Scrambled Eggs

Back when the Section was called Dining In/Dining Out, when R.W. Apple was alive and eating, and while William Grimes was still writing about food,  when Sam Sifton was the Section's editor, and when Molly O'Neal and Ruth Reichl still worked for the paper, the New York Times food section was a thrill to read.  Recently, I feel the quality of reporting and the writing has declined. How is that make Melissa Clark can "invent" so many uninspired recipes and why isn't it clear how the Sunday magazine recipes relate to the body of the article?

In the Section's heyday, 2001, Amanda Hesser challenged Daniel Boulud to tackle the american classics: scrambled eggs, a tuna sandwich, and macaroni and cheese. I remember reading this article, and setting about to make these very slow but delicious scrambled eggs.  Through this recipe I discovered the amazingness that is high quality butter, like plugra.  But also, through this recipe, I uncovered the deliciousness of not-dry eggs.

I have a pretty limited repertoire of quick late night dinners: scrambled eggs and toast, cheese quesadillas,  grilled cheese, and slices of pizza.  I've been eating scrambled eggs frequently lately.  I don't use a strainer or a double boiler, but, somewhere along the way, through very low heat, butter, and a touch of cream, my scrambled eggs have evolved much closer to a custard and far away from most other dry diner eggs.  Making them this way and it takes more like 7-10 minutes rather than 3.  But that is 7 minutes worthwhile hungry suffering.

Spiced Applesauce Cake

Understatement of the day: the internet is incredible.  A few clicks and suddenly *magically* you can be connected with thousands of others who are muddling over the same issues or interested in the same esoterica.  But there is a flip side.  Thousands of people are out there, just like you, waxing on about farmers market bounty or the closing of the Blue Marble on Atlantic Avenue.

My RSS feed manager is filled to the brim with brooklyn food writers.  And I love  many of them, enjoy their real and virtual company, and look to them for advise and inspiration.  Just this weekend, while trying to get over a long dry spell of no cooking or baking, I saw this spiced applesauce cake recipe on Smitten Kitchen.  I really enjoy Smitten Kitchen: great photography and a honest discussion of hits and misses.  And it happens to be penned by a woman named Deb.  Who lives in Brooklyn.  The similarities pretty much stop there; however, to all of my dedicated readers (all 4 of you), I do have some upgrades in mind to make this a better/more interesting/more consistent side project.

Before the upgrades happen, I've been mulling over one of the more substantial questions in life: what is the difference between cake and a quick sweet bread?  David Lebovitz mulls over this issue apropos of banana bread.  I don't have a copy of Larousse Gastronomique but I imagine there is a complete technical discussion of rising agents and gluten somewhere in there.  I think of sweet breads (like banana and pumpkin) as a more casual comestible.  Cake implies some sort of formality or sense of occasion. 

This cake really treads the line.  It is frosted (which screams cake to me).  But the fruity base, spongy consistency, the spices, and the nuts make it seem more like a sweet bread than like a cake.  My office mates ate it all up, so, it seems to pass muster regardless of the label.