Well it feels really good to be back posting here! It’s been FOREVER (or so it seems) but we’re back in the game. And with a great book! As I mentioned before, A Homemade Life by Molly Wizenberg is our current pick, chosen by Jeanine. I got the book in mid-January and finished it by the beginning of February. It was very good, but bittersweet, so I thought it appropriate I start things off with a bittersweet chocolate cupcake recipe.

Molly is a great writer because she writes in such a way that through her descriptions you really feel as though you’re there with her, eating cheese & drinking wine in Paris during happy days, or eating “Italian grotto eggs” with her and her ailing father in sadder days, which also were his last. But yet she did it without overly flowery language, it was all very accessible, which was what I liked about our past three books. I hate overly wordy foodies. Describing something is one thing, making it sound as good as it tastes is one thing. But really… when you use language people can’t relate to or talk about things people can’t relate to, it doesn’t make for a good read. Molly also has a blog, Orangette, which is an excellent read.

At any rate, I think everyone can relate to Molly’s book, whether you’ve lost someone close to you or not; and especially the highlighted parallels of food and love. So, without further ado… chocolate cupcakes with bittersweet glaze!

As you can see, I made some of mine look like Hostess cupcakes, just because that’s what they reminded me of. They aren’t filled, though. I just thought that was a cute way of topping them, especially since I had a tube of this stuff just laying around!

Chocolate Cupcakes with Bittersweet Glaze

Ingredients:

1 ounce semisweet chocolate, finely chopped
8 ounces bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped
½ cup hot brewed coffee
1 cup sugar
¾ plus 1 tablespoon unbleached all-purpose flour
½ cup unsweetened cocoa powder, sifted
½ teaspoon baking soda
¼ baking powder
¼ teaspoon salt
1 large egg
¼ cup canola oil
½ cup well stirred WHOLE MILK yogurt (not non-fat or low-fat)
¼ teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 300° F. Line the wells of a standard-size muffin tin with paper liners.
2. Put one ounce of the semisweet chocolate in a medium bowl with the hot coffee. Let stand, stirring occasionally, until the chocolate is melted and the mixture is opaque and smooth.
3. Meanwhile in another medium bowl, mix together the sugar, flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, baking soda and salt.
4. In the bowl of a stand mixer, beat the egg until pale yellow, about 1 minute. Add the oil, yogurt, and vanilla, beating well. Gradually pour in the melted chocolate/coffee mixture, and beat thoroughly to combine. Add the dry ingredients all at once, and beat on low speed until the batter is just combined. Using a rubber spatula, scrape down the sides of the bowl and briefly stir to make sure all the dry ingredients are absorbed.
5. Spoon the batter into the wells of the muffin tin, making sure that it is evenly distributed. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes, or until a cake tester/toothpick comes out clean when inserted in the center of a cupcake. Transfer to a wire rack, and cool for 20 minutes, then -carefully: they’re tender! – removing the cupcakes. Allow them to cool completely before glazing.
6. To make the glaze, melt the bittersweet chocolate in a metal or glass bowl set over a pan of gently simmering water. Stir frequently to prevent scorching. When the chocolate is completely smooth, it’s ready. Working with one cupcake at a time, spoon a teaspoonful of melted chocolate on top. Tilt and rotate the cupcake to coax the chocolate out to the edge. Alternatively, use a knife or icing spatula to spread the chocolate. The top of the cupcake should be covered.
7. Set the cupcakes aside at room temperature until ready to serve. The chocolate glaze will firm up a bit and become matte.

Molly says she likes to eat them when cooled (and I do too), but you can totally eat them as soon as you glaze them. Although be warned- they’ll be messy!

I used Hershey’s Special Dark cocoa powder in the cupcakes, which makes them really dark, almost black. I should’ve bought a dark chocolate for the topping too, but I always underestimate the darkness of it and assume they’ll match. They never do.

