LoveFeast Table

There are a lot of similarities between me and and my blogging partner in crime, Kristin.  We generally WANT the same outcome when it comes to the way things should come out.  But, let’s just say, sometimes it takes me a little bit more time to get there!  A perfect example of this is the cake I am about to share with you.  This cake, is the Pioneer Woman’s Strawberry Shortcake Cake.  There are some similarities between me and the Pioneer Woman and I will point them out as we roll along here.  But, this does not insure instantaneous success, even with much hopefulness. I baked her cake, not once, but twice.  So, you, dear reader, can learn, by my example, what not to do.  Kristin also baked a cake, Martha Stewart’s.  (This post is coming, a beautiful wedding cake!)  She did hers’ in one day, one morning actually.  I’ve seen her work in her kitchen.  I can tell you this.  It was relaxed, smooth, and graceful.  I am sure that a soft breeze blew gently through her sunny window and birds chirped as she ran her mixer.  That is her kitchen mojo.  Mine involved breakage, failure, starting over, a sundown and a sunup and then finally success.  But, in the end, we both got what we wanted, a beautiful cake to share with our family and friends.

Here was my first mistake.  I skimmed the directions.  I admit it.  I’m a skimmer.  I skimmed through my Charles Dicken’s class in college and I skimmed through this recipe.  This is why I don’t get an “A” in Dicken’s or this cake.

Here is my next mistake.  Do not do this.  Do not be tricked into thinking that the power of a cowgirl boot can summon the power of the Pioneer Woman to make this cake.  For me, it did not.  Also, it did not help that I decided to bake my cake inside an old coffee can.  I did it here, for Banana Bread, and it worked out beautifully.  For Strawberry Shortcake Cake, not so much.  Pioneer Woman specifically says to use a “cute pan”  specifically and 8 inch round cake pan.  Old coffee cans are not cute.  Enough said.

My strawberries turned out beautifully.  But, then again because I again, skimmed, Pioneer Woman’s blog post I missed the tip of the day.  Add Grand Marnier here.  This would make this cake more happy.  But, because I have success with crushing strawberries I think I’m on my way.  I can do this thing.  And, then I see a sign.  Some thing, some critter, some thing of nature, has pooped on my deck.  This must be an omen of good luck.  Why do I think this?  Because the Pioneer Woman has animals pooping on her deck (or porch) all the time (at least I think she does).  And, I am trying to make her channel her pioneer energy into my suburbia cake!  Obviously, it all adds up!! 

Would you be tricked by this beautifully browned top of this cake?  Cause I was.

But, the inside was gooey and undone.

It’s a dilemma but, I am committed.  I will not give up.  The day is young…at least at this point.

So, I remix the ingredients and pour them correctly this time into two cake pans!  I later discover it is suppose to be one cake pan.  I leave out the sour cream, which I think is what probably makes this cake “the bomb“.  I scrape out the pans.  I wash the pans.  I remix.  I re-pour.  I revisit my commitment.  I bake.  I cool.  I sleep.  I wake.  I frost.  I get this:

And this:

Lots of kids around our homes tend to do this, lickin’ the plate clean thing!

Ice Cream!

Soft Serve Ice Cream!

That’s what our ice cream man serves!  It was warm, sunny and beautiful!  A taste of things to come!  Come on summer!!

What? Does this picture look fuzzy to you? Forget about it, it’s all that Limoncello, you’ve been drinking! Welcome to our Limoncello table! This is us, two years ago in Florence, Italy. There’s Kristin, next to her man and chef, Devon. See the stroller behind them? That’s Little Baby. We were so happy he did not get left behind any tables or under any trees. He was so good; it would have been easy to forget that he was there! He was a great little Italian traveler for five months old, except in the Duomo! (ya’ know you’ve started out a great culinary life, when you’ve been nursed in the Duomo!) My husband, Todd, took the picture, and I’m in the blue sweater, raising my glass of homemade Limoncello, a starter to a wonderful meal memory in Italy!

