NY eats: Candle Cafe

One of my favorite bloggers, Erica, goes to Candle Cafe so much that she should get some kind of customer discount. Every time I read her blog, I see dozens of colorful photos of food that looks fresh, wholesome, yet also incredibly indulgent. I crave vegan food when I see those pictures.
Originally, Erica and I had planned to meet up at Candle, but during my first few days in New York, she was sick, so I decided to go to Candle just in case we wouldn't be able to meet before I left.
My mom was willing to eat there with me, but my dad took one look at the menu and went to the bistro next door (hilariously called LeSteak), where he ordered a steak burger and ate with my grandparents. Oh, well... To each his own.
Leave it to my mom to order a salad. I kept asking her why she would order a salad at a vegan restaurant when non-vegetarian restaurants always have salad options. Luckily, the salad she ordered wasn't leafy. She ordered the Soba Noodle Salad, with Soba Noodles, ginger grilled tofu, shiitake mushrooms, edamame, julienne carrots, radish and sesame seeds over mesclun with a creamy wasabi dressing.
While she liked the salad as a whole, she hated the tofu, which she said was bland. Well, yeah... tofu is bland! But she said that wasn't what she meant, and I suppose it's because she prefers more Asian preparations, where tofu isn't usually served alone.

Ironically, even though I had been trying to avoid "Asian" food, what I really wanted was to try one of Candle's wraps, and the special that day just so happened to be the Asian Style Wrap with wasabi-ginger grilled tofu, brown rice, steamed greens, adzuki beans, stir-fried greens in a ginger-miso sauce wrapped in a spinach tortilla, served with an edamame salad and a creamy wasabi dressing.
Sound pretty similar, huh? Actually, I thought our dressings tasted different even though they were supposedly the same. Either way, the dressing was the star, I ate the wrap with my hands (Which is rare for me... Usually I cut it up and eat it with a knife and fork. I'm weird that way) and it didn't fall apart! That alone earned them props, since I know how difficult it is to stuff a wrap that full but manage for it to say together.

With every bite, I got chewy tofu (which, yes, was a little bland, but provided texture next to its more flavorful counterparts), sweet, sandy (but in a good way) adzuki beans (called hong dou, or red beans, in China), and of course, all the crunchy vegetables.
The edamame salad was delicious, and would be incredibly easy to recreate at home. It had shredded purple cabbage, carrots, and sesame seeds.
So, yes, the whole thing was pseudo-hippie Asian, but in a good way. I still would have preferred their Middle Eastern wrap or Moroccan wrap.
I did love the atmosphere of the place, though! It was lively, but quiet enough to have a conversation. The servers were friendly (I heard one educating the guy next to me about stevia) and the whole place just felt relaxed and unpretentious.
Oh yes, and I ate the ENTIRE wrap. The whole thing. And while I felt full, I didn't feel stuffed. That wrap was HUGE... Although I've never actually been to Chipotle, I'm sure it could rival one of their burritos.

Luckily, Erica got better, and we decided to meet up for an early New Years' Eve dinner. We debated going to a few different places (such as Gobo and Counter), but in the end, I decided that I wanted to go back to Candle and try some of their more dinner-like options.
Unfortunately, we found out that Candle wasn't seating any more people after 6, so we pushed our meeting one hour earlier. It just so happened that the day of our Candle Dinner was the same day I had eaten that huge lunch at The Islands. How would I ever feel hungry again!
I quickly hopped on the subway to get out of Brooklyn and met her there.
I feel so stupid that we didn't take a picture together or anything! Either way, we had a great time. I know it sounds strange to meet up with people from the internet, but the two of us are among the youngest food bloggers and it was so much fun just to talk about food and not feel like she was bored. Of course, we talked about other stuff too... either way, I had a great time.
Like I said, I wasn't that hungry, so we skipped the appetizer and I ended up ordering the Porcini Crusted Seitan with garlic-shallot-potato mash, sautéed spinach and string beans with grilled oyster mushroom and topped with home-style gravy.

