The Quest

I have been on a quest. Around the beginning of July, when we first arrived in Beaverton, disoriented, the TV happened to be on. Martha Stewart was poking holes in cupcakes with a fork. Martha is generally inscrutable to me. (This means I don't get her at all.) But deliberately disfiguring fresh cupcakes was intriguing enough that I turned up the sound and started paying attention. She was making tiramisu cupcakes. Ah, tiramisu.

The first time I heard of tiramisu, I thought it must be some Japanese dish made with tofu and seaweed (isn't that what it sounds like?), so I didn't inquire. But then on one of our visits to California before she passed, my mother mentioned that tiramisu was her very favorite dessert. She must have come into this love later in life, or she kept it a deep secret from me, because I swear I never heard of it growing up. Anyway, we went somewhere and had some and now it stands up there with my other favorites, which is pretty much everything on the Olive Garden dessert menu, and creme brulee.

So here's Martha, dabbing espresso and rum into her little ladyfinger cupcakes and I suddenly need tiramisu. Out of the blue, just like that. I can't explain it. As I expected, the recipe on her website looked like a lot of work. If I'm going to labor anyway, let's make the real thing instead of messing around with tiny cupcakes. I found the recipe I wanted, and The Quest was On. I needed marscapone, rum and ladyfingers.

Martha said you can find marscapone cheese at Trader Joe's. How fortunate I now live within two miles of a Trader Joe's! It took about a week, what with moving and boxes and a few other matters, but to the store we went. Marscapone, check. They did not have ladyfingers. "That's a seasonal item," the checker said. It wasn't until we got out the door that I asked Rick, "When is it ladyfinger season?" The question gnaws at me.

I figured I could solve the cookie dilemma later. Now what we needed was rum. I could not for the life of me think of where a liquor store is. There used to be one in frumpy, tired Beaverton Mall, years ago, but now it's Cedar Crossing and thinks it's cool and the liquor store is gone. Alaska has giant Liquor Barn stores, can't hardly miss 'em, but Oregon doesn't trust anyone with the responsibility to sell alcohol but themselves. Therefore the stores are unadorned, matter of fact and unobtrusive. Rick knew where one was. I looked at him with narrowed eyes so he explained, "It's right next to Starbucks." Oh. No wonder, then.

We headed to the state-run store. I don't know about Rick, but I was trying to look like I have a clue. It must have worked because the guys behind the counter barely gave us a glance. So there we're standing, looking at a whole wall of rum. Light, dark, spicy, clear (clear?), kiwi, mango. Apparently you can do a lot of weird things to rum. Naturally we chose based on the coolest bottle. We made a show of checking them all out, but once we saw the one with the pirate on it, it was all over. I hesitated only because some small rational part of me was suggesting rum with a jolly pirate on it might not be top quality, but it had a quality price, and come on, it was a pirate, so we bought it. The stupid boys behind the counter didn't even card me. I ask you.

Anyway, yesterday was the day. I figured (rightly) the marscapone probably has a "use by" date and Rick would give me an earful if I ended up throwing it out. But the ladyfinger problem still loomed. So I found a recipe online and made them. They're pretty much whipped egg whites and sugar. I couldn't find the beaters for the mixer, so I ended up doing it by hand. I couldn't be having with the mess of a pastry bag, either (and mine is in a box somewhere anyway), so I made a solid sheet, like a jelly roll and cut it into strips afterward. Came out great, but those ladyfingers sure slurped up the rum. I gave Steph a bite of ladyfinger after it was dipped and she made an awful face. "Man, that's strong," she said. Worrying. But I followed the recipe. It wasn't until later I realized I probably should have accounted for an absorption difference, since my cookies were fresh and most ladyfingers are dry. Maybe Martha knew what she was doing, dabbing rather than dipping. Shoot.

I assembled it anyway. Couldn't find a 9 x 9 baking pan, so I grabbed a round cake pan. When the first layer filled the pan to the brim, I realized I might be in a little trouble. No problem, use foil to make an extension for the towering tiramisu. Afterward, I realized I could have used a springform pan. Martha would have thought of that. Shoot.

I took my beautiful mess to Vic and Dana's last night: if you can't experiment on your friends, who can you experiment on. We sliced it up. A certain alcoholic odor was wafting up from my demure looking tiramisu. "Oh, dear," I thought, but handed the pieces round, anyway, my eyes watering slightly. We bravely bit in. The cream part was great, but then those drunken ladyfingers asserted themselves. They had given up dancing with the pirate and were prone, overcome, swooning and woozy. They were probably at the blubbering "I love you, man" stage of inebriation. They definitely wouldn't pass a breathalizer test. We kept eating, though. Suddenly we were laughing a lot more.

My quest is fulfilled, though I don't know how long it will be until I live down the "drunken dessert" incident. Martha never would have let Captain Morgan kidnap her like that. She'd have whipped him into shape in no time.

love,

cat