gateau gluttony guillotine

The yachtsman has made a cake a week for the past three weeks.

[I fear he's fattening me up for the kill.]

I think this is my favorite: fluffy yellow cake with foolproof chocolate frosting.

[Like a lamb to the slaughter.]

bringing home the gold

It is 3:30 p.m. and I have not yet today had any cake. Well, I guess that's technically not true: At 1:00 this morning when I returned home from my one-day-a-week job (it was a very long one day this week) I ate a massive piece of cake. But I haven't had any cake—not even a crumb! nor a fingerful of frosting!—since I woke up this morning. Which is quite a feat, given that the cake has been sitting on the kitchen table taunting me since I shuffled out of the bedroom at 10 a.m. That's right, 10 a.m.—I've been resisting that cake since 10 a.m. If not eating cake were an Olympic sport, I would be on a podium right now, the U.S. national anthem blaring as the Olympic commissioner of not eating cake (an old white guy with frosting on his moustache) put a gold medal around my neck. And then, as the crowds cheered, I would step down from the podium, walk into my kitchen, and begin competing in my next event, Olympic cake eating.

be mine

Valentine's Day is overrated, a setup, one of those Hallmark holidays that just should not be celebrated.

And yet flowers are nice. A card, at least. Fancy chocolates. Did I ever tell you about the year the yachtsman gave me a key chain and some trucker speed from the CVS across the street from his job? But let's not dwell on the past. Let's dwell on chocolate cake.


The man made me a chocolate cake for Valentine's Day. A fancy Cook's Illustrated cake with magically fluffy frosting.


Happy Valentine's Day to me.

holiday dessert wishlist item #1: cakes that have appeared on the cover of the december issue of bon appétit

Like most agnostic half-Jews, the yachtsman loves Christmas. Like most recovering Catholics whose parents are divorced, I don't. But being married to a man who takes such great pleasure out of listening to Handel's Messiah and shopping for his nieces and opening presents on Christmas morning (and one year getting a little drunk on Christmas Eve, putting a Band-Aid on his face, and insisting that I call him Nelly) has brought me around from relying on Valium to make it through the day to almost sort of liking it. And it certainly doesn't hurt that that husband of mine can bake.

So weeks ago I told the yachtsman that I'm pretty sure all Jesus wants for His birthday is this cake:

Doesn't this look amazing? It's called professional photography; please don't grow accustomed to it.

That beauty is the Peppermint Meringue Cake With Chocolate Buttercream that was pictured on the cover of December's Bon Appétit. Sadly, however, it's not getting very good reviews on epicurious.com, which will never do. The cake is for the Lord, for God's sake, and He deserves a dessert that received more than a three-fork rating.

Now I'm hoping to convince the yachtsman to once again attempt this glorious cathedral of chocolate, the Devil's Food Cake With Peppermint Frosting that was on the cover of last year's December issue of Bon Appétit.

Also taken by someone who knows what they're doing and owns a real camera.

The yachtsman tried to make this cake for Thanksgiving in 2008, only to have it collapse under its own weight (something I may be doing soon, as well). We ate it anyway, of course, and it was delicious: Chocolatey and minty with marshmallowy icing and what was essentially whipped cream between the layers. Perfect for the Lord Jesus Christ Our Savior who art in heaven, hallowed be His name, right? And because the only Jesus I would ever believe in is kind and forgiving and loves and accepts all of his children no matter what (this is sadly not the same Jesus I was introduced to at the Cathedral of Immaculate Conception), He would not care at all if His cake collapsed or that it was made by an agnostic half-Jew. He would not even care if I ate most of it, because as it says in the bible, It is better to giveth than to receiveth, to which I say, Thank you, Jesus.

'tis the season, bitches!

Are you all infected with the holiday spirit, or is that a head cold? Oh, you poor things.

I'm off to a slow start this week, my little Christmas elves, my sparkling Hanukkah faeries, my prancing Kwanzaa unicorns. It was a busy weekend here at GFD headquarters—I didn't even have time to weave my puppy a sweater made of tinsel and bring him to the mall to have his photo taken with Santa, let alone shop for, cook, photograph, and write about food. (No, I just ate food, and plenty of it.)

But I have great plans for this week. I hope to post my holiday dessert wish list, and because this bl*g is called Gruel for Dinner, I will also tell you about a little kale dish I've been loving. Until then, gesundheit!

remains of the dinner

At work tonight.


Lest you think that I'm a virtuous, carrot-eating ascetic, I must confess that for breakfast, midmorning snack, and lunch I had cake and cake and cake. I also had cake for dessert.

Lest you think I'm a rapacious glutton, I've asked the yachtsman to bring the rest of the cake with him to work tomorrow.

Lest he think I'm some kind of pussy he can steal from, I will tackle the yachtsman to the ground and rip the Tupperware from his hands if he tries to take that cake out of the house.

happy mother's day to me

Chris ostensibly made this cake for my mother, but the minute he delivered it from the oven I knew it was mine. Just like a mama with her baby, I would kill anyone who tried to take it from me. And just like a mama with her baby, I could not wait to eat it.

breakfast for dinner

People in this town (which I'm now calling T.Daddy, or the Notorious T-D.A.D.) love to give us food. For example, the soup kitchen no longer invites us to join them for lunch; now they run outside to hand us food when we walk by (yesterday our token male artist came home with a chocolate angel food cake he'd been given). And today some lady who keeps chickens brought us two dozen fresh eggs, which I immediately planned to use in my next meal: Breakfast for dinner!

I love breakfast for dinner. It's simple, comforting, filling, delicious. There's protein, grains, and (if you consider the potato a vegetable), a vegetable. How can you go wrong?

I'll tell you how: By living in a convent without even the most basic staples. Nuns do not eat ketchup. Mice do not buy condiments. The food-shelf-people have yet to run outside and hand me a bottle of Heinz 57.

It was not until my potatoes were in the oven, the water for my soft-boiled egg boiling, that I realized I was missing this essential ingredient. In a panic I ran back to Safeway, where I had to walk up and down every aisle before I found the elusive condiment and then wait in the nine-items-or-less lane behind a guy with 20+ items. When I glared at him, the guy yelled, "I'm going as fast as I can!" and then proceeded to drop a handful of change on the floor, which he picked up nickel by nickel before giving up, leaving the rest for "the goddamned janitor."

By the time I got home my home fries were blackened, my egg uncooked, and that chocolate angel food cake was looking pretty good.

this afternoon

The littlest sass and the cutest dog nap in the other room...

while I eat the last of the deliciousest cupcakes.

denial: it's both a river in egypt & a midmorning snack

I swear to you, I just ate the one little slice of special crunchy cake. I didn't keep wandering back into the kitchen and cutting myself additional pieces until the special crunchy cake was gone. Because I don't have a problem: I can quit anytime I want to.

And the cake wasn't even that big, anyway.


[I'm not going to tell you who my dealer is; if you want to know more about the special crunchy cake, and you know you do, you can read about it here.]