Burgerfest 2014

Last Saturday Bruno and I went to a Twenty Something London event for his birthday, since his favorite food is . . .  cheeseburgers! I'm guilty of being one of those people who gives gifts I'd like to receive myself, and this is no exception. Whenever I act crabby close friends literally ask, "Meg, are you ok? Do you need a cheeseburger?" (I think I need this shirt). It was somewhat dangerous to marry someone who shares my love of a perfect burger, like, we end up eating them for every meal, but it made for a clear (if somewhat self-serving) birthday present choice :).

Burgerfest was held in an artist studio space in East London, a big warehouse filled with the different tents/ stands/ an airstream food truck for each burger joint, and another room with a dj, bar, picnic tables and retro furniture. The bar ran out of beer but someone went out for cases of Red Stripe, the music was on point, and the warehouse was full of smoke from the grills and twenty-somethings glad they'd worn their stretchy jeans. There were 5 burgers and a burger cupcake w vanilla french toast "fries"! I don't think either of us will be grumpy for a long time! x

      

Happy Birthday, Bruno!

Today was my husband's birthday! Like many people with traumatic, too sweet, too dry cake experiences, he doesn't like traditional birthday cake, so I made a cheesecake instead. It was my first time making it, so I can only attribute my success to a good recipe, which I dutifully converted into metric measurements and followed step by (another?!) step. Thanks to my friend Julia who got us these adorable measuring cups from Anthropologie for our wedding! The littlest one's beak broke during shipping, but I think it makes it even cuter. So sweet, Jules! The hardest part of this recipe was tasting the batter -creamy, sweet, lemony, smooth- and then having to wait an hour and a half during baking, another hour in the oven, another hour out of the oven, and then overnight while it chilled in the fridge to try a slice. BUT guess what?? It didn't crack! And while it looked more like flan straight out of the oven, it cooled into a big, fat, unmistakable cheesecake.

Marscapone Cheesecake:
Adapted from Dorie Greenspan via Cup of Jo  

Crust:
1 ¾ cups cracker crumbs (the recipe calls for graham crackers, but as they're not widely available in the UK, I used digestive cookie crumbs!)
2 tbsp. sugar
pinch salt
4 tbsp. butter, melted

Preheat oven to 350º (about 180 C). Butter the inside of a 9-inch springform pan, and wrap the bottom of the pan with aluminum foil and place in a roasting pan. Be sure to wrap the bottom of the pan well with foil as mine spring a little leak in the water bath! D: 

In a medium bowl, stir together the cookie crumbs, sugar and salt. Add the melted butter and stir well to cover all the crumbs. Pour the crumb mixture into the prepared pan and use your fingers to press gently into an even layer on the bottom. The recipe calls for pressing the mixture halfway up the pan, but I'd recommend just on the bottom the next time I make this. The original recipe also calls for freezing the crust for 10 minutes while the oven heats, but I skipped this step for time- and lack of freezer space- sake.

Slide the pan into the oven and bake until the crust is lightly browned, about 10 minutes. Turn the oven down to 325º (about 160 C).

For the filling:
32 oz (900 grams) cream cheese, room temperature
1 ¼ cups sugar
½ tsp. salt
2 tsp. vanilla extract
½ tsp. lemon zest
4 large eggs, room temperature
1 ⅓ cups (about 315 grams) mascarpone cheese, room temperature

Using a stand mixer or an electric hand mixer, beat the cream cheese in a large bowl until it is light and very smooth, about 4 minutes. 

With the mixer running on medium low speed, slowly pour in the sugar, then the salt. Beat for 3 more minutes. Add the vanilla extract and lemon zest. 

Add in the eggs, one at a time, and beat for a  minute after each egg. Scrape down the bowl, reduce the speed to low. Add in the mascarpone and mix thoroughly. Pour the mixture into the prepared crust. The batter will come to the top of the springform pan. I tried to make it look pretty, but it settles evenly during baking so it didn't matter! 

Place the springform pan into a roasting pan and place on the center rack of the oven. Fill the roasting pan with enough very hot or boiling water to come halfway up the sides of the springform pan. Close the oven door and bake the cheesecake until it is lightly golden on top and the filling is set, but still slightly wobbly in the center. The original recipe called for 90 minutes of baking time, but my cheesecake was lightly browned in 70 minutes, and still VERY wobbly. 

