Tiramisù

I have beaten eggs to stiff peaks two days in a row now. I feel like a pro.

I made ladyfingers yesterday, which require beating egg whites to stiff peaks. I did this at 7am. I needed to leave them out in the air to get stale, and I spent most of the day hoping the cats weren’t batting the cookies I labored over off the kitchen counter. At some point I realized I could put the completed ladyfingers in the oven to protect them from the cats, and I thought I was so clever. Then I realized someone might decide to bake something without knowing there were cookies in there getting stale, so I put signs up all over the range “Do Not Turn The Oven On.” I really didn’t want my cookies to burn up in there by accident.

Don’t worry, me mentioning the oven isn’t like Checkov’s gun. Nobody turned the oven on, and my cookies didn’t burn up in there by accident. They made it through the day and night safely.

Today – our daughter’s 17th birthday and therefore tiramisù day — I made my normal Saturday morning trip to the grocery store. I got through my list within 20 minutes or so, then spent at least another 25 minutes pushing my cart through every section of the store that might have mascarpone. That’s the ingredient of the tiramisù filling, and without it, there would be no tiramisù. About 20 minutes into my search, and my fourth round through the deli/bakery section where the mascarpone should have been, I finally found its empty slot in a case: BelGioioso Mascarpone. I had sad visions of spending my Saturday desperately driving to every grocery store in a 20 mile radius trying to find this ingredient. This search would mess up all my plans for the day: watch the Morocco v Portugal World Cup match at 10am, eat lunch and make tiramisù at noon, and watch the France v England match at 2pm.

In a last ditch effort, I pushed my cart over to the deli counter and asked in my very nicest voice, “Is there any chance you might have any more mascarpone that hasn’t been put out in the case yet?”

“Oh yes, we do. I’ll go get it. Mascarpone is really popular this time of year.”

And they came out with a whole case of it! I can’t tell you how relieved I was. I bought the four tubs (four!) I needed for the recipe I was making and raced back home to put all the groceries away.

As planned, I made the tiramisù between World Cup matches. I’m pretty sure it’s going to be amazing. The mascarpone cream is the exact tiramisù flavor I was hoping for, and when I submerged the stale ladyfingers in the double strength coffee I’d made earlier in the morning, they released bubbles as they soaked the dark liquid into their airy pockets. They’re going to be such a beautiful dark-coffee contrast to the sweet cream filling. After I assembled the tiramisù, I dipped an extra ladyfinger in the coffee and then into some of the leftover mascarpone cream, and it was divine.

Now the whole thing is waiting in the fridge for after dinner, melding all of its delicious flavors. I can’t wait to eat it.