It was late. So late, that even the Italian restaurants were closing. On a curvy road, across the river we found a big house that had a restaurant on the lower floor that was willing to seat us. We hustled in, happy to have found a place. And, what a find! We were led around the back of the house and seated in the back garden at this lovely tiled table. It was warm and balmy. The garden smelled wonderful. Our view over looked the hazy glow of the lights of Florence. It felt like a dream. And, as we cooed over the view, the garden, and the blessing of this moment, our waitress placed in front of us, a little cut glass goblet filled with lemony liquid. It was our first homemade Italian Lemoncello! This was going to be a great meal!

It turned out our waitress was the wife. The husband was the chef. When it came time to order, they helped us talk through our meal through broken Italian (ours) and broken English (there’s). The chef soon came out with a big slab of meat, maybe three pounds. He motioned to us, that it would be the size for our table. How big? We were trying to understand. And, then in a rich Italian roll-of-tongue, he pronounced, “it’s a bey-bee!! (Meaning, the size of a baby!!) We all laughed, “Bring us that baby then!!”

As we enjoyed our meal, laughing and chatting and eating into the night, the chef proudly watched us as he cleaned his kitchen, which was open to the back of the house behind us, and then, hosed down his garden for the evening. It was the ultimate in hospitality, to be relaxed in your giving and the making of a meal, and to enjoy your guests’ enjoyment. We couldn’t thank him enough because there are meals and there are moments when food and friends come together, blend at the table, and create a life memory.

Do you have a meal memory that became a life memory? Then, leave a comment and share it at our table! (Also, coming soon, all about our Limoncello throw down, that involved, lemons, of course, and other secret ingredients.)

Like I said on Facebook and Twitter, I was dreaming of making this cake.  And, today was deadline day, I would either bake or break – - turns out I did both, but nothing that a little sculpting and frosting can’t fix!  I didn’t let a late night at the Cabooze stop me either.  I was at the Cabooze last night with my husband and friends to watch the bands Umbrella Bed the English Beat.  Who’s that, you might ask, as did the cute girls at Covered, who helped me with my outfit and informed me that Cabooze was “rock-n-roll, not pop”.  Hilare!!   I didn’t think I would go for “pop” but, no matter.  I love going into the city.  I loved the Cabooze — and the thirty-eight motorcycle bikes next door or the bridge to throw people off near by, did not deter this mom of four from the ‘burbs!  Like we said once in a post, “we don’t get out much“.  At any rate…great night, late night and now this cake!  You can’t beat that!!

The cake baking was inspired by blog Smitten Kitchen.  The cake recipe is from Sky High: Irresistible Triple Layer Cakes, by Alisa Huntsman & Peter Wynne and adapted by Smitten Kitchen.

Grandma Bessie’s kitchen was always warm.   I remember looking up to the white oven and being shooed away and warned of the heat as I came in through the back door.  In the winter, we came in the back door because often the front porch was covered up in plastic to seal out the North Dakota cold.  That back door led to what Grandma called the back porch, which was merely really a small hallway to enter the house.  To the left, inside the back porch, was a small dresser, lined on top with a row of silver coffee cans filled with wax paper and mostly homemade cookies.  The first chance I got, once I was in Grandma’s house, I would peel back each plastic lid, to see what was inside each can.  When I was very little there were lots of choices:  chocolate chip, crumbly peanut butter printed with the back of a fork, sometimes oatmeal raisin, a sugar topped gingersnap, a cakey molasses cookie with sour cream frosting, and always store bought Cameo cookies.  Now that I am older, I am amazed at how well prepared she was for guests and grandchildren.  Grandma Bessie was also resourceful and inventive.  She made dish towels and placemats out of old flour sack and crocheted the edges.  Another thing she did was bake her banana bread in a silver coffee can; a can just like the ones she stored the cookies in.  That is the one trick I learned from my Grandma Bessie’s kitchen.

So, when I was reading a food blog I like called Whipped, I found a recipe called My Favorite Banana Bread Recipe.  I was looking for a replacement one, since my standby with oatmeal was boring me.  This one calls for real butter, and I used the good stuff.  The only thing I did differently was I baked it in an old coffee can, like Grandma Bessie use to do.  I baked it 70 minutes, a little longer than suggested, probably because of the can.  I greased the can with butter and flour Pam spray.  It popped out just fine!

