Gourmet's 50 Women Game Changers in Food: # 50: Julie Powell

No doubt the name of our final game-changer is familiar; we've all either heard about or seen the movie Julie and Julia, based on the book, which was based on Julie's blog.

Fittingly, Julia Child was our first game-changer and so Julie Powell is our last. 
I want to thank Mary from One Perfect Bite for hosting this amazing and educational series.  I also want to thank all of you, who took the time to wade through extra long posts and comment when I know what busy lives you lead.

Good blog friend Val from More Than Burnt Toast has kept a list of everything we've done in these 50 weeks. Wow! I'm putting the link HERE so you can go back and check recipes. I'll also add it to my sidebar. Thanks, Val!

Researching the 50 women has been an extraordinary and enlightening experience and these women have inspired us to extend our comfort zones to include cuisines from around the world. It's also been fun meeting other bloggers and reading their take on the Game Changers and the recipes each has chosen to feature. I've been so impressed with all of them.
I sincerely hope that you've enjoyed meeting Gourmet's 50 women Game Changers too.   
Kudos to you, Mary! 

                                                                                          ***********************************

Julie Powell was born in 1973 and raised in Austin, Texas. She attended Amherst College, graduated in 1995 with a double major in theater and creative writing. With an eye for adventure Julie and her husband to-be, Eric, moved to New York City, where Julie  worked a variety of temp jobs. She and Eric married; he was an editor of Archaeology magazine.

During Julie's last job with the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation (which was responsible for distributing funds post-9/11) she created a unique blogging project, "The Julie/Julia Project". This was a blog chronicling her attempt to cook all the recipes in Julia Child's famous cookbook, Mastering The Art of French Cooking. This was a huge undertaking for two reasons: Julie barely knew how to cook an egg and she had a small poorly equipped apartment in Queens. 

Her blog audience slowly grew and it resulted in a book deal for Powell with Little, Brown and Company. Powell reformatted the work she had done on her blog and crafted the 2005 published book Julie and Julia: 365 Days, 524 Recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen . (The book was later retitled Julie and Julia: My Year of Cooking Dangerously)

Julie's popularity led to a movie deal for an adaptation of her story in 2009, making the movie we're all familiar with, based on her weblog. Julia Child was reported to have been unimpressed with Powell's blog, believing her determination to cook every recipe in Mastering the Art of French Cooking in a year to be a stunt. Child's editor, Judith Jones, said in an interview:

"Flinging around four-letter words when cooking isn't attractive, to me or Julia. She didn't want to endorse it. What came through on the blog was somebody who was doing it almost for the sake of a stunt. She would never really describe the end results, how delicious it was, and what she learned. Julia didn’t like what she called 'the flimsies.' She didn't suffer fools, if you know what I mean."

Shortly after she finished writing Julie & Julia, in which she speaks adoringly of her "sainted" husband, Eric, Powell and her husband both had affairs that nearly destroyed their marriage. 

Powell's second book, Cleaving: a Story of Marriage, Meat, and Obsession details the effects on her marriage of the affair,  as well as her experiences learning the butcher trade. Powell calls her affair "the thing I used to pull my marriage apart for a while, but I do not recommend infidelity as a way of dealing with marital problems. It did turn out to be the thing that made us examine what exactly was going on and rebuild our marriage."

She and Eric are still together. They have no children. With her marriage on firmer ground, Powell is ready for a new challenge: She's writing a novel.

"Fiction was what I always wanted to write, but it's early days on that," Powell says. As for the story line, "food plays a big role. It's sort of about our various neuroses about food. My glib description of it is that it's a post-apocalyptic comedy of manners set in New York." 

                                                                                     *************************************

This final post certainly gave us a multitude of recipe choices! All of Mastering the Art of French Cooking. :) I chose to feature a very simple dish, using an ingredient I love. Fresh, crisp leaves of Belgian endive are most often found in tossed green salads but also commonly used as a vehicle for dips. Unfortunately, it's a pricey little vegetable, but a little goes a long way. I add some endive to my salad every day. You'll find after 2 hours in the oven, the whole cigar-shaped heads result in a slightly bitter, yet buttery flavor and a silky texture. Braised endive, an easy side dish that goes beautifully with fowl or veal, gives you a chance to surprise your guests and it's great for the holidays, a welcome counterpoint to cranberry sauce and the sweeter side of the buffet table. 

