Self Indulgence. I'm good at it.

Take a good look at that photo people. Oooh yeeeeah. See that box o'chocolate waiting to love ya? Is Babette's Feast making eyes? Oh I think it is. French eyes. Full of five star cuisine awesomeness. Is Eat, Memory trying to lure you in with tales of favorite food recollections?? Molly Wizenberg whispering her man scoring recipe for French-style Yogurt Cake with Lemon into your ear? Can it get any better?

Oh my god is that pasta?? With Sauce??? I love you.

Oh yes, I know how to treat a lady right. Even if that lady is me. Pure self indulgence of the best kind: good books, good movies, good chocolate and pasta. Oh and an incredible smelling candle I bought myself at Merz after lusting after it for two months. It was all delicious and made for a lovely late winters eve curled up on the couch.

But that was just one night! The next day I reached a new level of indulgence when I bought some crystalized ginger. Yup. I remembered, vaguely, that ginger could be expensive I just forgot until this Saturday. I'd decided, after some wavering, to make this bread over the weekend and ginger plays a major role so I went to get some at my local Jewel. Doobie doobie doo reading through jars of spices, find the 'g's, grab a jar, notice in passing the price tag. $13.55. $13.55???! Holy shit! Mental deliberations began. How much did I want the bread? A lot. Did it have to be crystalized? Yeah most likely. Did I have time to get to another store to do some price investigating? Not really. Buh. Fine. Found a jar that was a mere $11.20 and hoped it held the 1/3 of a cup I needed 'cause that was all it was getting. I'm still not sure whether to classify this moment as a fit of madness, denial or blind faith that if Molly says the bread is amazing I must make it. Whatever.

I found the recipe on her blog first, but ended up using the version she has in her book when it came time to make it. I also used up a bar of dark chocolate roughly chopped instead of chocolate chips since it was going dry. And my bananas could have been riper but I wanted the bread now. And I didn't have yogurt so just used milk. Hah. It turned out delicious, despite my ingredient inadequacy.

There was a panicky moment when I realized her note of "If the loaf seems to be browning too quickly, tent with aluminum foil." was something I needed to do. Tent? Ummm does that mean what I think it means? It does. The foil protects the top while allowing the innards to keep cooking. How brilliant is that? I've been having some "issues" with my oven lately. There was one baking fail that was so horrible I can't bring myself to tell you all about it, I'm still upset. But this tenting trick may just solve all my troubles! Or I could just buy an oven thermometer.

And I really liked this bread recipe, the ginger and chocolate is a winning combination and I want to make a gingerbread bread with the crystalized hunks and chocolate chunks. I have the sneaking suspicion it would be amazing. However that's not going to happen until I snag some cheaper ginger at TJ Maxx that's for sure!! It's like being back in Ancient Times when salt was more precious than gold. Except now it's ginger. Bastards.

I'm also going to try another recipe from Molly's Homemade Life book this week, her bouchons au thon, aka tuna corks. When Summer comes I begin to eat tuna on a bi-weekly basis, and as Spring is finally starting to show its face around these parts I'm wanting some tuna. But in a heavier form than my typical tuna salad on toast or crackers, so tuna corks it is! Of course I don't have a Flexipan muffin pan or access to creme fraiche as I live in AMERICA but hopefully a liberal application of Pam and 2% milk will do. Or I may just make a tuna-y mess. Quel dommage. I'll let you know.

But after the tuna corks I will have reached the end of my apparent four week food book/movie kick. I finished Eat, Memory and watched Babette's Feast so am now in search of my next reads/views. Any suggestions? There's a Japanese movie called Rinco's Restaurant I want to see but alas, it's not on Netflix yet! Someone likened it to Amelie so I think I may love it already...and the story about M.K.F. Fisher in Eat has me thinking I may read some of her work. Apparently she's a Big Deal.

As for Eat, Memory here are my Thoughts on that book:

-Not as good as Alone in the Kitchen with an Eggplant. Well, rather the ratio of good stories was higher in Egglplant, than Eat. Eggplant sets a high bar! And I most likely will be re-reading it soon, perhaps actually doing a recipe this time.

-There are some really good stories though, Chang-Rae Lee's 'Inward Bound', is heartbreakingly beautiful. It really touches on the therapeutic side of food, and how there are points in one's life where cooking can be the only thing that's holding you together. And he quotes from Babette's Feast at the end, how perfect is that timing?

-And Heidi Julavits's 'Turning Japanese', where she compares her craving for American style sweets while living in Japan to the quest for Contentment is hilarious. No Thought=No Appetite?? Dr K, with his love of Zen mind fucks and food needs to read this story!

-The best moment with the book however was my utter HORROR of realizing that the NY Times food editor who compiled all the stories for Eat was the same Amanda Hesser of Cooking for Mr. Latte shame!! What?!! Nooooooo!!! Well at least she didn't have anything written by herself in it. And to be honest the author's forward in Eggplant was a bit silly too. I just can't believe that woman has found her way into my life a second time! Well a third time actually since I was just browsing one of my new foodblogs, Have Cake Will Travel, and the link to toasts with chocolate, olive oil and sea salt was a recipe from that Hesser woman's new recipe book. Damnit! That woman's attitude really got under my skin but I may have to get over it. Unfortunately. Especially if she's going to put chocolate on bread and make me eat it. I just won't trust her like I do Miss Molly. If the Hesser woman told me to buy fancy crystalized ginger I'd most likely tell her exactly where she could put that ginger. And it wouldn't be in a bread.

Oh well. I'm off to make tuna corks and then go to a Deer Tick concert tonight. Gotta get my holler ready, let's get rowdy!!