Orange Polenta Cake

This month's issue of Gourmet has an amazing recipe. Orange Polenta Cake. Our friends made it and brought it over a couple of weeks ago when we all got together. We were drooling over it, asking if they might leave some pieces so that we could have some for breakfast. It was that good. So, this post is really thanking them for inspiring me to make it. And this is for you; I am trying to inspire you to make it. M. and I made this recipe but did not have all the right ingredients, so substituted blue cornmeal for polenta and used blood oranges instead of navel oranges. It turned out great! Here is why I suggest you too try this recipe.
First, the caramel top makes every bite buttery
Second, it is so unusual but the components work so well together it makes you want to keep eating it.
Third, it is not overly sweet

Tell me if you try it and let me know how it turns out!
From Gourmet Magazine:

For Cake

• 1 3/4 sticks unsalted butter, softened
• 1 cup superfine granulated sugar
• 3 large eggs
• 2 teaspoons orange-flower water
• 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 cups ground almonds (7 oz)
• 2/3 cup quick-cooking polenta

For Glaze

• 1/4 cup orange marmalade
• 1 tablespoon water

Make Caramel Orange Layer:

• Preheat oven to 350°F with rack in middle. Lightly butter a 9-inch round cake pan, then line bottom with a round of parchment paper and side with a strip of parchment.
• Bring sugar and water to a boil in a small heavy saucepan over medium heat, stirring until sugar has dissolved, then wash down any sugar crystals from side of pan with a pastry brush dipped in cold water. Boil, without stirring, swirling pan occasionally so caramel colors evenly, until dark amber.
• Remove from heat and add butter, swirling pan until incorporated, then carefully but quickly pour caramel into cake pan, tilting it to coat evenly.
• Grate zest from oranges and reserve for cake. Cut remaining peel, including white pith, from both oranges with a paring knife. Cut oranges crosswise into 1/4-inch-thick slices. Remove any seeds and arrange slices in 1 layer over caramel.

Make Cake:

• Beat butter with sugar using an electric mixer until just combined. Add eggs 1 at a time, beating well after each addition. Mix in orange-flower water and reserved zest.
• Whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt. With mixer at low speed, mix almonds, polenta, and flour mixture into egg mixture until just combined.
• Spread batter evenly over oranges (preferably with an offset spatula). Bake until a wooden pick inserted into center comes out clean, 1 to 1 1/4 hours. Cool in pan 5 minutes. Invert cake onto a cake plate and discard parchment.

Glaze Cake:

• Heat marmalade with water in a small saucepan until melted. Strain through a sieve into a small bowl. Brush top of cake with some of glaze. Serve warm or at room temperature.

Cooks’ note: Cake, without glaze, can be made 1 day ahead and kept, wrapped well, at room temperature. Glaze before serving.

Photograph by Romulo Yanes

the thespian?

There have been at least 5 occasions in the last month my daughter has asked me if she could become an actress. Right now. Dress up, memorizing lines, the whole shebang. I brushed it off the first couple of times, but today she asked really pointed questions like how do actresses get picked? How do they memorize their words? Who runs the whole show?
Then a very weird thing flashed in my mind. Becoming a show mom.
No.
No.
No.

Mexican for breakfast

I guess I am excited to get back to my blog. I have been on a roll the last few days. Being an introvert, blogging suites me. I am sitting here in my sister's living room watching M. eat breakfast. What is she eating? Well, she is eating Chilaquiles. I have found a kindred spirit in food world when my own daughter will eat mexican food (by request) for breakfast over waffles and chicken apple sausage. My sister made a big pan of Chilaquiles on Oscar night. It is one of our favorite dishes from one of our favorite restaurants in SF called Mamacitas. Coat tortillas chips with enchalada sauce mixed with sour cream, and top with green chiles and cheese. Bake and then serve hot. We have been eating these leftovers for two days. M. saw me eating a bowl yesterday and decided she wanted to taste them. Two bowls later she was licking her lips patting her full belly. Yeah, thats my kid. Of course this is the child that pounded her high chair when she was 11 months old demanding me squirt a big pile of mustard on a plate for her to eat. The same kid who would eat piles of sliced Hamachi at the sushi restaurant announcing she is a "big bear eating fish". I don't let her eat everything however. She did not drink cow milk until she was 3 yrs old. Now she walks around telling people "My mom lets me drink cow milk now, she says its ok." I wonder what she will want for lunch.