Endives Braisees ala Flamande
From Mastering the Art of French Cooking by Julia Child

Ingredients:

12 endive -- wash & trim

1/2 cup water

1 tbsp lemon juice

4 tbsp butter

Method:

Arrange endives in single layer in casserole. Add salt, water, juice, and

butter. Spread waxed paper over to keep them moist and to prevent burning.

Cover and simmer slowly on top of stove for 20 minutes or until almost tender

and liquid reduced to half. Cut a piece of parchment paper to fit over the endive. Bake in 325° oven for 2 hours or until pale golden and almost all liquid is gone.

Join Mary from One Perfect Bite and all the other participants in this fun series.

Val - More Than Burnt Toast
Joanne - Eats Well With Others
Taryn - Have Kitchen Will Feed
Susan - The Spice Garden
Claudia - A Seasonal Cook in Turkey
Heather - girlichef
Miranda - Mangoes and Chutney
Jeanette - Healthy Living
April - Abby Sweets 
Katie - Making Michael Pollan Proud
Mary - One Perfect Bite
Viola - The Life is Good Kitchen
Sue - The View from Great Island
Kathleen Van Bruinisse - Bake Away with Me 
Kathleen - Gonna Want Seconds
Martha - Lines from Linderhof
Amy - Beloved Green
Linda - Ciao Chow Linda

Nancy - Picadillo
Mireya - My Healthy Eating Habits
Veronica - My Catholic Kitchen
Annie - Lovely Things

Claudia - Journey of An Italian Cook
Alyce - More Time at the Table
Amrita - Beetles Kitchen Escapades
Martha - Simple Nourished Living
Jill - Saucy Cooks
Sarah - Everything in the Kitchen Sink

Crespéou

This is a dish I had to make immediately once I saw the photo and read the recipe in Sophie Dahl's new book. Basically, Crespéou (pronounced cress-PAY-oo) is a Provençal omelet-cake. It can be an hors d'oeuvre or a main course, party food or solitary supper, hot main dish or cold snack. Fabulous for summer, because you can use anything you have on hand to make the layers and if you're thinking about making this for company, you're in luck because it's best made a day ahead. 

While researching crespéou, one of the recipes I discovered had 20 (!) thin omelets of varying colors and with contrasting ingredients, garnished with lavender sprigs, which must have made a tower of a cake. But the flavors described in this giant crespéou were right up my alley: anchovies, basil, olives, eggplant, zucchini, capers, mushrooms, peppers, tomatoes and more.

I also found Yotam Ottolenghi's recipe HERE; his recipe appeals on many levels and I'll make it the next time. He added tomato paste to his red layer, turmeric to his yellow layer and scallions, basil and green chili to his green layer. Those additions certainly would make the colors (as well as flavors) stand out a bit more in each layer, making the presentation much more intriguing. 

By far the easiest way to make Crespéou is just to cook up a stack of open-face omelets, piling them on a plate as they firm up and brown slightly, then cut into wedges to serve right away. But aficionados suggest not only stacking the omelets, but weighting them down overnight so that they compress even more. Which is what I did. The contrasting flavors are more pronounced when prepared this way.

What makes crespéou appealing is that it's so free-form. You can flavor the different layers with just about anything and you can build it as high as you like. Sophie Dahl and Ottolenghi both used three layers, so I did the same. No need to get carried away with 20 or even 8 layers. You don't need a sauce or garnish either, but you can serve it with a green salad or add a tomato coulis. I sprinkled it with herbs, but some niçoise olives, tomato slices with basil alongside would be nice and would add a Provençal touch.

Crespéou
From Very Fond of Food by Sophie Dahl

Ingredients:
For the yellow omelet:
5 eggs
1 tablespoon half and half cream
salt and pepper
olive oil
1 small onion, peeled and chopped fine (I had a large shallot, so used that)
1 pinch of saffron

For the green omelet:
5 eggs
1 tablespoon half and half cream
salt and pepper
olive oil
a handful of baby spinach
3 tablespoons chopped fresh tarragon
1 tablespoon chopped fresh parsley
1/4 cup freshly grated Parmesan

For the red omelet:
5 eggs
1 tablespoon half and half cream
salt and pepper
olive oil
8 cherry tomatoes, quartered
1/4 cup crumbled goat cheese
any garnishes you wish

