Chocolate Nemesis

One of the best food books I’ve read recently is Julian Barnes’ The Pedant in the Kitchen. Here’s a shot of its cover (click on the image to go to the Amazon UK site to buy it).

This little non-fiction book covers Mr Barnes’ attempts to learn to cook fabulous food at home. In it, he praises Gordon Ramsay, slags Nigel Slater, and writes hilariously about the Chocolate Nemesis, a legendary dessert from London’s River Café. His chapter about the Nemesis, in fact, is my favourite in the book. He relates to the reader how, among his social set during the mid to late 1990s, attempting to make the Nemesis was de rigueur at dinner parties. Unfortunately, while most tried, most failed, and Barnes believed it was partly because Rose Gray and Ruth Rogers purposely penned a not so complete recipe in their cookbook (the blue one)—forcing customers to return over and over again to their restaurant to taste the real thing.

While Mr Barnes’ friends never found success with this cake, fortunately, for my wife and I, my brother’s better-half J, she of the amazing homemade pasta, has mastered it. And it is amazing. It’s a super-rich, sweet, gooey, oozy cake with a slightly crisp crust on top. At least, that’s what J’s tastes like. I’ll admit I haven’t had the pleasure of dining in River Café as yet, and therefore, have yet to try the real thing. But I can’t believe it’s much better than J’s version. Above is a picture of a slice I happily devoured just a couple days ago. (The picture, by the way, was taken with my new, sexy, itty-bitty camera, featured in the post before this one.)

On a really random last note, and not related to the Nemesis, here’s a link to a really cool slideshow done by the New York Times on chef’s with tattoos.

Chefs With Tattoos