buttermilk chocolate cake with peach filling and a marzipan cow

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this week:

-the chicks are getting to be huge! if they were little apples last week, they are full on grapefruits now! 

-i've been chipping away at orange is the new black. but now that i've started swapping out some of my treadmillings for yoga videos, i haven't been watching as much netflix, so oitnb is going by very slowly. 

-i developed a new system to stay hydrated: instead of having to get up to go to the sink every time i need a water refill (which ends up having to be annoyingly often because somehow all of our water glasses are ever so dainty), i just have a cute pitcher near me at all times. i've been alternating between this one and this one. i have to pee a lot more now but i feel so great!

-the tour de france is starting!!!! i am excited. but eggboy is about thirty times as excited. every year, he buys the live streaming membership and we watch it when he comes in for lunch. go nibali! go contador! go froome!!!

-my freezer has started its journey to fill up to the brim with cake for my friend emily's wedding next week (!!!!). she is having 300 people!!!! so it is basically my dream come true because all this week and next week i get to make caaaaaaake.

-and also: i bought a cow cookie cutter for emily's cake because she is marrying evan the cow farmer. so the other day when my friend lena was in for a visit, we took him for a test run (the cookie cutter, not evan) on this here patriotic cake for the fourth! 

the recipe is right this way, on the vanity fair site! 

happy almost fourth of july!!!!

-yeh!

new orleans

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i am back from the most pleasant weekend in new orleans, and with me i have brought: a newfound love of pralines ("prah-lines"), a southern accent for my inner dialogue (kind of like a fierce millennial britney spears, but i blame the fierce millennialness on all of my time spent with graham), and two very old used jewish cookbooks, one of which is littered with shrimp recipes.

new orleans just oozes with magic. i felt like i was owen wilson in midnight in paris, like i had just stepped into another time and place and there were so many new things to observe as an outsider, yet i was still made to feel so welcome. there were some very great quirks, like being called "baby" by everyone in the most non-creepy way, and turning down the colorful little streets to find six-person marching bands who could have marched right out of a dream. what a place! i've got to go back. just maybe at another time of year when it's not so darn sticky :)

here are some places i went and loved:

kitchen witch // a used cookbook store in the french quarter that makes you feel like you're in your grandma's living room, raiding her church cookbook collection. it's amazing. it's also owned by the sweetest lady ever. 

shaya // an incredible israeli restaurant where graham, beau, matt, and i stuffed ourselves silly. their labne = best i ever had. their hummus with curried fried cauliflower = good enough to make me feel like i could handle being a vegetarian. what!

meaux bar // lol, we might have all gone out for desserts here before shaya because that's how we do. they were v good.

pizza delicious // great ny-style pizza, amaaaazing garlic knots that graham and i could not stop eating, and a fun local vibe that was kind of like one part bushwick, one part park slope. i was down with it.

piety street sno-balls // sno-balls are like snow cones but the ice is much smoother... it really is more like snow. the one i had was nectar and wedding cake flavored and it could not have come at a better time, holy balls it is so hot in new orleans. 

sylvain // i went here twice! once for a fancy lady vichyssoise (there was caviar in it!) with a mind-blowing smokey buttermilk avocado kale salad, and once for all of the meaty fried brunch things with beau and matt and graham. everyone who works there is very wonderful and stylish, i want to be bffs with all of them. 

the old coffeepot // super cute, super old, diner-y, and with fun options like sweet rice donuts that were a new and interesting thing for me. not like rice flour, but actual kernels of rice... like a sweet cinnamon arancini. i dug it. this place also furthered my new appreciation for grits.

district donuts // ok so like i kind of feel bad for not totally taking advantage of all of the seafood in new orleans, but i had no choice, this place serves a mother fucking donut croque monsieur and a mother fucking donut caprese sandwich. wtf! slay me. and their regular sweet donuts are fantastic because they're actually not *too* sweet. so many hearts. 

cafe du monde // i honestly went here out of fear that someone would bite my head off if i told them that i went to new orleans but did not go to cafe du monde. waiting in line was a little bit reminiscent of standing in line at disneyland, because it was hot and crowded and smelled like fried dough, but in the internet age, it's fine, you just tweet. the beignets were great! glad i did it.

last but not least: thank you sooo much to the sustainable seafood blog project for having me down! graham and i made our food photography class debut and it was so much fun. we celebrated by shucking oysters and sipping satsuma rum with all of our cool new seafood blogger friends!! miss you all already!! <3

-yeh!

meet our chickies!!!!!

