<p>Elllebud, I plan to research the blackout cake. 30 years and many more sophisticated desserts later, it remains the best dessert ever. Lush chocolate pudding filling with bittersweet cake, somehow for a very modest price this was the best cake ever.</p>
<p>LongPrime: my next door neighbor has been going mushrooming every week now for about a month. Every time he goes I come home to a bag of chanterelles tied to my doorknob. It seems fair to me: I gave him some of my heirloom tomatoes when they were in season.</p>
<p>As for the best thing I’ve ever eaten… so many choices! </p>
<p>Mrs. Beatrice Day’s fried chicken (southern style).
New Jersey peaches made into cobbler when I first learned to cook.
Molten chocolate cake with homemade vanilla ice cream at the Bastide d’Odeon in Paris (which received a Michelin star about a month later).
Brillat-Savarin triple-cream cheese on good crackers.
Hot chocolate made with coconut milk at Pyx (here in Portland).
Warm August cherry tomatoes from my garden.</p>
<p>sushi, i would have it every day, if there were no mercury scare.</p>
<p>I did a google search for the blackout cake. Lots of recipes out there and this interesting bit: </p>
<p>4 September 1945, Wisconsin Rapids Daily Tribune, “In Hollywood” by Erskine Johnson, pg. 8, col. 4:
Before leaving New York, Carl Post met Susan Hayward and asked her if there was anything he could do for her in the big city. “Yes,” said Susan, mouth watering, “bring back a chocolate layer cake from Ebinger’s Bakery in Brooklyn.” Post brought the cake and started back to Hollywood by plane. But the temptation was too great. He ate the last piece over Salt Lake City.</p>
<p>Carnival cruiseline’s “Chocolate Melting Cake” and new favorite this past cruise their “Bitter & Blanc Bread Pudding”!</p>
<p>LongPrime; what variety of peach?</p>
<p>I also loved that Bitter & Blanc bread pudding…Carnival Cruise Lines, I believe?</p>
<p>Oh my, some favorites from the last decade:</p>
<p>A single piece of $1 sushi from a department store basement food hall in Osaka.</p>
<p>A sour cherry galette from the Ferry Terminal farmer’s market in San Francisco. My father and I have reminisced about this one pastry several times!</p>
<p>Creme de la creme cake from Goddess & Grocer: a chocolate cake, coated with chocolate ganache, filled with creme brulee.</p>
<p>The heart of a roasted artichoke filled with Brie, in a pool of Pommery butter.</p>
<p>Ones that never get old:</p>
<p>A wedge of perfect July watermelon, cut from the heart, on a hot day. A perfect August nectarine with sweet juice pouring out of it. A perfect fresh litchi or ripe cherimoya.</p>
<p>My mother’s cabbage soup with oxtails, her latkes, and her Grape-nuts pudding.</p>
<p>The caramel corn from Garrett’s in Chicago. This is only food that I can’t control myself around; if there’s a big bag in the house, I will eat it until I’m sick.</p>
<p>– Duck and plum stew at a little hole-in-the-wall cafe along the Seine
– Pasta with olive oil, seasonings and fresh porcini mushrooms at a mom & pop place in Rome
– salmon mousse DH makes
– S2’s hamentaschen
– diver scallops at a take-out in Bay St. Lawrence, Nova Scotia
– jaegerschnitzel and spaetzele at a hofbrauhaus near Landstuhl, Germany when I was about 11
– lobster bisque at Ray’s the Steaks in Arlington, VA
– lobster tails we bought in Garibaldi, OR and cooked on the beach at sunset that evening
– potatoes au gratin and the Caesar dressing at Carson’s Ribs in Chicago
– fresh tomatoes
– juicy peaches from Rock Hill Orchard (which closed last weekend – owners are retiring – have been to their PYO with the kids every year since they were born)
– S2’s beef bourgoignon cooked over an open campfire</p>
<p>I’m getting hungry!</p>
<p>Hanna, that cake sounds so good that I Googled them to see if I could order one for Thanksgiving. That would be DHs dream cake! Alas, no mail order. Bummer!!</p>
<p>AHHH…sushi…Sansei in Maui…ahi tuna roll, toro sushi, yellowtail…Izakaya in Los Angeles, we go often and there has been only one dish (not sushi or sashimi or roll) that I didn’t prefer. Nathan’s hot dogs and chocolate egg creams. </p>
<p>As for the Blackout Cake: I remember a few details vividly: the pink box that was tied with twine (?). They put two pink roses on top because it was my birthday I guess that it was bittersweet chocolate because I’ve never been a sweet/semisweet chocolate fan. And there was a crumble of chocolate on top…and I did remember that. I’ve looked up (briefly) the recipe online and yes…cake crumbs on top.</p>
<p>When I was seven years old, I stole a dark chocolate-covered cherry (with rum!!!) from the box given to my parents by their friends. I was told to keep my fingers out of that box (my mom was concerned about the alcohol content in the candies). That was the best thing I ever ate :)</p>
<p>Shrink
Standard RED HAVEN, standard rootstock, non-irrigated, 25 yr old tree, picked ripe where you have to suck as you bite into the flesh. </p>
<p>alas its been nearly 30 years since we pulled the trees.</p>
<p>Salad at Arrows restaurant in Maine. They have a garden from which they picked the greens, and there was a kind of cheese croquettes with goat cheese they made on the grounds.</p>
<p>Salt and pepper squid from Wang’s Chinese restaurant.</p>
<p>Salmon sashimi.</p>
<p>My grandmother’s gooseberry pie.</p>
<p>A honey/almond cheesecake I make from recipes from Ancient Greece (I kid you not.)</p>
<p>Baked peaches with cornflakes (it is better than it sounds) baked with heavy cream. (Eaten once in childhood.)</p>
<p>Eggs my son makes me. He cooks!</p>
<p>DD’s potato pancakes.</p>
<p>Laduree hot chocolate.</p>
<p>Scalloped potatoes from the little outdoor restaurant by Chantilly Castle.</p>
<p>Berry sorbet from a restaurant where one can people watch, by the Louvre.</p>
<p>Pasta from Cafe Artes on 73rd St and CPW. Very, very reasonable as well.</p>
<p>Shrimp Dien Bien Phu from Nick’s in Newport News, VA. First time I had ever heard of Viet Nam.</p>
<p>Bread pudding with caramel sauce from a rotating restaurant in Montreal.</p>
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<p>Can we convince you to share the recipe, mythmom?</p>