Comfort Foods and Indulgences

I like to wake up early, while the house is really, really quiet and have a little “me” time.  Generally, I make myself a cup of tea, read the NY Times and the LA Times food and life style section (on line), read my emails and check out my favorite blogs.  I love that 1 hour in the a.m. right before all the turmoil and chatter begins.

Yesterday, I was reading Sprinkle Bites and she had posted a recipe for French Toast Muffins.  Before I had finished reading the post, I was on my way into the kitchen to make these for the family for breakfast.  I love, love, love one bowl recipes.  To not have to drag out my mixer and all its parts is truly a wonderful thing.  This is one of those recipes.  Easy, quick, pantry ingredients and scrumptious.

I live in a great neighborhood. Westfield Century City Mall and Westwood Village are both walking distance. Walgreen’s and Coffee Bean and Tealeaf are too.  There’s even a stellar newsstand adjacent to Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf. That being said I could count the times I’ve actually walked there on both hands and I’ve lived there for 27 years.  Ahem.

The thing is, when it’s a neighborhood business, you’re liable to stumble upon it and think you discovered it. But no, I just happened to live up the street from the best caviar store in town.

The Bel Air Caviar Merchant’s storefront looks more like a Psychic Reading parlor than the premier caviar supplier for the Westside. I’d say it’s a well kept secret, but its really not.  People stake out their orders and wait patiently on folded chairs in a makeshift lobby. Business is done behind a screen.

Friday’s I clean out my fridge.  I had about two cups of both cream cheese frosting and butter cream frosting left over. Rarely do I throw food away, but there are those times that something just cannot be saved.  In the past, I have found myself whipping up a soba salad to avoid getting rid of a few cucumbers, almost yucky tomatoes can be turned into fresh, roasted salsa or bacon hash, and zucchini inevitable becomes a cake.  Upon cleaning out the fridge, I did in fact have two zucchini’s that needed some attention. The light bulb went off and a chocolate zucchini loaf with cream cheese frosting was born.

This cake was delicious.  It will become my go to cake when I need something in a quick pinch. 

I'm spending a few days in what I'm told is the Mid-West of America (albeit the Northern Mid-West), a place I've never been to before.  It's a land of lakes and fir trees and glittering silver birches, and flying in I was startled (and a little homesick) by the landscape's resemblance to Norway.  Of course everyone who lives here is either Norwegian or Swedish.

My Minnesota hostess (who is also one of my best girlfriends) adapted a corn pudding from the book Local Flavors by Deborah Madison.  Don't be put off by the name. The recipe is delicate and delicious. I've found that using a mellifluous deep-South accent – as in "coooorrn puddin'" – assures its proper status in culinary Americana. 

This is an American staple, transformed and updated by the use of fresh herbs and goat cheese.  Up here, there is a farmer's market three times a week, and she used fresh corn as well as fresh parsley and chives cut from the selection of clay pots outside her kitchen door.