Consider this little piece of lacework, dear friends. It is pretty to look at, innocuous, quiet and soft; it should not be the stuff of spitting rage, self-loathing or dog-collared existential despair. Yet this little section of this little project turned me from a more-or-less normal person into a gibbering maniac. I woke up at 8 o'clock yesterday morning, all prepared to finish knitting the last four rows of the body of the shawl and starting the first of the 25 decorative patterns along the border. I knew down to the marrow that it would be a good day: I had the shawl, I had the beginnings of a dishcloth I had started the previous night when I couldn't knit one more row on the shawl, I had, for the first time in months, a burning desire to write about the development of egg bread recipes in Central Europe. I had the fixings for waffles for breakfast, I had two pounds of asparagus, I had pasta and creme fraiche and lemons and soft cheese and shallots. I had rhubarb, the rhubarb for which I had waited patiently for months, four pounds of it: my original plan had been to make rhubarb jam for Bakerina Kitchens, but as I spent the early morning paging through my cookbooks, I began to have other ideas. Rhubarb compote enhanced with frozen raspberries, from Mollie Katzen's Sunlight Cafe? That would be nice with a little Greek yogurt. Buttermilk coffee cake with rhubarb filling, also from Mollie Katzen? Oh, mais oui, bien sur. Rhubarb basin pudding, from Mary Norwak? Just try to stop me! Better yet, doesn't Ken Haedrich have nearly an entire chapter of recipes in Pie devoted to rhubarb pie? Baby, baby, baby! I had coffee, I had movies, I had my man, who could ask for anything more?
Six hours later, during the monologue of Roger the Shrubber in Monty Python and the Holy Grail, I brushed the edge of my hand absentmindedly against a needle and dropped half a dozen live stitches. It is an old chestnut that if you want to make God laugh, tell Her your plans. Apparently my plans, particularly those of the "I'm sure that if I just follow the pattern of the lace, it will be easy to fix!" kept God laughing for three solid hours. By the time I was done, I was thankful that I had roasted the shallots for the cheese pie that morning, but the thought of putting that cheese pie together made me grit my teeth in frustration. Onto the digital scale went my mixer bowl; into the bowl went flour; all over the kitchen table and my front went a full cup of flour that I had somehow managed to aim everywhere but the bowl. I stopped, swore, cleaned everything up, added water and wine and oil and the fermented sponge to the mixer bowl, attached the bowl and paddle to the mixer -- and promptly turned on the mixer to a too-high speed, shooting wine and olive oil all over my hair and the shirt into which I had just changed. Take three. Once the dough was safely in the bowl, I announced to Lloyd, "Everything I have touched this afternoon has turned into nuclear war." Fortunately, Lloyd had the presence of mind to reassure me that I was not as clumsy and stupid as recent events would indicate, and to remind me that a nice hot spice-scented bath would fix me up a treat.
Of course he was right. Of course the cheese pie was superb, thus cementing my longtime crush on Dan Lepard. Of course the lace mishap was not nearly as catastrophic as it seemed to be during the siege of Castle Arrrrgh. Of course the pasta we had for lunch, fusilli bucati with roasted asparagus, creme fraiche and lemon zest was the very essence of spring, and dead easy to boot. For all my mewling and puking, even with three hours of teethgnashing and wailing, it was a sweet day.
I still have four pounds of rhubarb, though.
(Recipes will follow tomorrow, dear friends, for the cheese pie, the pasta and the gingerbread waffles we had for breakfast.)
Dear Metropolitan Transportation Authority/New York City Transit:
Thank you for your continuing work to keep the elevated subway tracks in my neighborhood both safe and attractive. I understand that a little inconvenience is necessary when the time comes to repaint the peeling paint and rusty spots on the track supports, and that said inconvenience is a small price to pay for (literally) getting the lead out. (Additional thanks for filling in the subway steps with insulating foam, so that we commuters will not inhale more than our share of lead dust.)