Our next book, which was Jeanine’s pick, is A Homemade Life by Molly Wizenberg, for anyone who wants to read along with us (our Books We Cooked page is even updated!) It’s been a while, so some things have to be tweaked, updated or fixed… but we’re back. And we can’t wait to get booking & cooking again.

Anyway I loved this book. I have to say, as much as I have a dislike for Sandra Bullock as an actress, her sister seems much more like someone I could hang out with. Anyone who quits a 9 to 5 bullshit executive job in L.A. to open up a bakery gets a A in my book. I can totally relate to that dream. I get so bored in an office setting, office politics are usually no better than high school crap. But it’s not a reality for everyone, unfortunately. So I do envy her. Plus, she’s got a much cooler name: Gesine. They lived in Germany for a while as children, which also intrigued me. I’m part German, a large part, and I’ve always been curious as to what living there would be like. The idea of 3′ o clock tea and cake is totally up my alley. Sign me up! I also agree with her view on people who are anti-sweets, etc. One cupcake a week doesn’t make you fat, neither does a slice of cake every day. It’s the 7,000 other things you cram in your mouth that do the trick.

So anyway I do not like pie. Or berries. But I ended up going to the fruit market the other day and bought tons of fresh berries- raspberries & blackberries. My mother loves them, and she loves them in pie even more. And Mother’s Day is coming… so I had Gesine’s pie filling recipe in my head and decided to make it.

Raspberry & blackberry pie filling

Ingredients:

1 cup sugar
3 tablespoons cornstarch
1/4 teaspoon salt
5 cups raspberries (I used half raspberries, half blackberries)
1 teaspoon fresh lemon juice
butter (optional)

Directions:

1. Whisk sugar, cornstarch and salt in a medium bowl to blend.
2. Stir in the raspberries and lemon juice. Add filling to crust.

Quick puff pastry

Ingredients:

4 cups all purpose flour
1 1/4 pounds butter (5 sticks)
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon lemon juice stirred into 3/4 cup cold water

Directions:

1. Place the flour in a large bowl. Cut the butter into 1-inch pieces. Add to the flour and incorporate with your hands, pinching and massaging the butter into the flour, making sure to leave discernable chunks of butter intact. You don’t want to incorporate the butter so well that it starts to look like cornmeal.
2. Dissolve the salt gently into the water. Add the flour and butter mixture and gently mix with your hands until the dough starts to come together slightly.
3. Shape the dough into a rough square and let it rest for 10 minutes. On a lightly floured surface, roll the dough into a 1/2-inch-thick rectangle. Give the dough three single turns, followed by one double turn. If the dough feels rubbery after you have completed a few turns, let it rest a few minutes before you continue.
4. Cover and refrigerate. Your dough block should be approx. 12 x 6 inches.
5. Once your pastry is nice and cool, take a sharp knife and cut it in half, take a look at where you’ve sliced through. You should see chunks of butter, this is a wonderful thing. when you roll, you want to press down on these layers. You don’t want to lay the cut side down, you want to make sure the layers are parallel to each other and to the table, and that you are rolling the layers onto one another, maintaining the layer structure and ensuring maximum puff and flakiness.

And now we get to the assembly. First I preheated my oven to 350 F. Then I rolled the dough into circles, and then pressed one into my pie pan. I froze it for a half hour, removed them and poked holes in the bottom of them with a fork. Then I lined it with parchment (foil and can be used as well) and fill that with dry beans or rice to weigh it down. I baked them for 15 minutes, until they were no longer raw. According to Gesine, this is a “blind bake”, ensuring that the bottom pastry won’t turn out soggy.

