This year's birthday special was delayed a bit by illness, but I got there in the end. Ariel requested an Stella Parks' almond cake with her chocolate buttercream, both from Serious Eats. It turned out to be an absolutely delicious cake, probably one of my best yet. Like a lot of recipes from Serious Eats (Kenji's included), this one is written with exacting precision, down to specific temperatures for each ingredient. As someone who usually cooks in a fast-and-loose style and is still inexperienced in baking, this can be quite intimidating. The way things come together in the stand mixer sometimes feels like alchemy!
For the decoration, I found some sliced almonds in the fridge and impressed myself with the legibility I managed to achieve. As can be seen in the photo below, I still struggle a bit with getting the frosting even between the layers. This cake recipe, which includes a good amount of almond flour, baked nearly flat, and I didn't even have to cut off anything from the tops. The requested birthday dinner (also delayed, though not by as much) was sweet and sour fish with gai lan, always a favorite in our house.
No Free Lunch reached a huge milestone this year: the ten-year anniversary. Over the last ten years, I've written 248 published posts, most of which are full recipes. I plan to do a more complete retrospective of the decade soon. Back in 2015, I set the goal of writing at least one blog post per month. That year, I missed only November and never managed to hit that benchmark until 2021. While 2021 didn't come close to the prolific heights of 2020, there were some real bright spots and good variety in the posts.
I continued the "upgrades" series (now featuring ten posts) with a mapo doufu recipe I'm really happy with, especially since it's received the all-important Ariel seal of approval. I was also proud to pay homage to my grandmother's midwestern classics with posts on meatloaf and scotcheroos. Two of this year's posts have become firm favorites in our rotation. The shrimp noodle bowl (which I happen to have made yesterday for dinner), was something I just threw together one day with what I had on hand at the time. Although I haven't made "matchos" (matzo nachos) since Passover, I use the chicken recipe to make nachos using regular chips. It makes enough for two batches, and freezes very well. I've continued to experiment with cocktails, with three rum concoctions making hitting the blog this year. I'm confident there will be more to come on that front.
In last year's birthday post, I speculated about a brighter 2021. We did indeed get vaccines and No Time to Die was pretty great. Although the pandemic trundles on with no end in sight, good food and drink can be an important part of getting through it in one piece.
