The Wharton Palate: Girls' Night In

I love spending time with my husband (I did, after all, take a vow to spend the rest of my life with him), but when he’s not around or when we do things separately, I tend to do the things that would normally make me feel a little guilty: 1) spend money and 2) shamelessly get my fill of unadulterated girl time. I cry over über-chick flicks (The Notebook… need I say more?). I get manicures and do ladies’ lunches over duck salad and champagne a la Catherine Zeta-Jones’s character in Traffic. I gossip and giggle (read: cackle).

I was invited to a girls’ night potluck in honor of a WG’09’s birthday last week. I signed up to bring cupcakes and knew that since we were going to be an estrogen powerhouse, it had to be chocolate.

I remember my first ganache more clearly than I do my first boyfriend (more an indication of my personality than his, I’m sure). Many years ago, I went to a friend’s house after school one day. My friend’s parents were avid bakers and on their way out the door (with a freshly baked strawberry rhubarb pie to bring as a hostess gift for a neighbor) they told us to eat whatever we could find. We opened the refrigerator and as if the light of heaven suddenly broke through the roof, our eyes were drawn immediately to an illuminated quarter-eaten vanilla layer cake swathed in a perfectly smooth, matte-finished, thick, creamy, decadent chocolate ganache blanket. I’ve been in love ever since.

I usually keep some ganache in the fridge just in case an impromptu fondue fest arises (you never know). This stash would save me since I didn’t have time to make frosting from scratch. And you know me—I wasn’t about to buy the premade stuff. I had a cupcake recipe, too. I found a very quick and easy recipe on allrecipes.com after I messed up a Gourmet magazine version that required whipped egg whites and yielded chocolate rocks.

After a round of golf, I ran home, threw together the cake ingredients, loaded up the muffin pan, threw them in the oven for 20 minutes, cleaned my golf clubs and put them away, popped out the finished cupcakes onto a cooling rack, took a shower, put on some clothes and an apron, met with my presentation partner for 30 minutes, kicked out my presentation partner, and then started re-melting the ganache over a double boiler, constantly stirring to make sure it did not burn. I took it off the heat when the chocolate was glossy and fully melted, picked up a cooled cupcake carefully by its base and placed it, top first, into the pot, slowly and deliberately rolling the top in the chocolate to ensure even frosting.

They resembled little hostess cupcakes without the cute rings of white icing on top. I gave each cupcake two dips and placed them carefully on a platter and then in the refrigerator to set. I wanted to try one, but couldn’t get myself to. They were little tooth-aches hiding underneath the cloak of innocent chocolate prettiness. I wasn’t going to be fooled. My husband, on the other hand…

He came back from his own round of golf as I was leaving for the birthday potluck. I doubled the recipe so I could give some to another friend whose birthday was the next day and so that we could have some at home. I instructed him to try one after dinner.

I walked the block-and-a-half to the Dorchester with my platter loosely covered with tin foil. An older couple walking in the same direction started conversation with me, mainly jokes about how they wanted a cupcake. I politely smiled to hide my annoyance and got to my destination safely, with the full dozen cupcakes intact.

I was the last to arrive and we dove immediately into the dinner, which was a motley mix of various Chinese-style vegetable dishes, fried chicken, rosemary chicken, and tomato-pecorino flat bread. Despite the inconsistency of cuisine origin, everything was wonderful and exhibited the unique personalities of the participants. The wine poured freely, as did the catty smack-talking and laughter. We complained and encouraged each other as we prepared for FIP interviews. We talked about relationships, wedding planning, and being single. Finally, we were sated and ready for dessert. Candles were lit, a happy birthday song was sung, and a birthday wish was made.

This was the moment of truth. Full disclosure: I had lost count of the cups of sugar while making the cupcakes. The recipe required three, but there was a chance I stopped at only two. I didn’t do that well in LGST 652 (Ethics) and therefore didn’t find a need to tell anyone until just now.

I definitely forgot that cup of sugar. The cupcake part was dry and tasted kind of like a Tootsie Roll (god, I hate Tootsie Rolls), like fake chocolate. Thank goodness for the ganache, which masked the off-ness of the cake and stole the show. I even saw an abandoned cupcake bottom, which had mercilessly been beheaded for its chocolate hat. Poor cupcake. Overall, they were a hit. No one stopped at one. One of us had two and most of us shared additional halves. The birthday girl took one home for later.

Sometime in the middle of the potluck, I got a BlackBerry message from my husband: “Ate a cupcake. Looks like Mr. Hershey pooped all over my face.” That was the best compliment this girl could receive. I’m still beaming.

Next Time: Melograno, a favorite amongst Whartonites, has moved, but is the food still the same? I revisit the intimate Italian with the WG’09 who took me there for my first Melograno experience.

Recipe: Adrienne's Family Chocolate Ganache

Ingredients:

2/3 cup Heavy whipping cream

7 oz. Fine-quality bittersweet chocolate (finely chopped, not unsweetened, and I suggest 70% cocoa or higher)

Directions:

Pour cream into a double boiler or heavy saucepan and set on low heat, stirring often. Watch cream carefully, and just when small bubbles start to appear at the edges of the pan, add chocolate in small batches, stirring constantly and fully melting chocolate before adding more. After adding the final batch, take the saucepan off the heat and stir final batch of chocolate. The ganache will be smooth and glossy.

In this liquidy state, I serve as a fondue, dip cupcakes, or pour over cakes for a thin layer. I also cool the ganache at room temperature (stirring occassionally) until it sets a bit further, at which point I spread on cakes for a thicker frosting. Immediately place the frosted item in the refrigerator to set up "nice and shiny," as Adrienne would say.

