You can’t just stick candles in any old cake and call it birthday cake. For the traditionally-minded, birthday cake means layers and frosting, too. I have a penchant for plain cakes, but I can’t deny the requests from the rest of my household for frosted birthday cakes. A chocolate-frosted chocolate cake is the Standard Birthday Request; this year, however, it was carrot cake, with its requisite cream cheese frosting. Now, there is no part of me that dislikes chocolate cake, but I love, love, love carrot cake, even without the frosting. Carrot cake is part of a family of simple, quick-bread-style cakes that contain vegetable oil rather than butter. The few butter-based carrot cakes I’ve tasted were dry, even with all that moisture from the carrots. How could that be? When we perceive moistness in baked goods, it’s coming from two sources: water and fat. These must be in good balance for the product to taste moist. In carrot cake, the water content of the carrots provides sufficient water-based moisture, so the cake also needs a good measure of fat-based moisture. Butter is not pure fat—it also contains some water. Oil, however, is pure fat, so in concert with watery carrots, it produces a good water-fat balance in the cake. Furthermore, butter is solid at room temperature, while oil is liquid, so we perceive a bite of room-temperature oil-based cake to be more moist, all other things being equal, than a bite of room-temperature butter-based cake. Perhaps as a compensation for the blandness of vegetable oil, carrot cake also usually contains walnuts—their flavor marries quite well with carrots. (more…)
“When the last princesse slip was freshly beribboned, our beloved Hungarian laundress sometimes found time to give us a treat. She made strudel. Draping the round dining room table with a fresh cloth, she patiently worked flour into it. Neighborhood small fry gathered on the fringes of the light cast by the Tiffany dome, and their eyes would pop as she rolled the dough, no bigger than a softball, into a big thin circle. Then, hands lightly clenched, palms down, working under the sheet of dough and from the center out, she stretched it with the flat planes of the knuckles…. She would play it out, so to speak, not so much pulling it as coaxing it with long, even friction, moving round and round the table as she worked. …Browned bread crumbs, lemon rind grated into sugar, raisins, currants, very finely sliced apples, almonds and a small pitcher of melted butter were all set out on a tray. These were strewn alternately over the surface of the dough. Then came the forming of the roll. Using both hands, Janka picked up one side of the cloth and, while never actually touching the dough itself, tilted and nudged the cloth and the sheet this way and that until the dough rolled over on itself—jelly-roll fashion—and completely enclosed the filling. Finally, she slid the long cylinder onto a greased baking sheet and curved it into a horseshoe. From beginning to end the process had masterly craftsmanship.” --The Joy of Cooking, Irma Rombauer and Marion Rombauer Becker, 1975 
Beets are the quintessential cook’s vegetable: in a skilled cook’s hands, they undergo a big transformation, from hard, dense, and assertively sweet, to smooth, velvety, and balanced. They must be cooked, I think, to taste their best, and when cooked and seasoned with care, they’re as delicious as they are colorful. Their substantial, earthy-sweet flavor is always a delight. I use beets most frequently in the cooler months of the year—their intense colors are especially welcome then—but even now, in midsummer, some of our local farmers are still offering them at the markets alongside the heirloom tomatoes, peppers, corn, and eggplant. Here is a hot-weather beet inspiration Elge brought when she visited last week for the book party: a beet-based Bloody Mary. At home, she’d made David Tanis’ “Cold Pink Borscht in a Glass” from his cookbook A Platter of Figs and had some leftover broth. “Oooh, a beet Bloody Mary!” she thought. We made some broth expressly for making the drinks, and were thoroughly refreshed by them after a long day of Big Pink Cake-wrangling and other party preparations. I thought such a deep red drink needed a name—an appropriate, modern name…whether you associate it with the star or the witch, “Bellatrix” seemed just right. If an air of danger comes to mind, well, perhaps it's appropriate...these are very potent...and very drinkable. 
Hello, everyone--I am busy busy busy getting ready for the party tomorrow, but in the coming weeks, please check back for posts about some wonderful roast pork Elge and I had on the street in Chinatown yesterday, the Big, Big Pink Cake we're baking for the party tomorrow, wild fennel ice cream with plums (inspired by a dessert on last week's Chez Panisse menu), and a beet bloody mary Elge developed that we're thinking of calling The Bellatrix.... 
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