Cake Wrecks... my new guilty pleasure

Ok, this site illustrates why we don't do heavy decoration on cakes...
Thomas sent me this link earlier and I feel that it's IMPERATIVE to share it with everyone.

This is an Entire Blog devoted to cake decorating disasters. I have laughed so hard today that my spleen almost exploded. It's now listed under our links to awesome and you can also visit it here.

My hat (or neon wig) goes off to Jen for her diligence as the cake wreck police.

A side note: I do not mean to malign my fellow bakers; I make my share of mistakes. In the words of Jane Austen, "for what do we live but to make sport for our neighbors and laugh at them in our turn?"

we've been jammed!!!

"Some moment of every summer finds me all out of canning jars. So I go to town and stand in line at the hardware store carrying one or two boxes of canning jars and lids, renewing my membership in a secret society. Elderly women, and some men, too, will smile their approval or ask outright, "What are you canning?" These folks must see me as an anomaly of my generation, an earnest holdout, while the younger clientele see me as a primordial nerdhead, if they even notice."

This is an excerpt from Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver, which I just finished reading. Actually, I highly recommend it and would loan you my copy, but it's already promised to about 6 people!

I love canning. It's a guaranteed sense of accomplishment that you can eat for months afterward. Obviously, this surprises no one who knows me.

My recent adventure was strawberry preserves and rastrablaberry jam. Dad and I washed and stemmed the fruit, hovered over the pot as Preston and I stirred and skimmed the foam (cackling like MacBeth's hags just for kicks), boiled the jars and ladled our finished product into their new homes before re-boiling the filled jars to double-sanitize. I cut fabric for the tops and printed labels and voila! We are now selling them in the shop!

I plan to make more with blueberries and peaches and other summer fruits as they reach the zenith of their respective seasons.

Right now, available in the shop, are strawberry preserves and also rastrablaberry jam (raspeberry, strawberry, and blackberry). There's a limited amount, so don't miss it!

nashvegas

I'm so sorry that's it's taken me awhile to report on my trip to Nashville!
First, thanks to EVERYONE who sent me some suggestions of bakeries to stop into. It really helped out a lot!
I ended up visiting 2 (actually 3, but one was closed or relocated or something) and had A BLAST! Here's the verdict:

Gigi's Cupcakes
Wow! It was packed but they kept the line moving quickly. Also, I've never seen icing so high. I mean like a beehive of icing. Mandy, my friend and co-market researcher (it sounds way more professional to say we're market researching than to say we're eating our weight in sugar and butter), and I actually had to use a fork to remove about an inch and half of icing just to get to taste the cake. Seriously.
It was quite good (although probably, and I NEVER thought I'd say this EVER, a little too much icing for me) and I apologize profusely that I didn't think to whip out the camera until we'd pretty much made an enormous mess of our haul. Four people, two forks, and a box of cupcakes... not a neat endeavor!

Sweet 16th
OMG. I am IN LOVE with this place!!! If you go to Nashville any time in the near future, you MUST go here. We got a huge variety of things to try, you know, to make sure we did an adequate job researching, and ALL of it was good.
My favorite things: little baked dog treats to take home to Dixie and Finny, the macaroons, the 'brookie'- combination brownie and cookie, and Best of All... the GRITATTA. Holy grits and eggs, Batman! A gritatta is the creation of "Al", whom we met while there, and it's basically a base of grits with an egg fritatta on top... all combined into one lovely and delicious creation. I've been having gritatta dreams and fully plan on making some of my own for a decadent Sunday brunch.
I got to meet the owners, the Einsteins, and they could not have been any nicer. Now THIS is a neighborhood bakery. They had a small space, a small menu, and huge smiles. They use locally roasted coffee just like us (while ours is Ugly Mug, theirs is Drew's Brews) and they were so nice as to send us off with a free package to try out! We traded contact info and they were so enthusiastic and encouraging of my budding business.
Whenever I go to Nashville, I will DEFINITELY be stopping back in for more treats, more gritatta, and a great cup of Drew's Brews. Awesome spot!
Visit Sweet 16th here!

e-i-e-i-o

As many of you know, I'm a farmers' market groupie. I love farmers' markets and I love sharing that love with everyone I meet.
If you haven't been to the downtown farmers' market yet, I suggest you go this weekend. It's such a great spot to get fresh produce and really learn about where your food comes from, how it's grown, and who is supplying it. Also, there are musicians and activities for kids; it's a really great family outing!