Method:
For the yellow omelet: whisk the eggs with the cream and season with salt and pepper. Add some olive oil to a non-stick pan and add the onion, then the saffron. Stir and cook until the onion is translucent. Add the eggs and cook until set. Place the omelet on a plate
For the green omelet: whisk the eggs with the cream and season with salt and pepper. Add some olive oil to the non-stick pan and add the spinach, tarragon and parsley. Stir a bit, then add the eggs and cook until set. Place on top of the yellow omelet.
For the red omelet: whisk the eggs with the cream and season with salt and pepper. Add some olive oil to a non-stick pan and add the tomatoes. Saute for a minute or so, then add the eggs and goat cheese. Cook until set. Place on top of the green omelet.

Wrap the stacked omelets in wax paper, cover with tin foil, pressing them down. Refrigerate overnight. Garnish however you choose, cut as you would a cake and serve. 

Memorial Day: Honoring the Fallen

Taps

Day is done,
gone the sun,
From the hills,
from the lake,
From the skies.
All is well,
safely rest,
God is nigh.

Go to sleep,
peaceful sleep,
May the soldier
or sailor,
God keep.
On the land
or the deep,
Safe in sleep.

Love, good night,
Must thou go,
When the day,
And the night
Need thee so?
All is well.
Speedeth all
To their rest.

Fades the light;
And afar
Goeth day,
And the stars
Shineth bright,
Fare thee well;
Day has gone,
Night is on.

Thanks and praise,
For our days,
'Neath the sun,
Neath the stars,
'Neath the sky,
As we go,
This we know,
God is nigh.





(Comment free post over the holiday)

Gourmet's 50 Women Game Changers in Food: # 49; Alexa Andrzejewski, Soraya Darabi, and Ted Grubb

Do those three names sound familiar? They didn't to me. These people ARE Foodspotting. I know this series is about women game changers, but Mr. Grubb was there at the beginning (even before Soraya Darabi), so I think he deserves to be up there in the title as well.

What exactly is Foodspotting? It's a smart phone app and website that allows users to post and discover nearby mouth-watering restaurant dish recommendations through photographs. 

Whose idea was it? Foodspotting was an idea formulated by Alexa Andrzejewski as a result of not being able to find good Okonomiyaki (Japanese pancakes) in San Francisco. Before launching Foodspotting in January 2010, Alexa was a User Experience Designer for Adaptive Path, where she helped both startups and enterprises craft great experiences through strategy, research and design. Her first food-related venture was making and selling miniature food for American Girl dolls when she was 8. 

Alexa's basic idea was to make a field guide to global food. To learn about bootstrapping (Bootstrapping is starting up an enterprise, especially one based on the Internet, with minimal resources.) her project, she joined Women 2.0 and started aggressively networking, talking about her plan to catalog restaurant dishes. 

She then met programmer Ted Grubb, who had been working as a designer & developer since the late 1990s. Before Foodspotting he helped start multiple companies including Get Satisfaction, where he built its friendly face and high quality user experience from the ground up. Ted thought Alexa's idea was a good one but thought this should be made into an app for smartphones.

"People love to photograph their food, and share their great meals with friends," Andrzejewski says. "So we put a name on that phenomenon: Foodspotting."

Grubb decided to learn iPhone programming himself, and he created a prototype Foodspotting app. The duo took top honors at San Francisco's Start-up Weekend.

They soon met and added New York media darling Soraya Darabi—who loves food, travel, photography and emerging technology and was an early foodspotting devotee. She became an advisor to the company and is now a co-founder. Soraya previously worked for Epicurious.com, but most notably The New York Times where she successfully launched the social-media presences of The Times and created digital partnerships for them with platforms including Facebook, YouTube and Twitter.

Despite initial investor skepticism, and nine months of bootstrapping, the trio was able to raise $3 million in funding from BlueRun Ventures. That's allowed the company to expand to ten employees: two in New York City, and eight in an open-air-café-inspired office in San Francisco's SoMa neighborhood. To stay connected bi-coastally, Skype and SocialCast are open constantly on everyone's computers. Currently, it's developing partnerships with companies, such as The Travel Channel and Zagat, which uses Foodspotting photos on its website and has compiled guides—and created a badge users can earn—for Foodspotting. 

In 2010, Alexa and Soraya shared a spot on The Daily Beast’s “Women Who Rule the Web” list.

