front door

(having woken up alone) my own bed, 10h20

17 March 2010

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. . . . . . . The doorbell rang around 9:00 this morning. I had been writing in the kitchen since 8:00. When I opened the door a woman with a large envelope in here hand looked at me with apprehension and asked if Lara Peligino lived here. I let a blank expression ride my face for a prolonged moment.

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"Who ?"

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She stuttered as she repeated the name and timidly held out the envelope for me to read it. I informed her that it was the apartment to the right that she was looking for and forced a polite smile as she thanked me and backed away slowly.

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Coming back through the hallway I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror. Small, red eyes cushioned by large dark pillows of skin and framed by an unbalanced mess of greesy locks looked back at me. (Ample consideration should be given to how unfortunate this state is for onlookers the morning after crying yourself to sleep, preferably before opening the door to strangers.)

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Maritza came into the kitchen a little while later and after a moment let out a hesitant "Ça va, Sam ?"

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"No. But it's going to."

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After a little bit of work she finally got the story out of me. Not the whole story, just the important bits, like how I realized that most of the shit I was feeling wasn't even about him anymore. How there was just something he said that triggered this avalanche of insecurity and not being okay. How frustrated I am realizing that what has me feeling like this can't be blamed on anyone or thing but exists just a "heartache with no face to put on it,"* and that I just have to wait it out.

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Then she hugged me. And she said, "Please don't be sad." And then she hugged me tighter. And I said, "thank you, my friend. I can't tell you how lucky I am to have met you." And then a minute or two later I was finally like, "So you're really not going to let go until I am happy again ?"

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It's all for the best. Or it's going to be. I don't really believe this but I'm hoping that if I say it often enough I might start to.

*another one of my very clever friends talked about this. xx

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"Until Ya Get Over It" Handmade Chocolate Guiness Ice Cream

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Adapted from Heidi Swanson's Peppermint Semifreddo.

While you can totally swap out some of the manual labor for a Kitchen Aide or electric handmixer, I love the idea of using the process of making the dessert to burn (most of) the calories you'll be consuming in the final product.

1 1/2 cups (40 cl) heavy whipping cream, chilled

1/2 cup evaporated cane sugar, divided

3 large organic eggs, separated

1/2 Guiness

3.5 oz (1 bar) dark chocolate (70% or more)

1/3 cup chopped walnuts, optional

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Start by melting the chocolate either in a double broiler or the microwave. Set aside.

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Whip the heavy cream in a medium sized bowl until you can form soft, floppy peaks of chantilly. (If you're getting stiff peaks you've over done it.) Leave it in the fridge until you need it again.

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Because this dessert has eggs at the base, you're going to need to set everything up before starting to make sure it's all on hand (i.e. this is when you do your measuring). Make an ice bath in a large bowl (I actually like to use a deep skillet for this) and set it to the side. "Set a large heatproof bowl over a pan of simmering water. You need to move quickly here, so have everything right on hand. Add the egg yolks and 1/4 cup of the sugar, and quickly start whisking - whisk until the mixture starts to pale, 30 seconds or so. Add the [Guiness] and whisk like you've never whisked before until the mixture starts to thicken (somewhere between [2 and 5] minutes depending on the heat)." The Guiness makes this part hard to judge, but in spite of the foam you'll still be able to see when it starts to thicken up a bit. Remove the bowl from heat but leave the water simmering.

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Place the bowl in the ice bath and add your (room temp but still liquid) chocolate and continue whisking like hell until the mixture is cool to the touch. Remove from the ice bath and set aside.

"Take another heatproof bowl (you can use the one from your electric mixer if you've got one) and set it over the simmering water, whisk the egg whites and the remaining 1/4 cup of sugar. Start whisking, you want the sugar to dissolve and the egg whites to warm up a touch - the heat makes it easier to whip them. After a minute or so remove them from the heat and whisk the whites until they have glossy peaks - four or five minutes. They should be structured and stiff."

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Now you get to put all that shit together. Fold a small amount of egg whites into the egg/choco/Guiness mixture until it's entirely blended (this helps to lighten up the mixture and makes the rest of the folding easier). Now fold in the rest of the egg whites until it's just blended (if there's little pockets of white it's not a big deal -- better than if you deflate the whole thing). Then fold in the cream (I usually do this in two or three parts) and, finally, the walnuts.

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Spoon into either a large Tupperware container or several small, fancy, freezable dessert glasses. The ice cream takes about four hours in a large tupperware to set and 6-7 to freeze all the way through. The cool thing about individual glasses (or containers) is that after an hour or two you can serve them 1/2 frozen (semifreddo, as the lady says) which is quite delish.