A Week In the Life

The story begins on Wednesday of the past week, when I came across and decided to accept the Wine Blogging Wednesday challenge posed by Chocolate and Zucchini. The task was to bake a rich, decadent dark chocolate cake and pair it with a complementary wine. Sounds like a delicious, common-sense combination, doesn't it? Well, apparently, wine and chocolate are notoriously fickle allies. Some people (extremists, I say) even believe a successful pairing can't be had, due to the overwhelming richness of both components.

I wasn't about to be deterred from my purpose, though -- no one's going to tell me two of my favorite edibles, both of which, happily, come in a wide variety of grades and styles, can't somehow be put together agreeably and tastily. So I went on a little Google crusade, and discovered that, as long as the chosen wine isn't overpowered by the chosen chocolate, the combination is likely to work. Thus, boiling it down to its most basic principle, sweet milk chocolate does well with sweet dessert wines (ports, sherries); and dark, bittersweet chocolate works best with dry, biting wines. Several websites made mention of cabernet sauvignons doing especially well with dark chocolates, so I made a mental note to pick up a cab at the liquor store (after, naturally, consulting the owner) later in the week to go with my attempt at her Melt-In-Your-Mouth Dark Chocolate Cake.

On Thursday night, there was a slight change of plans. Faced with the prospect of sharing a home with an entire 8"-diameter baked chocolate sin, and also because I like cooking for people and love my parents, I decided to bake the cake in time for Friday's weekly grocery-shopping trip with my mom so I could give her half for herself and my dad. I also decided to forego the Wine Blogging Wednesday experiment, because 1 bottle of wine + Sylvia + Brad + weekday = certain disaster. (Not to mention the budgetary concerns: like they say, good wine don't come cheap, darnit.)

So in the end, I just baked the following surprisingly quick, easy, and indulgently delicious cake:


Note: If and when baking this cake, make sure you let the butter and chocolate mixture cool sufficiently before you proceed with the sugar and eggs; otherwise, you might find your eggs will begin to cook separately in the warm chocolate. You have been warned.

Post-Script to Cake Anecdote: My parents were so completely taken with this cake, and impressed with my descriptions of its easy preparation, that my mom actually made her own yesterday. My mom, who usually hates getting down and dirty (with food-making, naturally) in the kitchen. Further still, she was determined to make her famous and much-missed meatball stew today. I am so impressed, proud, and, I have to admit, a little puffed up.

Anyway, back to the story. So Friday after work, armed with half a cake and a shopping list featuring the ingredients necessary to make this Franco-American take on chicken nuggets and fries (yes, this lovely website is currently my North star) and a turkey lasagna, I hit good old Publix with my mother. Now, a principal ingredient in the nugget seasoning is herbes de Provence, or herbs from the French region of Provence (here's a basic map), which are usually packaged together, and which were absent from the well-stocked shelves of the condiments & spices aisle. I knew that these herbes are a mixture of usually readily-available spices, including thyme and rosemary, but I didn't know the exact combination, which made me a little sad. So my mom -- did I mention how great my mom is? -- suggested checking out the stock at nearby Epicure, the local gourmet foods market. We piled our groceries in mom's car and headed off to our next culinary stop.

Epicure's luxe, minimal, specialized spice rack did indeed include a spot for "herbs from Provence," but said spot was completely empty. The only sold-out among dozens. Aaahhh! Undeterred, we sought out the help of a wandering employee, who shrugged off the spice vacancy. But as luck will have it, the owner, an elegant middle-aged American lady, happened to be standing an aisle away from us, overheard the conversation, and, after apologizing profusely, offered to photocopy the recipe for herbes out of one of her own books. A couple of minutes later, she emerged from the back offices with a triumphant copy of pages 278-79 in The New Food Lover's Companion, which explains that herbes de Provence is generally composed of basil, fennel seed, lavender, marjoram, rosemary, sage, summer savory, and thyme. I bought a little bottle of lavender, the only spice I didn't already have at home, and we left. I'm actually very happy they were out of the pre-packaged herbes, as I would otherwise have never met the charming owner of Epicure, or made off with a behind-the-scenes recipe. One more stone laid down in my path as a foodie.


OK, so this is what happens when you leave several days' worth of entries for one marathon post on Sunday night. Luckily for all involved, I'm almost finished. The rest of the weekend was more or less culinarily uneventful. Let's see: A versatile Publix whole rotisserie chicken provided dinner on Saturday night and tonight, and was served with (I have to admit) pre-packaged but righteous sour cream and chive mashed potatoes, steamed broccoli sprinkled with salt and olive oil, and slices of fresh-baked sourdough five-grain loaf patted with butter. This afternoon, I binged on cooking magazines at Books & Books, and also finally picked up a copy of Jeffrey Steingarten's The Man Who Ate Everything. Tomorrow I'll attempt my first-ever lasagna, which I am terribly excited about. -- But I'll reserve further details of books and lasagna preparation for other entries; wouldn't want to run out of material already!