The Wharton Palate: Double Dates (at Parc Brasserie)

Three months is not actually a long time to be away from Philadelphia (as evinced by the still-vacant former-Wawa space below the Dorchester that I’m hoping will turn into some sort of Wharton Peach Pit), but there were some dramatic changes that occurred. There was, of course, the closing of Melograno on 22nd and Spruce. (Fear not. I too was scared and immediately jumped onto some of Philly’s robust food blogs to find that it will reopen – grapevine rumors tell me it’s open already – at a new and near location: 2010 Sansom Street). Riverwest residents have been excitedly talking about the new pizzeria and burrito place that opened up nearby. Then, there’s Parc. On my way to a triple double date (yeah, that’s right) at La Viola, and already in pain after only two blocks of walking in four-inch Louboutins, I forgot temporarily about how I wanted to saw off my feet when I saw the warm, glowing lights of this new French style brasserie on the ground floor of the Parc Rittenhouse on 18th and Locust. Apparently, Stephen Starr was busy at work on his continued plan for world conquest while we were away.

I was mesmerized. Waiters, carrying trays of cocktails and wearing long, white aprons, deftly maneuvered between outdoor tables and foot traffic. Lots of well dressed people (a welcome sight after experiencing a dire fashion drought in San Francisco this summer) sat sipping champagne and feasting on iced tiers of raw oysters with delicate spoonfuls of mignonette sauce. How indulgent. For a city that does the beer culture so well, this was a glaring anomaly. If I hadn’t walked into a fire hydrant I might have forgotten about La Viola.

I got a call (actually, an Outlook meeting request) the next day from a close friend in my cohort who suggested a double date on Friday. An opentable.com reservation was made in about 2 minutes and I accepted the meeting request with an updated location: Parc.

As I waited for the week to pass, I often thought of some very fine dinners at Balthazar in New York City. Balthazar and Parc emulate well in appearance the fine brasseries of Paris. Balthazar offered, in addition to the warm, lively décor, amazing food. I will never forget, for example, their frisée salad with crisp-on-the-outside-and-chewy-on-the-inside bits of lardons, tossed in a delicate vinaigrette and topped with a perfectly poached egg. Balthazar’s cassoulet, though a failure compared to my French mother in law’s, was a bowl of comfort and symbolized warm, boozy dinners on cold winter nights. Would Parc meet these standards so engrained on my psyche?

Friday came and an early arrival was coordinated to take advantage of pre-dinner cocktails, one of my most favorite dining rituals. I kicked off the evening with a refreshing Dubonnet rouge on ice (I love that I had a choice of rouge or blanc) and stood back to observe the masses enjoying preprandial drinks. I was, however, very glad to be seated promptly at the time of our reservation; the restaurant was very loud and we were quickly wasting energy trying uselessly to be heard. It wasn’t much better at our table, but at the very least, the bar crowd was farther removed, where the lingering happy hour crowd was getting rowdy.

This was a fantastic opportunity to really get to know another couple, both members of which are WG ‘09s. One is a venture capital guru and the other an energy king, but both are true foodies, reverent and humble before cuisine. The truly great thing about going to dinner with such experts is that they write the reviews for you. Here’s an excerpt from one of our debrief emails (Oh, Wharton! How you have influenced me!):

“Parc is a pure Stephen Starr restaurant in all ways good and bad. The good includes an amazing location, the constant buzz of the crowd, service that was polite if not precise, and a menu that was evenly executed and diverse. The bad is perhaps more subtle, but includes food that at all times relies on being rich and decadent in order to be "good", which means that dishes can be overwhelmed by one or two dominant flavors, and sometimes are presented a bit blandly in terms of color and texture… All in all, worth a visit, but for pure foodies, as with most Stephen Starr places, you can probably find better fare, albeit, with less glamour.”

Between the four of us, we tried the petit plateau of iced raw oysters, clams, mussels, steamed shrimp, and crab. All were fine, except the clams could have been fresher (there’s really nothing worse than not-fresh clams). The escargot was not served in the usual plate with eight concave puddles for each snail and butter, but in an iron pot. The genius of this presentation was that there was plenty o f garlicky butter to coat infinite slices of baguette, which, by the way, was excellent. Perhaps some of the best baguette found outside of France. There was no cassoulet on the menu, and I settled with the beef bourguignon. Others had the branzino, lamb, and daily special bouillabaisse. And just as my dinner partner wrote, everything was lovely, but nothing was mind-blowingly spectacular. My bourguignon was flavorful, but a bit dry. My husband’s bouillabaisse had an interesting fennel-flavored twist to the broth, but we both agreed that we’ve had better.

Despite my string of mediocre comments, really, Parc was worth it. We had a very sympathetic, knowledgeable server (French-Canadian… close enough). The crowd was diverse in age and high on making the evening at Parc an oxymoronic pedestrian indulgence. In sum, we had a blast.

The wonderful thing about intimate dinners is that one gets to really know the players. And if at Wharton one of our main goals is to form relationships, to make the ties that will eventually help us in our professional endeavors, to network, then truly getting to know one another over wine and food is really the best way. Given the plentiful drinks, reasonable food, and small tables, Parc delivered.

Parc: 227 S. 18th Street, at Locust Street. (215) 545-2262.

Next Time: The Wharton Palette participates in the ultimate female past-time. No, not a pillow fight in lingerie at a sleep over. Rather, a group of us get together to celebrate a birthday by having a very boozy potluck dinner.