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the french toastiest

Ian wouldn't let me help him make french toast Sunday morning. I tried. He complained loudly, "I'm making french toast." I handed him the vanilla and the box of cinnamon and suggested he add a dash of each to the eggs he whisked up. Oh no, wait. I sliced the bread. And when I tried dipping it in the egg, that's when he asserted his french toast rights. I had mine with light karo corn syrup and berries and a dusting of confectioner's sugar. Nothing better. Yummy.

The bread was store-bought Italian. It went well with the ground sirloin patties topped with provolone and the hash brown casserole we ate as Saturday night's dinner. Most of the hash brown casserole went to a friend who is grieving. I took a mess of hash brown casserole and a pecan pie over for she and her family to enjoy later that night. We ate the HBC from the mini-casserole dish that I set aside for our consumption. It was good. Ian liked the crusty-crunchy bits alongside the edges. That was a clean mini-casserole dish. Can't remember where I got the recipe, actually, I do.

I worked at Rocky Mount Historical Association twice in my life, as an historical interpreter, and the first time, one of the ladies there, whose name I've since forgotten, shared her recipe with me. She said it tasted just like the hash brown casserole from Cracker Barrel. The only thing I like eating from CB is breakfast. Messing up breakfast is difficult. And, working there? That's how I learned fireplace cooking in a dutch oven. I have such skills.

Ian and I decided on our Christmas Eve menu. Even though I'm not crazy about ham, I'm making one. It's the coca cola ham from Nigella that I made at Easter. What else? A sweet potato souffle/casserole, green beans, corn pudding something, rolls, and two desserts: The banana pudding pie that came to a bad end last year before anyone got to eat it, and a red velvet cake. Maybe. I cleaned up my kitchen table the other afternoon and found Stephanie's grandmother's recipe. I'll compare it to Tayari's mom's and see if there's much difference.

red velvet cake (and the armadillo)

photo from Joyofbaking.

Tayari posted her mother's red velvet cake recipe. I haven't compared it to others, or even other RVC cake recipes to one another. I just know that the recipe I had didn't work. Then Stephanie write down her grannys for me, but I've misplaced it, so I'm RVC recipeless. Until now. Tayari saves the day. And, her family is from Atlanta, so you know a RVC recipe from the South's capital has got to be good. Bona fide, southern RVC straight from the peachiest state in the nation.

Cupcake segue: I'm not mad exactly put out, but why is it that all the cupcakeries outside of the south almost always feature a red velvet cupcake on their menu? It seems wrong. I know we can't keep RVC for ourselves, but letting everybody else have some without them crossing the mason-dixon line seems wrong, somehow.

Then there's one more thing: That red velvet armadillo cake featured in the Sally Field, Dolly Parton, Julia Roberts movie? Steel Magnolias. To have a red velvet armadillo cake of my very own would be a dream come true. My search for an armadillo-shaped cake pan/tin was unsuccessful. I'm not from Texas, but I swear I love the armadillo. I've collected them for years. Anybody who knows me in real life has no doubt to my admiration of the animal. I have them in my office at work, hanging in my foyer, littering tables in my living room, and cluttering up my jewelry box. There's even a laundry bag filled with stuffed/plush armadillos.

With all that blog of RVC, I may have to make one for Christmas Eve dinner, which I'm hosting at my house this year; Third Annual, in fact.

that's cupcake daaaaahlin'

Last time I made cupcakes they flopped. It was for Marie's wedding shower, last April or May, so almost a year ago. They were red velvet with cream cheese icing. The batter was suspiciously brown. After baking they were even browner and tasted like yick. I ate a bite. Ian ate a whole one. Like Mikey, he'll eat anything. I forgot that whole idea, ran to Food City, and ordered a sheet cake. Apparently it was such a traumatic experience that I failed to blog about it. I've discussed this failure with others and it seems that the recipe I had did not include explicit instructions about how and when to add certain ingredients. In the meantime, I gleaned another recipe, an old family recipe, from a friend. Hope to try it sometime when I'm not dieting (when will that be?)