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ok, i get it. i get why all of you like posting pictures of your pets and offspring. i get it. you were right. it's all i want to do. 

because ohmygahhh i'm a chicken mama!!!!!!!!!!

these little ladies are the greatest. they were hatched just about a week ago and already they've grown so much! they're so fluffy and goofy. all day long they peck and waddle and scoop up water with their little beaks. and the poop! they poop so much.

at night they all pile on top of each other and sleep in a little mountain of chick, it is so cute i could cry. 

all of their names are macaroni for now. once we can tell all 15 of them apart, we'll give them grownup lady names, like curer bell and robert galbraith. 

hehe.

ok it's been a whole five minutes since i last checked on them, so i'm going to go do that.

bye!

-yeh!

 

sriracha egg salad

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here are two equal and opposite reactions: making your own mayonnaise and then eating your own mayonnaise. that is, if you make it by hand, which is actually really satisfying and the best* thing that you can possibly do in the kitchen now that it's short sleeve season. 

*in addition to a whole bunch of other things, like kneading bread dough by hand...

it's also really fascinating to see with your own two eyeballs how mayonnaise really is just eggs and oil, and i think that makes egg salad extra funny. eggs coated in eggs. lol. you'd think eggboy would move mountains for the stuff, but he despises it. i told him how weird that is and his response was i'm not mayo boy, which is probably fair since i love olive oil but can't really do olives. 

and all that means is more egg salad for me. yay!!!!!!!

i love egg salad because: 

1. i'm 90,

2. it's so soft,

but it has to be severely mayo-y and salted ferociously, which you can do easily when you make it from scratch. and another thing that you can do easily when you make it from scratch is use olive oil in your mayonnaise, for a healthier option, and then eat all of it in the comfort of your own home without worrying that you're offending someone with the smell of hard boiled eggs.

i'm about to tell you how to whisk mayo by hand for this egg salad.

i know, i know, making mayo in a blender takes but one second. i know.

you can also buy mayo at the store. i know. 

but we're going to make it by hand because it's fun, it's good for you, and you might find yourself in a blender-less, mayo-less world one of these days and you need to know how to fend for yourself. the rest of this recipe is an easy peasy straightforward egg salad scenario that gathers sweetness and crunch from chopped onion and a bite from dijon and sriracha. (there's no celery here, i didn't want it here.) it's equally at home on crunchy toast as it is sandwiched between fluffy white bread, and if you want to just eat is straight with a spoon, you can do that too.

sriracha egg salad

makes 4-6 servings

ingredients

1 large egg yolk

1 tb dijon mustard

1 tsp sriracha

1/2 tsp sugar

kosher salt and black pepper, to taste

1/2 c extra virgin olive oil

1 tb lemon juice

8 large hard boiled eggs

1/2 small white onion, minced

2 cloves garlic, minced

 

 

clues

in a large mixing bowl, whisk together the egg yolk, mustard, sriracha, sugar, a good pinch of salt, and a couple turns of black pepper. continue to whisk, vigorously, and do not stop until i say. using your other hand, drizzle in the oil as slowly as possible. the oil stream should be the thickness of a strand of hair. once the mixture has thickened and become pale, you can increase the speed of the pour slightly. (how is your arm? do you need to switch hands? you can do that quickly.) once all of the oil has been added, whisk in the lemon juice. stop whisking. taste and adjust salt, pepper, and sriracha as desired. 

transfer the mayo to a small container. there's no need to dirty up another large bowl, you can just go forth and make your egg salad in the bowl where you just made your mayo. 

to do this, place your eggs in the bowl and use a pastry cutter to give them a rough chop. alternatively, you can chop the eggs with a knife before putting them in your bowl. fold in the onion and garlic and add a good pinch of salt. like i said, i like a severely mayo-y egg salad, so if it were up to me i'd stir in all of the mayo that we just made and be done. but i don't want to offend you, so start by folding in half of the mayo, and then add more as desired. reserve any unused mayo for anything you want. eat all of your egg salad at once! or within 3-4 days. 

enjoy!

-yeh!

thank you so much to the american egg board for sponsoring this post! check out their good egg project site to get to know the family-owned farms that are part of the board and read about their efforts to create sustainable, healthy, and comfortable environments for their chickens.