How does Foodspotting work?  You can join their website, but their free iPhone app is what you'll use most. Once you feed your location in, it comes up with photos of some dishes at restaurants in your specific area. This was somewhat successful, but I was discouraged by some of the restaurant choices and had to force myself to think in terms of the dishes themselves, which is what Foodspotting is all about. 

A city search of my town didn't come up with much. No question but the larger the city, the more variety, which makes perfect sense. So when I met my son in Ft. Lauderdale for dinner, we tried again. We entered specific (you can't be too general here) food items like Beef Stroganoff, salted caramel ice cream etc. Choices came up. Restaurants we were familiar with, but don't frequent; we've lived here a long time and know the restaurants pretty well in this area. After some research, we soon realized it was common for one person to upload multiple photos, frequently of dishes from the same restaurant, which led us to believe this hasn't caught on quite yet.
If you were visiting NYC, for example, would you ask Foodspotting for a specific dish? I wouldn't. I'd want to know how the restaurant in general was rated. But I admit I can see what Alexa meant...if I was craving rhubarb ice cream in NYC, it wouldn't hurt to give Foodspotting a shot. 

But here's my problem with Foodspotting.....exactly who is selecting the dish to photograph? Does this person eat out a lot? Is he or she well informed about cooking and food? Will we share the same tastes? Why should I take their word for anything? Even if the photo looks enticing, it all comes down to who's doing the tasting. I'm skeptical. I realize Foodspotting is in its infancy and needs a LOT more input from foodies. Which it's probably getting this week via our game-changer group. 

                                                                                     *************************************

I noticed one of our favorite restaurants, Café Maxx in Pompano Beach, FL., has a couple recipes on Foodspotting. Several years ago, we were there for Christmas Eve and one of the dessert choices was a Gingerbread Trifle. It was sensational. I asked one of the owners, Darrel Broek, if he would get me the recipe. The pastry chef was nice enough to email it to me and I made it for the blog. Because it was in 2009, I bet you won't remember it, so I'm posting it again. It's a multi-layered recipe...not difficult, just time consuming. But so worth it. I've served it several times over the holidays. Of course, Foodspotting wasn't in existence when it was served at Café Maxx, but it's exactly the kind of recipe that ought to be included.

Gingerbread Trifle
Courtesy of Café Maxx, Pompano Beach, Florida

Components:

Cubed gingerbread- toast before serving

Vanilla Pastry Cream

Spiced Cherry Sauce

Whipped Cream

Candied Pistachios

The Gingerbread:

Ingredients:

2 1/2 cups packed brown sugar

6 eggs, room temperature

3.6 cups flour

2 tablespoons baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

4 tablespoons cinnamon

2 teaspoons ginger

1 teaspoon cloves

2 teaspoons cardamom

1 teaspoon salt

14 ounces melted butter

1 1/2 cups half and half cream, room temperature

Method:

Preheat oven to 350°. Butter two loaf pans and sprinkle lightly with bread crumbs.

Combine the melted butter and half and half. Beat the sugar and eggs until very thick. Add the dry ingredients. Add the butter mixture to the flour. Mix. (It will be a very runny batter.) Bake for about 45 minutes. 

The Vanilla Pastry Cream

Ingredients:

3 cups milk

3/4 cup sugar

2 ounces butter, cold, diced

1 tablespoon vanilla

2 eggs, room temperature

2 yolks (save one of the whites for the pistachios)

1/4 cup cornstarch

Method:

In a saucepan, heat the milk and sugar.

In a mixing bowl, whisk the eggs, yolks and cornstarch well. Temper the milk into the eggs and return to the heat. Whisk briskly until the mixture has thickened. Quickly, remove from heat and pour into a mixer bowl, using the paddle attachment. Add the diced butter and vanilla and beat until somewhat cool. Put into a container and cover with plastic wrap, making certain the plastic wrap touches the custard top. Refrigerate until ready to use.

The Spiced Cherry Sauce

Ingredients:

1 bag of fresh black cherries

2 cinnamon sticks

5 whole cloves

1 star anise

1/2 cup sugar

1 tablespoon water

Method:

Pit the cherries and put all the ingredients in a saucepan over medium heat.

Cook about 20 minutes. Cool, put into a covered container and refrigerate until ready to use.

The Candied Pistachios

Ingredients:

1 egg white

1/2 cup brown sugar

1 tablespoon cinnamon

1 to 2 cups pistachios

Method:

Preheat oven to 350°.

