Roasted My Ass

It's been a while since I've been truly disappointed by a restaurant meal. I've had some fairly meh experiences, but most have been good or even very good. And then we had dinner at Nepenthe Brewing Co. 

Now before you scold me for expecting anything fancy or chef-fy, I knew from the start that Nepenthe is a local brewery and their tasting room serves grub like burgers, fried chicken sandwiches, and macaroni and cheese. We hadn't been yet, and since we happened to be in the neighborhood, we decided to check it out. Our first matter of business was to order drinks from their IPA-heavy list of interestingly named house brews. I had the Boreal Crypt, a cloudy yellow IPA with the "cold indifference of winter’s cruel grasp." Mr Minx had the clearer and darker Prototype 36--a collab with the Wine Source--listed as a "West Coast IPA" and made with 6 kinds of hops. I'm not a beer connoisseur by any means, but I think both of these brews could be enjoyed even by those who say they don't like IPAs (like hubby, who drank two). Neither of our choices were particularly fruity, nor were they bitter. They were beers. 

Then we went onto to the food.

I hadn't had battered mushrooms since the 80s, when we frequented the fried veggie joint at Harborplace. Squirting fungus napalm singed our palates every time, but we never learned. At Nepenthe, we nibbled our initial 'shroom with trepidation and were thankful not to get burned. The mushrooms themselves were pretty good, but the "bulgogi sauce" made them soggy and super salty, and I saw no use whatsoever for the sprinkle of nutritional yeast on top (a dip of gochujang mayo on the side would have been so much better). For the $12 pricetag on these ten or so small-to-medium button mushrooms, edible gold would have been more apt.

Mr Minx chose for his entree one of the day's specials, a grilled cheese sandwich with pulled pork and pickles. He rather enjoyed it. I declined to try a bite because I was already suffering from dairy overload thanks to our recent Thanksgiving cheese-fest, but I did partake of his fries and their super garlicky aioli dip.

I'm sure you're wondering where the great disappointment comes in. I'm getting to it. It was my entree.

When I perused the menu earlier in the day, I was attracted to the "roasted butternut, acorn, & kabocha squash, toasted couscous, gala apples, & toasted pumpkin seeds on fresh spinach with a creamy poppy seed vinaigrette." Not only was the Oxford comma correctly employed multiple times in that description (be still my heart), but also I love roasted squash. Mr Minx does not, so it's rare when I prepare it at home. I was pretty hungry, so chose to add on a grilled chicken breast (bacon was another option). I couldn't wait to dig into to what I thought would be a masterpiece of seasonal simplicity. What arrived at the table was quite large and indeed attractive. After forcing the dish to pose for the requisite photos, I tried a bite of apple. It was mushy and flavorless, at first reminding me of d'anjou pear (not my fave). Then I took a bite of squash. It didn't look roasted, and it wasn't. Perhaps the squash had been introduced to the oven, decided it was a place it really didn't want to linger, and skipped on over to the microwave for a few short minutes from which it emerged relatively unscathed: crunchy, with none of the expected sweet caramelization. The spinach was fine, as were the couscous and the pepitas. But where was the promised creamy poppy seed vinaigrette? As I look closely at the photo, I can see dark specks on the salad which might be poppy seeds, and some of the greens appear to be moist, but as far as my tastebuds were concerned, there was nary a hint of vinaigrette flavor. Indeed, no seasoning whatsoever. The chicken, on the other hand, was quite salty. Additionally it was overcooked and dry. 

I ate the chicken--dipped into Mr Minx's aioli--and some of the salad, but took most of it home. We consumed it the next morning under a couple of over-medium fried eggs, the yolks of which acted as a dressing of sorts (I also topped mine with a couple spoonsful of chili crisp), but it didn't make the squash or apples any less sad.

Thank goodness for beer.

Nepenthe Brewing Co.

3626 Falls Rd

Baltimore, MD 21211

https://www.nepenthebrewingco.com/

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Making it Work

I have experienced quite a bit of disappointment recently. Our latest book, Maryland's Chesapeake, which took nearly a year to research and write, hasn't yet found an audience. The recent election has me facing the five stages of grief; I fear I will be stuck in the fourth stage - depression - for most of the next few years. Friends and family have let me down. Christmas is right around the corner, and as a childless adult, I wonder why I bother celebrating it at all.

