a winner! and dinner party thoughts...

I know you're dying of suspense, but before I tell you who won the fancy coffee maker, a few thoughts on dinner parties...

For those of you who pay attention to dates, you may notice that the salon challenge date was yesterday, with no dinner party from me.
I've been meaning to tell you that it's coming, it's coming. I've had to reschedule twice, and so I have missed my own deadline. But it's on again, and I have faith that on this night to come in December, my guests will indeed arrive.
But just because I haven't posted, doesn't mean that you shouldn't. I've just heard from Laurel (hello old friend!) about a lovely soiree involving foods from "the country of northwest autumn" (I'll visit that country anytime!) for 12 with place cards and everything. Has anyone else been taking the challenge? Please, do tell.
If this challenge is news to you, go here to learn more, and here to find the current theme. Of course, the holiday that is queen of all dinner parties is coming up, and I'd love to see those too.

The heart of this whole endeavor is the act of invitation. I like to focus on people I don't know or don't know that well, but sometimes the challenge can just be finding the time to invite an old friend to dinner. I don't know about you, but I can't tell you how many times "we've got to have you over for dinner one of these days!" gets thrown around on a weekly basis. When it gets down to it, if I can't find the time to invite someone in, my life is too damned busy.

So there you have it. I'm sure you've all read your final issue of Gourmet six or seven times. But because it bears repeating, I thought I'd let Ruth speak on the challenge, through her very final letter from the editor. Someday, maybe she'll come too, but either way, she definitely gets it.

From Ruth Reichl, in her Letter from the Editor from the very last issue of Gourmet, November 2009

"For me, the whole point of asking people to dinner is that you're inviting them into your life. They show up for a true reality show, for a moment when they discover who you really are. Your friends may not get a faultless meal in a fabulous house, but they do get the pleasure of knowing that you trust them. If you want a cleaned-up version of the truth, you can always hire a caterer and a phalanx of servers and be assured a perfect evening. But perfect evenings rarely lead to great friendships."


So tell me your thoughts, plans, hell, if you invite me to your dinner party and I don't have to get on a plane, I will go through anything to get there.

And now, yes, it's time. Thank you to my random number generator (Joey and his cubs hat) for choosing the winner of the scientific and beautiful Coffee maker....

Paul O.

Hooray for Paul! Send me an email with your address and it will be on its way.

And I have to say, your words on coffee were poignant and perfect. This challenge also pulled some old friends out of the woodwork, an added bonus for me! (Hello everyone... so nice to see you over here.) So that we can all be winners today, I have put together everyone's words, in the order that I got them, in a bit of an ode...


reason to get up,
warmth for wintry weather.

it hits the spot...
morning lifeblood-evening composure.

Coffee, noun: mental treadmill
Milk NO, Sugar NO...perfect
YUM

Awake all night. Coffee=survival
makes me feel alive

Dark goddesses persistent concoction
'tis time, 'tis time
the morning alchemist's 'aqua vitae'
better than green chile

dark delicious bitter black brew
Between cold hands, fragrant refuge
Coffee saves patients' lives daily

Thanks everyone. Hope you all are having a fabulous Monday.

plum coffee cake

Yesterday, it was dry and beautiful, and Molly and Aurel invited us over to dinner with their various visiting families. I bought perfect plums at the market with the intention of making something sweet and plummy for desert. The first part of the afternoon was spent just admiring the plums.


In the end I decided on a plum upside-down cake, and I worked diligently on it, using half my plums and exactly one pound of butter.
I'm not sure what happened to that cake. Maybe the recipe wasn't forgiving of my wish to double it, or maybe I just didn't have my butter alchemy hat on. The cake looked like it was going to be lovely. In fact, I even photographed it, sure that you would love to make it too.

But just to dissuade you from trying, I'm not even going to give you the recipe.
This was a truly lovely dinner party. It was a blue and sweatshirted evening, and everyone looked lovely in the smoke of the grill. Rosie stole my camera and took all of the pictures.