I do appreciate the work, really I do, and I know that once the painting is done, the neighborhood will look much cleaner and cheerier. Having said that...whatever you are using to remove the old paint, that stuff that smells like nail polish remover mixed with burning chemicals, it is giving me headaches. Bad headaches. When you find yourself wishing that you were at the office because it gives you some relief from the pain, that's when you know that it's a bad headache. I have resumed my Excedrin-as-Pez diet, but this headache laughs at my Excedrin, pulls its underwear over its forehead, stuffs it into a trashcan and rolls it down the block.
Here's the thing, dear Authority: I had such plans for the day. After weekend after weekend of cartoon-watching sloth, I actually made it to the market early this week. I have newly-laid eggs and chicken sausages. I have the first asparagus of the season, juicy and snapping-fresh, and four pounds of rhubarb, destined either for the oven or the copper kettle. I have a recipe to hand from Dan Lepard for a cheese pie made with focaccia dough, soft goat cheese and roasted shallots, and to that end I have three pints of shallots and three buttons of fresh cheese. I have new spinach, new arugula and did I mention the newly-laid eggs? I have currants and saffron for Swedish saffronsbrod. I have canned pumpkin and chocolate chips for the high-protein pumpkin bread that fuels some of my best breakfasts. I have a shawl-in-progress that I'd planned to knit in the kitchen while preparing all this lovely stuff. Best of all, I have a neighborhood in the full luscious swing of spring, a neighborhood where I can walk around while sipping on a foofy tea drink from my local caff, looking at the neighbors' narcissi and grape hyacinth and the trellissed branches from which roses will spring in a few short weeks, stopping for a water ice at the Italian bakery and picking up some pignoli cookies to take home. I have all these wonderful things to remind me just how good life is in beautiful uptown Astoria in the spring -- but dear Authority, I also have the sensation of a giant punching a hole in the back of my neck, and wrapping his enormous hand around my skull, resting pinky and thumb against the points where my jaw and cheekbones meet. This does tend to impede one's enjoyment of the good life, as you can imagine.
The new improved N line will be a thing of beauty once it's finished. Please, for the love of all that is good and true, please finish it as soon as possible. Consider this my official crying of uncle. I will put up with any indignity you can throw at me -- sporadic rush-hour service, conductors who don't understand how shrill their voices are when they shout into the intercom, even perpetually-overflowing, rat-attracting trash bins -- if you will only finish the job quickly, pack up the hazardous chemicals and give me my neighborhood back.
Yours, etc.,
17 Years of More-or-Less-Happy Ridership and Counting
Astoria, Queens
Polly: Ready to order?
Danny: Er, yeah. What's a gralefrit?
Polly: Grapefruit.
Danny: And creme pot...pot rouge?
Polly: Portugaise. Tomato soup.
Danny: I'll have the gralefrit. Now - balm carousel. Lamb?
Polly: Casserole.
Danny: Sounds good. Does it come with a smile?
Polly: It comes with sprouts or carrots.
Danny: Oh, smile's extra, is it?
Polly: You'll get one if you eat up all your sprouts.
-- Fawlty Towers, "A Touch of Class"
As promised, dear friends, it is time to share the recipe for gralefrit grapefruit cake.
The original recipe is from The Brown Derby Restaurant Book, but I found it via Gale Gand, who offers the recipe in Butter Sugar Flour Eggs. Brown Derby Grapefruit Cake, according to The Brown Derby Restaurant Book, was created by the restaurant's owner, Robert Cobb (also the creator of the Cobb salad), after the Hearst gossip powerhouse Louella Parsons suggested to him that the menu needed more diet items. I agree with Chef Gand (and her co-authors, Rick Tramonto and Julia Moskin) that any diet that includes cream cheese icing is my idea of a good time. Actually, the whole cake is my idea of a good time. The crumb is slightly drier than that of the average butter cake; it reminds me of the sponge cakes we used for European tortes in culinary school. It is made much softer by the presence of the icing, and by fresh grapefruit sections in the middle layer and atop the cake. it tastes both sweet and sour, and it is soft, so soft, on the palate. The icing is gorgeous, too, creamy and tart and speckled with pink grapefruit vesicles that give the impression of confetti. Because I was unlucky enough to get a pair of grapefruit that would not section cleanly, I omitted the grapefruit sections for the top and middle, but had I added them, I think the cake would have been even better. As it is, it's delightful, and except for a bit of palaver involving the zesting of citrus and the squeezing of juice, it's as easy as blushing.
