Sponsored by the letters A and B and the number 59

Inspiration can come from everywhere. For cooking, mine usually comes from the first two letters of the alphabet, which, when placed in, well, alphabetical order, are really the initials for Alton Brown (cue Good Eats theme music). He dedicated a show to milk, and in it he showed how to make your own cottage cheese. Ew.

But before that he showcased two desserts that I swore I would attempt. He made a tres leches cake and dulce de leche. It’s August, it’s ungodly hot, and there was an awesome ice cream topping staring me in the face. I had to make it. Now.

I had several reasons for being confident in this recipe. First, it only had four ingredients. Second, the directions included mixing everything in the pot and letting it simmer for three hours. “Sounds like soup,” I thought. I make good soup.

Step one was to pour the milk into the pot. Isaac did that:

Step two was put in a cup and a half of sugar into the pot. Isaac did that too. At this point he said “I’m bored,” and left the kitchen. “Your patience will be rewarded” echoed in my head. He was gone when time came to add the baking soda so I did, and I added the vanilla bean as well.

Karen told me a while ago that “yummy” or “yum” is not masculine enough and shouldn’t be used in my blog any more. But Alton uses words like “goodness” and “happiness” to describe food. So let me just say that dulce de leche is Spanish for happy.  Happy eating, that is, not cleaning.  This was very hard to clean up afterwards.

The Food Network is channel 59 on my cable box.