The Lamb

If I may say so myself (honestly, I don't care if I may: I will say), it was as good as it looks.

I adapted from recipes from BBC, Amuses Bouche and allconsuming. I used some of everything: the cut of lamb (shoulder) and the proportions of veggies suggested by the french recipe, the

reduction for the sauce from BBC, and the marinade from the brilliant Aussie writer at

allconsuming.

But OMG. After going through the trouble of tracking down a local shoulder of lamb (in July, it's difficult, apparently), I can still say it was worth it. However, upon seeing the six pounds of meat I came home with, I started to doubt myself.

I will only say this once: I am not a butcher. I did my best to respect this beautiful (and overwhleming!) piece of meat, without ruining the nutritional value of our meal! Overall, I think I did an okay job.

Also, I do not drink $4 wine on a regular basis--not that I have anything against it based on price, per se, since at school I buy one liter bottles of Woodbridge on a regular basis. As my dad says, "You get what you pay for." That said, the Poppy wine made a rich and subtle broth to pour over the lamb during the meal (and was reduced to add to leftover stew later).

My favorite part (noooooot) was converting Celsius to Fahrenheit. I looked up my Kelvin/Celsius/Fahrenheit formula from ecology and tried it a couple times before realizing I had the internet at my fingertips. Thanks, Google. (Just in case you were wondering, 120 C = 248 F.)

Along side it I served a pizza adapted from smitten kitchen and garlicky brussel sprouts. The pizza seemed the perfect solution to our bread and veggies requirement.

For the 7-Hour Lamb

• One lamb shoulder or leg (personal preference, I used shoulder)
• One bottle dry white wine
• Thyme
• One or two bay leaves
• Some yellow onions
• A lot of fingerling potatoes
• Some carrots
• Extra stock, any kind

I poured the wine over the lamb Friday night, to marinate, coating the meat with peper each time I turned it (which happened whenever I remembered). The next morning, I poured it onto my chopped veggies while I browned the lamb on all sides in a roast pan over high heat, then tossed everything into the roast pan, made sure the meat was covered halfway with the extra stock, and tossed the whole thing (meat, veggies, wine, stock, herbs) into a pre-heated 250 degree oven.

I basted when I remembered too, which to be honest was every half hour, because I am anxious and OCD--I wanted to pull it out and eat it about four hours in.

To serve, pull apart with two forks. It actually fell away from the bone when I moved it out of the roast pan onto my serving dish.

Sacra-tomato

L came over and brought me a birthday cake today!!! It is seriously the cutest thing ever. Everybody loves Sacramento jokes...

This girl can make a cake out of anything, i swear. In fact, admissions people were saying it's how she got into college. Her photo essay (all pictures of cakes she had made, including a calculator and a rubix cube) was so inspiring that she was known as "Cake Girl." Hopkins was actually obsessed with her.*

*But not as much as my family was obsessed with her cake, as you can see by the enormous chunk my brother took out of it.

Is DIY worth it for sushi?

We'll know by next weekend! My brother and sister got me a wonderful sushi making kit for my twentieth, which I can't wait to use! See how pretty?

The kit includes a bamboo rolling mat, nori, sushi rice, chopsticks, and a sushi "cookbook" with insanely detailed, beautiful, and complex instructions. I think I can handle nigiri, but don't expect any "Four Seas" or plum blossom shaped rolls.

the Cake

I've been sitting on this post for a week now. It is the Cake post. I made this for our dinner party with Laura and Tony to celebrate the fourth of July and my little bro's birthday--but secretly it was for me a little bit too, because I knew I would be too lazy to bake myself a cake.

The Cake. The four layers of heaven that almost killed me. Saveur calls it the "Heaven and Hell cake," and this is not far from the truth. Devil's food, angel food. Fluffy cake, dense ganache. Heaven to eat, hell to digest.

The Cake, in its birthday suit

This Cake is a monster. It is without question a temperamental, supremely decadent, Paris Hilton of a cake--but so much fatter and so, so delicious.

Find the recipe here. Bake if you dare: It is so worth it. And I had the last piece for breakfast on my birthday! That is the breakfast of champions. Or it would have been, with a tall mimosa to wash it down with. (Fresca is just not the same.)

I did make one change to the recipe. Instead of the peanut butter mousse, at my brother's request I made a chocolate cream cheese frosting for the filling. Everything else was pretty much the same as the Saveur recipe, although I used 8" cake rounds rather than the larger version the magazine recommends. I fit all the devil's food into one round, but there was just so much fluffy angel food batter that I ended up with two healthy sized angel food cakes. I could have made six layers but I didn't feel motivated to slice unnecessarily, so the angel food layers were extra thick. I would actually do it like that again, because every other layer was unbelievably rich and dense.

Chocolate Cream Cheese Frosting

• 8 oz Neufchatel or Cream Cheese (room temp.)
• 1/2 sitck sweet cream butter (softened)
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 4 + cups confectioner's sugar
• 1/4 cup cocoa powder (unsweetened)

Beat cream cheese, butter, and vanilla until smooth and fluffy. Add sugar, one cup at a time, until desired consistency is reached. I wanted it to be thick so that it would stand up to the ganache coating and the rich cakes. Finally, add cocoa powder by tablespoons until desired chocolatiness is reached. This is prime sampling opportunity.