A BIRTHDAY GONE AWRY

Sorry for the brief radio silence. There was an…. incident late Saturday night.

I was preparing a simple, fresh dinner for my friend Himo’s birthday party. The meal I had envisioned was going to be perfect. There was a translucent shavings of fennel with wild, peppery arugula, thin discs of zucchini, chopped dill, toasted walnuts, purslane (my favorite!), and mustard greens. There were slender, crisp radishes that we halved and served with blanched radish greens and sauteed bacon. There was an tremendously easy pasta dish with my chopped garlic scape and garden basil pesto, no blender needed. And, of course, there was a birthday cake, a light lemon cake with fresh, oozing lemon curd and a delicate vanilla buttercream, using a combination of this recipe and that recipe. (I also made it for this work party). There was rum that we brought back from Jamaica, and cigars for the boys.

But somewhere along the way, I slipped. To be precise: I slipped a knife, while chiffonading basil, right through my thumb, slicing off half a fingernail and a good bit of flesh. And because I love birthday parties and I was deep into the wine, I actually waited a full day before Adam finally convinced me that I had to go to the ER. I’m fine, of course — and I suppose that anyone who works in a kitchen everyday should expect a few accidents — but it’s stilll a drag (my whole right hand hurts, so I had to type this post with one hand only).

My one consolation — dinner still rocked. And that’s all that matters, right? The show must go on, etc etc and all that.

A CAUL TO ARMS

Intrigued by the masterful combination of sausages and oysters, earlier this fall we bookmarked a page in Richard Olney’s indespensible book Ten Vineyard Lunches. The recipe was for tiny green crepines, or caul-wrapped ‘green sausages,’ served with oysters on the half shell.

These crepines were the best homemade sausages I’ve ever had, and super fun and easy to make, too. The ‘green’ aspect derives from huge bunches of spinach, which are finely chopped, sauteed, and folded into a pork sausage, garlic and parsley mixture.

The patties are gently sealed in pig caul — that’s the beautiful lacy stomach lining found in various animals — and then cooked until golden brown and crispy. The caul sort of melts away and tightens the sausage up, keeping it intact and providing a natural sausage casing for the ground pork. We found that these sausages render quite a bit of fat, so we drained the pan halfway through. Ideally the crepines are grilled over hot coals, but we found the broiler worked just as well.

So we had some friends over and quickly devoured these sausages with toasted bread, butter, lemon wedges, a simple migonette sauce (red wine vinegar, chopped shallots, cracked black pepper + minced parsley) and oodles of oysters — a few dozen of them Rockefeller style, even. What can I say, we were feeling festive.

There’s no reason why you can’t make sausages like this all the time. Caul is fairly cheap (we bought a baseball-sized puck of caul for about $5), and freezes great. As you can imagine, it’s quite durable — and beautiful! — and the ineffably porky essence it adds to the sausages is rich and delicious beyond belief. (Apologies for the caul puns. We riffed on the topic for at least an hour during dinner, at one point I described myself as a ‘caul girl.’)

A MESSAGE TO PRETTY

I officially went outside my culinary comfort zone and baked – for the first time – a two-layer chocolate cake from scratch! This cake, aptly titled “The Best Chocolate Cake” – David Lebovitz’s recipe, via Cucina Nicolina (which I had bookmarked long ago under ‘maybe?’ but never had the courage to attempt it, the recipe equivalent of a tight red dress that sits in your closet and mocks you with its impossibility) – has a subtle taste and a huge, light crumb. The frosting is dense but not sugary. This is the perfect cake to be sliced alongside vanilla ice cream. In fact, I insist upon it.

But honestly, parts of the process was farcical at best. First: I couldn’t find a proper sieve and ended up sifting my dry ingredients through a mesh screen – and made a gigantic mess in the process. Second: Do NOT try to cream butter and sugar by hand. It will take eons and it is not worth a sore bicep the next day. Third: Do NOT allow the ganache that clings to your dirty dishes and pans to set overnight. It is a nightmare to remove the next day and frosting is less delicious when you have tennis elbow. Fourth: Do not add water to the ganache recipe. I forgot to, and honestly, I’m so glad I didn’t. The frosting is rich and shiny and dense with just chocolate and butter. No water needed. Fifth and final: the Lebovitz recipe calls for cake flour (not self rising) but I used regular all-purpose flour and was fine.

Other than those pretty minor caveats, you MUST make this cake. It was so simple and rewarding. I was seriously proud of my creation – “roast chicken proud,” as some would say – that I posed with the final product in a rare food-chef pairing photo op. Sure, it had deflated some and I had done a laughably bad job of frosting it, but I masked most of the mistakes with fresh sprigs of lavender from my mom’s garden.

It was the perfect conclusion to one of the richest, most decadent meals I’ve had in a while: grilled beef tenderloin marinated in champagne mustard and crushed coriander seed; potatoes gratin with cream, beef stock, rosemary, and brandy; shiitake mushrooms sauteed in red wine, scallions, garlic and ginger; and a watercress salad dressed with oil and lemon (because SOMETHING has to be light on the menu). There was a lot of crazy wine and we listened to the debut Love album but I think my bragging about the cake overshadowed everything else. Moral of the story: BAKE THIS CAKE TODAY.