Whisk the first three ingredients together, add the nuts and toss. Lay out on a parchment paper lined baking sheet. Bake until you can smell the nuts.

To Assemble the Trifle:

Cut the gingerbread into 1 inch cubes and toast. Layer the pastry cream, spiced cherry sauce and gingerbread in a glass dish. Top with whipped cream and sprinkle with pistachios.

Join Mary from One Perfect Bite and all the other participants in this fun series.

Val - More Than Burnt Toast
Joanne - Eats Well With Others
Taryn - Have Kitchen Will Feed
Susan - The Spice Garden
Claudia - A Seasonal Cook in Turkey
Heather - girlichef
Miranda - Mangoes and Chutney
Jeanette - Healthy Living
April - Abby Sweets 
Katie - Making Michael Pollan Proud
Mary - One Perfect Bite
Viola - The Life is Good Kitchen
Sue - The View from Great Island
Kathleen Van Bruinisse - Bake Away with Me 
Kathleen - Gonna Want Seconds
Martha - Lines from Linderhof
Amy - Beloved Green
Linda - Ciao Chow Linda

Nancy - Picadillo
Mireya - My Healthy Eating Habits
Veronica - My Catholic Kitchen
Annie - Lovely Things

Claudia - Journey of An Italian Cook
Alyce - More Time at the Table
Amrita - Beetles Kitchen Escapades
Martha - Simple Nourished Living
Jill - Saucy Cooks
Sarah - Everything in the Kitchen Sink

The Fairy Hobmother

Blogging never ceases to amaze me. We've all gotten to know and care about each other; we inspire each other; we can laugh, smile, cry and whine online and know we'll find smiles, acceptance,  support and sympathy when most needed. The generosity of bloggers never ends. It's a constant pleasure to be part of this community.

Now I've quietly read about the Fairy Hobmother and the surprise visits, but never dreamed I'd be the recipient of the following email:

Hi Barbara!
I'm the Fairy Hobmother, spreading light and joy throughout the blogosphere with the help of talented bloggers like you.
I stumbled across your blog today and thought that you deserved a reward for your bloggish efforts. I'd like to send you a gift in the form of an Amazon voucher.
All that I'd ask is that you mention me and a little bit about my mission in one of your blog posts. I don't need much, just a brief note, and as an added bonus if any other bloggers comment on the post it may entice me to visit them too!
If this sounds like something you'd be interested in please let me know and I'll get things moving this end.
In the mean time take care, and keep up the good work!
Matthew Mitchell

And guess what? The Fairy Hobmother is a guy! Who knew?
 

And he works for Appliances Online, but is more interested in spreading the word by giving. So if you have a blog of your own, be sure to leave a comment here, telling the FH what you'd like (and need) and with luck the Fairy Hobmother might visit you too! 
You can also follow him on Twitter. 


Yea! More cookbooks! Or maybe something else? Hmmmm.

Cute Little Pies

My sweet DIL Angie, who shares a love of cooking, has presented me with some nifty gifts for the kitchen in the last few months. 

                                                                                             Angie and my son Perry
 
One of the books she gave me for Christmas was Cutie Pies by Dani Cone. What a little gem of a cookbook! Fun for everyone in the family and the pies can be folded (called flipsides), made in little jars (called piejars) or made into pops on a stick (called piepops). Full and mini size pies as well. Dani Cone sells these adorable little pies at stores in Seattle called High 5 Pie and Fuel Coffee. They can be sweet or savory. 

For this post, I made some flipsides. Folded like empanadas, I had some berries in the fridge so made two different recipes; one with raspberries and blackberries and the other with mango and raspberries. The crust was flaky and delicious and although I filled them way too full, they still turned out nicely. Practice makes perfect with these little hand pies.  

Then, after a spring break visit, Angie thanked me by sending a Breville Mini Pie Maker! Can you imagine? 

More fun for me. I made mini rhubarb pies and then some Almond Frangipani pies. Not being certain how an open pie would work, I was amazed how beautifully they turned out. Next came a savory bacon and potato quiche mini pie. Delicious and so fast!  If you've got kids or grandkids around, this pie maker is going to become a favorite of theirs, but you'll love it too. You can be as inventive as you want.

