Servantless, but not without helpful and hungry friends

This is my final Julia Child-related post, I swear. But I have to say, you know you've made a successful dinner when people clean their plates and even go back for seconds while sitting at a table in the same room as an oven that's been blazing at 350 degrees for more than two hours.

And the air conditioner can't catch up because the temperature outside has been over 100 all afternoon.

And sweat is running down the backs of knees and necks.

Still, we reached for more. More boiled potatoes topped with rib-sticking boeuf bourguignon made from "Mastering the Art of French Cooking." More caesar salad. More roasted green beans. More gâteau reine de saba (Queen of Sheba cake!). It was that good.

The secret, as we found, is a team of three who know their way around a kitchen. Our team:

Sara — An epicure whose 10 years in France afforded us proper pronunciations of the food before us.

Melissa — Another world traveler with a keen ability for pastry creation and frosting.

Me — Well, it was my kitchen. Someone had to point to where the tongs are kept.

Being servantless, and also otherwise engaged during business hours, we baked the cake the night before. Along the way, we discovered that what they say about beating egg whites in a completely dry, clean bowl is absolutely true. Do not try to get around this. The egg whites can tell, and they will refuse to become foamy or peaked and certainly not stiff.

I don't know about the rest of our dinner party of five, but my favorite part of the boeuf bourguignon by far was the onions. A little extra love before dumping them in with the rest of the stew really paid off.

And speaking of love, we coddled the egg for the caesar dressing as called for by the recipe and as called for by our own understanding of coddling. This additional step was crucial to its flavor, I'm sure.

After all this affection and effort for our dinner in an overheated kitchen/dining room, there was nothing to do but leave the house and hope for a breeze as we walked down the block to 7-Eleven for Slurpees. Then, of course, we were ready for cake.

Reine de Saba

Adapted from Julia Child's "The Way to Cook" as reprinted in The Boston Globe, who you'd expect to spell "Sheba" correctly

FOR THE CAKE

3 ounces sweet baking chocolate, chopped

1 ounce unsweetened chocolate, chopped

2 tablespoons strong coffee

8 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into pieces and softened

1/2 cup sugar

3 large egg yolks

3 egg whites

1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar

Pinch of salt

2 tablespoons sugar

1/3 cup blanched almonds pulverized with 2 tablespoons sugar

1/4 teaspoon almond extract

1/2 cup plain bleached cake flour, in a sifter set on wax paper

Set the oven at 325 degrees. Set the rack in the lower middle level. Butter and flour an 8-inch by 1 1/2-inch round cake pan.

In a double boiler or bowl set over a pan of 2 or 3 inches of water, combine the sweet and unsweetened chocolates with the coffee. Bring water to a simmer, cover and let chocolate melt, stirring until smooth. Turn off the heat.

In a 3-quart mixing bowl, use a hand-held electric mixer to cream the butter until soft and fluffy, then add the 1/2 cup sugar. Beat 1 minute, then beat in the yolks.

In another mixing bowl, beat the whites until foaming, beat in the cream of tartar and salt and continue beating until soft peaks form. Gradually beat in the 2 tablespoons of sugar and continue beating until stiff, shining peaks form.

Blend the warm melted chocolate into the yolk mixture, then blend in the almonds and almond extract. Stir a quarter of the egg whites into the chocolate to lighten it. Scoop the rest of the whites over the chocolate and, alternating with sprinkles of the flour, rapidly and delicately fold in the whites.

Immediately turn the batter into the prepared pan, tilting it in all directions to run it up to the rim, and set it in the oven.

Bake for 25 minutes or until the cake has puffed to the top of the pan and a toothpick plunged into it 2 and 3 inches from the edges comes out clean. (The center should move slightly when the pan is gently shaken.)

Remove the pan to a rack and let it cool for 15 minutes, then unmold onto the rack. Let it cool completely, at least 2 hours, before storing or icing.

FOR THE SOFT CHOCOLATE ICING

2 ounces sweet chocolate, chopped

1 ounce unsweetened chocolate, chopped

1 1/2 tablespoons rum or strong coffee

Pinch of salt

6 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened

In a double boiler or bowl set over a pan of 2 or 3 inches of water, combine both chocolates with the rum or coffee, bring water to a simmer, cover and let chocolate melt, stirring until smooth. Turn off the heat.

Using an electric hand mixer, beat the salt into the melted chocolate, then beat in the butter 1 tablespoon at a time. Continue beating over cold water until icing is firm enough to spread. Turn the icing onto the top of the cake and spread it evenly over the top and sides.

Adorn with toasted sliced almonds.

Barbacoa-powered menu planning

I can't recall if I've ever paid to see the same movie twice in the theater. And I know I've never sat in the dark to see the same movie three times. Until yesterday, when I saw "Julie & Julia" again — but each time I've gone with new companions, so I think they each count as totally different experiences. Right? After three viewings, I have to say some scenes are irrefutable winners, and they tend to be Julia's, not Julie's — like an enraptured description of beurre blanc or a pair of very tall sisters commenting in front of a mirror, "Pretty good. But not great."

Scenes like these often upstage the food — even screen-dominating shots of sole meunière and boeuf bourguignon — as I think they should. But the one dish I couldn't get out of my head was a chocolate cake with sliced almonds layered like shingles all around the sides. Into the kitchen! But first, I'd need a recipe.

My friend Sara reports that during a visit to Alabama last week she couldn't find a single copy of "Mastering the Art of French Cooking." And I just got off the phone with someone at BookPeople, where they have only four copies, but they're all on hold. I could put my name on a list, the guy said, but I'd be ordering the movie tie-in version, not the one with the more classic cover.