Brown Derby Grapefruit Cake
(makes 1 9-inch cake; serves 8-12, depending on the delicacy of your company)
For the cake:
3 large eggs, separated, at room temperature
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1/4 cup fresh-squeezed grapefruit juice
3 tablespoons freshly-grated grapefruit zest
1/2 teaspoon freshly-grated lemon zest
1 1/2 cups (6 oz.) sifted cake flour
3/4 cup (5 1/4 oz.) granulated sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
For the icing:
2 grapefruit (I like pink or red varietals like Star Ruby, both for the icing and the cake)
12 ounces cream cheese, slightly softened but still cool
2 teaspoons lemon juice
1 teaspoon freshly-grated lemon zest
3/4 cup (4 3/4 oz.) confectioner's sugar
Preheat the oven to 350F degrees (Gas Mark 4). Butter a 9" cake pan and line with a parchment circle. Butter the parchment and dust the pan with flour.
In a stand mixer, using the whisk attachment (or in a large bowl with a hand mixer), beat the egg yolks. Drizzle the oil in slowly; the mixture will look like a concentrated mayonnaise. With the motor running, drizzle in the grapefruit juice. Add the zests and mix. The mixture will look foamy and thick.
Sift together the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt. Add to the egg mixture and mix until well-combined. The batter will be very thick.
In a clean dry bowl (I use a little copper bowl for this, but any bowl is fine as long as it is clean and absolutely grease-free), whip the egg whites until stiff but not dry; they should still look glossy. Stir about 1/4 of the egg whites into the batter to lighten, then fold the rest in until just combined. Pour the batter into the pan. Bake 25-30 minutes, or until the center springs back when pressed with a fingertip. (I gave it 35 in my oven, which tends to run cool, and it was perfect. Be sure to test in the center, as the edges will test as done before the center does.) Let rest for 15 minutes, then invert onto a cooling rack. Peel off the parchment, re-invert, and let cool completely.
For the icing, cut the tops and bottoms off the grapefruit, then slice off the peel and pith, following the curve of the fruit. Cut the grapefruit into sections (these are also known as "supremes", with a short "e"
and let them drain on paper towels; they will give up a lot of juice. As they drain, beat the cream cheese in a stand mixer with the paddle attachment, or in a medium bowl with a hand mixer, until fluffy. Mix in the lemon juice and zest. Add the sugar gradually and beat until the mixture is smooth, but slightly stiff. Chop one grapefruit section until you have two teaspoons of fruit. (You may need another section; feel free to use it.) Stir the chopped grapefruit into the icing.
To assemble, slice the cake in half horizontally with a serrated knife. Lift off the top layer and set aside; set the bottom layer on a cake plate. Ice the cut side, arrange half the grapefruit sections over the icing, and top with the top layer. Ice the sides, then the top, of the cake. Top with the remaining grapefruit sections.
A postscript: While googling about for more information on this cake, I discovered two things: 1. Although the original Brown Derby is long gone, a facsimile exists at Disney-MGM Grand Studios at Walt Disney World, where both Brown Derby Grapefruit Cake and Cobb Salad are on the menu. Whether this is a happy ending or a sign of the coming apocalypse is strictly a matter of opinion. 2. Long before I thought it would be a good idea to make this cake, both Anna at Cookie Madness and Nina at Sweet Napa had the same idea. Their cakes are beautiful and their essays are delightful to read. Go see.
(Yes, dear friends, there is a recipe. Yes, it will be shared. Yes, it tastes even better than it looks. 