This was definitely a dish that could have been a disaster... mushy, flavorless potatoes, rubbery seitan, and greasy gravy. Of course, it was the opposite... I LOVED it, even though it wasn't at all the kind of thing I would usually order or make at home (This, more or less, is the reason I ordered it). The potatoes were chunky and flavorful, the the chewy texture of the seitan was echoed by the mushroom, which interestingly enough, tasted strongly of mustard. The greens were great, especially when swiped through a puddle of gravy... but the word "Gravy" doesn't do it justice. Just think of a rich, brown aromatic sauce. I ate all of this except for a small piece of seitan (Ha, I know I said I wasn't that hungry, but I can always eat!).
Erica ordered a special that I would have ordered if she hadn't (But I was happy with my choice!): Tempeh Napoleon from the special’s menu which was polenta crusted tempeh with layers of artichoke paté, served with sautéed snap peas, broccolini, chanterelle mushrooms, and spinach over a tomato-truffle sauce, drizzled with parsley oil.

It was so beautifully presented! The contrast of the green vegetables against the blood red tomato sauce was definitely festive, even though Christmas is over. She generously let me taste a piece of tempeh, because she said she had never had tempeh prepared this way. While it reminded her of a crab cake, I thought it was more like a chicken patty-- crunchy on the outside and chewy on the inside. But of course, it was not your average chicken patty. She also ate everything on her plate.
We debated going to Tasti D-lite, but it was freezing out and Erica claimed to have had TWO medium cups of it the day before, so somehow she convinced me to order two desserts at candle! Honestly, I just wanted to see if they lived up to all the hype... because really, how can vegan desserts compare to ones full of cream, eggs, and butter?
I picked the Carrot Cake and she picked the Apple Cranberry Crumb Pie.

I honestly was completely stunned. Not only were they as good as "regular" desserts, but they were better! Well, I've probably had better pies in my life, but I'm also spoiled by my mom's apple pie with its flaky, butter crust. But the carrot cake was OUT OF THIS WORLD! Usually carrot cake is a sugar-laden concoction with a sticky, cloying cream cheese ice cream, but Candle's version was moist, spicy, and not too sweet-- each bite had some tangy frosting and a cake embedded with carrot shreds and raisins. Honestly... amazing.
But the crumb pie was also great! It's just that, like Erica, I love that carrot cake. There should be a website dedicated to it.
Anyways, all in all, I loved this restaurant! I won't force my parents to go back, but even if I can't get someone to go with me, I'll make sure to go back the next time I'm in New York.

