Open Letter To Rose Levy Beranbaum

Rose,

You have guided me for longer than I care to reveal. Your recipes have inspired me to create birthday celebrations at an unreasonable scale. I have made baskets out of spun sugar, I have molded tempered chocolate into cake coverings, I have erected a wedding cake after just six months and twenty practice cakes. You have taught me that nobody really likes to eat fondant although it's pretty to look at. Rose, Rose, Rose.

I've made classic buttercream, neo-classic buttercream and four types of mousselines. They all spread and taste incredible. (Given the amount of butter, really, how bad can they really taste even if you were to screw up?) So, Rose, why can't I get my buttercream to pipe better?

Why do my roses turn out less than perfect?

I can make a rose out of chocolate paste that actually looks like a rose. But when I try to create a simple rose, or any other flower for that matter, from any of your buttercream recipes, they droop, fade, fall and lose shape?

The only tips you have for butter creams in your book involve what to do if your frosting curdles or cracks. Rose, my buttercreames never, never curdle. Rose, a monkey can make a buttercream without it curdling so long as you let the candy thermometer hit 238.

I'm waiting, Rose.

I'm not making another cake until you let me know what to do.

Thanks.

Dinner out

I braved a cocktail celebration in the city last night. One of the prospective employer firms (two interviews so far) invited me to their fifteenth anniversary party at a midtown restaurant/bar. I found it strange they haven’t mentioned anything about hiring me - - yet still wanted me at their party. I decided it was better to be there than risk someone saying later, hey, where was that guy we’ve been talking to about working here? I also hedged my bet and arranged to meet my best friend for dinner afterwards.

I arrived a little late so everything was in full swing. Young ladies in wee black dresses greeted us at the door and their little sisters handed us glasses of wine before we even set foot into the main room. Once inside, the place was packed with a cartoon full of fat, drink-thirsty wall-street guys wrestling at the bar. Out of the two hundred or so people at the event, I recognized exactly two – the CEO and the Operations head. The CEO, even if he was sober, wouldn’t have recognized me if I had French-kissed him. The Operations Head may have remembered me but he seemed very busy working the crowd. And while I’m certain the horses duvers were swell, I just didn’t have an appetite. I chatted up a few traders, finished my wine and left. Too bad, so sad, Buh bye.

Better times ahead as I made my way back to Brooklyn for dinner. Met the Professor at a lovely restaurant on 5th Avenue where we slowed down to take in the peaty aroma of a few glasses of nice 12 year old imported. Grilled sardines and a rare steak followed and then we walked down the street to a small outdoor café to have dessert, espresso, an aperitif and good Davidoff cigars.

Really took the edge off the whole career-search, gotta-find-a-job dramatics. All the same, if I land a few more consulting clients, maybe I can trash can the 9-5 idea and work for myself.