What's really convenient is Breville suggests you use packaged pie crust on the bottom and if you are making a two crust pie, puff pastry for the top crust. What could be easier? And how to tell if they're done? The recipes all come with times of course, but you can open the pie maker and peek all you want, just to make certain the pies are done to your taste. The pies are usually done between 8 to 11 minutes.

Of course, I had to have the mini pie book from Williams Sonoma! Two of these recipes came from that book, but now that I have the hang of it, the sky's the limit.

If you'd like the recipes, please click HERE for printable recipes. The rhubarb isn't there, because I just cooked some rhubarb with sugar and boiled it down until it was a jam-like consistancy. There are lots of recipes for mini pies made with fresh fruits, but I wanted to use up the last of my jam. Thanks, Angie! My daughter-in-law knows exactly what my interests are.....cookbooks! (She checks my Amazon Wish List!)

Update! For Mother's Day, Angie and Perry sent me THIS:

I haven't even read it yet!

Gourmet's 50 Women Game Changers in Food: # 48, Cat Cora

Catherine "Cat" Cora was born in 1968 in Jackson, Mississippi.  Her father Spiro was Greek and Cat grew up around the restaurant industry with both a father and grandfather in the business. Her Greek national heritage, and southern Mississippi roots have resulted in a creative and unique blend of influences. Cooking and eating were the center of her young life; meals at the Cora house often combined spices from the South with fresh cheeses and home-cured olives sent by relatives from the island of Skopelos. 

Although her serious interest in cooking began as a teenager (at the age of 15, Cat had developed a business plan for her own restaurant), after high school, she pursued a traditional college degree in Exercise Physiology at the University of Southern Mississippi. Julia child was an early mentor and encouraged her to leave Mississippi for New York, where she followed her dream and attended the  Culinary Institute of America in New York’s Hyde Park.

Then came some real-time training which included a series of chef jobs in New York under the guidance of notable chefs like Anne Rozensweig and Larry Forgione.  She also made a career stopover in France where she was worked with Roger Verge, chef/owner Le Moulin de Mougins, and Georges Blanc, chef/owner of Georges Blanc restaurant. 

After returning to New York again, Cat became sous chef at The Old Chatham Shepherding Company under Chef Melissa Kelly. Next she headed West to Northern California, where she served as Chef de Cuisine at Napa Valley's Bistro Don Giovanni.

Cat made her TV debut in 1999, as co-host of Food Network’s Melting Pot with Rocco Di Spirito. She went on to host My Country My Kitchen: Greece, Date Plate, and was one of the featured hosts on Fine Living’s Simplify Your Life. A documentary, Cat’s In The Kitchen, was also made about her first James Beard dinner in April, 2002.

Preceding Iron Chef America, Cat co-hosted Kitchen Accomplished on Food Network. She also appeared in NBC’s Primetime Miniseries, Celebrity Cooking Showdown, where celebrities were paired with famous chefs and competed in a timed cook-off à la Iron Chef America.

In 2005, Cora was tapped as the first female Iron Chef on the Food Network’s popular Iron Chef America Show.  Chef Cat Cora's appearances as an Iron Chef has made her a household name.  She has three cookbooks to her credit titled, Classics With a Twist, Cooking From the Hip, and Cat Cora’s Kitchen (which was her first and was inspired by her Greek and Southern heritage and contains many of her family’s favorite recipes). She also boasts a line of branded products that includes cookware, knives, wooden utensils, and cutting boards.  

Cora expanded on her passion for food by forming Chefs for Humanity.  The charitable organization founded by Cora is a grassroots coalition of chefs and culinary professionals guided by a mission to quickly be able to raise funds and provide resources for important emergency and humanitarian aid, nutritional education, and hunger-related initiatives throughout the world.

Openly gay, Cora has four sons – Zoran, Caje, Thatcher, and Nash – with her partner, Jennifer Cora. (Jennifer bore the first three; Cat gave birth to Nash three months after Thatcher was born.) She currently resides in the Santa Barbara, California area with her family.

                                                                                 ***************************************

I've always wanted to make an olive oil cake and with her Greek background, I thought this would be a great choice for a Cat Cora recipe. I wasn't thrilled with the result, not that it didn't turn out exactly the way it was supposed to, but I guess olive oil cakes are not going to be on my favorite dessert list. I cut way back on the olive oil after reading comments on the recipe; no need for more.