Turn off the oven and prop the door open slightly with a wooden spoon. Let the cheesecake cool for one hour in its water bath. After an hour, gently remove the roasting pan from the oven and lift the springform pan from the water. Carefully remove the foil from the bottom of the pan and set the pan on a cooling rack. Run a knife around the top edge of the cheesecake to release it from the pan. Let the cheesecake cool to room temperature, then cover the top with plastic wrap and chill overnight. 

I was so anxious about my big flan-looking blob with a water bath leak, but it was creamy and light and delicious! I made a topping with a package of strawberries and 1 cup each water and sugar, but it was great on its own. Happy Birthday, love! xoxo

Winter Beach Days

To me, a beach day conjures memories of my mom coaxing me out of bed at dawn, creamy ice coffees covered in condensation and grilled blueberry muffin, driving with the windows cracked, hoping the fog will break, then settling a cloth beach chair into the cool sand on an empty beach, the sun reflecting off the water onto our pale faces. Reading materials are magazines and mysteries, there is wine in the water bottles (shhhh . . . ) and conversation includes but is not limited to relationships, parenting, how the internet may or may not be affected by the weather (the jury is still out), growing up, and how close is socially acceptable for other people to put their blankets from ours.

I anxiously await the next time I can spend one of these sacred mornings with my mom, but while the weather is still more cold than cool, and I'm on a different side of the ocean, a Winter Beach Day with Bruno cures my thirst for salty water, and good company- and made for a great weekend holiday.

We drove down to Bournemouth and stayed by the beach. Dinner was at 9:55 that Sunday, just before the kitchen closed at a bar we randomly came upon, which was like a hipster mecca in the seemingly deserted beach town. The streets seemed empty because everyone and their ripped-jeans clad mom was at 60 million Postcards for trivia night! We ate fried chicken and drank Czech beer and played trivia. Favorite trivia team name: "Baby Cheeses" haha.

The next morning was overcast but we still snapped some quick pictures of the beach and headed to Portsmouth (the original one!) for the rest of the day. There is an active naval base there, maritime museum, historic dockyard with old ships, and even an aircraft carrier. We had a good time exploring, and ate at a popular restaurant chain with the best name: Slug and Lettuce :). These beach days weren't 80 degrees, or even sunny, but just as good for the soul!

Don't be a Pancake

A few days ago, Bruno and I realized that it marked exactly 2 months since we got married. We're not ones for celebrating every little relationship milestone (remember in junior high when people celebrated their 2 week anniversaries? :) or even Valentine's Day- we did nothing out of the ordinary. But because it was Saturday, and it was sunny, we went to London. I had been sick and cranky in bed all week. I hadn't even left the flat in 2 days (pathetic, I know), so it felt so good to be out again. We decided to go to Abbey Road and be tourists and recreate the iconic Beatles album cover. I felt so awkward slowly crossing the street holding up traffic, and unavoidably messing up other people's pictures in the process, but we thought it was kind of a London right of passage. It was neat to see all the writing and graffiti on the walls outside Abbey Road Studios as well. One message said "The Beatles were great, but come on PINK FLOYD" hahaha. Another fun part of it is that there is a "live" camera  so you can witness people's awkward crossings online from anywhere in the world.

We then drove to Covent Garden, miraculously found free parking, and had dinner somewhere that had been on our minds for a long time: Creme de la Crepe! I had never been to Covent Garden and fell in love with the old vegetable market-turned shopping center, cobblestoned-streets and white lights strung up overhead. People were eating and drinking outside by open-flame heaters and walking around shopping for clothes and chocolates and beauty products. It was fun to see some London "street style" first hand- and suddenly I'm in the market for afloppy felt hat :(. We walked all around, coming across huge mobs of people crowded drinking outside the pubs, singing drinking songs in unison. There was an inch of beer and broken glass underfoot as we squeezed through them, but it felt great to be surrounded by such so many people in such high spirits (maybe from drinking too much spirits but still). We walked through Picadilly Circus, Leicester Square, Trafalgar Square, all the way to Big Ben and then along the Thames. It was kind of cute to see so many people out late, enjoying the sites. I saw a tough-looking guy with long hair in a leather jacket walking with his friends suddenly stop by the Thames, whip out a camera, and steal a picture of the London Eye. A French girl asked me to take a photo of her and her mom, who were in matching white puffy coats and hugged each other tightly for
the picture.

We drove through the city to Greenwich Park, where there is an astronomical observatory, but it was closed! There is a great view of London from the north across the river as you climb the hill in the park, so we'll have to go back another night. Unplanned, with no expectations, it was a great way to celebrate the first couple of months of marriage: feeling full of love, life, and crepes.