Sat, May 31 - Rhubarb Crumble, Thai Town, Cupcake Tasting

10.30am - started off the day by making some lovely rhubarb crumble according to this exquisitely detailed recipe. I used five California-sized (i.e. gargantuan) stalks of rhubarb, and three of Nadya's home-grown oranges, so added an extra 100g of oats (special, Scottish-style porridge oats from Whole Foods) and it turned out great, except for the fact that our oven seems to be a little hotter than others and ended up burning the top a wee bit, although I pulled it out before its time. Or maybe I got the conversion from Celsius to Fahrenheit wrong, which is always a possibility. It has to be said, though, that gas ovens are a bit of a pain. As much as I love cooking on a gas stove, gas ovens I find very hard to handle, and believe me, I've tried. One of the reasons I rarely bake anymore is because it seems impossible to reproduce my favorite recipes from home. A kingdom for an electric oven - with a gas stove top! 13.57h - a Thai Iced Tea at the somewhat prosaically named "Spicy Barbecue" Thai restaurant , with Ritesh. After all the Korean barbecue we had in the last couple of weeks, I was going to pass just based on the name, but what can you do when a place comes recommended by Jonathan Gold? Turns out, there really wasn't much barbecue on the menu, so maybe it's just a bad translation? Anyway, this is a small mom-and-pop operation (six tables in all) in Thai town, where we headed to buy the ingredients for some Thai and Cambodian cooking to come soon. But for now, note the pretty rose-shaped thingie they did with the paper at the end of the straw...

14.03h - grilled pork patties (I guess these do qualify as barbecue, although they're more like meatballs) that were DELICIOUS! Spicy, with a ton of mint inside, plus note the extra fried mint on top - serious competition for last night's meatloaf! The sticky rice on the side goes with the next dish...

14.04h - ...the signature num prik oom, a mix of grilled, mashed up, incredibly spicy serrano chilies (with garlic? fish sauce? it was just too spicy to tell, and our waitress wouldn't say) that you dip your sticky rice in - amazing. We eat a lot of very spicy food but couldn't finish this. Ended up taking at least half of it home (I'm sure it'll be put to good use). And now, four hours later, my stomach is still on fire.

14.07h - kao soi - chicken noodle soup w/ coconut milk and little pickles and fried rice crisps that are served on the side (left) and that you mix in yourself. Good, but this is more familiar Thai stuff.

15.56h - blueberry-apple spritzer, at home.

21.18h - impromptu dinner at Greg and Phinney's - this is Greg's yummy miso soup
21.36h - this is our contribution to dinner, the soba noodle-peanut-citrus salad I'd first made a few weeks ago, w/ snow peas, radishes and red bell peppers. This is my adaptation of somebody else's adaptation of a Nigella Lawson recipe and it still needs a little bit of tweaking to make it perfect, but in my heart of hearts I'm thinking I may start posting some recipes soon, and this should be one of them...22.05h - and voila, the cupcakes. Greg and Phinney are getting married in October and are planning on a cupcake tower instead of a wedding cake. So now the search is on for the perfect cupcakes for the occasion (recommendations are welcome and will be swiftly passed along). This is a selection Phinney picked up from Lark bakery in Silver Lake, clockwise starting top left: chocolate mousse, coconut, red velvet w/ cream cheese frosting, caramel w/ kosher salt, berry shortbread, and black-and-white in the center. Each of us got to try 1/4 of each cupcake, and we all agreed on the berry shortcake as the winner - moist, succulent, and with the most sophisticated frosting (cream cheese is nice but maybe not nice enough for the occasion). But this is only half of Lark's selection, so Phinney is going back to sample more. Maybe a lemon one would be good...
22.33h - in spite of the cupcakes, we managed to squeeze in a quarter each of a tasty, marzipany German almond horn before sugar shock finally made us collapse on the couch.