My favorite asparagus recipe...

Can be found over at Simply Recipes. Be sure to go over there and check it out. It's very mojito-esque, minus the rum. Unless you drink it on the side. Or just whenever, like I do. 

Slings and Shot Glasses

"This bar isn't so ba- Oh my God, there's a sling up on the stage!"

It had been my idea to go to a local gay bar, The Bolt, to see what the fuss was about. Living in Sacramento for so many years I had heard about the place many times but had never checked it out for myself. So, with boyfriend in tow, we decided to go exploring.

The Bolt is the local leather daddy and bear club where older gay men and some younger ones come out to drink, shoot the breeze, and play pool. I was the youngest person in there, with the bf running a close second. There were, however, a few people in their early thirties and a small cackles of bull dykes doing whisky shots.

Yet, indeed, there on a raised stage was a leather sling trussed up like a drugged bear in chains (pun intended). As I ordered my beer and nursed it lovingly, the bf kept watch on me. Slim twenty-somethings, I'm to be informed, are rare at The Bolt are those who do show up are often groped and manhandled. 

It was a quiet night but damn, Mr. Sacramento Bear of the Year 97-98 can mix a fine drink. It was strong and smooth (97-98 was fuzzy with a handlebar mustache). Furthermore, the place was pretty relaxed. Honestly, I enjoyed it far more than I expected. I may just go back. Plus, if I don't wear a shirt on Saturday I get my beer half off. Just don't expect to see me anywhere near that stage.

Cupcake Vineyards Sauvignon Blanc and White Wine Cake

I don't think I've ever discussed a wine on here before, or at least one specifically per se, but I found this particular wine and figured it was fair game.; based on the name itself I thought that, by fate and consequence, I had to buy a bottle of Cupcake Vineyards. Now apparently it's a product of Marlborough, New Zealand (but bottled in California, which confuses me). The winemaker comments on the back are forcibly nostalgic, pressuring you to imagine a time back when through the most delightfully lame imagery, boasting of a "layers of complexity and a vibrant zing, reminiscent of your grandma's lemon chiffon cake."The flavor admittedly does have zest and zing. The nose is citrusy and slightly grassy, with a bit of kick that made me krinkle my nose a tad out of curiosity for some foreign smell I can't quite describe. The flavor is smooth and does indeed produce those key lime and grapefruit flavors that the label so proudly toted about. Around $9, it's a good wine. Nothing phenomenal, but one I would pick up again.

Of course, it being a cupcake wine, I decided I should use my usual wine cupcake recipe and give it a shot. However, recipes don't always go the way we planned. Due to a lack of cupcake papers, I decided to throw it into a springform and chop some strawberries over the whole thing. Furthermore I was out of olive oil, so sunflower oil was used instead.

Overall, the cake was a huge crowd pleaser. The citrusy notes of the wine stood out and were backed up nicely by the orange zest. The sunflower oil flavor was clean and fragrant giving a good background to the sweet and slightly tart to the tongue strawberries. This cake has a very fine crumb and is surprisingly moist for a cornmeal cake. A real winning, super-easy dessert.

White Wine Cornmeal Cake

What You'll Need...
1/2 cup of olive or sunflower oil
2 large eggs at room temperature
1 cup of sugar, plus 1/4 cup for topping
1/2 cup of dry white wine
1 1/4 cups of all-purpose flour
1/2 cup of yellow cornmeal
1 teaspoon of salt
2 teaspoons of baking powderFinely grated zest of one orange
4 strawberries, sliced thinly

What You'll Do...
1) Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

2) In a large bowl, whisk together the oil, eggs, sugar, and wine until smooth. Add the flour, cornmeal, baking powder, salt and the zest; whisk together gently.
3) Line a spring-form pan with parchment paper and brush with olive oil. Pour in the cake batter and arrange sliced strawberries on top. Sprinkle with remaining sugar.

4) Bake for 35-40 minutes or until a cake tester comes out clean. Allow to cool on wire rack.

Revani Cupcakes (Semolina Sponge Cupcakes with Citrus Syrup and Coconut)

From the Cupcake Archives because I am super crazy busy and/or trying to nap on my Spring Break.

Many years ago I went to Turkey as part of a life changing vacation through the Middle East. I went and saw the Blue Mosque, walked around the capitol city, enjoyed the local air and culture, and had some wonderful meals. One of the more striking desserts that always seemed to show up was a dish called revani. It was a new experience in cake. It was dense, heavy, and syrupy with a heavy citrus profile. It was a cake revelation.

Revani is a traditional sponge cake of Turkey and other countries like Morocco and Lebanon. Like any sponge cake the recipe is simple but getting truly amazing flavor takes patience and practice.

It's supposedly named after a famous Turkish poet who often extolled the beauty of food, but I can't seem to find any of his work on the Internet. If he supposedly did exist or if this is just a story, I'm not sure. Regardless it's a beautiful cake that really would inspire one to put down their soul into prose.

