Chamas Churrascaria, Durham, NC

How I spent my 21st birthday (add a few years on that…) at the wonderful Brazilian churrascaria, Chamas (Portuguese for “flames”) in Downtown Durham.

If you haven’t been to a churrasceria before and you eat meat, it’s worth a go. You get a little card – one side is green (GO), other side is red (STOP). Yes, sort of like that children’s game, Red Light/Green Light. The waiters come around with large skewers of meat – all kinds – and if they see your sign is green, they’ll put one of whatever on your plate. If your sign is red, they won’t stop at your plate.

It can be dangerous if your eyes are bigger than your stomach…or if you forget to turn that card to red, and your plate starts looking like this:

Green light at Chamas

The quality and flavor of the meats at Chamas are terrific. Even better, it was Triangle Restaurant Week, so all the beautiful steak, sirloin, chicken, sausage…I could eat for $15!

I miss it.

But guess what? We had a HUGE storm here! Actually, it wasn’t so bad where I live, but if you dared to step into the grocery store yesterday, you would have thought we were expecting 36 inches. It was a zoo.

I did my usual shopping yesterday night and when I walked out of the store, it was beautiful. It was snowing fluffy white snowflakes and the cars and sidewalks were already covered. I couldn’t help but exclaim, “Oh, wow!!” to myself. Then I heard an “oh, wow!” behind me – it was a little girl around four. She looked up into the sky with simple wonder. Her parents, on the other hand, said “oh, crap.”

Why do I find more in common with four year olds? When did adults get so…ornery? Do I have to start acting ornery too now that I just celebrated another birthday?

For my birthday, my dear friends L, P & C took me out to dinner to this lovely place called ACME in Carrboro, NC. Cake Mountain Man got stuck due the storm and couldn’t make it, so I had to eat twice as much for him (good excuse!). We feasted, we argued, we laughed.

ACME’s Pork Belly with Jack Daniels BBQ and Fried Clams

One of the reasons why I love cooking and sharing food is that good, delicious food is something that can turn even the most pessimistic, ornery adult into a child. I love watching adults, especially those who seem too busy or too snooty to give you the time of day melt into smiles when they try something delicious. There is little that gives me greater satisfaction than watching someone go “ummm-mmmm”, eyes rolled up in delight, lips turned upward at something I have cooked.

ACME’s Fried Green Tomatoes with Mozzarella

There is something about good food that reduces even the most hard-nosed, mean adult to one of the most basic, raw emotions of child-like happiness. I have seen many an adult who walk around like they have to get somewhere fast or that they are so important they don’t have time to do “fluffy” things (like admire snowflakes), stop and for a moment of pure bliss despite themselves, just enjoy the moment of savoring and tasting.

ACME’s Carolina Catfish with Black Eyed Peas

It’s like the character of Anton Ego in one of my favorite movies, Ratatouille. He’s a mean old SOB, until Remy makes him a dish that immediately brings him back to happier times – comfort food, after all, is comforting because of the good memories they bring forth – and from then on, he finds the child-like sense of wonder and joy that he had buried deep within as life added years and worries.

Source: Amazon

I still find it hard to believe that I am approaching an age I thought was an age for my mom or other “real adults” only, but not for someone who often has more in common with four-year olds. To celebrate this birthday of mine, L made this AMAZING coconut vanilla cream cake just for me! How awesome is he?

He did the cake in a water bath, and it was luscious and moist. He made it with love and we ate it in friendship. It was perfect. And it was the best birthday present I could possibly want.

Yes, it can be but one simple dish, one simple bite, that unmasks those “adult” layers of grumpiness and pessimism. Inside, we all still have that sense of innocence, wonderment and hope that yeah, life sometimes dumps a whole heck of snow that you have to shovel, but boy, you can still PLAY in that snow (I swear, we saw people sledding on the freeway. I kid you not. Welcome to NC. Sledding on freeways) and how cool is that?

And you get to eat birthday cakes that look like white fluffy snowballs, and the joy in eating them is just as pure.

Fun and happy childhood memories often include food of some sort: a holiday (the lady at the white house on the corner who put spider rings in the little baggie of Halloween candy), a birthday (Danny Lueth was allergic to chocolate so I always had to make sure there was a non-chocolate option), a trip (the huge rainbow-swirly lollipops longer than my forearm at Disneyland).

One memory that I forgot I had popped into my head the day I snuck some mini-cinnamon buns from work. Someone had brought in a huge container, and I was hungry. I was trying to get a bit of exercise before heading home and knew I would be even hungrier afterwards, so I figured, I’ll take a few of these to make up for the calories lost exercising. To avoid getting everything sticky, I stuck them in a paper napkin and taped it up with scotch tape.

As soon as I opened up the package, a flood of memories rushed in. I realized it was an all-too-familiar feeling.

My dad used to come home promptly at 6:10PM from work. He’d ring the bell, and I’d run to the door. He’d hold his arms behind him and the game began. I would try and wrestle his arms out from behind and peel his fingers from his clenched fists. Sometimes he would pull a fake-out and his fists would reveal nothing but his empty lunch containers. But oftentimes, his hands would be holding little white napkin packages all wrapped up with scotch tape. I’d pry them from his hands and run to the kitchen and eagerly tear them open. Sometimes there would be chocolate chip cookies or brownies from a farewell party, other times, there were little triangle ham sandwiches leftover from a lunch.

