Ah, the lovely joys of those magical days between Christmas and New Years!
Sunday, we had friends over for dinner to celebrate. Eight years ago, when we moved away from South Carolina, I thought I would never again have reason to say this, but alas: this dinner was to celebrate a friend's new set of teeth. Yep, Karen had most of her teeth pulled (a common solution to many things in English dentistry), and we promised her and her family a steak dinner when her dentures arrived. This dinner was cursed. When we arrived home from church the house was cold and dark as the power was off. We rearranged the menu to things that could be either made/baked on the grill or cooked on the gas stove that's also outside on the grill. The electric company said that we'd have no power until well into the evening, so we dug out all of out candles, made the place festive, and made do with what we had. Of course, 2 minutes before the family pulled into the drive, the power came on, showing the carpet that we hadn't been able to vacuum and all the mess in the kitchen. The fun of eating by candlelight was ruined, but dinner was delicious anyway.
The day before, I had made this lovely yule log/ bûche de Noël which is made entirely of chocolate ganache held together by chocolate cake (actually, as you can see, the ganache is holding the cake together as I broke it when unrolling it). The thing I love about ganache, other than it's the tasty main ingredient in a chocolate truffle, is that ganache (and therefore this cake), though made mostly of cream, doesn't need any refrigeration. It won't go bad. This is because there is so much fat and sugar in ganache, that any bacteria that might eat it develop type 2 diabetes and die immediately.
We had this much cake leftover today (Wednesday, when I took the picture) because A) it's a very rich cake, and B) L&L have been terribly digestively ill since Sunday night. You know they're sick if they won't eat my chocolate cake. Taking care of the girls, especially Lena who's been vastly more ill than her sister, has been like a return to the days when they were babies. Yesterday, I spent the day in the daze of a parent who has been up every hour with a crying child. This morning I awoke elated that my baby had finally slept through the night. Then I fixed Lena a bowl of oatmeal which I had to feed to her, and immediately I slipped into the old pattern of scooping the cooler outer edges from the bowl so as not to burn her mouth, and she would promptly open her mouth when she was ready for the next bite. If she hadn't occasionally spoken in complete sentences, it would have been just like she was little. It was dear and I enjoyed it. I also enjoyed it when she later put a load of laundry in the machine and went back to being my 8-year-old.
Hope that all have a warm and healthy New Year.
1 Comment »
melindatsura said,
3 January 2008 at 11:39 pm · Edit
The bdnoel looks much more impressive than the yangy chocolate-anise cake we tried to re-create from Maggiano’s several years ago. remember? we’ve not had good success with recipes found online. If you made that cake at our house, however, it would not have lasted to Wednesday. The platter in your picture would be empty because our kids gobble up all things sweet - especially ganache. When family sent goodies in the mail this holiday season - we had nary a taste - erstwhile our kids mouths and fingers were covered in crumbs, and gooey sweetness.
I’ve also exfoliated the house. LOVE post-holiday cleanup.
Merry merry to you all.
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