Insomnia

Being a freelance translator means having to deal with crazy deadlines. Sometimes I underestimate the amount of time a job requires, and end up doing an all-nighter. In college, I used to be able to stay alert all night long (being a lifelong night owl helps), but the older I get, the fuzzier my mind gets at 3 a.m. No matter what time I finally get to bed, though, I absolutely have to read something before dropping off to sleep.

Since one of my biggest passions is food, I often sleep with a cookbook or two. I hope that’s not too much information. My latest food-related book obsession has been The Flavor Bible by Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg.  I like to cook from published recipes, but creating my own is much more fun.

Last night I started thinking about carrot cake. Big mistake. After reading the “carrot” entry in the bible, I came up with all kinds of combinations. Hazelnuts are listed as being compatible with carrots, so why not add toasted hazelnuts to the cake batter instead of my usual walnuts? Cinnamon, orange and crème fraiche are also listed, so there you have it: how about a carrot cake flavored with cinnamon and orange zest, with toasted hazelnuts stirred in, and a cream cheese-crème fraiche frosting?

When I went to the hazelnuts entry, I found that dates are listed. I wonder what chopped dates would be like cooked into a carrot cake. Maybe with some pistachios and ground cardamom as the spice? If I add dates to a cake batter, surely I’ll have to reduce the sugar content. How much sugar can I deduct from a cake recipe without the texture changing too much? And since a carrot-date cake would already be sweet, wouldn’t cream cheese frosting be too much? What should I do then? Maybe just top it with a glaze? This is how my mind works; instead of a book relaxing me, a good book gets me fired up!

Today is the one-year anniversary of The Flavor Bible's publication. It's probably a good thing that I've only had a copy for a few months instead of a year. I can’t imagine how much sleep I would have lost otherwise.

Comments

[anne]

Hi Jennifer, I think you would of lost lots of sleep :-(. Wasn't it great that Jenny called in when she saw our comments on Tongue in Cheek..your blog is opening up. :-) Thats good. Take care. Anne

[Jenny N]

Hello Jennifer, even being one "Jennifer" of many in my era, calling someone else by my name is still funny. I have gone by Jenny most of my life, except college, where for some reason Jennifer sounded right to me. Also, The Flavor Bible sounds wonderful. I am a recipe cook, but having a resource for those times I don't have a required ingredient would be helpful to know what other flavors would work and change things up a bit. Happy dreams.

[Jennifer K]

Jenny N,
One of my best friends is also named Jennifer so it sounds weird when I talk about her, it's like I'm talking about my alter ego! And then my brother married a Jennifer a few years ago, so now there are 2 Jennifers in my family, with the same first and last names. It gets confusing, lemme tell ya. Sometimes I go by your name, but I prefer to spell it "Jennie."
 
I find The Flavor Bible to be fascinating; it really sparks my creativity!