Spiced Pumpkin Cake with Caramel Icing

I thought my Dad deserved a home-baked birthday cake this year (well, every year), especially since his chemo-affected tastebuds seem to work best with sweet foods. He loves pumpkin pie and caramel and dried fruits and nuts, so I decided to use the recipe that my friend Kate used for my 40th birthday cake: Spiced Pumpkin Cake with Caramel Icing.

It involves making home-made caramel enriched with not only heavy cream but also cream cheese.  I substituted dried cherries for the raisins in the recipe (Dad likes raisins, but neither MinxBro, Mr Minx, nor the Minx herself is very fond of the cucaracha-esque nasties), and because MinxBro has very specific nut allergies, I used a combination of chopped hazelnuts and almond slivers in place of the walnuts.

It was gooooood.  The cake is moist and airy, the caramel is rich and gooey, and with a leetle beet of vanilla ice cream, it's a perfect dessert.  

Dad enjoyed it. :)

First, the Good News...

...Jesse Wong's Kitchen's manager called me again to say her programmer did finally find that the gift card had an original $60 value when it was purchased on 11/16/07 (the day before my birthday) and then it had a $0 balance without any explanation or transaction date.  Apparently there was some monkey business, but the current manager basically said it wasn't on her watch and what's past is past.

The bad news: she thinks trying to issue a credit on my Visa would cause more trouble, so she's putting the $60 balance back on my JW Kitchen card and returning it to me via registered mail to guarantee I'd get it.  And she said because she will do anything to make me happy, she will give me an additional discount on my meal there.  I said if she really wants to make me happy, she can exchange the card for Jesse Wong's Hong Kong, since we love that place. Unfortunately, the three JW restaurants are owned by separate corporations, but she'd try.  As she's also in charge of Asean Bistro, I said I would also take a card from there if Hong Kong was no go. So we'll see how it all works out.

I hope I don't have to go back on my word and eat there again.  LOL  But if I do, I'll be calling her to make sure she's there when I am, so this whole f*cked up transaction doesn't happen again.

Restaurant Names

I'm going to go off on a rant at some point here, so you are forewarned.

Mr Minx and I are heading to Ocean City in October for a long weekend. I was never a big fan of OC in the summertime (I don't like to bake my brains in the hot sun, hate hot weather to begin with, am not all that fond of looking at flabby, sunburned people in bathing suits, plus there are children running around all over the place) but I do enjoy going there in the off-season to walk the boards and do some outlet shopping.

Several years back, we had a particularly fruitful dining experience in OC, finding both Yokozuna (in the Gold Coast Mall) for terrific sushi, and Iguana Surf for interesting cuisine that included stuff like wild boar. The latter restaurant closed, so I recently started perusing the Internet for other dining options in the area that might be more creative than the usual JR's ribs and Lombardi's pizza.

And what did I find?

Places with names like "Nantuckets," "Fresco's," "Castaway's," "Magnolia's." WHY are so many restaurant names either plural or possessive? I have a strong suspicion that many of the possessive names are plain old bad grammar; the proper use of an apostrophe has become a lost art in this country. Otherwise, is there really someone named Fresco? Or does the name refer to a style of painting that involves paint and wet plaster, in which case "Frescoes" would be a more appropriate spelling? And just how many places are there in the world called "Nantucket?" More than one, requiring a pluralization? Or did the restaurant simply forget the apostrophe, in which case I ask, "Nantucket's what?" Does the restaurant belong to someone named Magnolia? or to a castaway?

Needless to say, I will not be partaking of any of the "food's" served at these establishments. I hate to imagine the spelling on the menus. Mescaline, anyone?

News As It Happens

I just received a call from Jesse Wong's saying that I would have to produce proof that the gift card was purchased. Their programmer found no evidence that the card had been used, nor had it been assigned any initial value to begin with. 

The onus should not be on me to prove the card was bought, nor should I have to make the purchaser go through her receipts and credit card statements from October and November of 2007.

Ridiculous business practices. For a lousy $60. What happened to "the customer is always right?"