Calamity Shazaam in the Kitchen

I started eating on Christmas Eve and I just finally finished. I think I might die. Or I might kill the next person to mention food to me. For the past two months I have had this "allergy" that has kind of killed my appetite. However in my family Christmas is all about the fancy food. And the fancy alcohol. Last year it was oysters. A bushel of them nearly. This years it was foie gras. With baked quince and brioche. So good. On Christmas Eve I had a huge plate of pate, followed by coq au vin with spaetzle. Yeah I said 'coq'... And a massive whiskey sour that hit the bullseye. Christmas morning was all about the two pounds of bacon that I made Mom buy. Seriously, she was only going to buy a pound and a bit. Whateve! And Bloody Mary's. My Dad makes the best Bloody Mary ever. Hands down ever. If you are a Bloody Mary fan, let me know and I will take you over for one. The first one is free. Christmas dinner was the foie gras, followed by the BLACK CAKE. Washed down

This year I took too many cookie requests. And then I left it to the last minute. So now I am spending the day in the kitchen with the oven fired up, the both mixer bowls out, and clots of floury dough liberally sprinkled into my hair. But I have the tunes going baby! Turns out that Christmas Wrapping by the Waitresses is the best cookie baking song. It's about 5 minutes long which means the cookies come out about three minutes into the second playing. Plus it's like my favorite Christmas song. My neighbors already know that I am crazy so I am sure they won't mind listening to the song 481 times today.

I am still the Food Psychic. Word! My previous posts HERE , HERE , and HERE And then in today's Noo Yawk Times HERE

I am really not sick. However for the past few days I have had a tiny weeny stomach ache. Not even an ache exactly. More of a stomach twinge. So I've been eating mostly crackers and clementines, and the occasional sugar cooky. But then on Sunday I roasted a chicken for the week, with some white beans (Baers!) stewed with garlic. And right out of the oven it was pretty tasty. On Monday lunch it was still pretty good. But today when I got home it was the most delicious thing I think I have ever eaten. I didn't even plate it. I just stood over the sink with a chicken leg in one hand and cold carmelized onion in the other. HEAVENLY.

I like snowy weather. I like that we have lots of kinds of weather in New England. I would really get bored with just hot or cold. Or hot or warm, or cool and cold. Anyway, the summer is all about ice creams and salads and grills. The winter is for roasted, baking, and stewing. Since all it pretty much did this weekend was be cold or snowy or sleety, I stayed in the kitchen. Bread was baked, chicken was roasted, beans were stewed. And I decorated almost all my Christmas cookies. Ahhhhhhcomplishment!

Someone at work very shyly asked me to make them some sugar cookies. Some people are afraid of the kitchen and of cooking and shudder at even the idea of an Easy Bake oven. I pity these poor souls. So I said "yeah, sure". Give me any excuse to eat cookies and drink. Drink? Yep. My new kitchen/holiday rule is that when ever the oven goes on, the alcohol comes out. It's a tradition that began with the Black Cake. You simply cannot put me near a gorgeous Barbados rum and tell me it's just for the cake. Please. One for the cake, one for me. So with the sugar cookies - I thought I might open wine. But that seemed to involve too much commitment. Luckily there was a nicely chilled Lillet in the back of the fridge. Et voila! Sugar cookies are finished and I am happily slightly buzzed!

Well, I am not sick. It's an allergy. That produces a lot of snot. And coughing. And stuffiness. Oh and a scratchy throat. And for the past few days I've had no sense of taste. So it's plausible that someone could right now feed me cotton balls and I would think it's cotton candy. But that would be mean. :( But when I think about what exactly I've been stuffing in the old pie hole, I am sort of surprised. For a sick person that is. First of all, it hasn't been a lot of food exactly. I keep drinking hot toddy's for dinner - Irish penicillin. I did eat a little pot pie at lunch. And about 6 spice cookies for dinner. And a handful of tiny little Italian star shaped pasta with a bit of tomato sauce and garlic. Which sounds so virtuous and ailing until I just now remembered that last night's dinner was pesto chicken, cheesy broccoli, macaroni, rice pilaf, and hummus - followed by a massive chunk of supermarket sheet cake. That cake that I hate that I love. *

Drunkin' Whorenuts! If I see that annoying Rachel Ray commercial for Dunkins one more time, I swear to GAD that Christmas is canceled. Seriously! Whoever wrote the dialog must be in the 10th grade: "I always buy like a million pounds... blah blah blah....." Who the hell buys a million pounds of holiday coffee? I don't believe her for a sec. But then again this is coming from a woman who puts Cheez Whiz on a Wheat Thin and calls it an hors d'oeuvre. Pleeease! Everyone knows that you eat Cheez Whiz by squirting it directly from the can into your mouth. But these ads are starting to suck the fun right out of the marrow of Christmas for me! If I have to hear her say "haaaliday" one more time, I am going go insane.

Check it out! Over on Shamrag I am giving away free cookies! Whoo hoo! Click here: I WANT A FREE COOKIE!!

Some a**hole tagged my house with graffiti. Shamrag will have the whole story. To calm myself down I had to have a sliver of the Black Cake. Ahhhhh sigh..... calm again....... Sorry to whoever gets the short cake.

So the first Big Cake went in at 10:30, followed by a Medium Cake and three Small Cakes. I had to make the recipe in two batches. Now I just have to clean up. Ugh. My least favorite part.

How to make Black Cake: 1. Get out recipe. Read other recipes. Get distracted. 2. Get back on track. Fire up stove. Get ingredients together. 3. Call my friend Moet and talk about boyyyyyyyyys. 4. Pour self two fingers of rum. 5. Drink rum and talk for another 4o minutes with Moet about boyyyyyyyyss. 6. Hang up. Pour another two, well three, fingers of rum 7. Chop fruit for Black Cake. Using Cuisinart is CHEATING. 8. Chop fast because chopping after drinking is dangerous, so finish quickly! 9. Finish chopping fruit into itty teeny bits without catastrophe. 10. More rum to celebrate. 11. Contemplate going to bed. Who makes Black Cake this late? 12. Realize I am BLOGGING instead of BAKING. Which I will get right back to as soon as I kick back this last bit of rummmmmmmmmmmm........

Yeppers I am back in the kitchen for another round of holiday baking! It's time to make the Black Cake. It's that 10 pound, 10 inch round blackest of black cake lovin'. I first read about Black Cake in Nigella Lawson's Domestic Goddess cookbook and it seemed to me like the most delicious thing ever created and I instantly craved it, like the lettuce that got poor Rapunzel 's mother in so much trouble! Well Nigella got it from Laurie Colwin. And since Nigella's recipes never work for me (but she is so voluptuous I can't let her go!) I went to Laurie Colwin myself. If you like food porn, I highly recommend both Home Cooking and More Home Cooking . You will read them in bed and then dream of fresh butter and perfectly roast chickens and English clotted cream. Please don't blame me when you wake up chewing on your pillow. However, it is her recipe for Black Cake that really turned me on. And so now I am obsessed. So obsessed that I've been soaking my f