When Life Throws You Lemon Bundts
Plus: Lemon Rosemary Thumbprint Cookies, A Trip to Bellingham, and Lots More.
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Hey everyone,
Happy New Year!
Mine started with a mini-disaster — well, considering what’s going on in the world, “disaster” is probably overstating things — wherein I made a lemon bundt cake for a New Year’s brunch and it refused to come out of the pan. Let’s go to the tape (click the image to watch):
Luckily, with some ingenuity and lots of powdered sugar, I hid the cracks and fissures and nobody knew the wiser (though all of that lemon juice made the cake extra puckery).
In happier lemon news, I made Amy Thielen’s olive oil thumbprint cookies with lemon curd for Grossy Pelosi’s annual cookie party and they were a big hit (see lead pic). I had some stiff competition, as you can see from all of the cookies on the table:
As for the recipe, I have it all on video (just click the image to watch it):
It’s such a surprising riff on the thumbprint cookie, and the combination of olive oil and rosemary gives things a savory undertone that makes everyone respect you just a teensy bit more.
December was such a busy, exciting month. We saw two icons in concert: our friend Isaac Oliver and Madonna.
One flew over the audience in a glass cage, one sat in a chair and told funny stories. I’ll let you guess which was which.
On Dec. 21st, it was off to Bellingham, Washington to visit Craig’s family. I was heartbroken because my favorite breakfast spot there, The Harris Avenue Cafe which was connected to Tony’s Coffee, burnt up in a fire days before we arrived.
Craig’s sister Kristin had just set up her psychology practice upstairs and lost all her furniture. More tragically, the owner of the cafe was missing and a few days ago they found his body inside. Merry Christmas indeed.
Still: the holiday was filled with lots of family and lots of cheer. Kristin and her boyfriend Dean hosted Christmas dinner and made a fabulous prime rib (they started it in a hot oven, then turned the oven off to finish):
I was asked to make my famous almond cake which is really Amanda Hesser’s famous almond cake so I gladly obliged.
We also went to a cocktail party at Craig’s family friends’ the Bruton’s house, where I brought Dorie Greenspan’s gougeres and they were a big hit.
Once again, let’s go to the video:
Gougeres are so impressive and so easy to make (you can even freeze the raw scooped dough and bake them anytime you want).
Back in New York for New Year’s, our friends and neighbors Rob and Kath had us over for the Momofuku Bo Ssam and a lovely pavlova. Substack superstar Joanna Goddard was there too.
And that pretty much sums up the last few weeks!
It’s great to be back in the swing of things. My big news is that I finished the second draft of a novel that I worked on all of last year and I finally let Craig and a few friends read it and they were all gushing about how good it was! Are they biased? Will I be able to sell it this year? Will you be reading it next year? Stay tuned….
And now for some links:
Barilla Spotify playlists that help you time your pasta (Design Boom);
We raise 18 billion animals a year to die — and then we don’t even eat them (Vox);
Watergate Salad makes a comeback…. no thanks! (NYT);
The Best of “The Year I Ate New York” by E. Alex Jung (Grub Street).
That’s all for this month’s free newsletter!
See you paid subscribers back here on Thursday….
Your pal,
Adam
Gee Adam we feel famous now🤩the Brutons
Happy New Year. I’m very keen to try the lemon cookies! Also standing by for an opportunity to read your book. Exciting times.