smitten kitchen

I’m patting myself on the back right now–no, not for finishing NaBlo, because I think we have already established that an 86 percent effort doesn’t count–but because I have finally made the fennel ice cream from the October Gourmet and it is absolutely wonderful. You have no idea how many things have had the balderdash to get in my way.

It actually starts long before October, when I was trying to make the roasted banana ice cream from David Lebovitz’s The Perfect Scoop. In a small kitchen with one counter, I rarely take pictures of my mise, as it is simply disgraceful. Things are piled and messy and muddled and as long as I can find a clear corner to work on, I excel in ignoring everything else. We all have our skills, non? This usually works for me (ahem) except for that day that it didn’t, and the ice cream maker, all of its parts and sticky, delicious banana batter ended up splayed across the kitchen floor, breaking the plastic paddle that churns the ice cream. Alex and I ordered a replacement part ($8 piece, $9 S&H) from Cuisinart that night which took EIGHT weeks to arrive, abruptly halting my ice cream making season in its tracks.

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Picture this: You’re toweling off after your morning shower, your oatmeal in the microwave, looking into the mirror and thinking as per usual, “my god, am I pale. When is vacation again?” when you hear this… noise from the living room. As you get closer, so does the noise, a fluttering, scratching and absolutely frantic in every little way sound. Is it (groan, another) mouse? Why does it sound like a bird? How could there be a bird in the wall? What if it’s stuck? It really sounds spazzed out in there. Calm down, Deb. Surely it’s nothing. It’s probably just a bird on the outside of your thin circa-1870 tenement walls. Sit down, eat your oatmeal, everything is going to be… #$%!!!! BIRD! BIRD! BIRD! BIRD! A BIRD FLEW OUT OF THE RADIATOR. Omg, it is THROWING itself against the window. Halp! HALP!

You do the logical thing, and call your husband, who is not yet at work, how dare he leave you at home with a WILD ANIMAL banging into the walls. You open the other window, wide, afraid to go near the one that the bird is throwing itself against because, duh, you’ve seen the movie. But it won’t pay any attention to that window, it wants to go out this window and you think, “wow, you really aren’t that bright, are you?” but no, you do not utter the word “birdbrain.” You know who’s in charge here. You finally get your husband on the phone; he’s laughing, you mentally file divorce papers.

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Last Saturday was my darling Jocelyn’s birthday and you just know I wasn’t going to even think about showing up without birthday cake. Fortunately, just about everyone we know agrees that two of the best desserts on earth are cannolis from Venieros on First Avenue and homemade tiramisu. I was actually kind of obsessed with figuring out a way to make a cannoli cake, but in the end copped out, not feeling daring enough to invent a recipe and having waited until the very last minute (3 p.m.) to actually start baking.

Not for the first or last time, Dorie Greenspan came to the rescue. As if Baking: From My Home to Yours wasn’t awesome enough, it actually includes two cake sections, one devoted solely to “Celebration Cakes,” or the exact type you’d want to bring to a birthday party. But all are so much more exciting than just yellow cake and butter cream frosting, such as Black and White Chocolate Cake, Big Carrot Cake, Perfect Party Cake and Tiramisu Cake. I stopped right there, and started this:

Which ended up like this:

And was received like this:

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We’re going to do this short and sweet tonight, because I’m at the halftime of two cranberry tarts, one apple pie and one pumpkin cheesecake. Yes, I have gone mad. But this is no time to discuss the obvious. I actually have sugar melting on the stove.

[Pause!]

Okay, it’s not ready yet. Wow, that takes a while. I am sure the last thing you want to see tonight is Jean-Georges Vongerichten’s chile-garlic eggs noodles, but alas, that is what we made for dinner on Monday night after I saw it on Serious Eats and could not resist the recipe’s tractor beam.

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In the comments of yesterday’s post, someone asked why she feels a need to make so many dishes for Thanksgiving when she’s only feeding a few people and always ends up with leftovers that end up getting thrown out four days later. Now, I’m sure the question was rhetorical yet I can’t help but chime in because I’ve been mulling this over a lot lately: Why is it that hosts feel so compelled to over-feed? Why is it that I feel bad when I only have served just enough food?

Yes, I know these are first world problems, but they’re not bad things to consider in this season of indulgence. The average American’s Thanksgiving intake measures about 4,500 calories, or over twice the recommended daily allowance of a full-grown adult. Our tables flow with an amount of food that would feed most families in the world for a week, many longer. We stumble away from them drunk, stuffed, our waistbands snug. We actually think that what the potatoes might benefit from another stick of butter.

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