This is probably where I should say I’m not very good with crusts. Cheesecake crust and pie crusts are my waterloo. It probably also added to that that I decided to make this on the hottest day of our spring so far, about 80 degrees and rising. But it turned out okay for my first pie. I’m planning on trying this again, for sure. Was it perfect? No. But tasted amazing, well at least according to the people I served it to. Okay carrying on with the recipe…

Then I beat one egg with 1 tablespoon water to make an egg wash.  I removed the parchment and rice from the shells and brushed the crusts with the egg wash. Then I filled them with raspberry/blackberry filling, topping it with some little pats of butter. I baked them for an additional 45 minutes, until the crust was golden and the filling was bubbling. If you’d like, you could use the second circle of dough as a cover for your pie. I opted to not do this, I wanted to see those little berries squirming in sugary goodness.

The filling was obviously easy. The dough… eh. Not difficult, just time consuming, and since it was warm it was mushy and the butter was melty. And my filling was a bit runny. But hey, whatever. A pie is a pie. Stuff it in your face and move along.

Some comments I got on it:

“Out of this world.. the berries, the crust, everything!”

“Two thumbs up. Fantastic.”

“Can I have another slice?”

Our next book has been chosen- if you’d like to cook the book along with us, it’s Confections of a Closet Master Baker: One Woman’s Sweet Journey from Unhappy Hollywood Executive to Contented Country Baker by Gesine Bullock-Prado. We’re very excited to start it and resume our cooking the books with you.

As Gina mentioned, Ruth dresses up in various disguises to eat at the restaurants so she isn’t recognized. In each of her disguises, she finds out something about herself. I like that. I think that’s why I like changing my appearance so much (hair colors/cuts/styles, etc). Every time you change your looks drastically like that, you find something out you didn’t realize before. For example, if you think you’re a wallflower, and then dye your hair bright red… you might be surprised at how you really aren’t a wallflower. Or maybe it’s the hair that changes you? In Ruth’s case, it was wigs and makeup, in addition to a few smartly chosen wardrobe choices.

There are tons of wonderful food/meal recipes in this book, and I want to make many of them, but I haven’t had the opportunity to make them yet, I was planning on the risotto but Brianne did it. So I figured I’d go with a dessert. I had originally planned on making her New York cheesecake, but Jeanine beat me to it, and Gina took Nicky’s vanilla cake. *shakes fist* That’s what happens when you wait too long I guess. So what’s a baker to do?

I picked the Last-Minute chocolate cake. It sounded amazing, and I decided to make it for Valentine’s Day. I made some strawberry-vanilla cupcakes too, but I wanted to make something chocolate. This was the perfect recipe. I made it into cupcakes (of course) and frosted it with vanilla buttercream and topped it with chocolate hearts & Red Hot candies.

Last-Minute Chocolate Cake

• 4 ounces fine quality unsweetened chocolate
• ¾ stick (6 tablespoons) unsalted butter
• ¾ cup brewed strong black coffee
• 2 tablespoons Grand Marnier
• ¾ cup sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 cup all purpose flour
• ½ teaspoon baking soda
• ½ teaspoon salt

Preheat oven to 300° F.

Butter and flour a 9-inch-by-5-inch loaf pan (I used a muffin tin, duhhh).

Combine the chocolate, butter and coffee in the top of a double boiler or in a very heavy pot. Stir constantly over low heat until melted. Let the mixture cool for 15 minutes. Then add the Grand Marnier, sugar, egg and vanilla. Stir well.

Sift the flour, baking soda, and salt together, and add this to the chocolate mixture. Pour the batter into the prepared loaf pan (fill muffin tins anywhere from ½-¾ full) and bake for 30- 40 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean (I ended up getting 18 cupcakes, and they baked at 350° F for about 25-30 minutes).

Serves 6.

I omitted the Grand Marnier, only because I didn’t have it. So I added an extra tablespoon of coffee and 1 teaspoon orange extract. It came out awesome, and surprisingly went very well with the Red Hots! I used Baker’s brand unsweetened 1 oz. chocolate squares for the chocolate in the recipe. This is a really great dark, rich, chocolate-y cake with a great “extra” flavor. Some people who tasted it couldn’t quite put their finger on what it was exactly… but they all agreed it is super yum. All in all it was a really good chocolate cake recipe. I’ll definitely make it again. Maybe next time I’ll make it as a cake, and top it with vanilla ice cream as Ruth suggests in the book. Mmm. But also this would make an awesome layer cake if you double it.

