Cake

I suspect there are still people back home, people from my past, who shake their heads and wonder why I wasted such a brilliant high school career on several years of restaurant work after my undergrad. I didn't stop to analyze why I was doing it, I just did it and enjoyed it.

Besides, friends in Montreal, then Halifax, and now Chicago have no familiarity with Don Diego's beyond what they may have heard from me. That gives me the huge convenience of being able to resort to restaurant recipes from the old days - things I know how to cook (even if I do need a recipe) but are new to non-Terraceites. Makes for a relatively easy time for me.

The other thing that strikes me is that people don't make cake - well, layer cake - too often these days. It's an old-fashioned dessert, or a regional thing. But really, when was the last time you went to a restaurant or someone's home for dinner and a wedge of a layer cake came your way for dessert. It just doesn't happen often.

I love cake. Well, I love most any dessert, frankly - I have a sweet tooth, I cop to it. And while I'm guilty of foisting cookies/crisps/tarts/cheeses on my guests, once in a while I try and wheel out something a little more classic.

All of this is a long-winded way of saying: Black Magic Chocolate Cake!



It was always my step-father's favourite dessert at Don Diego's, and I rather like it, too. I prevailed on Helen a year or so ago to get the recipe to me so I could make it for my chocolate-loving husband, but it made for a good dessert for friends last night, too.

Of course, the thing about cake is you really do need enough people over to eat it. Three of us had a piece each last night (Conrad, sick since Thursday) dined briefly with us but went back to bed before dessert), and I took a fourth piece down to the doorman. That leaves 3/5 of a cake in the fridge awaiting our forks. Tough assignment ahead!