BALTIMORE COOKING CLASS

I’m particularly grumpy today
but that’s okay because it’s beautiful
outside and there are lots of insects
to think about. What was it Marx
said? I hardly care but it was something
I sometimes turn to when I feel rotten.
It was about insects and how they are small
and insignificant and dumb as all get out
but they’ll bury us anyway. I like that.
Still, there are certain insects it irritates
me to realize will outlive us all. Like Phil,
who I knew in school and was so very nice
it made me want to puke and he just kept
getting nicer till I thought he’d explode
but instead he became a famous guru
and told people how to live and be happy
and grow rich. I see him on TV striding
around in front of the camera smiling
and making little jokes all the people
in the audience laugh at and applaud
and then they rush out to buy his books.
The next time I turn on the TV there he is
again on his own cooking show and some
of the same people are watching him
cook and every time he adds salt they
go wild and run out to purchase his line
of pots and pans. But of course Phil
is a minor insect compared to Teresa
with her voluminous memoirs in which
she tells about growing up poor on
a farm, then developing several diseases
back-to-back they didn’t think she’d
survive but she did and now she tells
us all about the lessons she’s learned
and how we can apply them to our own
lives and have courage and be happy
and creative and find someone to walk
into the sunset with. Okay, if that’s your
thing. But she also has a cooking show
where she makes inspirational food
that if you eat you’ll never die,
or hardly ever. And of course there’s
Maxine and Joan, a pair of famous
astrologers who cook in the semi-nude
and pass on the secrets of their wealth
and happiness and striking figures and
recipes for longevity along with how
to make profitable real estate deals
because you deserve to be great. And
I haven’t even gotten to Merle, who
has a radio show and beer distributor-
ship and cooks on channels 46, 59, and
142 and also has a children’s story hour
on PBS, where he cooks and teaches
macrame. There’s a lot about life to love
but most of it lives under a rock and doesn’t
cook. But I guess that sounds kind of egotistical.

I just happened to find an episode of America's Test Kitchen on PBS the other day. It's so refreshing to see a cooking show on which cooking takes place! These days, it's all that talk baloney. I don't want to see guests. I want to see food.

Lucky me! I got a lesson on cake pans and flour sprays, and then a woman came out and made a lemon layer cake, filled with lemon curd and frosted with Swiss meringue.

So, even though I'm not a personal fan of fruit-flavored filling, I couldn't resist and decided to make this for tomorrow night. We're taking guests from Costa Rica to Koco's for a crab cake, and then we'll come back here for dessert.

It's a complicated recipe because the filling requires attention, but having watched the show, I had an advantage. I learned, for instance, how to slice the cakes in half horizontally, without messing them up.

The picture doesn't do it justice. It looks (and tastes) incredible.

For the frosting, the recipe calls for egg whites and sugar, with a little corn syrup, all whipped up. Well, I have no corn syrup in my house (personal protest), and my attempt to make a homemade version flopped bigtime. But that's OK. I'm not a fan of that marshmallow flavor (blech!) anyway, so I improvised. After it was all whipped up, I added some chopped butter, about a stick and a half, and whipped the hell out of it. Now it's buttercream. Mmmm.

OMG. I am going to have to try a tiny piece of this.

More pictures when it's frosted.