Even the produce that's grown conventionally (using pesticides, etc) is way better for you when you get it from the farmers' market than at a grocery store because it was allowed to fully ripen before being harvested. When food is shipped many miles and goes through many processes to reach you, the diner, it must be picked early in its life.

I made some yellow squash for dinner the other night and only had one left from the farmers' market so I augmented with one from Nameless Grocery Store. When I sliced them I saw an amazing thing... one was a deep, sunny yellow and one was a green-tinged white. The yellow one tasted so full and well, squashy, while the white one tasted mostly like water. I'll give you one guess as to which was which!

Here are some photos of my Saturday morning at the farmers' market downtown-
please visit their website at www.memphisfarmersmarket.org

Some of what I bought:
Ripley tomatoes... does it get any better?
peaches for pies from Jones Orchard
enormous sunflowers from Bluebird Farms (our egg supplier!)
a blueberry peach cobbler from Bun in the Oven (what can I say, I love sweets!)
honey whole wheat bread from Cucina
yellow squash and zuchinni from Whitton Farms
quart upon quart of blueberries from Harris Farm (mmm, more pie...)
After that, Thomas and I couldn't carry any more... haha!

4th of July Insan-o-rama

Okay, we really blew it out of the water for our July 4th line-up. It was like Fashion Week in NYC for baked goods. My team REALLY outdid themselves!

I think the photos pretty much speak for themselves, but I'll just say that I owe a huge Thank You to my team, especially the creative genius of Elizabeth, Laura, and Lindye, who came up with a bunch of our 4th of July offerings.

We decked out our Plain Jane cupcakes in red, white, and blue, dying the batter blue! We had our Frankly Scarlett cupcakes topped with blue sprinkles in the shape of a star and blueberry cupcakes with blueberry icing. Elizabeth made a Plain Jane cake with a bright red layer, a bright blue layer, white buttercream icing, and red and blue icing stars drawn all over it. We also had star-shaped sugar cookies that were each decorated in red, white, and blue icing. I made teeny pies in strawberry and blueberry with a star in dough on top. We replaced the usual daisy on top of the Daisy cupcakes with a star in red or blue.

We hope you all had a fantastic Fourth of July!!!

I sigh, you sigh, we all sigh for summer pie!

I LOVE pie. And I LOVE summer. Therefore, it's no surprise that I LOVE summer pie. There are so many possibilities for pie in the summertime; with so much fresh fruit in season one almost can't go wrong.
Here are some of my most recent pie creations:

Early Peach Pie
I got some early peaches at Jones Orchard in Millington and while they're a little bit tedious to slice because they're pretty small, boy were they good. I love peaches in the summertime. A little cream, a little brown sugar, a few spices, and a ton of early peaches made the perfect filling for this lattice crusted beauty.

Strawberry Rhubarb Pie
TTDF. Totally To Die For. The key with any rhubarb dessert is to not get carried away with too much sugar and to not let the other main ingredient, in this case the strawberries, steal the show. Rhubarb is a "wallflower" flavor and easily overwhelmed by the luscious strawberry or the dazzling raspberry. I tend to think of rhubarb as the Ally Sheedy of summer produce: subtly pretty, kind of quiet- remove the glasses and brush her hair and you've got a real winner.

Blueberry Pie
I'll also call this one 'my new favorite breakfast'. The filling is almost entirely fresh blueberries so I can easily justify it as 'health food'. In fact, I just make this one a double-crust... you know, to make sure enough I get a healthy amount of "bread" with the meal... maybe a little ice cream for dairy...

The difference between a good fruit pie and a stellar fruit pie lies in... the fruit. It seems elementary that one should choose ingredients whose flavor is good enough to stand alone, but surprisingly few people seem to follow this bit of logic. People figure that if it's going to be cooked or mixed with other ingredients, it's okay to cheat on quality. My dad always told me "never cook with a wine you wouldn't drink on its own" and I believe that bit of wisdom applies across the food ingredient spectrum.

Ok, the post is getting a bit long (and I'm getting hungry), but never fear... I imagine I'll rhapsodize about pies many more times over the course of the summer!