So, off to start googling. Sara and I might even turn this into an entire French feast. But even recipe searching and meal planning requires sustenance. Mine came from El Taquito, a spot so in demand it's closed for only two hours overnight on the weekends. When buying barbacoa by the pound, I think it's a good idea to go with the place where someone — a late-night customer, I'm guessing — has scratched "100% mexicano" into a tabletop.

"Bon appétit!"

I wish I'd had a camera with me to capture the spirited, and even the gory, impersonations delivered at the Alamo Drafthouse's Julia Child lookalike contest tonight. Before an early (and free!) screening of "Julie and Julia," one guy bounded down from his seat — frilly apron and all — to warble about bashing a chicken against a wall and drinking its blood. "And save the giblets — the giblets!"

But the burly guards and airport-level security at these pre-release showings ensure that no devices are sneaked inside to record such moments. Oh, or the movie.

In the film, the stories of two butter devotees run closely parallel, down to their identical Flame Le Creuset pots. Amy Adams is adorable as blogger and former Austinite Julie Powell, and Meryl Streep is winningly expressive as the woman who translated French cooking for Americans. But you could have guessed that. Maybe I can do better: There's McCarthyism, a great use of a Talking Heads song in the soundtrack and a cameo by former New York Times editor Amanda Hesser (who was my favorite part of the last Texas Book Festival).

So maybe those aren't the juiciest spoilers. But it's a well designed, at times subtle and very satisfying movie. I'll pay to be charmed by it again. And I found it's best seen with a friend who will whisper that she prefers dutch ovens in Dune, one who will run through the rain to get there and another who'll remark about Meryl's striped dresses. Plus one more who will fearlessly take the spotlight in competition to imitate Julia, then aim to use all of her $25 Whole Foods gift card winnings on gelato.

Frito pie in the Hill Country

Looks like I'm straying from my theme pretty quickly. I won't even try to stretch a connection between building community through food in Austin and eating a snack on my own in Luckenbach. But it's worth mentioning because it was my first Frito pie served in the chip bag.

I've never met a Frito pie I didn't love. I've made it with super salty canned chili in lean times (though there's nothing lean about it) and I've recreated Spiderhouse's vegetarian Frito pie at home since it's been demoted to an infrequent menu special. I've also cleaned my plate of the fancypants version with goat cheese at Lambert's. But it wasn't until I traveled to the Hill Country for a freelance assignment this weekend that I had it in its authentic form, Little League-style. It completely hit the spot.

The town of Luckenbach (pop. 3) is a creekside spot with a dancehall, a rickety general store/post office/bar, a stage and a dirt parking lot filled with trucks. Things move slowly here. Oak trees and crops of cactus grow side by side, looking a bit like the visiting city folks sharing picnic tables with old ranchers you just know have sipped Lone Star there every weekend for decades. While I stirred my bag of cheesy, corny goodness with a plastic fork, this guy walked by:

Just as I saw him, I heard a mom hollering from the next picnic table over: "Your daddy didn't spend $6 on that so you could feed it to a damn rooster!"

So maybe there is a story of community here — little girls communing with roosters by sharing their fried mozzarella sticks. Really though, it's not hard to squint past the motorcycle dudes and the ATM machine and feel connected with old-time, backroads Texas and all the folks who have come here looking for a place to slow down and take a spin on the dance floor.

It would be a real shame to drive down U.S. 290 in June and not stop for roadside peaches, which are absolutely everywhere right now. Everywhere, that is, except the stand I stopped at that had already sold out of their Fredericksburg beauties. So I got some blackberries and moved on down the road to a place that sold me about a dozen juicy plums for one dollar. And I got my peaches. The plums I'm eating straight, but some of the blackberries and peaches have a different fate.

Peach ice cream

From The Perfect Scoop by David Lebovitz

about 4 large peaches

1/2 cup water

3/4 cup sugar

1/2 cup sour cream

1 cup heavy cream

1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract

a few drops freshly squeezed lemon juice

Peel the peaches, slice them in half and remove the pits. Cut the peaches into chunks and cook them with the water in a medium, nonreactive saucepan over medium heat, covered, stirring once or twice, until soft and cooked through, about 10 minutes.

Remove from the heat, stir in the sugar, then cool to room temperature.

Puree the cooked peaches and their liquid in a blender or food processor with the sour cream, heavy cream, vanilla and lemon juice until almost smooth but slightly chunky.

Chill the mixture thoroughly in the refrigerator, then freeze it in your ice cream maker.

First bite

The midpoint of 2009 is this week, which means it's high time something I've long resolved to do gets done. So, welcome to Belly Bulletin!

For a good while now, I've wanted a place to write about food and eating in Austin — but mostly about the people who make, eat and share food here. I wanted to tell the story of buddying up to enter an MLK-inspired pie contest that included a writing component (perfect for two bakers/word nerds) and to pass along the recipe from friends who founded a community garden and taught me how to pickle using cucumbers from the neighborhood's shared green space across the street. Or how about chronicling the process of another resolution it would be a shame not to keep — starting a baking business from scratch?

And beyond my own food adventures, plenty of folks are growing, sharing, delivering, harvesting, teaching and cooking all over town. I want to get a taste of food co-ops, community cooking, innovative eateries and school vegetable gardens — and in the process maybe even create a spot for all the Austin news that's fit to eat. You know, put my journalism degree and my taste buds to use all at once.