5 posts tagged “mr. g”
Unlike last year, Mr. G had a specific request for this year's birthday treat: He wanted a cherry pie. Having never made a cherry pie before, I went straight to my America's Test Kitchen cookbooks to find the best recipe.
The ATK folks did not disappoint. Per their recommendation, I hunted up some jars of Trader Joe's Morello cherries, which apparently make the tastiest filling (and they certainly look more lovely than the canned cherries I've bought at the supermarket). I did not end up having the time to make the crust from scratch, but ATK says that refrigerated Pillsbury pie dough is almost as good as homemade (and I know Mr. G loves it, anyway). For the sake of time, I also decided to forego the traditional lattice for the full top crust (it's not as pretty, but having more crust can't be a bad thing!).
Here is the absolutely DELICIOUS end result, which we ate for Mr. G's birthday breakfast today (warmed up and topped with a generous scoop of vanilla frozen custard, of course!):
Guess what! Today Mr. G surprised me with tickets to see Eric Clapton! So now I have two shows to look forward to this year: Clapton in May and Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers in July (that was Mr. G's Valentine's Day gift to me). Isn't he the best?? I wanted to see Bob Dylan when he was in town last summer, so these concerts will kind of make up for missing that one.
I'm also still keeping my fingers crossed for a Paul McCartney or Ringo Starr tour. I'd be willing to travel anywhere in the country to see them—and then we could add another entry (or two) to our list of rock 'n' roll trips. So far we've been to Cleveland (in 2001) to see a John Lennon exhibit at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame; to Las Vegas (in 2002) to see Paul McCartney play the MGM Grand; to Memphis (in 2005) to see Graceland, Sun Studio, and the Gibson Guitar Factory; and again to Vegas (in 2007) to see Beatles LOVE.
We've also thought about driving to St. Louis sometime to see Chuck Berry perform at Blueberry Hill. The guy will turn 88 this year and he's still rocking the house once a month. I just hope we don't put off that trip until it's too late ...
Today a coworker asked me how I met Mr. Guycita. As I recounted the story, I realized that I've been married long enough to have it down to a formula, rarely departing from the predetermined script. In fact, I kind of felt like one of those little old ladies in When Harry Met Sally, the one that does all the talking while her husband just smiles and nods beside her. Picture Mr. G and me in our own "how we met" vignette:
When I was in college, I became friends with a boy named Andrew. About a year after we graduated, my roommate and I asked him and his roommate to go horseback-riding. We had never ridden horses before and were very much looking forward to sharing an adventure with the boys. But when the big day arrived, my roommate and I were a little disappointed: Andrew decided to bring along a couple of his high-school friends. Our little "double date" was suddenly quite overcrowded!
But it turned out that one of the friends Andrew brought was Mr. G. Although he didn't make much of an impression on me that day, I did notice that he made a lot of jokes when we were on the trail. He seemed nice enough, so when Andrew later surprised me by asking for permission to give Mr. G my e-mail address, I had no reason to refuse.
I still have the first e-mail Mr. G sent to me. It was way better than a phone call. I really liked what he had to say, and I could tell that he was a great guy, funny and honest and genuinely interested in my background. After just a few days, Mr. G asked me out, and I told him I'd let him know my answer after I got back from a weeklong visit to Peru. (I guess I was playing hard to get?) But he says he already knew that I'd agree to see him, and of course he was right. The rest is history: We were engaged three months later, and we were married just over a year after our first date.
He sent these to me at work today, just because:
Every year, I ask Mr. Guycita what type of birthday cake he wants me to make for him, and then I scour my cookbooks and the Internet to find the best from-scratch recipe possible.
This year, he told me that he really didn't know what he wanted. In the mood to try something new, I suggested a tres leches cake. My mom occasionally serves it when we visit Texas, and Mr. Guycita always loves it.
Of course, I didn't want to make just any tres leches cake. So after considerable research, I decided to try my hand at a cuatro leches cake. This variation, in addition to being soaked in the traditional mixture of sweetened condensed milk, evaporated milk, and heavy cream, is topped with dulce de leche (a caramel-type spread that I grew up eating all the time in Uruguay). To put my own twist on the recipe, I decided that, rather than diluting the dulce de leche with milk to pour over the top of the finished cake, I would fill the cake with Conaprole brand dulce de leche straight out of the jar.
Another thing that I thought made this recipe special is that it calls for Swiss meringue icing, rather than the traditional whipped cream. The meringue was super-easy to make, but I had never iced a cake with it before. I quickly learned that, being inexperienced with this medium, I was going to have to be happy with a freeform type of icing job:
I wanted to give the icing a lot of texture, and I thought it turned out pretty good for a first try! Now the recipe directed me to caramelize the icing (to give the cake a hint of roasted marshmallow flavor—yum!). Unfortunately, my little blowtorch refused to cooperate. Out of sheer desperation, I tried putting the cake under the broiler. This method meant that, while the top of the cake would become nice and golden, the sides of the cake would remain unbrowned:
Although the end result was nowhere near what I had envisioned at the start of the process, the cake tasted great. The crumb of the mantecada cake was delicate while still being sturdy enough to hold 3 cups of the leches mixture (the leftover milk can—and should!—be poured over the plated cake wedges). And filling the cake with dulce de leche made this component much more prominent than it would have been if drizzled over the top as directed. I served the cake with coffee and strawberries, both of which were just right to cut the sweetness of the cake. As you can see, we dug in:
Mr. Guycita was happy, and that made me happy. But before I make this cake again, I'll make sure that my little blowtorch is in working order!