I think that she may have a future in this. She even got that blurry, evening, "we're young and we're being photographed by Gourmet magazine tonight- check out our eleven course meal followed by homemade ice cream sandwiches" look.
But we did not have homemade ice cream sandwiches for dessert. We had plum upside-down cake with a dense hard cake bottom that sat a bit like a rock in your tummy. The plum part was fabulous, and thank god I made whipped cream.
It was a lovely night though. We finally dragged the kids home at nine, and they fell asleep before we could sing "tender shepherd".
This morning Rosie woke up with a fever. It was humid with a sky only inches above the top of the house, threatening to rain without ever following through. It was muggy and cold at the same time. All of this was clear in the first moments of the day. So Joey took both the sick girl and the healthy girl to the couch and read the entire Children's treasury to them. I'm talking Miss Rumphius, Pig Pig, Madeline, the first chapter of Superfudge- this is a pretty complete treasury. And I slept another whole twenty minutes by myself, got up, and faced the second half of the plums, ready to begin again.
I've been thinking about coffee cake lately, and wanting to work on a whole grain maple syrup version that is not special and decadent, but is just a good breakfast when I have too many plums. (or add you're overabundant fruit here). This one came out great- yummy and moist, and I didn't feel sick or sugared after breakfast. In fact, I kept eating through this whole day that I never left the house. Yes, it was that kind of Sunday, and it was a beautiful thing, all in all. The sick kid dozed, the healthy kid sewed and took care of the sick kid, and the husband and I cleaned out the room that is filled with junk. Maybe the coffee cake had some magic in it. Try it out and let me know if you think so.


Plum Coffee Cake
very loosely adapted from The Joy of Cooking

2 cups sifted spelt flour
3/4 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1 tsp cinammon
1/2 cup canola oil
1 beaten egg
3/4 cup whole milk yogurt
1/3-1/2 cup maple syrup, depending on how sweet you like it
4-6 plums, pitted and cut into slices
1/2 cup sliced almonds

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Butter an 8x8 square baking pan. Whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, nutmeg, and cinnamon in a mixing bowl.
In another bowl, combine the oil, egg, yogurt and maple syrup. Pour this mixture into the flour mixture, stirring rapidly until blended. The mixture can be a bit lumpy. Pour into the greased pan and arrange the plum slices on top, pressing them slightly into the batter. Sprinkle the almonds over the batter and plums. Bake for 40-50 minutes, or until a knife comes out clean.

Blueberry Ricotta Coffee Cake

I have this friend, and she and her very fabulous boyfriend (who is also now a friend) came to visit this past weekend. This friend, we'll call her Sarah, because that is actually her name, and I have known each other for 28 of our 30 years, since our single moms joined forces in an attempt to raise their children in an enlightened, free-wheeling sort of fashion. We all lived together for a few clothes-less years, and while our mothers sang their hearts out in the cutting edge New Age choral group, On Wings of Song, we ran around stabbing each other with pencils and pretending that chewable vitamin C's were candy (which they totally are- have you tried those acerolas?).
Anyway, let it be said that these beginnings certainly form a foundation for a strong friendship that doesn't go away no matter what you do to it. And for that I am truly thankful.
But back to 1981, you might be wondering how two single mothers support a family? For children can not live on heart opening melodies alone. All those vitamin C's cost a lot when you are sneaking as many as we did. Well, our mothers cooked together for new age "opening the heart" workshops, of course. And it was over thousands of tofu balls and adzuki beans that the bond between our mothers began.
So it is only natural that so many years later, Sarah and I cook together. And little expansions of my repetoire always occur after these weekends, like rutabagas in shepherd's pie, for example. And when Sarah suggested that we make coffee cake for breakfast, it was one more opportunity for expansion. Because although I make many baked breakfast goods, I'm just not a coffee cake maker. But now I am. And I get a little thrill out of the fact that 28 years ago, if our mothers know that Sarah and I would be making coffee cake together, they would of course be thrilled, but they would really wish that it was a whole wheat quinoa nut loaf instead.
But times have changed. We glanced at the recipe for quick sour cream coffee cake in The Joy of Cooking, and then we messed with it quite a bit. So I feel justified in calling this:

Alana and Sarah's Blueberry Ricotta Coffee Cake

Preheat oven to 350 degrees:

Sift together:
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup light brown sugar
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt

Combine and beat till creamy:
2 eggs
1 cup ricotta cheese

Add the the dry ingredients to the creamed mixture with a few swift strokes.
Quickly stir in:
1/4 cup milk
1 1/2 cup frozen blueberries

Spread into a greased 9x9 pan. Make the Streusel:

1/2 cup brown sugar
3 T all purpose flour
1/2 cup rolled oats
1 T cinnamon
1/2 tsp cardamom
1/2 tsp salt
4 T butter, melted

Combine in a bowl until evenly mixed. Spread over coffee cake and bake for 45 minutes, or until a knife comes out clean.