Dessert
Meet Felice, Creator of the World’s First Linux Birthday Cake
My roommate Felice is neither a typical Harvard student nor a typical pastry maker. When I first saw her, she was powder pale, with a green mohawk, combat boots, and no eyebrows. This will be interesting, I thought. Maybe we can do each other’s makeup.
We lived together entirely by accident – my roommate and I at the time were looking for some more people to make a room of 5. She gamely agreed.
Felice turned out to be the brainy lovechild of a punk rock Betty Page and The Odyssey’s Homer. In between translating ancient Greek texts for her senior thesis and poring over orgo homework, she watched a constant stream of L-word spinoffs and brutal slasher flicks.
One day, she’ll be a surgeon, a programmer’s wife, and proud mommy of the cutest pet rats ever.
Felice and her boyfriend, Yuvi Masory, hacker extraordinaire
Felice ended up being my favorite roommate my strange, wild junior year. The five of us in that doomed rooming group were an unlikely melange of misfits – “a flophouse” she aptly described it – and it wasn’t long before chaos swept our cinder block duplex.
One by one, like an Agatha Christie mystery, the room fell apart.
One girl left, amidst a swirl of unanswered questions. And then there were four.
For the rest of us, latent problems became crises. Annoyances became vendettas. I was literally scared to return my room, and when I did, I locked the door and braced myself for collateral damage. By spring semester, the bickering reached a fever pitch.
I spent most of my semester either in class or hopping from one food event to another, spending more time in Boston in a month than most Harvard undergrads do in all four years.
And then there were three.
Felice ended up being the mediator; her room was the bunker, the common room was no man’s land. After she listened to everyone’s problems with saintly patience, we laughed about the black comedy unfolding. In between complaints, I wrote my anthropology essays in her room decorated with 50′s pinups and queer icons as she Skyped her long distance boyfriend.
In a school where people frequently hide their insecurity beneath a shiny veneer of ambition, Felice was refreshingly genuine about both. She didn’t dye her hair funny colors because of some calculated counter culture attempt. She just liked dying her hair.
And she understood, perhaps better than anyone else I’ve met, about what it means to feel profoundly, deeply different without apology. She was silly and joyful about her quirks and didn’t bother to hide them.
She doesn’t collect business cards. (While I have so many lining my tote bag.) She has the same insecurities like everyone else, but doesn’t fall to unwitting flashes of cruelty when she feels down. It’s refreshing.
So when she takes a stab at baking, it is infused with an equally individualistic sensibility.
Yes, that’s a birthday candle betwixt her rouged lips.
For her programmer boyfriend’s birthday, Felice made her favorite stalwart Linux enthusiast a cake shaped like the operating system’s logo. Earlier, we had dropped by IHOP for dinner while he showed me his flashcard generator program, executable via the command line interface.
Different can be beautiful, and delicious.
Zinneken’s in Harvard Square Brings You Belgian Waffles
This exclusive tip just in: Zinneken’s, a Belgian waffle shop, will be opening in about four months in Harvard Square.
Zinneke in Brussels dialect means someone of mixed origins, which not only represents the founders, but also their ambitions to introduce authentic Belgian food to Bostonians. They promise that Zinneken’s baked-to-order offerings will to put your standard Americanized “Belgian waffle” to shame. Zinneken’s signature showpiece is the Liège waffle, aka sugar waffle, which is sweeter, smaller in size, and denser than their conventional brethren.
But it gets better!
All photos courtesy of Nhon Ma.
These sugar waffles ($4-6) are named for their caramelized sugar coating and will be served with everything from Nutella to Chantilly cream. I particularly like the proposed “Oreos Freakin’ Party” (no joke) special which involves a grind-tastic blend of Oreos, strawberries, and whipped cream. See the menu from their brochure below.
Harvard Square’s Waffle Pioneers
Who would chase the perfect waffle recipe across continents? One founder, Nhon Ma, is a Harvard grad who jumped from the corporate world to pursue his true passion: food. But it wasn’t a random coincidence, by any means. In fact, his mother was the only Asian chef to ever get a coveted Michelin star in Europe. After spending his childhood taste testing her creations, Nhon cut his teeth by working for her.
He met his business partner Bertrand Lempkowicz in high school, who’s leaving behind his Brussels communication company to join the venture. They’re still in the process of signing the lease, but envision the shop will be “a cosy European atmosphere” that serves up authentically light and fluffy waffles to passing crowds.
Photos from their Facebook page and Twitter show a test run of snackers munching on waffles with a variety of toppings.
Beyond waffles, Nhon promises that Belgian chocolate, French macarons, flourless fudge, Belgian chocolate brownies, and sweet crepes are also in the works.
