The Stars and the Cookie Jar

Today I made cremes brulees from a recipe I adapted from the latest BBC Food magazine to make it across the pond. I wanted to make Gordon Ramsay's chicken-liver mousse sealed under a thyme-infused layer of schmalz, but decided the creme brulee would be better received. Ramekins! Butane! Miniature torch! It all went swimmingly. My wife handled the bain-marie (bain-marie: French for 'this will hurt you') and I handled the custard-making.

I am so proud of the way that custard came out. It was perfectly textured, restaurant-smooth, and cool and creamy under the crackly tops. It was exactly the way it was supposed to be. And I didn't run it through a chinois or anything. I just dumped it through a regular strainer to get the vanilla pod out.

We also proved we cannot be trusted in a Crate and Barrel outlet, as we came back from there with a butter dish, enough miniature trifle dishes to complete our set, pretty pomegranate candles, and two amazing buys: a Calphalon colander for 90% off, and a beautiful wool matelasse coverlet for $40. I hear you say no one needs a Calphalon colander, but seriously, this thing will outlast us and become a hotly-disputed piece of our estate when our great-grandchildren come to divide things.

The coverlet is especially pretty. The cremes brulees were pretty, too.

It was a good day. There was also Thai food with lunamystic and bookwench31 and chaos_pockets. I also got to explain to lunamystic how sugar is like napalm.