I know, chocolate cake around Valentine’s Day is a kind of cliched thing to do, and boring, but have some pity on me. I promise I’ll be back soon with another recipe, less boring too. I won’t let you down, Cooking the Books… I won’t let you down!

Psst.. the cupcakes in the background? They’re made of cloth, handmade and hand-painted, and were a gift from my mother. If you’d like to know where to buy similar creations, shoot me an e·mail or ask me on Twitter!

My attempt to make Giulia’s gnocchi was to take place on Christmas Day. I planned on making the gnocchi and the sauce, as well as roast a chicken (a very simple roast chicken, like the one a la Giulia I made a while back). And my attempt was very successful. Not perfect, but very close, and successful.

Gnocchi, if you’re uninitiated to the wonders of it, is pronounced “nioki”, the ‘g’ is silent. And people who pronounce it never fail to crack me up… “I’ll have the guh-notch-y…” Here’s some interesting background on it from Wikipedia:

The word gnocchi means “lumps”, and may derive from nocchio, a knot in the wood, or from nocca (knuckle). It has been a traditional Italian pasta type of probably Middle Eastern origin since Roman times. It was introduced by the Roman Legions during the enormous expansion of the empire into the countries of the European continent. In the past 2000 years each country developed its own specific type of small dumplings, with the ancient Gnocchi as their common ancestor. In Roman times, gnocchi were made from a semolina porridge-like dough mixed with eggs, and are still found in similar forms today, particularly in Sardinia (where they do not contain egg, however, and are known as malloreddus). One variety, gnocchi di pane (literally bread noodles), is made from bread crumbs and is popular in Friuli and Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol. Another variety from Trentino-Alto Adige/Sudtirol is spinach gnocchi, called strangolapreti. This translates to “choke the priest.” The use of potato is a relatively recent innovation, occurring after the introduction of the potato to Europe in the 16th century.

I love potato gnocchi, and ever since I had first read I Loved, I Lost, I Made Spaghetti I’ve been wanting to make this recipe. And it didn’t disappoint. The sauce was incredible. I was only feeding four, but Jay and I have appetites like Ethiopian refugees, so I actually used two 28 oz. cans of whole tomatoes, but not the plain, the ones seasoned with basil. I doubled the salt and sugar but not the wine or the butter. WOW. A super simple sauce, but really tasty. Perfect with the gnocchi. I think it’ll definitely become my go-to sauce recipe. I think the added basil was a great touch. Thank you Giulia (and Marcella Hazan)! And actually, speaking of feeding four, I had plenty of sauce for more, especially since the gnocchi recipe didn’t make as much as I anticipated, or maybe I made mine too large. Woops. But that’s cool, because tonight we’re having homemade margherita pizza with the remainder of the sauce. Yum.

Now for the gnocchi, I used three russet potatoes instead of two, and added a ¼-½ cup of extra flour. Brianne told me when she made hers, she had a problem because she didn’t have a ricer or food mill, and that worried me because I don’t either (and I looked in a bunch of stores and couldn’t find a ricer, so boo to them). I Googled it, and read that using a sieve works too. So I figured if I made the potatoes just a tad softer by boiling them a bit longer, they’d be easier to push through the sieve and therefore less lumpy in the pasta. Also, I peeled them before I boiled them, thinking that without skin they’d get softer. It totally worked. Even without a ricer, the potatoes were so soft and mushy I just pushed them down with a fork and they were the perfect texture. Voila! I cooked them about 55 minutes, which was only 15-20 minutes longer than recommended. The pasta wasn’t too soggy at all, either.

