It's got to give, it's got to change

[sovay]

Discovery of the night: a personal calzone from Eat at Jumbo's is exactly the right size for a person who walked fifteen minutes each way for it. I ordered the Frank Cyrano, which is what derspatchel calls BBQ chicken, ham, and ricotta cheese (see note), and the time it took me to walk to the restaurant was almost exactly the time it took the calzone to bake; I picked up a vegan chocolate fudge cookie for adrian_turtle and what I thought was a chocolate peanut butter cookie for myself, placed the calzone flat in a brown paper grocery bag for insulation and by the time I got home it was still warm. It had a very short lifespan after that. The cookie was unfortunately chocolate chunk, which I don't actually like, so I ate the parts that were chocolate and ignored the rest.

Other discovery of the night: it is just ten minutes on foot from my door to rushthatspeaks'. So after I'd eaten my calzone and finished picking the chocolate out of the cookie, I checked my e-mail and saw that due to the vagaries of life and root vegetables Rush had not actually baked the parsnip cake for faerieboots' birthday that I was invited to help with last night, so I walked over and we baked a parsnip cake. We had to go to Shaw's for star anise (which they didn't have, so we wound up substituting a mix of aniseed, cinnamon, and amchur to go with the ground cardamom seeds and nutmeg and toasting half the results before whisking it all in with the flour) and four kinds of sugar (which they did, so we bought them all) and the recipe is once again slightly different from the last time we made this cake (the blackstrap molasses turns out to be necessary for the flavor profile, but its function as liquid in a dense sticky batter can and should be taken over by the sweet liquid obtained from squeezing out the parsnips), but I am looking forward to seeing what happens tomorrow with the lemon icing, which we made last time with crème fraîche and lemon juice and are planning to try this time with lemon extract and ditto. Brown butter is one of the greatest things that can be made on a stovetop; at the point where we had stirred in the white and brown sugar and it had that delicious milk-fat, nuttily toasted smell, I just wanted to put the parsnips on hold and make some biscuits. Also, a spatula is a remarkably handy instrument. At one in the morning, I walked home in the same ten minutes. I have a doctor's appointment at noon tomorrow and we'll figure everything else out after that.

I like where I'm living.

Comments

[nineweaving.livejournal.com]

Good food and good friends! I'm happy for you.

Nine

[sovay]

Good food and good friends! I'm happy for you.

It was a much nicer night than it was a day.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Parsnip cake! What a very cool concept! I am going to try making one!

Glad you seem to be feeling better.

[sovay]

Parsnip cake! What a very cool concept! I am going to try making one!

It was fantastic the last time we tried it and I see no reason it will not be very edible tonight. Based on the batter, rushthatspeaks and I agreed we prefer star anise to aniseed, but we're thinking we'll keep the amchur no matter what.

Glad you seem to be feeling better.

I slept about two hours in the evening, absolutely exhausted; I woke up around quarter to eight having eaten nothing all day but some goat's milk yogurt and that was when the calzone happened. I was perkier after that. This morning, I am again exhausted and achy and it hasn't really gotten better; I kept one doctor's appointment, but my attempts to set up another have come to naught so far and I am not very happy about that. Last night was still worth it, though.

[ap-aelfwine.livejournal.com]

I'm glad for the pleasant discoveries, and very glad that it sounds as if you're feeling better. It's cool that there is such a thing as a parsnip cake.

I hope all goes very well.

[sovay]

It's cool that there is such a thing as a parsnip cake.

As far as we can tell, in this particular formulation, rushthatspeaks invented it.

[ap-aelfwine.livejournal.com]

As far as we can tell, in this particular formulation, rushthatspeaks invented it.

Good on them!

I've saved the recipe. I amn't much for baking cakes, but someday I might have to try this one.

[ajodasso.livejournal.com]

BBQ chicken, ham, and ricotta cheese

That sounds unbelievably good.

[sovay]

That sounds unbelievably good.

It is. I keep meaning to branch out to the rest of their menu, but the Frank Cyrano is just that delicious. I'd like the name to stick, but I think more people would have to start ordering it than just me and derspatchel. (Frank is a character of his from the Big Broadcasts; it's the first role I saw him in. Perpetually harried, sweater-vest-wearing veteran of Boston vaudeville and host/protagonist of the Frank Cyrano Byfar Hour, a Jack Benny-style comedy show that ran for about twenty years out of the Rooftop Gardens of the Putnam-Moore Department Store in Downtown Crossing, broadcast from first to last on the store's own radio station, WPM, and sponsored by Byfar Coffee Syrup, of which my brother still has a couple of bottles left. Totally and completely not fictitious in any way. Really. It is immaterial for purposes of this summary that if I'd had a bet on with rushthatspeaks and eredien about who wrote what when we saw The Big Broadcast of October 30th, 1938 in 2009, I would so have cleaned up.) Maybe they'll put it on the menu anyway.

The other calzone I've had from them is the Ranchero, which is on the menu: chicken, bacon, Roma tomatoes, and ranch mozzarella. I split a regular-sized one with rushthatspeaks the day of the PMRP fundraiser and we couldn't actually finish it in one sitting; about a third went home with Rush as leftovers and was eaten a day later for dinner, it was that rich. It was incredibly tasty, just sort of all the meat fat ever in one place. Please note that is not a recommendation against.