Have a great weekend!!!

yummy dinner recipes

Saturday night, Thomas and I had an impromptu dinner party. Preston and Tanisha had the shop well in hand, so Thomas and I quickly scanned the thicker-than-my-thigh folder of 'recipes to try out' also known as the 'good culinary intentions' folder.
We settled on a simple halibut and pasta recipe from Real Simple and we already had loads of fresh produce from our weekly trip to the downtown farmers' market that morning. So we settled our menu: orange-ginger halibut, whole-wheat angel hair pasta, sauteed squash (mixed varieties) with sweet onions, French bread, marinated tomatoes, and blueberry pie.
We had everything we needed except the fish, so we made a quick trip to Wild Oats where we discovered that halibut was a little out of our twenty-something people budget for feeding seven adults. The very helpful grocer suggested the (much) more modestly priced wild cod as an alternative and it was delicious!
I don't know what was more enjoyable for Thomas and me, cooking together in the kitchen with the dogs stretched out on the floor (obviously lounging wherever our feet needed to be) or actually sharing it with friends that we don't see as often (no one ever tells you that you have to schedule 'hanging out' once you're a grown-up!). The whole evening was splendid!
Here are a few recipes (sorry- not giving away the pie recipe! teehee). Please let me know if you try it and your opinions!

Thomas' Cod and Angel Hair (adapted from Real Simple's halibut recipe found here)
4 tangelos (recipe calls for oranges, but he already had tangelos in ice box!)
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 1-inch piece ginger, thinly sliced
6 4oz pieces wild-caught cod
Kosher salt and pepper
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
1 bunch green onions (white and light green parts), thinly sliced
1 pound whole wheat angel hair pasta
1/4 cup fresh cilantro, roughly chopped

Preheat oven to 400. Cut the oranges into segments, removing the surrounding membranes as well as able. Don't sweat over this too much, just know that the membranes and pith will make it more bitter. Squeeze the membranes over a bowl to catch their juices.

Heat a cookie sheet or other pan in oven with a little oil so that pan is hot before adding fish. Add ginger and cook about 2 minutes. Sprinkle the halibut with 1/2 teaspoon salt, 1/4 teaspoon pepper, cumin, scallions and oranges and continue cook about 10 minutes, turning mid-way through, until the fish is the same color throughout and flakes easily.

Cook the pasta according to the package directions while the halibut cooks.


Farmers' Market Squash (aka. shameless promotion of buying local produce)
Step 1: Buy a variety of squash. I used one zuchini, two yellow ones (real name?), and a totally cool scallop squash. I'd never cooked a scallop squash but it just looked to interesting to pass up.
Step 2: Buy a sweet onion.
Step 3: Chop them all up (I only used 1/2 of the sweet onion).
Step 4: Saute in olive oil, freshly cracked pepper, and kosher salt until a bit softened up.
Step 5: Add some hot water to the pan and allow to continue cooking until soft, but not mushy.
Step 6: Eat and say "mmmmm"!

Marinated Tomatoes (one of my favorite things in the world)
Ripley tomatoes, sliced into thick rounds
Olive oil
Fresh basil (I used a little of my own new garden supply: a mix of columnar basil and sweet basil)
Mozzerella cheese
Salt and pepper (freshly cracked)

Place tomato slices on paper towel to soak up extra water, then transfer them to a plate.
Place pieces of fresh mozzerella cheese on top, then torn up pieces of basil.
Drizzle with olive oil and then a wee bit of salt, and a more generous amount of pepper.
Voila!

Blueberry Dessert
We served a blueberry pie (my own recipe) heated up with our guests' choice of a scoop of Hagendaaz vanilla ice cream or Ciao Bella coconut sorbet. The coconut sorbet is a fantastic accompaniment to blueberries, whether plain or cooked into a pie or cobbler. Sadly, Wild Oats doesn't seem to carry the coconut flavor anymore, but Fresh market does. Sublime!

Well, that about wraps up our dinner party! Here are a few of the vendors we used:
Wild oats: cod, ginger, pasta, ice cream
Fresh Market: Ciao Bella coconut sorbet
Memphis Farmers' Market: Bluebird Farm by Van Cheeseman: sweet onions, flowers (he supplies some of our eggs in the shop!) and also Tims Family Farm: tomatoes and I think that's where I got the squash, but not positive

Have a great day!!!