September 2004 Archives

One day I am going to overdose on banana pudding. I am going to turn into one big goopy Nilla wafer, oozing yellow cream out of my sweet pores. My arteries will be clogged with whipped cream and my intestines will be stopped up with bananas. But I will have died sinfully, blissfully, joyously, bloatedly happy.

This weekend, I had a major craving for banana pudding. I debated all Saturday long whether or not I should get off my ass, rip my fingers away from the remote control, and make a trip to Sugar Sweet Sunshine for a fix. At about 6:00, I decided I couldn't take it anymore. I fucking doffed my tropical orange print muumuu, donned my public clothes, ventured out into the waning daylight from my beloved Sunset Park, took the N(ever) train and changed at Canal, where I waited for twenty minutes for an M(aybe if you're lucky) train, got off at Essex St. just to buy a large banana pudding. Let no one say I am inert. Let no one say I am lazy. When I want something (to eat), I will go to great lengths to get it. I will spend my (Mastercard's) last penny on a great piece of meat, or an excellent Indian lunchbox if that's what I am in the mood for. Food is my only vice, and I am a bad, bad girl.

Of course, I got to Sugar Sweet Sunshine with a sweet tooth that had the shakes. When I looked into the display case, I noticed three full tubs of the custard used to make banana pudding, but no prepared banana pudding. With dismay, I whispered to one of the slim bakresses behind the counter, "Do you have any banana pudding?" She said, "Nope. Sorry." I put on my most anguished face, a face that I hoped expressed the fact that I had gotten out of my muumuu and traveled all the way from deep Brooklyn for that banana pudding and I was not about to leave without it. I think she smelled my desperation and she said, "It'll be done in thirty minutes."

So by the time I came back my sweet tooth was scratching its bleeding nails at the walls. A huge tub of banana pudding was waiting for me! I ordered a large banana pudding (which is no small feat to eat), a pistachio cupcake, a red velvet cupcake with vanilla satin buttercream, and a german chocolate cupcake thrown in for good measure. As usual, I went overboard.

I finished the three cupcakes off that night, and I savored the banana pudding all day on Sunday. When Wednesday rolled around, and I was considering making a detour on the way home for another banana pudding, I decided maybe it was time to try and make some myself. My coworker Dottie gave me the cheater's recipe for banana pudding. For my upcoming birthday poker tournament, I plan on making this Sweet Dreams Banana Pudding recipe, but this quick recipe is pretty damn good, considering that preparation is only about 10 minutes.

Quick n' Lazy Banana Pudding

1 box Jello pudding Banana Cream
2 cups cold milk

1/2 pint heavy cream
a little sugar
a splash of vanilla

2 bananas, sliced

1/2 box of Nilla Wafers

Prepare Jello pudding according to directions. Set aside to set. Whip the cream with the sugar and vanilla to stiff peaks, the airier the better. Fold the whipped cream, cookies, and bananas into the pudding. Let it sit for an hour in the fridge. Serve cold. YUM!

I have half a tub waiting to love me when I get home. You should too...

***

By the way, the Sweet Dreams recipe yielded an incredible pudding. I do recommend adding a little less whipped cream to the custard and then layering like so: pudding, Nillas, whipped cream, bananas, repeat ad nauseum. By the way, neither of these puddings keep very well, so make enough for that day and then make again when the craving hits. Also, don't turn your nose up at the quick n' lazy recipe -- Magnolia's recipe is very very similar, but it involves instant vanilla pudding, cold water, a can of sweetened condensed milk and about a gallon of whipped cream.

Having been brought up with the kind of company that would have papaya salad and filled tapioca balls as hors d'oeuvres and pinatas as entertainment, I never really had the chance to try caviar. I also must admit that the viscous salinity of ikura and the pop rocks glow of tobiko never really appealed to me in sushi. So, I always thought, caviar, eh, that's other half's food.

But recently, I met up with some people at a friend's house. While they were downloading Mahavishnu orchestra songs with impossibly long song titles and extolling the virtues of Kool Keith's flow, Sean asked me, "Do you like caviar? Because we have, like, five pounds of caviar and I don't know what we're going to do with it."

I said, "No, I'm not a caviar person...well, actually, I can't say that because I've never had caviar. I've had ikura and tobiko, but not any caviar caviar." So I thought about it a bit more, and I said, "I'd love to try the caviar."

Sean and Lizzy disappeared into the kitchen for a while. When Sean reappeared, he had four tiny, thin toasts on a plate, surrounding a huge tin of black pearly beluga caviar. He also brought a little container of creme fraiche and halved lemons, while Lizzy provided some chopped red onion.

So I took a fragrant little toast (which Sean explained he had pan toasted with a little butter), spooned on a frugal forkful of glistening caviar and topped the pile with a dollop of creme fraiche. That first toast bite was like nothing else I'd had before. First was the crisp-tender tear of buttery sweet toast, followed by the silky milk of the creme fraiche, and finally, the rich, soft, pop-and-ooze mouthfeel of the beluga caviar. It wasn't as salty or bizarrely yolk-like as ikura. Instead, there was just a hint of the ocean and a smooth slick of delicious oil.

