Holiday Recipe Disasters

First, I have to say, Happy Birthday to Hadley, my little dog. He is 2. He is cute. We are happy he's ours.

Now, I have to say, I so look forward to the various holiday recipe editions of the Washington Post food section. Most have some excellent ideas for mixing up your usual holiday menu. And occasionally there's an recipe so awesome in its awfulness, it gets more attention than all the good recipes.

The Passover edition of the Wash Post Food section was out yesterday and it is because of one of the dessert recipes published within that I dedicate today's post to truly awful holiday desserts.

The grand prize winner is the Mock Chestnut Torte. The mock chestnut taste is supposed to be achieved with either sweet potatoes or mashed potatoes. Mashed potatoes and chocolate. Truly a ghastly combination.

In our childhood home, we had to endure this nasty spice cake made with matzoh cake meal. It was dry and tasteless. Then at some point in the 90's, our mother heard about this meringue thing called pavlova. She would prepare it and stuff it with whipped cream and fruit. I remember kiwi and strawberries. While it was an improvement on the cake, it was so cloyingly sweet, it made your teeth hurt. This was also the phase of our mother's baking that was marked with weird flavors. She no doubt found some odd extract to add to the recipe, like lavender or orange blossom that ruined the whole thing.

The Lemon cake recipe I saw on gourmet.com had promise until they had to get cute and recommend a lemon basil syrup to top the cake.

Epicurious had two gems, citrus "jello" with honey and mint and matzoh baklava. The "jello" is just a jello fruit cup. I'd be so mad if I sat through a whole seder and someone tried to pass that off as my dessert.

The baklava had promise until I saw that you're supposed to add rose water to the syrup and that you have to wet the matzoh to make it pliable. Why????

Finally, because my stomach is starting to churn, I offer you the nastiness the New York Times wants you to put on your table. First, something called zagablione which is egg yolk, sugar and wine that you're supposed to serve over strawberries and then a recipe for chocolate walnut torte from a book of Claude Monet's recipes. It calls for 12 eggs. I have this cookbook. It's awful. Do not ever make anything from this cookbook, no matter how tempted you are by the prospect of telling your guests you used one of Monet's recipes. Monet was not, I repeat, not a chef. He was a painter. Take an art class if you want to emulate him. Do not prepare any of his recipes ever ever ever.

May I recommend some lovely strawberries with fresh whipped cream. You really can't beat this simple, tasty dessert. And promise me you won't put anything other than vanilla in the whipped cream.

Enjoy your day.