The shape… well, that was a bit harder. Mine came out all kinds of different sizes and shapes, but always with the signature fork-print. Maybe if I’d taken my time, and wasn’t rushed or on a schedule, I could’ve made them more even.  Mine were more like little squares and rectangles. Next time, I would roll them into little balls and then use my thumb and a fork to make the little impressions. But who cares, really. They tasted awesome.

As far as the name of the recipe (see below), you’ll have to read the book to find out why it’s referred to as such. *smiles*

No- Nookie Gnocchi

• 2 russet potatoes
• 1 egg
• 1 teaspoon salt
• pinch freshly grated nutmeg
• 1 heaping cup flour, plus more for dusting
• salt
• freshly grated pepper
• freshly grated parmigiano

Put the potatoes in a pot with enough water to cover, bring to a boil, and cook, partially covered, until they are just tender, about 35-40 minutes. Remove the potatoes to a cutting board and peel with a paring knife as soon as you can stand to touch them, then run them through a potato ricer or food mill, spreading them out on a cutting board to cool completely.

Mix the egg, salt and nutmeg. Form the cooled potatoes into a mound and pour the egg mixture into it. Begin kneading the potato and egg mixture with your hands, adding the flour a little at a time, being careful not to overwork the dough.

When the flour is evenly combined with the potato and the dough is only a little sticky, divide it into 4 pieces.Roll each piece into a long, narrow tube like a garden snake and slice it crosswise into little soft pillows, each ½ inch wide. Rest each pillow on the tip of your thumb and impress it with the tines of a fork lightly dusted with flour, creating a ribbed surface for the sauce to cling to. Keep a bowl of flour nearby to dip the fork into, as it will become tacky- or better yet, keep some extra forks nearby.

Add the gnocchi about 10 at a time to a pot of salted boiling water. When they rise to the top, they’re done. Remove them to a serving bowl with a slotted spoon or spider and continue to cook in batches. Toss with the sauce and serve with grated parmigiano and freshly grated pepper.

Yield: about 6 dozen.

For the sauce:

(Adapted from Marcella Hazan’s Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking)

• 1 (28-ounce) can whole tomatoes
• ½ cup (1 stick) butter
• 1 medium onion, peeled and cut in half
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• ¼ cup red wine
• 1 teaspoon salt

Put all ingredients in a large saucepan over medium heat, bring to a simmer, then lower heat and cook for 45 minutes, stirring occasionally. Remove onion before tossing sauce with the gnocchi.

And to anyone who complains about making sauce, or says they can’t make homemade pasta- BASTA. It is not that difficult at all. If I can do it, you can do it too.

So on that note I’ll be gone, but I just wanted to wish all our readers a Merry Christmas, Feliz Navidad, Joyeux Noel and Buon Natale! And thanks to you as well for reading our adventures in bookery cookery!

We’ll all be back soon with our adventures in gnocch-ery.

[ Psst... If you're at all unfamiliar with Julie Powell's blog, The Julie/Julia Project, about her adventures in cooking one of Julia Child's cookbooks and how it was turned into a book and then consequently the aforementioned movie, or the story behind it, then perhaps you won't follow this very well. So I suggest you do some research (Wikipedia always helps, a little). ]

So Julia Child didn’t like Julie Powell’s blog. She thought that Julie wasn’t “a serious cook.” That sort of annoys me, although I get that it was probably a generational gap, or perhaps Julia wasn’t getting the snarkiness or maybe even didn’t like the expletives that possibly were sprinkled (or peppered, haha) in. I get that. But what I don’t get is why cooking has to be serious. Why can’t it just be fun? Or maybe even predictable, sometimes, in a comforting way? Why does it have to be serious to the point where a blogger is considered “flimsy” for her attempts?