This is a cupcake with forgiving ingredients. I had no semolina so I substituted Cream of Wheat. Nor did I have dry dessicated coconut, so I used sweetened (I have yet to go grocery shopping after I moved, and the only thing nearby is Albertson's, I went with what I could get at the moment). Honestly, go with sweetened, it's just better and not as dry tasting. If you can get freshly grated, then go that route. I also used a tangelo for the zest rather than a basic orange, though the revani I had in Turkey used some very flavorful exotic orange that was incredibly floral and honey-esque, one I could not identify and I'm sure have little chance of finding.

You have to eat them with a fork, they're too sticky and syrupy to go by hand (we tried and it just gets everywhere, which is fine for outside but not in the living room I just finished cleaning). Very citrusy and very sweet, they're delicious little sponge cakes. We enjoyed them with a bit of yogurt for me and clotted cream for Rob as the dairies just helped accentuate the flavors. The coconut was light and added a nice floral finish. Overall a playful cupcake perfect for spring dinners outside on the patio and for Turkish themed meals.

Revani Cupcakes
Makes 9-12 cupcakes / 350 degree oven

What You'll Need...
1/2 cup of semolina or Cream of Wheat
1/4 cup of flour
1/2 cup of sugar
6 eggs separated, room temperature
zest of one tangelo (or other orange)

What You'll Do...
1) Preheat the oven to 350. Sift the flour and semolina together in a large bowl. In another bowl, beat the yolks and the sugar together until light and creamy. Beat in the orange zest and then gradually beat in the semolina and flour mixture.

2) Whisk the egg whites until stiff peaks form. Remember to have them at room temperature and to start at a low whisking speed, then gradually get to higher speeds. You have to coax them into getting white and fluffy.

3) Fold the egg white mixture carefully into the semolina mixture. Spoon into paper cupcake papers (not foil!). Bake for 12-16 minute or until a toothpick comes out clean.

4) Spoon lemon syrup generously onto cupcake and bake for an additional 2 minutes. Remove from oven and allow to cool and absorb the syrup.

5) Transfer to a dish and serve at room temperature with clotted cream or yogurt and sprinkled coconut. Drizzle on any extra syrup you may have left over.


Lemon Syrup
What You'll Need...
juice and zest of 2 lemons
3/4 cup of sugar
1 1/4 cup of water

What You'll Do...
Put all the ingredients into a pan and bring to a boil, stirring often. Reduce the heat and simmer for 8 minutes.

Edible Linguistics - Some Ideas to Chew On

Doing all my research for this paper about the idea of the meal as symbolic of greater cultural norms and ideas I wanted to find a clear definition of the word and its history. Where did we get the word meal?

Indeed, I could define the word in its modern use easily enough without reference. A meal was the act of sitting down to eat or the actual prepared food itself. Still, historically I couldn't find anything. No Latin root word. No adopted slang from some Celtic tribe or whatnot. It was an linguistic mystery to me, and while I'm sure someone else may have charted it out, I had yet to find that someone or the documentation.

I could find other words, no problem. Supper was easy: "The last meal of the day; (contextually) the hour at which this is taken, supper-time; also, such a meal made the occasion of a social or festive gathering. Often without article, demonstrative, possessive, or the like, esp. when governed by a prep. (to have supper; at, to, for, after supper)" (OED). Supper was the last meal of the day, often far late in the evening between seven to nine. This two hour time span was allowed only to the truly rich who didn't have to work the daily grind; with leisure came the ability to eat at one's own pace. Dinner was taken around five or six in order to entertain guests at the spur of the moment, a luxury of the fashionable and professional classes.

Lunch way back when was actually called dinner. The working classes usually were too busy to sit down to supper so dinner was pushed back until the work shift was over. The more popular and common use of the word dinner to refer to the last meal of the day, when actually it was a delayed midday meal, became the linguistic norm.

As for lunch? The original form of the word lunch was luncheon, which referred to any casual meal throughout the day. As the working class often had to find time in the middle of their shift to take a quick bite, usually around noon, this traditional meal became adopted into popular society and over time was slanged into the word lunch.

This history was all well and good, however meal kept escaping me. Indeed, the American Heritage Dictionary and Oxfrod English both seemed to skirt about the history. However, after plenty of research and some determined pluck I think I pinned down where we actually get the term meal from in our modern vocabulary.

You see the OED noun for meal in the ceommensalitory manner is, "The edible part of a grain or pulse (now usually one other than wheat) ground to powder or granules" (OED). Now the verb form of the word is "to eat a meal, to feed". Stay with me...

Now, E.N. Anderson in his book, Everyone Eats: Understanding Food and Culture, says "perhaps the best-known and longest running case study of change is provided by the case of bread" (171). He notes that bread is a signifier of culture, 40,000 years ago people started grinding cereals into powder, or meal, to bake into various types of breads. This milling was time consuming, requiring the work of many. As the cereals demanded intense labor, many people were brought into the process of creating the meal. Even as technology made processing meal easier it required the skills of many. Thus everyone had to gather for the meal.

As the act of processing meal gave way to machines, the phrase of sitting down to a meal stayed. As such, I propose we get the term meal from this history of bread making.

Anyways, this is simply my own postulating. I haven't had enough time to really delve into this, but I think I might have this right. Any linguists out there are free to correct me. I plan to get more regular posts about cupcakes and stupid people when I can but right now academia has consumed me. At least I found ways to make it food related, maybe by the end of all this I can publish something and become the next Pollan.