Despite all the shit, life goes on. It must. I cannot allow myself to wallow. After all, there is cheesecake to eat!

The cheesecake in question is itself the result of another recent disappointment. I had tried to recreate Starbucks' Cranberry Bliss Bars at home. They seemed like underbaked blondies with cream cheese frosting and dried cranberries - how difficult could they be? As with many things in life, more difficult than anticipated.

I did consult some other "copycat" recipes on the Internet before proceeding. While some were merely cut-and-paste copies of the same recipe offered without credit to the original author, others had little differences, like adding ginger to the frosting. I decided to go ahead with my own relatively plain concoction, adding dried, juice-sweetened, organic cranberries (which are not the bright red of Starbucks' berries) and white chocolate chips to a straightforward blondie batter (essentially Toll House cookies, without the semi-sweet chips). After 20 minutes in the oven, I realized that underbaked blondies will just be gooey blobs of dough. Baked for the proper amount of time, they'll be too chewy, and crusty on the edges to boot. In any case, I pressed on, making a cream cheese frosting while the bars were baking. It's a simple enough process - just beat a couple cups of powdered sugar into cream cheese and butter and add a touch of vanilla. Voila! - frosting.

Once the bars were cooked and cooled, I topped them with some of the frosting and a sprinkle of cranberries. And then I did a taste test.

They were diabetes in bar form.

The cookies were too sweet, the white chocolate chips were completely unnecessary, and the frosting make them even sweeter. They were a disaster. Disgusted, I scraped the frosting off the bars and into a container with the extra frosting (there was quite a bit left over) and put it in the fridge. The scraped bars were still too sweet, but we managed to finish them off. But lesson learned: never again will I put white chocolate chips into an already sugar-laden bar cookie (unless I am making these).

I wasn't in the mood/didn't have time to make a cake for the cream cheese frosting, which languished in the fridge for an entire week, unloved and getting in the way. However, I did realize that it was just a couple ingredients away from a cheesecake batter. So the following weekend I pulled it out of the fridge, whisked in eggs, more vanilla, a bit of lemon, and some milk. We had blueberries, so I tossed in a handful of those as well. While it was in the oven, I made a little blueberry sauce for the top.

Damn if they weren't just fine. More custardy than cheesy, which is the way I prefer my cheesecake, they were surprisingly not too sweet, considering the source material.

I guess you want a recipe. It's kinda hard to give one, but cheesecake is one of those baked goods that isn't an absolute science, so just make it work, like I did.

Blueberry Cheesecake
I used three 4-inch springform pans and the maximum amount of crust materials. If you want thinner cheesecakes, or just like round numbers, use four pans.

1 to 1 1/2 cups graham cracker crumbs
4 to 6 tablespoons salted butter, melted
1 1/2 cups homemade cream cheese frosting
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 tablespoon lemon zest
Pinch salt
1/4 to 1/2 cup milk
Blueberries
Sugar

Preheat oven to 350°F.

Combine the crumbs and butter in a bowl until crumbs are well-coated. Press firmly into three or four 4-inch mini springform pans so they cover the bottom and go up the sides a bit. Bake for 10 minutes. Remove to a cooling rack.

Put the frosting in a large bowl. Whisk in the eggs, vanilla, lemon, a pinch of salt, and enough milk to make a pancake-batter consistency. Toss in a handful of blueberries, if you're so inclined, but they're not absolutely necessary. Spoon batter into pre-baked crusts and bake until puffed and set (they may jiggle a wee bit in the centers, but shouldn't be wet), 30-35 minutes.

Cool cheesecakes on a rack. After about 15 minutes, use a sharp knife to loosen them from the sides of the pan, then gently remove the pan sides.

While cheesecakes are cooling, make the topping. Add a couple handfuls of blueberries to a saucepan with about 1/4 cup of granulated sugar. Add a pinch of salt and some lemon and/or cinnamon, if desired. Cook over medium heat until thickened, 15-20 minutes. Allow to cool before spooning over cooled cheesecakes.

Serves 6.



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