Don’t get me wrong- I love Julia Child. I recognize how she revolutionized cooking and changed America’s outlook on cooking (and the world, I suppose). I love that she loved butter, because, hell… I do too. Probably more than I should. I know she was fabulous. But, I mean, we aren’t curing cancer here. We aren’t formulating a plan for world peace, or assisting in the Healthcare reform bill, or anything.  It’s a cookbook. It makes people enjoy life more, expand their culinary horizons, that sort of thing. It’s a pleasurable book, not War & Peace. Just like how we’re reading, and cooking, and sharing our experiences about both, and it’s a pleasurable experience. And while in some forms cooking can be serious business (for example, if you’re a restaurant owner I’m sure it’s fairly serious), I don’t find that it has to be stuffy. And I sort of resent anyone who does. Why can’t you cook and when something goes wrong say “fuck” or “shit”? I do it all the time, like that one time when I forgot to put the eggs in my cupcake batter and realized after they were in the oven. I’m pretty sure Julia uttered the ‘F’ word once or twice, too. Why can’t you take on something and do it with humor and seriousness? I don’t see anything wrong with that. I don’t see why you can’t have a sense of humor about making coq au vin or lobster thermidor. What’s so serious about lobsters and cheese!? It’s delicious, yes, but lobsters are pretty funny too, or at least cooking them can be. And in laughing about it, I don’t think it makes you a less serious cook than anyone else. At least you’re putting the effort in to make something like that or boeuf bourguignon, and not defrosting a microwave meal or frozen pizza. I think it was an homage to Julia, and I’m sorry she didn’t see it that way. But you don’t have to be a Le Cordon Bleu graduate to love, enjoy and appreciate cooking, or do it well.

Because here’s the thing: cooking IS fun. It’s a blast. I love it, I love it as much as I love art, and that’s a lot. I am not a classically trained chef, I never took a pastry class in my life, and I probably cut my onions the wrong way. I don’t have T-Fal pots and pans, and you know what? I don’t give a shit. I love to cook. I love to bake. I don’t do it to impress anyone, and I don’t need to. I have fun with it, because it is fun, and I love not only the creation process, but the devouring process. It doesn’t have to be boring, the same, boring, tasteless, spiceless, flavorless chicken every night, or the same lousy casserole no one likes  to eat, but at the same time, no one thinks they can do any better, because OH-EM-GEE, cooking is, like, so totally complicated! You don’t have to make an 8-course meal every night, use Smart Balance every time, or worry about how fattening everything is every single day. Loosen up. Live a little. You don’t have to be Julia Child- and you certainly don’t have to cook lousy food because it’s  quick or tasteless food because it’s “healthy”! Because it’s supposed to be fun, and enjoyable, and savored when it’s eaten; whether it’s drenched in butter or just steamed vegetables, and you’re supposed to be you- make what you like to eat, how you like to eat it, and when.  It doesn’t matter if you’re a vegan, vegetarian, a person of Muslim or Jewish religious beliefs who won’t eat pork, or a Hindu who won’t eat beef: YOU’RE SUPPOSED TO ENJOY YOUR FOOD. And even more so, enjoy CREATING it! Cookbooks are supposed to inspire you, and make you happy, and you’re not supposed to be worried or scared it won’t turn out perfect, or commit yourself to an entire day in the kitchen just to feel like you’re doing the recipe and it’s author justice.

For example, the four of us plan to take on Giulia’s gnocchi as our final project of her book. I can’t speak for the others, but making your own pasta is sorta terrifying. I did it once for a Daring Bakers’ Challenge on Cupcake Rehab and it was a bit daunting. But it was lasagna, so it wasn’t nearly as difficult as potato pasta formed in little pillows with your thumb and a fork. It wasn’t like anyone was going to say “Your lasagna noodles are too thick/thin” or “Your lasagna noodles  don’t have the right shape.” Now I’m fairly certain that gnocchi is not brain surgery, as people have been making it by hand for many, many years. But still… when you create something that seems larger than life like that, it makes you feel different and accomplished. And it’s kind of a testament to the person who wrote the recipe if you can make it and say “Wow, that wasn’t as hard as I thought it was going to be!” because that means they’ve achieved the best thing a “teacher” can achieve: teaching on a level you can understand, learn from, and launch off of, so to speak. Julia should have been flattered that she was so adored by Julie, that she inspired her so, and that her recipes translated so well they could be created in a tiny kitchen in a Queens apartment, not to mention so long after the book had been first published.