Address: 1307 3rd Ave, New York City, New York

NORTH POND

This weekend is actually packed, which I'm really excited about. My grandparents are in town to see my dad's exhibition at the Smart, so we went out to dinner last night after my swim meet (It was exhausting-- immediately after the 500 I had to dive back in for the 200 freestyle relay). My grandma hadn't arrive yet, but my mom and I had planned ages ago that we would go to North Pond, which is a super seasonal American restaurant that's actually located in Lincoln Park in the park. The setting was ridiculously romantic-- there was a yellow crescent moon, big purple-gray clouds in the sky, and the whole skyline was lit up with flashing signs for the Cubs and Sox (that's not why it was romantic). There were even ducks on the pond, making loud, annoying quacking noises. The restaurant was pretty formal (AKA no jeans), but the funny thing is that the inside was like somebody's lakehouse... the walls were wood panels of ducks and other naturalistic images, they were playing Porgy and Bess, etc. It was almost kitchy, in a good way, since it countered the pretension of the dress code. To start with, we ordered the most amazing Italian red wine, a Barbera d'Asti... as my mom said, "If all red wine were like this, I would have red wine every night," and I agree 100%. Although the waiter described the wine as "crisp" (which is usually a description reserved for white wines), I didn't agree at all. Instead, it was almost smoky in a way that caused the back of your throat to get all scratchy. My dad ordered a beet-ini that I partially goaded him into ordering since it sounded so interesting: green gin, beet juice, mint. I loved it, since it tasted of nothing but the sweet beets and refreshing mint, with the gin simply adding that kind of bitter yet robust undertone whose flavor clings to the tip of your tongue. My mom took one sip and said "tastes like Chinese medicine!" My grandpa took one sip and proclaimed, "Under torture I wouldn't drink it!"
As an amuse-bouch, we were brought salmon tartar on an apple slice with a cider gastrique. Couldn't taste the cider much, but I noticed the apple had been sprinkled with mint and paprika underneath the salmon, which I enjoyed. Mainly it was the texture that was great, since tartar is usually on the gummy side-- the crunchy apple balanced it out perfectly.
To start with, I was on the fence. I was caught between the "Scallop, Celeriac: Warm Celery Root-Cider Soup, Almond-Crusted Seared Sea Scallop, Celery Leaves" and "Kampachi, Beets : Charred Kona Kampachi Medallions, Gold Beet-Apple Confetti, Roasted Red Beet Mousse, Sesame Tuile, Tatsoi." (At North Pond everything on their menu is listed in the form of two nouns, which my mom only noticed at the end of dessert. The waiter told me that the kampachi and beets were the lightest dish on the menu. I hadn't eaten anything since my swim meet, and I can never seem to get sick of scallops, so I ordered that. It was one of the best pureed soups I've ever had, and I'm usually not a fan of cream-based soups. The beauty of this was it tasted of nothing but the freshest celery, with just a little cream to turn it from a mash into a soup. Somehow the sweet scallop, which had apparently also been seared in almond oil, was the perfect compliment to that oh-so-distinct celery flavor that a lot of people don't enjoy. While I didn't taste the almonds a whole lot, they added crunch to the soup. The whole thing was topped with a celeriac salad, which brought everything together. It. Was. Amazing.
My mom decided to order two appetizers instead of an appetizer and a main, so she ordered the two heaviest appetizers on the menu (which really doesn't say very much). To start with, she ordered "Farm Egg, Mushrooms: Poached Farm Egg, Spin Rosso Polenta, Maple-Cinnamon Glazed Chanterelle Mushrooms, Parmesan Emulsion." Everything was COVERED by the parmesan foam, which added an airy texture to the denser nature of the mushrooms. In the small bite I tried, I didn't get any polenta (what's Spin Rosso?), but a bite of mushroom and foam permeated with the richness of the egg. Usually I hate runny egg yolks, but this one was so pure that I couldn't help but love it. It was hard to see with the dim lighting, but I bet the yolk would have been bright orange, like organic eggs usually are.
My dad's appetizer was apparently one of the best, so of course I'm sad that I couldn't try it: Quail, Sage: Prosciutto-Enrobed Quail, Roasted Kabocha Squash, Uplands Cheese cream.
I'm sure you're not surprised that it was the combination of sage and squash that drew me in, so luckily I snagged a bite of squash, which I was surprised to find was pureed. What I've noticed I loved about last night was the simplicity of each component on a plate with lots of different flavors. For instance, I really don't think they added anything to the squash (maybe a bit of butter or cream, and obviously salt and pepper), but by using seasonal squash from local farmers, it really did taste that much better.
My grandpa's appetizer was the only one that I didn't think was that great, mainly because it needed more salt: Walleye, Olives: Warm Poached Walleye Pike; Grilled Marinated Eggplant, Red Bell Peppers; Wilted Gem Romaine, Green Olive-Almond Relish. It was served in a little cast iron dish, but underneath the vegetables was a pool of oil. The fish was tender and good, but it was a little too bland for its more flavorful counterparts.





On to mains! For the first time in a long time, I actually preferred the vegetarian option to the fish options... before I ate fish, I was stuck eating some form of eggplant, vegetarian lasagna or moussaka. They had salmon and swordfish on the menu, but since I have salmon a lot and we had swordfish for Rosh Hashana, I thought this would be better: "Leeks, Figs
Warm Leeks Vinaigrette, Smoked Parmesan Eggplant Puree, Caramelized Fig-Ricotta Tartlet, Roasted Red Bell Peppers." I was right, and one of the reasons it felt so special is that it's the kind of entree I rarely order. The tart was the star, of course, with other elements on the plant that in some ways felt a little chaotic, but also complemented the sweet tart well. The tart was sweet, yes, but the pastry was so buttery and the figs so juicy, with the ricotta as a binder that I can't even describe how good it was. To pull in the leek element, the figs were layered on top of a caramelized leek layer that was between the figs and ricotta. Of course there was balsamic to dredge it in, as well as an eggplant puree (fine but nothing special), leeks, bitter radishes, and roasted peppers. The radishes were whole, so that gave it a kind of rustic element.
My dad was the only person who wasn't in love with his entree because he claimed it was "too Chinese/ Middle Eastern" (I kind of find it funny that this was a turnoff for him). He ordered "Lamb, Cucumber: Grilled T-Bone Lamb Chop, Yogurt Marinated Leg, Cucumber & Garbanzo Salad, Lundberg Wehani Rice, Pistachios, Spiced Jus." He thought there was too much cumin in the preparation. Personally, the whole description screams Middle Eastern fusion to me, so I'm not sure why he ordered it.
My grandpa's entree looked great, but relatively traditional: Guinea Hen, Potatoes
Pan-Roasted Hen Breast, Shallot Thigh Sausage, Fingerling Potato Medley, Brussels Sprouts, Foie Gras Sauce.
My mom's second appetizer looked AMAZING! If I ate foie gras, that's totally what I would have ordered: Foie Gras, Plums
Sautéed Duck Liver, Ancho French Toast, Orange Muscat Plums, Glazed Purple Knob Onion, Granola. What seduced me were definitely the sweet components, and now that I think about it, most of the dishes had a certain sweetness to them. I took a bit of her French toast before it got the foie gras all over it and it was incredible. The inside was almost like custard! Couldn't taste the ancho, though.

