Boston Fudge Cake

I am a baseball widow.  From the first week of April to, God willing, the first week of October, my husband is glued to the Boston Red Sox.  Some years it's worse, and the Sox make the playoffs.  Then I smile dutifully, grit my teeth, and wait for November.  This week has been particularly difficult.  This is the one glorious week that all three of my children are away.  The oldest two are at sleep-over camp; the youngest is at "Camp Grammie" because, well, I simply begged my mother-in-law to give me 6 days alone with my husband.  I should have checked the MLB schedule first.

Sunday night the Sox played the Yankees.  Yes, yes, the same Yankees that have won 27 World Series--something like 22 of them at the expense of the Red Sox.  Of course, the 2004 ALCS made up for all that, and indeed, I was worried there with all the hoopla that year that we would conceive a 4th child.  Talk about the curse of the Bambino.   Who knew when I planned this special romantic week that the Yankees and the Sox would be tied for first place and that the first two games of this 3-game series would be evenly split such that Sunday's night's game would be a match to determine 1st place at this critical juncture in August?

Surely, however, such a match up was no contest for a little (and I mean a little) black lace and fish-net hose.  Silly me.  I knew that my number was up when I sidled up next to my husband in my most seductive fashion fully expecting to "distract" him from the game only to discover that Boston's Dustin Pedroia had just been thrown out trying to steal 2nd base.  Talk about a mood kill.  Instead of "Oh Baby" I got "JESUS CHRIST ON A CRUTCH." Not to worry--five days of romance still left.  Except that Monday and Tuesday the Sox play the Twins. 

The 1918 Red Sox and the start of the 86-year championship drought.

My mother-in-law can relate.  She mournfully shakes her head and shares with me that when the Sox have a night game, my father-in-law rolls in like clock work at 7:00 p.m.  It is apparently just enough time for him to give her a quick peck on the cheek, fill up a plate of food, and  settle into a Lazy Boy recliner for the 7:10 first pitch.  Her father was the same, except that he didn't have a T.V., and instead he cozied up to the radio fully expecting that her mother would deliver a small tumbler of Jameson's at the        7th  inning stretch. 

I guess I'm supposed to take comfort in the fact that this is a genetic and generational malady.  My mother-in-law knows better.  She takes comfort in chocolate cake.  It's a chocolate cake handed down from generation to generation of one Red Sox widow to the next.  This was the chocolate cake that they made when Babe Ruth was traded to the Yankees.  This was the cake that celebrated Carlton Fisk's 1975 arm-waving homer and mourned Bill Buckner's first base flub in 1986.  For me, this is the chocolate cake to eat when the Red Sox are in a pennant race.  I mean, if you can't have your man, at least you can always have chocolate cake.

Boston Fudge Cake
By Mary Kelly---a Boston Irish baseball widow, just like the rest of us, God rest her soul.
1.  Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Cream together 1/3 cup butter and 1 cup of sugar.

2.  Beat 2 eggs.  Don't use an electric beater; beat them by hand.  The cake will apparently come out lighter, and besides, all that noise from the mixer will interrupt the game.

3.  Add 2 squares of melted unsweetened chocolate to the eggs, and add to the butter/sugar mixture.

4.  In a separate bowl, blend together 3/4 cup milk, 1 cup of flour, 2 level tsp of baking powder, and 1 tsp. of vanilla.  Don't worry about the dishes you will have to clean.  The game's on and you have plenty of time.
  
5.  Slowly blend together with the butter/sugar/egg mixture.

6.  Bake in an 8--9" square pan in an oven preheated to 350 degrees for about 30 minutes.

 7.  For the frosting:  Mix together 1 and 1/2 cups confectioner's sugar, 1 tbsp butter, 1 and 1/2 squares of melted unsweetened chocolate.  Slowly add evaporated milk to moisten the mixture and get it thick and frosting-like.    Spread on the cooled, but still slightly warm cake, and think about November.

Check, please.