Do you have a trick you learned from your Grandma’s kitchen?  Please share!

My sister-n-law, (aka, the “Holiday Sangria Lady”) has long been an incredible baker.  She has awed our family with gooey rolls, known as monkey bread.  She is an expert in bars, cookies, and pies full of butterscotch, caramel, and chocolate.  For a long time she has collected all sorts of recipes.  It makes sense, then, after years of wow-ing friends and family she has recently begun the journey of launching a baking business in the Chicago area.  So, when I came across a cookbook called Baked: New Frontiers in Baking–I thought it would be the perfect gift for her.  She says it is one of the first cookbooks she has ever read, cover to cover.

However, I must confess.  It sat on my desk too long.  I should have wrapped it sooner, resisted temptation, closed my eyes, and NEVER should have felt the smooth fresh cover!  I couldn’t help it.  After all, I rationalized, I should give it a good once over, make sure it’s suitable, perhaps….test it.  I snuck a peek.  I didn’t even crack the spine.  I lifted ever gently and peeked onto the page.  Page number 53, actually, Red Hot Velvet Cake.  Somehow, the possibility drew me in, that even I could make something wonderful.  And, after all, it was my husband’s birthday.  So, I began the afternoon, with guilty pleasure, baking a homemade red velvet cake.

Well, since it is President’s day I thought I share a bit about the 2009 Bytes & Books Inaugural Ball, that my husband Todd attended (see picture seven under George Lucas).  You see, right after New York, while we were in Baltimore with Kristin & Devon, Todd had to go out to “the ball”.  We all stayed home, and wondered how his parking would go down.  Turns out, he easily drove in, and actually parked right in front of the Folger Shakespeare Library, right behind the Capital, next to the Library of Congress.  He didn’t even have to use valet.

This is what they eat at balls in case you are wondering.  While all that “balling” went down, Kristin and I worked on our blog and Urban Spoon posts.  We wrote until we were pressing the keypad with our noses, we were so tired.  Todd came home, and took in a few games of Wii with Devon, ’cause that what you do in your tux after you go to an Innaguration Ball…..in case you are wondering.

Actually, really it’s Orange & Bourbon Chocolate Cake from The Spotted Pig in NYC.  The Spotted Pig was on our hit list for restaurant’s in NYC but, we didn’t get there.  So, after I got back and was planning my girls’ night out party, I was super excited to find this recipe in the back of my In Style magazine (February 2009 issue, p.192).

Now, usually when I have parties my husband is the go-to guy.  You just turn around once and shebang there’s a cake!  He is famous for his cheesecakes, many from our Philadelphia Cream Cheese Cookbook.  For my party he made Orange Butterscotch Cheesecake.   Our dog Solomon, was also famous for cheesecakes in a different way.  He had a love of wandering and a nose that led him to many a baking counter.  When we lived in Maryland he sniffed his way through back doors, ate thawed butter, walked around people’s houses, and came out their front doors when they came home from work.  Here in Minnesota, he had been known to eat any extra Sam’s Club purchases stored up in the garage, and eventually he made it to the B’s during Christmas  one year, and chowed down a whole GOURMET cake, next thing ya’ know he ate the whole shebang!   God rest his soul, literally.

Chris Ann and I have been asking people, “What is your favorite food memory?”  Many people respond with, “I’ve never thought about that!”  I posed this question to my Aunt Bonnie over the holidays.  Aunt Bonnie is an artist and has always been the eccentric aunty of the family…that’s why we call her Uncle Bonnie!  She has created art all over the world.  I had the privilege of helping her with a mural here in Baltimore when I was a teenager.  She is currently wrapping up her first comic novel!  Needless to say she’s very talented.

“My favorite food memory…hmmm?  I remember I had just moved to New York and had recently discovered lavender.  I was growing my first plant at my apartment.  I went out to dinner with some friends and there on the menu, was lavender sorbet!  As an artist, the lavender sorbet appealed to all my senses!  It is a memory that stands out in my mind!”  -Uncle Bonnie

We know that many of you have favorite food memories…those times in your life, around a table, when time stands still and you remember the sights, the sound, the conversations and the taste!!  Will you share with us?