For dessert, I really wanted to order more (I'm a glutton), but we decided to split two between all of us, which in my opinion was NOT enough! Their portions were absolutely tiny, but of course everything was still good. We ordered "Nectarine, Ricotta: Sheep's Milk Ricotta Cheesecake Medallion, Muscat-Poached Nectarines, Red Plum Coulis, Opaline" and "Apple, Cinnamon: Hazelnut Brown Butter Cake, Cider-Poached Apple, Cinnamon Spice Chibouste, Crème Fraîche Ice Cream."
Sadly, the portions were pitiful! They would have been fine for a person who just wanted to eat a light dessert after a big meal, but since we were splitting them, we hardly got two bites each. I wasn't too impressed with the ricotta dessert, but it wasn't my idea to order it. The "opaline" turned out to be what looked like tiny cubes of jello...

The apple dessert was REALLY good. The ice cream was amazing and tart, like a sophisticated and more fattening frozen yogurt. The "chibouste" was like a marshmallow.
To sum it up? I would definitely come back. There are lots of other restaurants I've been meaning to check out, but I'm really glad we picked North Pond to start with.

Rosh Hashana!

Apples and honey

The best challah from Fox and Obel

Chicken soup with knaidlach (which I couldn't have :( )

Grilled swordfish

Carrot and butternut squash tzimmes

Salad with roasted beets, cherry tomatoes and pumpkin seeds

Patrizia's apple cake

Aunt Claire came! And we had possibly the most disorganized and unorthodox kiddush and blessings... we kept singing the wrong tune, and also forgot to bring out the pomegranate! My dad hummed along, as usual.

Sorry I haven't been posting! Not many excuses, but I just haven't felt like it... partially because I eat too much to take a photo of every time I eat.

Pasta Lessons

This might be a lengthy post.
The reason I still haven't written about Singapore is that 1) a lot of stuff has been happening here too and 2) probably the most "Singaporean" and interesting meal (hint hint: CHILI CRAB), I didn't attend. I still feel that it's worth blogging it, so I have to convince one of my parents to write a little description.
Anyways, these pasta lessons, that were given to me by Patrizia, were given in two parts, but I decided to put them together. The first time we made tagliatelle, which my mom and I then took home. The second lesson (yesterday) was much more complicated and enjoyable, because it also included cooking: we made spinach ricotta tortelloni and vegetarian lasagna, which our families then ate together.
This post will be like a tutorial. I'll start with the tagliatelle. First of all, let me just say that Patrizia grew up in Bologna, where everything was impeccably fresh (her parents still live in a little house in the mountains over there)-- in fact, she didn't have factory-made pasta (i.e. spaghetti) until she was in her TWENTIES!
My friend Bea was there for the tagliatelle, but not so much for the second cooking lesson.
1. Tagliatelle-- Making the dough was much simpler than I would have thought. All you need is flour (wheat, not semolina, which is too hard) and eggs. No water. That's it. You pour yourself a pile of flour (we just eyeballed it). Then you dig yourself a little hole in the center of your pile and push outwards to make it bigger. This can all be done on the kitchen counter. Then you crack three eggs into the center and start to beat them into the dough with a fork. You want to gradually start beating outwards so as to incorporate the eggs into the flour. When the flour-egg mixture is no longer running, you can start using your hands to knead it together, adding more flour if it's too sticky.
Now you begin the kneading motion. Use your right hand to fold the dough over towards you, then use the heel of your hand (is that a word in this context) to PUSH outwards. Now use the same part of your left hand and PUSH again. The dough should be elongated, facing you horizontally, like a baguette. Now turn it so that it's vertical, and use your right hand to fold it towards you again. Once you get into the motion, you start to use your whole body-- I don't think I ever got that far, but for Patrizia, this motion is as natural as brushing your teeth or toasting a piece of bread.
The dough will begin to harden, but it should still remain pretty soft. You should be able to tell when you don't need to knead it anymore. It should stay in a loaf-like shape, and should have a homogeneous texture.
The next step is to slice the loaf into about two-inch thick pieces (we used a Chinese meat cleaver), then dip the pieces in flour and flatten them. At this point we need to crank out the pasta machine, which is a very simple, hand operated, and attaches to the table. The only problem with the machine is that it doesn't attach very firmly, so you need someone to hold onto it while you turn the handle. What you do is this: pass the flattened pieces of dough through the machine, and turn the handle while gently pulling the dough out as it comes through in a much thinner piece. Each piece should go through the machine about three times, or at least until they have the thickness of two or three pieces of paper.
For tagliatelle, you gently fold each stretch of dough onto itself like an accordian, then use the cleaver to slice thin pieces LENGTHWISE (too thick and it becomes fettucine). After you've sliced the pieces, you can unfold them, and see your beautiful work!!!!
Tagliatelle needs to dry before boiling (you can keep it up to two weeks). Store it folded in a dry cloth.
We took it home to eat it, but sadly, we overcooked it so badly that it became inedible! It really only needs to cook for one or two minutes, but even so, when you taste it it seems much more al dente than dried pasta. Nevertheless, if you overcook it, you WILL be sorry.

