I was at a Bachelorette Party this past weekend in The Hamptons. The main focus, other than the bride-to-be, was food. I’d say that’s partially because the bachelorette enjoys food and cooking, but also because I had a lot to do with the planning of the weekend festivities. If you involve me in any sort of planning, I can guarantee that all activities will revolve around food.
We had a variety of events set up for the weekend which included wine tastings, apple picking, and a cooking class. The cooking class was what I was looking forward to participating in most. Having rented a house for the weekend, we had a pretty large kitchen area to accommodate a professional coming in to teach us some new food prep skills. Being one of the planners, I had known the menu prior to the actual cooking class and had some reservations about what I would actually be eating for dinner. I enjoy cooking and thought it was going to be a really fun experience, I just didn’t want to eat what was being made.
The menu was as follows: potato and leek soup, broccoli salad, farro and mushrooms, roasted vegetables and salmon. Notice how I didn’t mention the words “pizza” or “grilled cheese” anywhere. I figured I’d pick at the various vegetable situations and eat dessert. Dessert, as always, is my favorite part and we were going to be making apple crisp, one of my favorites! So, I’ll binge eat apple crisp for dinner one night, it won’t kill me.
When the woman arrived at the house, we had a quick meeting to discuss how to utilize kitchen space and figure out who was going to make each dish. Clearly I had no interest in learning to cook any of the “healthy” foods being served, so I volunteered to make the apple crisp. My friend Leigh and I were each others sous chefs. We also had to recruit some additional assistance in the apple peeling/cutting department due to the horrific condition the knives were in. After almost slicing 3 fingers off, We managed to get all of the apples prepped.
Leigh and I followed the recipe (more or less) as written, with the utensils we had. Meaning, the measuring cup indicating 1/3 was used for all kinds of different measurements of sugar and brown sugar. Okay, so not every single recipe needs to be followed 100% exactly. But, you should at least use all of the major ingredients right? Well, Leigh and I found ourselves in a bit of a dilemma while making the apple crisp topping.
Have you ever smelled Cardamom before? It’s a very potent spice that is typical used in a lot of Indian, Nordic, and Middle Eastern cooking. Have you ever smelled Cinnamon before? It has a strong flavor, but is often used in baking to enhance the taste of other ingredients. Cardamom and Cinnamon do not smell or taste remotely alike nor are they interchangeable for cooking purposes. These two spices do look very similar though. When ground up, both Cardamom and Cinnamon are the same color brown and when you look at the name of the spice on the label, they can be easily mistaken for each other.
If you haven’t figured it out yet, the case of the mistaken spice identity was almost a cooking class crisis. Leigh and I didn’t know what to do at first. We started to look for cinnamon around the kitchen in cabinets and drawers, but we didn’t have any luck. After taking a vote among all of the other girls, it had been decided that the apple crisp would be made sans-cinnamon. So what did we do instead? Oh, just poured on an abundance of brown sugar. Because all brown grainy looking things taste the same? I have no idea. But, it was a cooking class and we did what we were told.
Leigh and I finished up the “sort-of” apple crisp and then it was time to eat dinner. My aversion to eating things that swim prevented me from trying the salmon, but I tasted everything else (a big deal for me, thank you very much). I wouldn’t say I was in love with anything, but I didn’t have the urge to vomit either, so I take that as a good sign. Of course, when it came time to serve the “sort-of” apple crisp I was super anxious that it was going to taste like a hot and mushy candy apple, but in a bad way. To my surprise, it was edible. Not something I’d ever want to eat again, but not nearly as bad as I had anticipated. If I learned anything from the cooking class experience, I can now recognize the smell of Cardamom from a mile away.
I was at a Bachelorette Party this past weekend in The Hamptons. The main focus, other than the bride-to-be, was food. I’d say that’s partially because the bachelorette enjoys food and cooking, but also because I had a lot to do with the planning of the weekend festivities. If you involve me in any sort of planning, I can guarantee that all activities will revolve around food.
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