Chinese Chicken

My little girl loves travel, adventures and anything out of the ordinary. She also loves routines and regularity. One of her regulars is being in SF and going to the mall to eat chinese food and the visit the Hello Kitty store. This has been the special thing she does with her cool aunt. So now, when I even mention we are going to the city, she immediately starts talking about going to the mall to eat "chinese chicken". Yesterday was one of those days. Her favorite meal is not even chinese food, it is Thai Basil Chicken with rice from the Thai resaurant in the food court. After we get to the mall, we order her a plate and sit down. Aunt and I opt to share a turkey burger. So little M. is sitting there oohing and ahhing over her meal, and we are sort of staring at her because she being slightly dramatic about the whole thing. Now, thai basil chicken is sorta spicy. And, the portion is big even for an adult. I would say two cups of chicken, and a heaping cup of jasmine rice. If anyone tastes off her plate, she keeps tabs on you and if you are eating too much, she cuts you off. Aunt and I finish our burger and M. is still eating. She has consumed the whole pile of chicken. Her bottle of water is almost gone due to the spicy nature of her dish too. Then she starts on the rice, mixing it with the sauce still on the plate. How big is her stomach? I mean I don't know if I could eat all that she has eaten. Two cups of water, two cups of chicken, one huge cup of rice. I start to have feelings that I was pulling a bad mother move by letting her decide when she was full. Then she turns to me and asks if we can order another plate. "Um, I think you would be sick if you did that" I say. Aunt and I are looking at each other eyes opening wider and wider looking at the culinary feat the 4yr. old at the table has just pulled off. She finally agrees with us to let the food in her stomach settle and head off to the Hello Kitty Store to pick out some gum.

The Friendly Skies

Flying on an airplane is always challenging. At least I think so. I start a mental checklist about a day ahead of time and it is mostly a kid checklist created to pass the time more easily sitting on our butts for however many hours we are destined for. I have a straw bag I stuff with the essentials; computer, dvd player, coloring books, kid sized suitcase filled with pens, small plastic animals, stickers and small notebooks. But, after all this preparing I have come to realize that all M. needs on a plane is food and drinks. One big snack and a glass of OJ can provide a good hour of entertainment. Yesterday, as we were sitting on the runway and the pilot starts telling us there are 35 planes in front of us for takeoff, I almost broke into a sweat. But, I am finding out my little girl seems to roll with the punches better than me, a trait I am thankful she picked up from her dad.
All in all, the trip was seamless. The only snafu was me going through security. I was picking up my things from the bins and notice a security guard standing about 3 feet from me. She sneezed, covering her mouth with her blue latex gloved hands. She then walks over to me, and puts her freshly sneezed hand on my computer, to comment on how cute my bag is. I pull it away from her as fast I can while cursing her under my breath. GET YOUR SNEEZY SNOTTY HANDS OFF MY STUFF is the only look I can send her and she backs away. I am so pissed I want to scream. I grab an anti-bacterial wet wipe out of my purse and start scrubbing away as my husband is repeatedly asking me what happened because it seems like I must have been tasered by my severe reaction. No honey, it was only snot. Just let me freak out and then I will recover.
But, I do want to do a shout out to the lovely flight attendant who not only gave D. a free glass of wine on the plane, but offered her own coat as a pillow for M's. head. That is service long, long past in the airline industry. Thank you flight attendant from Napa on our Delta flight. You rock.

New York

This weekend was a mixture of sadness, memories, family and stories. There are so many things I am amazed at. The more than kind gestures of family friends who took us in and fed us, laughed with us and told great stories. There are the parties and dinners family and friends put on for the relatives. There is the effort everyone made to get here from all parts of the country. There are the hugs and touches people gave to one another when we cried thinking of our love and how much we are going to miss Ralph Sr. There was the strength I saw in my family who bravely organized this while sorting through their own grief. Then there was the smiling faces of all of us coming together meeting and catching up. I was able to experience NY food for the first time too, and good thing I don't live here or I would be in trouble trying to resist everything. I feel continually lucky for the family I married into, and now I am sad to go home, feeling at a loss for words for how family can transform a person who had almost no family before, into the luckiest girl in the world.

thank you

I have a really hard time asking my friends to do things for me. Really hard. Maybe that is the Capricorn in me. Any way, as D. and I are going through many tough moments with the economy and actually needing things, my friends are coming to the rescue of us. Really coming to the rescue. I feel like in many ways this past month has contained a year worth of stress and upheavals. In that, I am being knocked off-kilter and that is very very disorienting for me and my fondness of normalcy and steadiness. Life has had a dream-like quality I have never experienced before and each day I wake up I truly do not know what we will be facing. Then the loss of Ralph Sr. catapulted us out into the planet's orbit. We are eventually coming back to earth though, and my heart has been humbled seeing all the people who are catching us as we fall. I truly truly know what community is and it is my nugget of gold while seeing the country falling apart. Thank you. Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you.