I LOVED them. They were such a treat, especially since I didn’t grow up in a house with cold cuts or brownies (until I started baking them myself). I loved the mystery of the little white packages and the surprise of what was inside those beautiful little packages.

Given this strange obsession of mine since I was a wee little one, it was also no surprise when my parents, in cleaning their house, came across this story that I apparently was planning to turn into a bestseller. I’ve kept the original spelling and punctuation (I was 7) and illustrations for your reading pleasure. My rationale for this story is that my mom was expecting my little sister at this time. Enjoy.

The Chocolate Princess
In a KINGDOM, there lived a king, and a queen. The queen was going to get a baby! The King loved to eat potato chips. The queen loved to eat choclate! The king sat on his throne day after day, eating potato chips. Boy, were they aYum! The queen sat on her throne day after day, eating chocolate. But, when you eat what ever you like a lot, when your have a baby, your baby turns to that thing! The queen didn’t know that. One day, the baby was born! But she was chocolate! The king and queen were SURPRISED.

What are some of your favorite childhood food memories?

The peach symbolizes long life, and this sweet dessert is actually a sweet bread and made especially for my most-awesomest late grandmother on her 91st birthday. She loved food, too!

My babies are growing up.  Growing up fast. Fast like Speedy Gonzalez.

I am devastated and heavyhearted.

Why can’t my babies stay squishy-squashy, blubbery, wibbly-wobbly, endearing and uncontaminated forever?   Why will they grow outside the enveloping and secure confines of my bosom and take with them my shattered heart?  Why is time so merciless?  Why can’t the ephemeral, comforting and encompassing scents of freshly bathed baby linger a little longer?

Although their upcoming birthdays’ overwhelmed every fiber of my entity with apprehension and denial, I managed to coordinate a relatively small gathering of our beloved neighborhood tots and parents to celebrate a dual maturation.  Rather than revisit hours worth of baby pictures, thus exacerbating my miserable state, I, instead, concentrated on cooking my unyielding and abysmal love for my children into the party food.

The party came and went.   Fast.  Fast like Speedy Gonzalez.

The girls had an extraordinary good time as they simultaneously moved further and further away from babyhood.  To the great benefit of our guests, I had limited opportunities to beleaguer the transitional moment and wail.  In essence, I’d say the party was a success.

Below is a recipe for a Zucchini and Olive Flatbread I made for the party.

May my babies always be rambunctious, passionate and senseless.  May they always delight in the rapid waddle of a quacking duck.  And may they always cherish moments together, side-by-side, anticipating life’s unexpected behavior and freshly baked chocolate muffins from the oven.

Zucchini and Olive Flatbread

Ingredients:

Pizza dough (can buy from store or local pizza joint)
Handful of pitted Kalamata Olives, sliced
2 Shallots, sliced
¼ cup of Parmigiano-Reggiano
1 zucchini, thinly sliced
1 teaspoon of salt
½ teaspoon of ground black pepper
2 tablespoons of olive oil

Directions:

Turn oven on to 500 degrees.

Sauté your shallots in a little bit of olive oil, until shallots are translucent.  Remove from heat.

Roll our your pizza dough (I like to roll it out to about 12 inches in length, 6 inches in width, and about ¼ of an inch thick, but feel free to roll the dough in any way you like).   Place the zucchini, shallots, olives and Parmigiano-Reggiano over the pizza.  Sprinkle the salt, pepper and olive oil over the pizza.

Place in oven for 12 minutes, or until the crust is brown.  Remove from heat, cool for 10 minutes and enjoy!

These are just two of her gorgeous creations she made for her little ones’ birthdays. They just aren’t pretty, but are made with great thoughtfulness that they fit the personality of each child. In fact, some of her friends have been fortunate enough to have some of her special cakes named after them, all made with each individual in mind.

Now we have me. I am not patient nor do I really like measuring things. As a teenager, I loved baking from the Duncan Hines box mixes (who can mess up two eggs and 1/3 cup oil?), but I quickly realized as I got older: I am no baker. It requires virtues I lack. But I still pretend every now and then because I like eating and I like sweets and I love the idea of homemade cakes.

So my boyfriend’s birthday was this weekend and I decided to make him a cake…a rich butter cake with chocolate buttercream. Now I WAS following a recipe – said it was an EASY recipe – only the buttercream came out more like fondant. It was too hard to spread it out like they do on cake shows (or the way Patty always does), so I ended up molding them in my hands and sculpting my five-tiered, lopsided cake (I always had a fantasy to be an architect, knowing full well the concept would be fantastic but the building would collapse quickly because I don’t care for details like measuring).

It ended up being actually really fun. I was not quite the cake whiz that I see on Ace of Cakes or Cake Boss or Patty’s Kitchen, but I suppose it was my style of baking. Pygmalion would be proud. Or amused. It was like sculpting clay (which is one of many daydream jobs) and I realized why I like making cakes. It was like creating a piece of artwork, molding and sculpting the “buttercream” to how I wanted it and I was doing it because, as for many of us, we love making people happy through our food.

Patty thinks it looks like a giant hostess cake with marshmallows and raspberries. But boy was it delicious. The boyfriend seemed to like it and not mind that it looked like a child’s 3rd grade volcano project that she insisted on doing it herself.

He dubbed it Cake Mountain. Happy Birthday!