Whipped

Here's one of my earliest efforts, from the fall of 1997.
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Miss Manners declares that certain sounds — OK, bathroom sounds — simply do not occur. If kitchen sounds fell in the same category, a favorite family tale would be ruined. The hissing and spitting and splatting of a can of whipped cream disgorging its goods is hard to mistake, or at least to make strike the ear as something more pleasant than it is. There is sort of a queasy inelegance about the whole operation. Sad, I suppose: I love canned whipped cream.

My father is wrong about the story, by the way. True, he was there, and I wasn’t, but his account of a dinner party he and my mother gave in the early ‘80s doesn’t make internal sense, and I am the one in the family cursed with the memory for utterly useless details. I remember it, I am sure, as my mother told it. If only she remembered it now ...

Anyway, the parental units invited over a poet/translator my father knew from work and the poet’s friend. At the dinner, my mother smiled brightly and asked the other woman present what she did. The horrifying response: She taught at a cooking school in Austin. Mother freaks out, of course, and, first sin of sins, overbroils the shrimp in beer: Real gourmets, as you know, demand a wiggle in their fishies, the cooking of which should approximate the amount of vermouth in a dry martini.

But the worst was yet to come. Cake was for dessert; a homemade cake, thank heavens, and not a tackily frosted cake, but a cake to be gussied up with a light and glorious cloud of cream. Yes, the cream was necessary, and, yes, my mother knew well how to whip it herself, but she had opted to save the trouble. She had made the cake, after all.

The kitchen in my parents’ post-nest house is right by the dining area, and the acoustics are bad — or good, however you look at it. There she was, lurking behind thin walls, trying to let out the puffs of whipped cream in short enough spurts to fall beneath the ears’ sensory capabilities. Spfffllt. SppFFFlTTT. Over and over. I wonder if my mother’s shudders were likewise audible.

(My father, I should say, believes my mother knew beforehand what Ann Clark, her guest, did for a living, and that her giving the dinner was a show of incredible, if reckless, valor. If so, valor indeed — I’d never have had the courage, and the cooking teacher said at the time that her profession rendered invitations a rarity. But if mother knew who she was, why didn’t she make the whipped cream? Father has no answer for that objection.)

In any case, my mother gave up giving dinner parties about that time. Dad says it’s a coincidence.
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As far as I know, Ann Clark wasn’t published in those days. I’d say “too bad” if I cared nothing for my mother’s feelings, for the fall of my mother’s jaw would have been all the more dramatic if she’d found herself facing a cookbook author. Thankfully, that happened later. Who knows: Maybe my mother’s efforts inspired Ms. Clark in some perverse way.

Ann Clark has published at least two cookbooks since. One, “Ann Clark's Fabulous Fish: Easy and Exciting Ways to Cook and Serve Seafood,” seems to be out of print. Not long ago I bought (new) her “Quick Cuisine: Easy and Elegant Recipes for Every Occasion,” Plume/Penguin, 1993/95. From that book I picked out two recipes of some relevance. First, shrimp, but not broiled -- that’s too easy to blow. And it’s mushed up anyway, so texture won’t be of the essence,

The second is a cake, but without whipped cream. Clark does have a recipe for one, a walnut and almond cake with cassis cream, Maybe some other time.

QUICK SHRIMP PATE (serves 6)

2 cups water
Pinch kosher salt (or regular, if you must, she says)
I pound medium shrimp in the shell
3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1/4 cup virgin olive oil
1/2 teaspoon hot Hungarian paprika
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground white pepper
1 tablespoon minced fresh parsley or fresh dill, for garnish

Bring the water to a boil, add the salt, and cook the shrimp for about 3 minutes or until they curl. Drain, and plunge in a bowl of ice water to stop the cooking. When cool, peel.

Place the shrimp in a blender or food processor with the lemon juice and oil. Blend to a smooth paste, adding more oil if needed. Add the paprika, salt, and white pepper, and mix well. Spread the paste on the bottom of an 8 x 8-inch metal baking pan and chill in the refrigerator for 7 to 10 minutes, or in the freezer for 5 minutes. Serve, garnished with parsely.
NOTE: Unless the vein in shrimp is very large or dark, Clark generally does not devein shrimp.
MAKE AHEAD: up to 24 hours; store in a covered crock or jar in the refrigerator.

ESPRESSO CAKE (serves 6 to 8)

8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter
1/2 cup plus one tablespoon sugar
2 large eggs
6 tablespoons all-purpose flour
7 tablespoons cornstarch
1 1/2 tablespoons instant espresso powder
1 1/2 heaping teaspoons baking powder
2 tablespoons brewed espresso coffee

MOCHA ICING

2 ounces bittersweet chocolate
2 tablespoons brewed espresso

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. With a mixer, cream the butter and sugar in a large bowl. Add the eggs one at a time, beating after each addition. Sift the flour, cornstarch, instant espresso, and baking powder together. Add to the egg mixture, and blend well. Add the espresso coffee.

Butter and flour an 8-inch square or round baking pan. Pour in the batter, and bake for 30 minutes, or until cake springs back when pressed. Remove the cake from the pan and cool on a wire rack.

When the cake is cool, make the icing: Melt the chocolate in the coffee in a double boiler. Stir to mix well. Pour the warm icing over the cooled cake.

NOTE: Although espresso gives the best flavor here, you can use any double-strength dark-roast coffee instead.

MAKE AHEAD: up to 48 hours: refrigerate, covered; or freeze for 3 months, with or without icing; to thaw, leave at room temperature for 3 hours.