Their retail space will be at 1 Mifflin Place, #400. Looking on Google Maps, it looks like it’ll be near FedEx and Harvest. Actually, this is their administrative space – the actual location is under wraps. Nhon reveals that it’ll be closer to Harvard Square, not far from Tommy Doyle’s andUpstairs on the Square.
Can’t wait! Look forward to an interview with Nhon Ma coming soon.
Their tentative proposed menu – with delicious photos! – after the jump.
Gluttony as Work: Interning at Serious Eats
[For Joanne Yao who requested a post about what it's like to work at Serious Eats on my call for blog entries]
Working at Serious Eats is, pardon my pun, serious business.
What are aren’t paid in wages we’re more than compensated for in amazing food – the creme de la creme of what New York can offer. I’ve sampled NYC’s top 7 falafel sandwiches, 11 bowls of the best Taiwanese shaved ice, and countless sandwiches.
Whenever editors travel, they tend to bring back regional specialties – chess pie from Kentucky, cheesy bread from Brazil, candied jalapenos from a food fair. They’re all fantastically nerdy about food and generous with their knowledge.
Ed Levine, Serious Eats Overlord, surveying the cupcake spread in his “Phat Beets” tee. Because of his diet, he (wisely) opted out of the tasting.
A typical day at work might begin with a bag of peanut brittle on the table, courtesy of the manager’s mother. Maybe an intern made a pizza; I munch on one slice, then another. Around lunch, the UPS guy comes with a delivery; or maybe it’s a PR person dropping off some lobster rolls – free rein on that. Finally, in the afternoon, an intern runs out and comes back with 2-3 sandwiches for our “Sandwich a Day” feature and I saw them up into bite size pieces. They disappear. If you’re still hungry, there are 8 bags of potato chips in the cabinet from a kettle-cooked chip tasting organized by intern Aaron Mattis awhile back. Maybe Adam Kuban left pizza in the fridge. And don’t forget the bag of frozen Sushi Poppers in the freezer, ready for defrosting. Although no one except me has touched those.
Then there are regular tastings: the best hot dog, best American cheese, etc. The photos in this entry from the Best Cupcake in New York tasting organized by super badass fellow intern Leah Douglas. Leading up to last Friday’s cupcake tasting was sampling treats from dozens of bakeries.
Yep, Magnolia got unceremoniously cut early. Crumbs crumbled. I developed a bizarrely discerning palate.
And as far as what I actually end up writing about is mostly due to whatever I dream up. The idea of eating a butt-ton of shaved ice was my own beany, beany idea. Carey, the NY editor, gave me a go-ahead on a Flushing food court roundup, so off I went on the LIRR toting my new DSLR.
(My new life insight: the difference between an eccentric Asian girl snapping food photos and a journalist? A proper camera.)
Ed and Melissa from Cupcakes Take the Cake shaking hands over the cupcakes. I call this photo “The Treaty of 2010 Cupcakes.”
More photos of our epic cupcake tasting after the jump.
Kickass Cupcakes to add ice cream cupcakes
kickass cupcakes
Kickass Cupcakes, the Davis Square cupcakery (which famously abhors Yelp) is announcing a new line of ice cream. The inaugural flavor is vanilla with chocolate chunk – with the added kick of choco and vanilla cupcake bits. One cone is $2.99, 3.99 with frosting, and a pint is 5.99.
I always liked their Cupcake happy hours on the last Monday of the month when they give out free mini cakes. And I give them major points for flavor creativity. However, they’re not noted for excellent service (as Yelp will attest) – I remember trying to buy 5 separately boxed cupcakes for a friend’s birthday present last year to um, mild hostility. Hopefully, the sugary addition of cake bits in ice cream (frosting is over-the-top) will go far to redeem them.
Are you going to try these out?
How to make and eat biscotti
Here is a template for an ideal morning:
Wake up early, exercise. Shower, put on a dress and heels. Apply lip gloss, even though it’ll come off on the coffee lid. Brush your hair by running your fingers through it. (You don’t own a comb.)
Stop at a coffee shop (it can be Starbucks, but better pastries are to be had elsewhere). Buy black drip coffee and biscotti – just one. Get your own table, and a magazine. Nothing too serious, a tabloid is best. Eat and drink very, very slowly. Write down the things you want to accomplish that day, but don’t feel bad if you only get around to half of them.
Linger, then leave.
When I confessed that I wanted to make biscotti, my friend Daniel admitted, “I don’t bake. Baking is not cooking. It’s science.”
He’s right. You can just substitute oil for butter and expect an equally delicious result. The issue is, I come from a culinary tradition of imprecision.
I remember watching my mother bake her cakes in the brown glass dish on Saturday mornings. She has two cakes my tummy knows well: apple and sticky rice. Whenever she comes to visit me at school, she’ll bring a slab of sticky rice cake, lined in red bean paste and presented in white Tupperware. It’s always presented along with a set of clean bed sheets, or admonitions to exercise (I do, every morning, I’ll protest).