Yuka, Lizzy and Sean began to debate over which was the proper method of eating caviar -- creme first or caviar first? Yuka suggested that the creme should be a base for the other flavors, and also sang its praises as a paste on which the caviar can stick. So I tried it another way -- thin buttery toast spread with a touch of creme fraiche, followed by a generous scoop of caviar, finished with a squeeze of lemon and a scattering of chopped onion. Delicious! The tart cleanliness of the lemon and cool bite of the onion made the caviar burst forth with even more oceanic boldness, then recede into the palate like a black wave.

Lizzy and I finished off those toasts, I with contemplative digestion, she with the soft declaration, "I love caviar..." in her luxurious English accent. I'll probably never eat caviar as decadently as I did that night, and perhaps I'll never get to eat beluga again. I'm glad to be experiencing these things for the first time at an age in which I can fully appreciate them; things like caviar, bitter puntarelle, anchovy, foie gras...So if this was my only experience with caviar, I will always remember it as a sumptuous, rare, perfect dining experience.

Yesterday I had my first, and probably last, Cold Stone Creamery experience.  For those of you who don't eagerly await the proliferation of chain restaurants in Manhattan, providing comfort and uniformity for all homesick suburban refugees, Cold Stone Creamery is like a DIY Ben & Jerry's.  A primer: you choose an ice cream and some toppings -- like banana ice cream with chocolate sauce and graham cracker crust.  They take your ice cream and toppings and mash it all up on a frozen stone (hence the name).  There are a couple of Cold Stone Creameries in NYC -- one on the upper east side, one set to open today at Astor Place, and one in Times Square.  I figured it would be an interesting experience to walk through Times Square and gawk at all the bulletproof vests and snipers guarding those defenseless Republican delegates for the convention.

I walked in and a disgustingly cheery worker beamed, "Welcome to Cold Stone Creamery!  Have you been here before?!  Well, just walk along the left wall to reach the end of the line!  Here's a menu!"  So I found my way to the back of one of two long lines, perusing a laminated menu suggesting I try mixes with cutesy names like "At The Cocoa Banana Cabana TM" and "Cookie Doughn't You Want Some TM."

As I tried to put together a topping ice cream combo that would be unique and so deliciously clever that the slinger would raise her eyebrows in surprise and congratulate me on my taste, I was jarred back into reality by what might be called singing coming from the worker's pen.  Actually, it was more like half-hearted pitchless chanting disguised as a vaguely familiar, well-mangled melody.  Okay, I didn't care what they were singing. But obviously they didn't either.  Apparently, the poor kids have to sing for when they get tipped, and they're as enthusiastic as the organ-grinder's monkey.

So as I was waiting in line, some chick with the sad Cameron Diaz circa 2002 flipped-out hair (obviously a Republican delegate), tried to cut ahead of me and another girl in line. I said, "Uh, this is the back of the line. You think we're just going to sit back and let you walk all over us? You think just because we let you have your little convention in our town that you can appropriate 9/11 and exploit it for your own purposes? Get in the back of the line, buster, you're in our town now." Well, I said part of it and thought the rest of it anyway.

By the time I figured out what I wanted, I got up to the front of the line. "Sweet cream ice cream with strawberries and cake please." Sweet, simple, classy, right? So I watched as the girl scooped some ice cream with two very cold looking metal paddles onto the very cold looking stone.  She added three syrupy strawberries and a little block of cake and mashed away. I had wanted more of an ice cream cake feel, with the cake maintaining its textural integrity, but I wanted to experience the Cold Stone Creamery way.  I'm willing to be schooled by a restaurant chain.  The softened ice cream mixture was then scooped into a little foam bowl and off I went to the cash register.

"What are you having?" surly New Yorker cashier asked me.

"Sweet cream ice cream with cake and strawberries."  Doesn't that sound deliciously clever?

"$5.08."

WHAT?!  $5.08 for a dinky serving of DIY Ben & Jerry's?  I mean, this is NYC but come on! I can get a pint of Ben & Jerry's Primary Berry Graham in a Soho deli for $3.50!  Surely they can't be charging that in the suburbs!  Who are these people?  They must be following the Starbucks business model of overcharging suckers for mediocre product.

So already, I was grumbling about having to pay $5.08 for ice cream. But the proof is in the pudding, right?  I took my first bite.  Okay, it wasn't totally mediocre. It was creamy and sweet and cold...but it was just ice cream.  The cake was of course smashed into oblivion. The berries were about the same as McDonald's sundae strawberries. So what's the BFD?  Perhaps if I had tried something a little more daring, one of their creations with a sexy name like "Breathless Boston Cream Pie TM" or "Nights in White Chocolate TM" then I would understand what the big fuss is all about.  Give me a short swirl Rice Pudding flavor Tasti D Lite in a sugar cone over CSC anyday.  Who needs the caloric and financial guilt?