By the second pasta lesson I felt like I had started to get the hang of the dough, so it was time for some more time-consuming (and more rewarding) tasks. Although we were making about three different things at the same time, I'm going to separate them so that it's easier to understand. We'll start with the tortelloni.
Begin by boiling the spinach (she used frozen, but obviously fresh, especially pre-washed to save you time, would be better).
Combine a tub of ricotta (we had to use what was available to use here in Beijing, bought at the Western supermarket Jenny Lou's), two eggs, some parsley, salt, pepper, nutmeg, and a decent-sized pile of parmesan in a bowl and combine. When the spinach-water is boiling, drain the spinach, roll it into logs, slice it, and add it to the filling.
As for the pasta itself, it's exactly the same as the tagliatelle up until the very last step-- instead of folding the sheets, use one of those ridged ravioli cutters to cut them into squares. We were making tortelloni, so they were on the large side, but tortellini are about 1/4 of the size of tortelloni.
use a knife or spoon to put a dollop of filling IN THE CENTER of each square (this part is a lot like making Chinese dumplings). Fold the square in half so that it forms a triangle, taking care to seal the edges well. Now this is the tricky part, which took a while to get the hang of. Put the triangle so that one corner loops over your thumb. Use your thumb and index finger to squeeze the corner that's further away from you, then do the same to the corner on your thumb. Now take the corner that's further away from you and loop it downwards around your thumb and bring the two corners together, pressing them so that they stay. And voila! Your first tortelloni!

I was so proud when I finally got it right.
It was right before we were about to eat when we realized that we didn't have a sauce to serve with it-- sage butter is a classic accompaniment, but we didn't have any sage (and the thought of melted butter still makes me shudder a little, neurotically), so we decided to make a simple tomato sauce with garlic and canned tomatoes.

Lasagna: Begin by slicing your eggplants (we used four of the skinny, Asian variety), then salt them in a colander to get rid of some of the excess liquid.
When you can see the water droplets on the surface of the eggplant, rinse and dry them (obviously, while the eggplants were sitting there, we were preparing other things-- this isn't an instant process).
The next step is to fry the eggplants-- since eggplant has a reputation of being disgustingly oily (I had a stirfried eggplant the day before yesterday that made me feel nauseous, because by the time I got to the bottom of the bowl, it was just a giant puddle of oil), we tried to use a minimal amount of corn oil and olive oil (at home I would use canola and olive), since using just olive oil would be too strong a taste.
Frying them is pretty self-explanatory... wait until you see golden skillet marks, then put them on a plate between paper towels to drain (We didn't need to cook them TOO well, since we were going to bake them anyway).
The pasta-- again, the same process up until the last step.
Cut the pasta sheets with the tortellini-cutter, only this time you can be much less precise about the shapes, as long as they're slightly longer. This is because even after you've already cut them, you can continue to do so so that they fit the casserole dish you're using, a bit like a jigsaw puzzle. BOIL them before you layer them in the dish!!
For the tomatoes, we just used canned tomatoes-- don't even bother making a sauce. We put a thin layer of tomatoes on the bottom of the dish so that the lasagna wouldn't stick. Next, put a layer of pasta, then a layer of eggplant, then mozzarella, taking care to space them far apart, since we knew they were going to melt all over the place. Continue layering like this until you get to the top, then bake (sorry! forgot the temperature, and either way it was in celsius) for 45 minutes.

