The Great Change: Turning Cathy into a Lawyer

Perhaps it's karmic payback for my awful, awful 1L roommate, but my roommates on the houseboat are great. We don't just co-exist well as roommates; in a way we've become an instant family. I don't know, maybe having pointed this out will make things all go downhill and we'll hate each other in two weeks... but it's been a great run for the past few months and worth acknowledging.

Every so often we're able to get this group of four heretofore strangers together for "family night," where one or two of us cooks and we all eat dinner together and hang out afterwards (talking, sharing music, dancing, playing twister...). Earlier one of the other roommates used to do most of the cooking, but last night it was my turn.

If you look at the calendar you'll see that last night was Passover. But it was also the birthday of one of the other roommates. I just wasn't organized enough this year to either get invited to a seder or plan my own, but, really, what is a seder but a chance to have a festive dinner with people close to you? Throwing her a birthday dinner seemed like a perfectly reasonable substitute. (Besides, I counted there being at least four glasses of wine last night...)

Another roommate did some pre-dinner vegetables and guacamole, as well as some steamed string beans, but I made the rest, which somewhat inadvertently turned out to be one of my favorite dinners: steak and buttered noodles. The noodles were straightforward, but I've been practicing with the London Broil ever since Thanksgiving. It's taken a few tries to learn how to reliably not pulverize it, but I think I've finally got it down. (I'd mentioned to my grandma earlier that I was planning on making it. "Just as long as you don't burn down your wharf," she cautioned. I thanked her for the vote of confidence... but I do have to say that last night's was the best effort yet.)

And then there was the cake. It was a Duncan Hines devil's food cake mix, but as one of our guests last night noted, that's no guarantee that it will actually come out edible. I was actually very worried about it: I trusted my mixing skills, but I had no faith in the oven. I turned it up to the recommended temperature but became alarmed when the thermometer hung inside said it was at least 50 degrees hotter! So I turned it down 50 degrees, but then it was taking ages longer to cook than the box had said. Concerned, I turned it back up, but then as soon as the toothpick seemed to come out mostly clean I yanked it from the oven, afraid that the edges would get charred while I waited for the middle to get less soupy. Would the cake turn out ok like that? Who knew! The noodles, and even the steak, I could taste before serving, but that's not really possible with a whole 13x9 cake...

Then came the frosting. My mom had given me a recipe for 7 minute frosting, but I'd never made it before. Nor had I ever separated an egg, as far as I can recall, which this recipe called for two of. Clearly this endeavor was tempting culinary disaster, and I thought I'd achieved it after I put in the vanilla extract and was suddenly overwhelmed with the aroma. But that's what the recipe had called for, so I went ahead and smeared the frosting on the cake. Then I tasted it... and was once again overwhelmed with the taste of the extract. Dammit... But, hey, while it may not taste like the frosting my mother always used to make, no one else knows that, right? I went ahead and finished decorating the cake anyway, using colored sugars, which was really all I had available. My roommate likes flowers on her cakes, but since I couldn't make them with frosting I sprinkled the sugars in such a way as to make it look like a flower garden. Then I used the end of a spoon to embed the letters of her name and rolled sprinkles into the indentations to give it color.

Cleverly, however, I'd done this all a day in advance. By the time it was served, all the excess vanilla flavor had evaporated, the frosting was a perfect consistency, and the cake was still supremely moist. In other words, it turned out beyond-all-expectations perfect. Even today, a day later, that cake is still fabulous.

And my roommate was thrilled. She was totally flattered that someone had gone to the effort, and she and everyone else ate all the food I prepared. It was really validating. I've cooked a little, over the years, but never really a proper meal for others. I don't know if I ever really before considered it something I could do.

As the saying goes during the seder, "Next year in Jerusalem," although for me perhaps the phrase should be, "Next year without the leavened baked goods," which, to be fair, is an operative feature of most respectable seders... Still, if I can keep practicing with such willing guinea pigs, perhaps someday I may just be able to pull it off...

Edit 4/8: In better keeping with the season, I'm happy to report that I've now twice successfully made matzah brei, which my roommates tasted this morning. I make mine just like my father used to make it, with chopped up matzah softened with hot water, covered in beaten egg, and fried as a pancake in butter. I then serve it with honey.