Special occasions are meant to be just that:  special.  So when your husband, who has the audacity to schedule his birthday the same week as Easter (you know, the very Easter in which you pretty much cooked and cleaned for four straight days), asks that you celebrate his birthday by "making a nice dinner," it takes every ounce of self-control to smile sweetly and say "I'd be happy to."  A nice dinner, fortunately, doesn't mean you have to kill yourself.  If I can't make dinner reservations for his birthday, I'll do the next best thing:  I'll make dinner very, very easy.

My real strategy is to do what I can to elicit some assistance from the birthday boy himself.  This will not be an easy feat, although my husband is a man of many talents.  He can, for example, pick a wine to pair with both both roasted chicken and salmon (pinot noir, in case you're wondering). An avid Red Sox fan, he can  tell you the score at the end of each inning of every game of the 1986 World Series and who played what position (although, I would highly advise against any mention of Game 6 and He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named at First Base).  He's also a mean painter and can paint all day with nary a drop on the floor or his clothes.  Notwithstanding these skills, cooking, alas, is not among them.

Grilling, however, is not cooking.  In the suburban male lexicon, grilling has its own exalted place.  Just like getting out the power saw and taking down bushes and trees is not yard work, grilling is not cooking.  It is a task that men relish because it channels their inner cave-man.  An open fire upon which they place slabs of raw meat lets them hearken back to the days when they ran around in nothing but animal skins killing mastodons.  Good times, good times.  Of course, ever in touch with my inner cave-woman, all I had to do was put on a tight, low-cut shirt, lean in and breathlessly suggest that "we" (snicker) grill some steaks.  No surprise there when he simply nodded vapidly and concurred.

Main course? Check. 

And because "we" are now grilling steaks, one side dish is already preordained--baked potatoes.  Next to steak (which hubby will cook) baked potatoes are the easiest thing in the world to make.  Scrub a couple of potatoes.  Wrap in foil.  Pierce a few times with a fork.  Toss into a 375 degree oven for about an hour. Serve with sour cream, butter, and chives if you have to be fancy about it.

Side Dish?  Check.

Salad--OK we might have to exert a little energy here, because the best thing to pair with steak and potatoes is a good chopped salad finished with blue cheese dressing.  Toss together the following--bite-sized romaine lettuce, diced tomatoes, cucumbers, green peppers, crumbled bacon, finely chopped scallions or chives, and thinly sliced mushrooms.  Toss with blue cheese dressing, which you make as follows--blend together: 1/3 cup light or fat free sour cream (believe it or not, but fat free sour cream is not only edible, but it tastes halfway decent; when mixed with a strong stinky cheese like a blue cheese, you won't notice that it's not the high-testosterone stuff), 1/2 cup light mayonnaise, 1/3 cup crumbled blue cheese, one clove of garlic, 1/4 cup olive oil, salt and pepper to taste.

Salad?  Check.

Vegetables.  We had asparagus for Easter, but they're amazing this time of year, they pair beautifully with steak, and they're frightfully easy to make, so let's do it again.  Of course, my arm is still stiff from making the hollandaise sauce, so instead we'll roast them with Parmesan.   Wash asparagus and trim off the course ends.  Place in a roasting pan and toss with 1 Tbsp olive oil.  Cover the middle third generously with thin slices of good Parmesan-reggiano cheese.  Roast for 20 minutes at 375 degrees.

Vegetables?  Check.

And since we have out our slab of Parmesan cheese, we might as well make an easy appetizer.  Grate about 1/2 cup Parmesan into a shallow bowl of about 1/2 cup olive oil.  You can now dip a really good crusty fresh bread into the olive oil, but--oh shoot, but we don't have any bread.  HEY HONEY--can you do me a FAVOR?  (More snickering).

Appetizer?  Check.

What a bizarre coincidence.  The only item left on our menu is dessert and hubby just happens to be on his way to a really good bakery buying that crusty bread.  Have him purchase one Boston Cream Pie because, you know, he loves his Red Sox. 

Dessert?  Check.

Nice, easy, birthday dinner?  Check.