Coconuts are harder than you might imagine

I have a confession. My husband and I are wanna-be foodies. Not full-scale foodies, but we would like to be. We take cooking classes - Even in Italy. (See the pictures, we're making three varieties of homemade pasta in Tuscany last year.) We have dates - In our kitchen. We love food. We love wine. We know very little about either. We can stand there and nod while someone talks about the finer points of cinnamon versus cassia, but truthfully we've just learned the difference in bread flour, cake flour, and all-purpose. (Turns out, it's really important for different things - who knew? Other foodies, I guess.)

Don't get me wrong, we know a thing or two. All those classes and cooking adventures were bound to teach us something. We don't like to make braciola (takes too long), but chicken saltimboca can make you seem like a genius in the kitchen even though it's super easy. Shiraz is nearly as good at Pinot Noir in most situations and a whole heck of a lot cheaper, especially if it's from Australia. So I guess we know a thing or two.

This brings me to the point of all this. A few weeks ago, we decided to make a cake for my mother-in-law. We'll do it on Saturday night, we decide, as it's going to be a fun date-y activity. What does E have in mind? Coconut cake - from scratch. Where does he get this idea? Alton Brown, his cooking hero. For those who don't know, Alton is the scientist of the Food Network. Anything he makes is fully explained with diagrams and charts and a full understanding of why things are the way they are. For my husband, this is a dream come true. Why does he need to let dough stand for a long time? Oh, it has to do with the yeast! Why do olives taste bitter off the tree but delicious later? Oh, the curing process! He LOVES this. So when Alton taught him about coconuts, the first thing he wanted to do was make something with one - from scratch.

So we purchased coconuts from the store. We cracked them with hammers in the kitchen and preserved the juice for later use. We shredded the thing up in the food processor (also something E loves). In the end, it was more work than I've ever put into a cake in my entire life.

And more fun than I've ever had in the kitchen in my entire life. Thank goodness for foodies.