Last but not least: the simplest but most delicious apple cake.
At first, Patrizia told me she was making an apple pie, and my mind skipped to my mom's Thanksgiving apple pie: using the food processor to grind up the butter, flour and shortening, refridgerating the dough overnight, rolling it out over plastic wrap, making the filling, making an egg glaze, etc. etc. etc. How could we possibly have enough time to make an apple pie? Then I thought maybe she meant an apple tart, so we would only have to make one crust... then it turned out that we weren't even making anything as complicated as that-- just an apple cake.
Because I have no (good) baking experience and Patrizia wasn't even using a recipe, I must admit I was skeptical at first. But then it turned out to be the most wonderful, light, moist (I HATE THAT WORD but it applies here) cake ever.
ADDED: RECIPE, gotten directly from Patrizia:

Apple cake

about 200 gr flour

about 150 gr white sugar

about 50 gr butter

1 table spoon red sugar (brown sugar, but this is too cute so I have to keep it)

1 tea spoon vanilla concentrate

1 tea spoon baking soda powder

1 lemmon zest (thanks Lida, I learned this new word)

2-3 apples (depending on size)

powder instant yeast (the dose for 500 gr of flour, usually one packaging is the dose for 1, Kg.) so use 1/2 package, my favorite brand is Pan degli Angeli (Angel's Bread) no wonder it's so good

put all the ingrediants in one bowl, liquify the butter in advance, keep a table spoon of butter to grease the baking pan

peel the apples and make cubes

bake about 30 min at 200 degrees Celsius (you make the conversion)

I'm not sure of the weight, but proportions are right.

love

patrizia

In fact, I barely got any photos of the process because it seemed so simple. She combined equal parts flour and sugar in a bowl, added two eggs, a little brown sugar, vanilla, a packet of yeast, and the zest of a lemon, at the same time as melting half a stick of butter over the stove and cutting two apples into chunks. She threw everything together, mixed it, put it in the oven (didn't even preheat it!) for about 30 minutes, and it was done.

THE MEAL: We decided to eat Chinese-style, which I prefer: i.e. rather than eating in courses, we just put EVERYTHING out on the table so everyone could help themselves. This was good, because lasagna and tortelloni aren't traditionally even supposed to be served at the same meal, and I thought eating them one after the other would mean that I wouldn't be able to stomach whichever one we ate second.
Because the dads of both families are Chinese, we had some xiao chi ("little eats:" appetizers/hors d'oeuvres): spicy cabbage with vinegar, bamboo shoots, and liang fen (solid blocks of mung bean starch, what glass noodles are made of). We also had a simple salad with a balsamic vinaigrette.
My mom had bought them a bottle of red wine. I had a tiny amount to go with the fabulous dinner.
Everything was wonderful: the tortelloni really did bring back childhood memories-- they were a little bit too chewy, but perfect for me. the filling was perfect: a little sandy from the ricotta, but pungent from the parmesan. The spinach added more color than taste, but it was so hard to believe that I had made these!
But what was really the best was the lasagna, although I would have been happy to just eat the eggplant, which was meltingly tender and not too oily at all, on its own. Maybe next time I'll make eggplant parmesan.
The only problem was, after eating not even that much (maybe four tortelloni and a little bit of lasagne), I got one of my terrible stomache-aches! I actually get stomache-aches daily, and sometimes acid-medicine doesn't help. It usually feels like flames are erupting in my stomach (above my belly-button), and people say they think it's acid, but my mom wants to get me tested for allergies. Please don't let me be allergic to anything I love! I don't think it can be lactose-intolerance, since I drink a lot of milk and eat cottage cheese and yogurt (although lactose-intolerant people can eat yogurt)....
I sampled the cake but wasn't feeling up to having a piece for myself. It really wasn't an apple cake-- while the apples added texture, it was the lemon that overwhelmed it (in a good way). It reminded me of a lemon honey cake, although there was no honey in it.
After dinner, they cracked out the aperatifs, and for some reason, I really wanted to try some. I had tiny sips of amaretto (way too sweet... definitely prefer it in gelato) and limoncello.
It was a great dinner-- for once, I felt like we actually had family friends, something we don't have much of in Chicago. Cooking with Patricia was such a fun experience: she kept muttering in Italian the entire time, and I found I could understand most of it, it being a Romance language (except now I know that adesso means "now").