Another thing: Cupcake mania never made it to East Tennessee. I follow trends in food and other cultural manifestations. You could say I am in the know about a select few things. Should cupcake mania ever come to ET, it will take at least ten years. Sushi came after twenty years and frozen yoghurt sometime in the mid-eighties. I read about frozen youghurt in a Norma Klein novel. Can't recall which one, but I'm sure it was published in the mid-seventies. I was clueless about frozen yoghurt. I had no context for understanding these things. First bagel I had was when I was thriteen. It wasn't from a bakery; no bakeries around here carried bagels as far as I know. And the only reason I got one was because my Jewish friend offered one to snack on while we watched Guiding Light after school.

Since I've not experienced this Cupcake mania personally I tend to regard the trend as other. One of those urban trends that have nothing to do with me. I found an endearing site about cupcakes. It's Cup Cake Bake Shop by chockylit. She is Cheryl Porro a chemical engineer. And she posts her recipes on her blog. The one that makes my mouth water is samoas cupcake. Yum.

SF Chronicle features something about cupcakes and Cheryl Porro. Oh, this explains the trend:

That is, until a couple of years ago. Many of us watched, in mouth-watering envy, as Carrie Bradshaw devoured the perfect little cake on "Sex and the City."  There she was, clad in her designer duds, licking the fluffy pink frosting off her upper lip as she gossiped about her latest conquest.

In an instant, cupcakes became the new Manolo Blahniks.

Those who inhabited Manhattan could get instant gratification, heading to the illustrious Magnolia Bakery in Greenwich Village for one of its pastel-topped treats  --  it took a little longer for the cupcake craze to take hold out West.  

neighborhood picnic

My parents hosted a neighborhood picnic in their backyard on Saturday. The residents living on Wedgewood Road came organized themselves several months ago to fight proposed re-zoning that would allow the field behind the street to be turned into high-density residences. My parents have lived there for at least twenty years; since I was eleven, so actually, that's closer to twenty-three years, now. I brought pecan pie and Texas caviar. Both recipes are from the Junior League Celebration Cookbook. My mom gave me a copy of it several years ago for an occasion: Christmas or birthday or something. Sometimes she gives me things for no reason, other than she loves me. I've tried one or two recipes from the book, and always receive compliments on the items and am often hounded for recipes, too.

This is a shot of the Texas caviar. It's great as a bean salad, and also as a dip. Ian always wants tortilla chips to accompany it. He's a big fan of dippable food. Ingredients are: pinto beans, black eyes peas, shoepeg corn, black beans, garbanzo beans, pimento, green chiles, celery, green pepper, and onion. That marinates for twenty-four hours in a mixture of sugar, vinegar, salt and pepper. And, it keeps for a few days...gets better the longer it stews in those juices.

My parents provided the chicken. It was the first time Mom tried Broasters chicken. When it comes to crispy chicken that's moist inside, you can't beat Broasters. There were wings, legs, and breasts. And, she also got a bunch of biscuits, too. I ate two legs. And I tried several of the yummy dishes brought by the neighbors.

The fruit salad was refreshing. The blueberries were huge. And, the salad wasn't covered with one of those sugary poppy-seed dressing things that typically accompany fruit salad. The pasta salad was good, but I am not a huge fan of pasta, unless it is macaroni and cheese, which was not in attendance, though it's cousin macaroni salad was. And those macaroni noodles were huge. I'm sure I've seen them that size before in the store, but I wasn't sure that anybody ever really bought them and used them.  What else? The cole slaw was good. Oh, but I think the thing that I loved most of all, that I went back for seconds for was this pineapple & cheese casserole that's obscured by the fruit salad. I found a recipe for it, and may try it sometime. Ian liked it too. My mother's neighbor Kirk said that he'd had it with ham as well, and that was really good, too.

There wasn't enough room for all the food. After the fact, Mom (she's on the left) admitted that she should have used another of the eight foot tables for dessert and drinks. She brought out a tv tray and an iron chair to keep all the desserts in one area. Since the women were keeping everything covered because of the fly situation, figuring out what the desserts were was difficult. I settled on a spoonful or two of trifle, a slice of red velvet cake, and a peanut butter cookie.