The proof is in it

If in reading my last post, you questioned the wisdom of a business plan that centered around only one food item (specifically: mini pies), then you underestimate the mysteriously bottomless hunger for such places. Never before moving here have I found so many places that center around doing one thing well and remarkably successful at it. There's the Meatball Shop which now has 3 locations in the city, and S'Mac (damn good mac and cheese) which has two. And then there's the lobster roll place whose name escapes me right now, although I know "lobster" is definitely one of the words in the name. There are countless cupcake places that, aside from maybe coffee, have no other confections on the menu. Other cities may have their taco trucks and dumpling joints too, but I feel this place has cornered the market on the one-hit restaurant.

Added to this venerable roster is an exciting new place that I just tried last night: Puddin'. This East Village pudding shop just opened recently, and luckily I read about it in New York Magazine's article on 101 of America's Most Crazy-Awesome New Desserts. Trust me, this is a slide show worth taking the time for. At any rate, I already have a rice pudding place (Rice to Riches--the best of all possible one-off eateries), but I don't yet have a traditional pudding place. That is until last night.

This place is what pudding should be. By which I mean: like eating thick, yet fluffy, flavored cream. They make a number of different speciality parfaits, but you can also just mix and match their puddings with an array of different toppings (including such things as: salted caramel sauce, candied mixed nuts, coconut soaked lime cake, and peanut brittle). I didn't try any of the toppings or sauces because I was getting my pudding to-go (foolishly having eaten too much at dinner despite knowing that pudding lay in my future) and wasn't sure how they would do traveling. I chose to try the butterscotch and chocolate as they are two pudding classics that seemed they would pair nicely. The butterscotch apparently actually has scotch in it (so points for that), and the chocolate is made with some sort of fancy Icelandic chocolate. I didn't know Iceland was known for their chocolate, but knowing this now, I will make sure to keep an eye out when I'm there next weekend.

I will have to go back and try the other flavors (except the rice pudding because I would never betray my first pudding love). I should also probably start exercising daily again.

British food + American excess

Sticky toffee pudding is one of my favorite desserts. You seldom see it on the menu around here because so many American restaurants fail to see the virtue of heavy, date-based cakes sopped in cream. And yet somehow we celebrate the advent of the Oreo pizza. I just don't understand. But at any rate, I make sure to indulge in a nice sticky toffee pudding whenever I'm in any British Commonwealth nation. On my recent trip to England, I managed to eat one in every city I visited. Naturally, when I came across this recipe for Sticky Toffee Pudding with Candied Bacon, I was thrilled to see that it was finally being embraced in a way that Americans can get behind. I also knew that I would have to make these treasures for myself.

This presented something of a problem. After all, I couldn't logically made a whole batch just for me. Well, I could, but I knew that would undo any positive toning acquired in three months of p90x training as all of my muscle cells would have no choice but to instantly turn to bacon grease. Luckily, my boyfriend and I had decided to have people over to show off our apartment this past weekend, providing us a captive audience of pudding eaters. I won't say which came first, the idea for the housewarming or the need to have an excuse to bake pork products into puddings. But you probably already know.

The only problem with this plan was that it wasn't really a sit down party, and everything else we were serving were proper casual party finger foods. I was not to be dissuaded though. We ended up buying plates (albeit plastic ones) expressly for the purpose of having a mid-party pudding feast. It completely clashed with all other food served (everything else was appropriately seasonal, fresh, and summery), and, weirdly, dessert was the only part of the food offerings that wasn't vegetarian. But I still maintain it was the perfect cap to the party.

These photos are from the blog that I found this recipe on, Gingerbread Bagels. I'm posting them because they're far better than any photos I took. In actuality, I took no photos. But they are, no doubt, far better than any photos I would have taken had I remembered to.

I'm not going to post the recipe, because you can no doubt follow the link I posted above if you are so inclined to indulge in some bacon sweets of your own. The only change I made is that I made the candied bacon by cooking it regularly on the stove, draining off the fat, and then caramelizing it (again on the stove) with some brown sugar. I think this was easier than doing the oven method recommended in the blog. That seems likely to lead to the brown sugar running off, burning onto the poorly chosen pan, and causing ones kitchen to be filled with smoke and the smell of burned sugar and charred bacon. Not that I speak from personal experience. But the stove-top method is easier to monitor if you're not aware of the foibles of your oven. And you won't have to worry about the tragedy of accidently ruining a half pound of bacon.