Ladi Tourta (Olive Oil Cake)
Recipe courtesy Cat Cora

Ingredients:
3 large eggs, beaten 
2 cups granulated sugar 
12 ounces extra-virgin olive oil  (I used 8-9 ounces)
10 ounces milk 
2 ounces orange liqueur 
2 ounces fresh orange juice 
3 teaspoons lemon zest 
2 cups all-purpose flour 
1/2 teaspoon baking soda 
1/2 teaspoon baking powder 
1 teaspoon kosher salt 
4 ounces blanched almonds, finely chopped 
Powdered sugar, for garnish


Method:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Butter a 10-inch cake pan. 


In a large bowl, whisk together the eggs, sugar, olive oil, milk, liqueur, orange juice, and lemon zest. Sift together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Mix the dry mixture into the wet mixture. Whisk until well blended. 
Fold in the almonds. 
Pour the mixture into the buttered cake pan. Bake for 1 hour. Place on a rack to cool. Run a knife around the edges and place it on a plate. Sprinkle with powdered sugar and serve.

Join Mary from One Perfect Bite and all the other participants in this fun series.

Val - More Than Burnt Toast
Joanne - Eats Well With Others
Taryn - Have Kitchen Will Feed
Susan - The Spice Garden
Claudia - A Seasonal Cook in Turkey
Heather - girlichef
Miranda - Mangoes and Chutney
Jeanette - Healthy Living
April - Abby Sweets 
Katie - Making Michael Pollan Proud
Mary - One Perfect Bite
Viola - The Life is Good Kitchen
Sue - The View from Great Island
Kathleen Van Bruinisse - Bake Away with Me 
Kathleen - Gonna Want Seconds
Martha - Lines from Linderhof
Amy - Beloved Green
Linda - Ciao Chow Linda

Nancy - Picadillo
Mireya - My Healthy Eating Habits
Veronica - My Catholic Kitchen
Annie - Lovely Things

Claudia - Journey of An Italian Cook
Alyce - More Time at the Table
Amrita - Beetles Kitchen Escapades
Martha - Simple Nourished Living
Jill - Saucy Cooks
Sarah - Everything in the Kitchen Sink

Bittersweet Chocolate Sorbet with Coconut Rum Sauce

One: you know I'm not a chocoholic, so
Two: if I post a chocolate recipe, it's going to be really, really special and
Three: prepare to enter chocolate heaven.....yes, it really IS as dark as it looks.

Nick Malgieri's book Chocolate is definitely a chocolate-lovers dream. I wouldn't normally make something as densely chocolate as this, but the sauce, oh my. THE SAUCE. You're going to make this sauce over and over and not just for this ice cream either. I even wish I'd made it to top my mother's Prune Whip in my last post. Or how about a rum coconut floating island?

But on top of this deep, dark, decadent sorbet, it's perfection.

Bittersweet Chocolate Sorbet with Coconut Rum Sauce
From Chocolate by Nick Malgieri

Yields 6 servings or 1 1/2 pints

Ingredients:
For the sorbet:
1/2 cup granulated sugar 
2 cups water 
1/2 cup light corn syrup 
3 ounces unsweetened or bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped (I used Scharffen Berger Bittersweet 70% Cacao Chocolate) 
2/3 cup cocoa powder

Method:
For the sorbet:
In a large saucepan, bring the sugar, water, and light corn syrup to a boil. Take the saucepan off the heat and add the chocolate. Let stand for 2 minutes before whisking smooth.
Sift the cocoa powder through a fine strainer into a small bowl. Whisk the syrup mixture into the cocoa in three steps. This will prevent the cocoa from getting lumpy. Cool mixture in the fridge for at least two hours.
Freeze the mixture in an ice cream freezer, following the directions according to your own machine.

Place the sorbet in an airtight container and freeze for at least two hours before serving.

Coconut Rum Sauce

Ingredients:
4 egg yolks, lightly beaten 
1 cup canned coconut cream (such as Coco Lopez) 
1 cup milk 
1 teaspoon vanilla extract 
2 tablespoons white rum

Method:
Place the egg yolks in a bowl.
Bring the coconut cream and milk to a boil in a saucepan. Beat a third of the coconut liquid into the yolks. Return to the saucepan and cook over low, whisking until the mixture thickens slightly. Do not allow to boil.
Strain the sauce into a bowl and cool it. Stir in the vanilla and white rum. A spoonful (or more) of the sauce can be poured over each serving of sorbet.