Alton Brown's 18-Carrot Cake
While the name of this cake is 18-Carrot Cake, there are not eighteen carrots in here, nor does it refer to gold in any way, Alton Brown just liked the name.
I make carrot cake every year for my husband's birthday, it's his favorite. And every year, I make a different recipe for no other reason than to just try another variation. Why not? This one was quite excellent with a very refined texture. I love Alton Brown and the science background he puts behind every recipe. His cookbook goes into deep explanations as to how and why we mix, stir, beat etc. If you are interested, it's worth the read and gives you reason for doing the things we do in the kitchen. I like that.
I have always believed many baking failures occur because of mis-measurement of ingredients and over-mixing errors. I love that Alton's cookbooks give a weight and volume measurement for every ingredient. I decided to even weigh my spices this time around and it was eye-opening to see how "off" measuring spoons can be in reference to what a certain ingredient should weigh.
I had never heard of M.F.K. Fisher until I started working at One for
the Table. She was/is apparently one of the most famous food writers of
the last century. I rarely read about food, only branching out
occasionally to pick up Gourmet, Food & Wine or Cooking Light
depending on what recipe was featured on the cover. In recent months I
discovered I was one of the only ones not familiar with her work,
because her name kept popping up in various pieces on this site as one
of THE people everyone consulted when it came to enjoying good
food. Finally, intrigued by her reputation and tired of reading murder
mysteries, I decided to see what all the fuss was about...and found a
new friend.
I think it must be old age. Once upon a time, when a new restaurant
opened, my wife, Peggy, and I were the first in line. We would fight
for a reservation, make sure to try the newest new thing, and then tell
everyone we knew about our latest dining adventure. We just don’t do
that all that much anymore. Maybe we have gotten old.
Spending 14-hour days in command of a restaurant kitchen can take a
toll, both physically and emotionally. So when it’s time to move on,
where do chefs go?
Suzanne Goin, the uber-talented celebrity chef of Lucques and A.O.C.
Wine Bar fame, was rumored to be the front runner for the
2005 James Beard Chef-of-the-Year award, and as far as I was concerned,
she could just skip the swim suit competition and pick up her gold
toque and tongs. Because praise the lord and pass the friggin’ salt
cod, if food could cure cancer, it would be this food. May The God of
Good Eatin’ please keep Suzanne Goin’s hands hale, hearty, and forever
heating up the small plates. 
Having earlier experienced both the exquisite pleasure and excruciating
pain that comes from washing down four or five pounds of Chicken Liver
pate with fifteen dollar glasses of 2001 Chateauneuf du Pape, I was
careful to prepare my sensitive digestive tract by fasting for
practically an entire half-day on Fiji Natural Artisan water, plus a
supplemental half-inch rind of smoked salami that I discovered under a
plastic tankard of Barefoot Contessa Moussaka that I accidentally made
five weeks ago in a bizarre attack of culinary industry. As a note, I
have a firm policy of never throwing away any left-over that originally
took more than sixty minutes to prepare, unless it starts to stink
worse than my daughter’s feet did after two weeks at Catalina Camp,
where filth is a fashion statement.