I should say now that I’m extremely glad that not all Julia/Giulia’s are the same and that Giulia Melucci didn’t view us  and our blog the way Julia Child viewed Julie Powell and what she was doing. Just as I hope every other author we choose sees it as flattery, not mockery, or us trying to “use” a book for fame. Because that’s certainly not the case. It should be taken as flattery. That, and seen as a group of friends doing what we love, keeping ourselves sane through the therapy of reading and cooking,  sharing the experience with all of you and maybe, just maybe… learning something new both in our kitchens and about ourselves.

Me and Brianne and Gina haven’t seen each other in 10 years. Yes, 10 years. Since we graduated high school. And I haven’t seen Jeanine since August, so there was a lot to catch up on. So much in fact, we got booted from Franny’s for talking and keeping the table too long! Understandable, it’s a small place and it became very crowded, and we were sort of stuck in our own little world.

The food was awesome: me and Brianne had the buffalo mozzarella/garlic/oregano pizza and a Sixpoint Craft Ales Sweet Action (a local Brooklyn beer). Gina also had the buffalo mozzarella/garlic/oregano pizza with a  glass of Tenuta delle Terre Nere Etna Rosso (red wine from Sicily). Jeanine ordered the tomato/olives/garlic/oregano pizza with a cocktail dubbed the ‘Brooklyn’: Maker’s Mark, sweet vermouth & fresh lemon juice. I can’t speak for everyone, but I know I enjoyed the food as much as the company, and that’s saying something! The beer was pretty good, but as Brianne said later, it was a little “hop-y” for me. I’d order it again though. Jeanine’s only complaint was that the drink came in a  girly martini glass (come on, it’s MAKER’S MARK, not a Cosmo!), and was small for the $11. After being booted (and I say that in the nicest possible way) we moved across/down the street to Bar(n), a bar connected with the Flatbush Farm. There I ordered a Kelso of Brooklyn beer, the type of which I do not know, which is unfortunate because I enjoyed it a lot and would like to have it again, or get some for home. I know they sell the Pilsner at Franny’s, so maybe it was the same.  Jeanine ordered a whiskey sour, Brianne got a Stoli orange and Gina got a vodka cranberry. I can’t speak for the other ladies’ drinks, but they were, for the most part, finished when we left …so they must have been good.

Unfortunately, Wednesday nights are work nights, so we couldn’t stay out late and meet up with Giulia. That was a bummer, but we had a terrific evening anyway.

As we get ready to make our finale dish for I Loved, I Lost, I Made Spaghetti : the gnocchi, and we prepare to start our second book, Garlic & Sapphires, this was a perfect way for us to not only catch up and have a nice evening out, but to toast one another on a successful beginning to our new group blogging venture!

But it’s not quite over yet. This coming week  we’re having a dinner at Franny’s in Brooklyn and then meeting up (possibly) with Giulia Melucci herself for drinks as a sort of celebration of our first Cooking the Books effort going over so well. Also… we’ll all be making a “finale” meal and posting both it and our final thoughts both on the recipe and the book itself. Shortly after that and most likely sometime before Christmas, we’ll be starting our second book choice (Garlic & Sapphires by Ruth Reichl) and we’ll start cooking that book right away! And if you’re interested in finding more about or reading any of the books we cook, remember they’re all listed on the “Books” page, including where to purchase them.

Before I finish up this quick little post, I want to thank our visitors! Since we “opened” we’ve had a grand total of 1,566 visitors (and probably by the time I click ‘publish’, slightly more). I think I can speak for all of us when I say we have very much enjoyed sharing with you our experiences and cookery so far, and we hope you enjoyed reading it. There’s much more to come, so stay tuned.