bet they actually like being torched. Perhaps they would be willing to suffer even more agony by a sprinkling of crushed Oreo cookies or a drizzling of caramel. The possibilities are far too much for me to handle right now.

On second thought, perhaps the one being tortured in all of this is me.

(Click on “Read the rest of this entry” for recipe)

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Once, I made a chocolate mint cake for someone’s birthday. We’re talking a big-deal kinda birthday cake, tall and proud, with Valrhona, fresh mint leaves steeped in cream, chocolate curls and piped borders. When I was finished, it looked like every Baking 101 technique out there had assaulted the defenseless, 10×6 confection. It took days to complete. And it only took a split second to devastate.

The cake was transported from my kitchen to the birthday site, a mere 10-minute drive down a residential surface street. I sat in the passenger seat with the plated cake in my lap. Sometime during the drive, I remember blinking, and the next thing I knew my seatbelt had tightened forcefully, and the heavy weight on my lap was suddenly absent. While my friend cursed the car that had caused the sudden stop, I sat stunned, staring at an almond-crusted pile of shit at my feet. It may as well have been steaming.

Cakes don’t travel in my lap anymore. At the very least, they travel in wide boxes with slip-proof rubber mats underneath. Since then, I’ve had a few more rounds of travel mishaps — like a car floor covered in cream of mushroom soup and butterscotch pudding after yet another sudden stop — but for the most part, things have remained unscathed. A homemade three-tiered wedding cake survived a three-hour trip from Orange County, Calif., to Santa Barbara, and this strawberry cream cheese cake recently arrived at a San Diego housewarming party in near-perfect condition. Thank goodness for that. 

(Click on “Read the rest of this entry” for recipe.)

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Things have gotten busy in my corner, starting with the launch of a food blog with Orange Coast magazine (covering foodthings in Orange County!). Almost exactly on the blog’s launch date, things at my day job swelled, and I’m working longer hours to meet the writing/editing demands. It’s hairy, to say the least.

I’m not at all complaining, though. Life is full right now. But thankfully, it’s full of very, very awesome things.

All of this means I’ve been coming home later than usual. Instead of cooking, I’d much rather order pizza or some Thai, or (ideally) have someone spoon feed me soup or bread pudding for dinner. I specifically say bread pudding because it’s one of the most ultimate comfort foods, one where you don’t have to expel much effort to eat it. Bread pudding requires little chewing, if any at all. And right off of the spoon, it slithers down the back of your throat in a savory mush that warms your insides in a medicinal sort of way. (I underbake it just to experience this exact sensation every time.) Other mushy foods like mashed potatoes and guacamole tend to stick to the roof of your mouth, but bread pudding seems to know where it’s going right from the get-go.  You spoon it in,  and down it goes without any resistance at all. And it’s got chutzpah: If it could, I bet the it would make it’s own little slurping noises when you swallow it.

I bought Sunday Suppers at Lucques at the Los Angeles Times book fair a few years ago. Chef Suzanne Goin was perched in a booth signing books for a line that was at least 45 minutes long. After she signed mine, I sat on the grass and flipped through it, almost immediately landing on this recipe for caramelized bread pudding with chocolate and cinnamon. With that page alone, Goin made me a fan.

Now, if only someone would make this bread pudding for me before I summon the pizza guy. (Click on “Read the rest of this entry” for recipe)

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“I think it would be cool to fly a helicopter,” my boyfriend said while pummeling his Xbox controls one afternoon. He had spent the last 10 minutes maneuvering his way through the skies of “Grand Theft Auto” on the Annihilator, a chopper with a seemingly endless supply of manly ammo. He’s right, I thought. It would be cool. Just not on the Annihilator. I made a reservation for an intro flying lesson soon after.

Whenever I’m on a plane, I like to stare out the window and imagine that the tiny world below is edible. The plowed, circular fields of Iowa look like wheat crackers. The Grand Canyon is an artsy bowl that can be filled with almost any kind of soup. Red barns and silos pass for sausages, and clouds are either wisps of cotton candy or the fluffy tops of meringue pies. (I always request a window seat.)

Helicopters though, are nothing like planes: instead of hurling down the runway for takeoff, it was more like God himself had cupped his hands together and carried us calmly upward and across the sky. I snapped panoramic views of the city with my camera, stopping only when I noticed that everything was looking rather edible.

Huh, I thought. The Queen Mary looks like a sushi roll. I closed one eye and pretended to pick the ship up between my fingers. Tree clusters resembled broccoli, and roads became thin strands of black licorice. Even buildings looked like Chiclets and petit fours. The world was just a giant, crowded dinner table.

It went on like this until I noticed the clouds, which weren’t quite the meringues they usually are when they form fluffy pictures in the sky. Seeing that, I made a silent promise to make my own. Clouds, that is.

(Click on “Read the rest of this entry” for recipe)

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