A Baking Life

a special treat

2013-01-26T17:39:00.001-05:00

Sometimes, in the morning, when I'm trying to rush myself or the boys to move-move-move and maybe today make it out the door on-time for school and work, I remember with a smirk how naive I used to be of Mornings With School-Aged Kids before I'd experienced them. Mornings back then were still groggy and too-early, but they were filled with options. One could choose to be lazy or industrious, grumpy or grateful, but it all happened within the closed-in cocoon of home. There was a safety in that, knowing that mistakes made could be recovered from in due time, and that moments lost to dozing off or lingering over a warm mug were non-crucial to begin with. They were a generous start to the day. And I arrogantly and ridiculously assumed that, once we were on that path, that would just be how things worked in this family.

Now, of course, things have changed. Mornings - weekday ones, anyway - are humbling, lorded over as they are by the clock, counting down the precious and dwindling moments before we are pushed roughly out. Out of sleep, out of bed, out of the house. And once we're out, we're running, joining up with the rest of the world in the work of the day, so we'd better be ready for it. There is nothing generous about these mornings, nothing gently rubbing the small of your back, reassuring you that it is okay to rest a bit more, to take your time with your coffee. They are all about getting us geared up, revved up, because everything outside these four walls is not waiting for us. It's time to go.

This doesn't always bother me. I get a certain bizarre satisfaction from getting everyone up, dressed and fed, along with lunches packed and animals cared for, in 45 minutes. And it (usually) puts me in a productive mindset right from the get-go, which certainly can't be said of those languorous dawns of my past.

But every once in a while, as I plunk down yet another bowl of cereal or plate of peanut butter toast in front of my kids, I worry that my limited kid-approved and ready-in-a-hurry breakfast repertoire is hard on my family. I, after all, am the one who used to rise early to make biscuits for our morning meal, or scones or even eggs and home fries, with sides of thick-cut bacon that had been cooked slow and gentle over a low flame, to help it brown and crisp evenly without its edges shriveling up and burning in the panic of high heat. But that was when our mornings could start at 8:00, or 8:30, or even 9:00am, with no ill effect. Not now.

Now we have places to be and people expecting us, and we're more interested in making sure everyone remembers to brush their teeth than in waiting for the oven to preheat. And so in the scurry and rush of it all, I wonder if it might look like I've lost my love of breakfast.

I try to make up for it on the weekends, with yeast waffles and breakfast tacos and spiced oatmeal cooked slow slow slow, without stirring, so that it retains its identity and toothsomeness, instead of turning to glue. And my kids don't seem to mind the food I serve on those harried mornings; on the contrary, boxed cereal still has an aura of being a special treat, despite my insistence that they choose one with no more than 6 grams of sugar per serving. (This leads to some interesting times in the cereal aisle.) But me, I still sometimes feel like I'm letting someone down, even if it's only the irrational expectations of my unsuspecting former self.

All this rambling is to say: a couple of months ago I discovered yeast pancakes. Now, I realize I'm probably the last person to figure those out. Even with all my experience with and promotion of yeast waffles, I hadn't yet grasped the notion that the technique of an overnight yeast batter could be applied to other breakfast batters. But when I finally did, and found out that they're even easier to make than yeast waffles (no waiting for an hour before the batter can be stuck in the fridge!), well, it was an exciting moment to realize that we can occasionally have a "real" breakfast at 7:30 on a Tuesday morning.

The other thing that's so great about these pancakes is that they're really great pancakes. They're luxuriously big and puffy, but not leaden in your stomach like the pancakes of his childhood that Josh stills complains about. The mix of whole grains and spices, along with the tang of the yeast, gives them a hearty, healthy flavor, so that pouring on some maple syrup is a welcomed complement, rather than an unnecessary extra layer of sweetness. And I still get a little thrill every time I open the refrigerator in the morning and find that, once again, the yeast has worked its magic and the airy, fluffy batter is practically to the top of my mixing bowl.

I will admit that I still don't make these as much as I'd like. Putting together breakfast the night before doesn't often occur to me on a busy weeknight. But simply having them tucked away in my arsenal, knowing that I could — and sometimes do — make a "fancy" breakfast for my boys on a school day? Well, it makes me feel like I'm that much closer to our leisurely, fairytale-hued breakfasts of yore.

Yeast Pancakes
Yields 10-12 pancakes

These pancakes are so easy, they barely warrant directions — a simple ingredient list should be sufficient. Just make sure you mix up the batter in a large bowl, as it's going to grow overnight. And it should go without saying that, like all pancakes, these take well to a variety of fruit additions. Also, I should tell you that this recipe makes such thick, fluffy pancakes that you really need to cook them over low heat in order to not burn the outside before the center is fully cooked. In my house, this longer-than-normal cooking time works out just fine, since I can have lunches made and breakfast on the table by the time my kids are finally dressed and downstairs. And once they're ready, these pancakes are quickly devoured.

320 grams gluten-free flour blend (Your choice here, but lately I've been leaning towards a multi-grain blend, with brown rice and teff and buckwheat and sometimes gluten-free oat flour. I usually keep to a ratio of 70% whole grain to 30% starch when I'm mixing it up.)
1¼ teaspoons psyllium husks (or xanthan gum, or a combination of the two)
1 teaspoon fine sea salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 packet rapid rise yeast
scant ¼ teaspoon nutmeg (I just grate some over the bowl)
12 fluid ounces lowfat buttermilk, warmed to about 100ºF. (I was low on buttermilk one night, so used 8 fluid ounces whole milk and 4 fluid ounces buttermilk, and the pancakes were still great.)
56 grams unsalted butter, melted and cooled to room temperature
3 Tablespoons maple syrup (grade B, if available)
1 large egg, lightly whisked
1 teaspoon vanilla

The night before you want pancakes, get out a large mixing bowl and whisk together all the dry ingredients. Add the wet ingredients, and mix with a spoon until well-blended. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight.

When you're ready for pancakes, remove the bowl from the fridge. Heat a large sauté pan or griddle over low heat, greasing it with the fat of your choice. When the pan is hot, give the pancake batter a quick whisk and then drop it by the quarter-cup-full onto the pan and nudge it into a circle-ish shape. (It will be quite thick.) Cook until the underside is a caramel brown, the edges are dry, and bubbles have just begun to emerge on the surface. Flip the pancakes, and cook until the other side is nicely browned. Serve immediately, with good maple syrup. Any leftovers may be wrapped and left on the counter; they make a good snack later in the day, heated up and spread with peanut butter.

back on the bandwagon

2013-01-17T23:25:00.000-05:00

"I'm making soup too!"

"What kind?" My mom texted back.

"A made-up kind. I roasted a kabocha squash, and while it was cooking I sautéed carrots, celery, onion & rosemary in olive oil until soft. I added the roasted squash and a mix of chicken broth and duck stock. I had also roasted a bunch of garlic cloves, and I smashed half of them and added it to the pot (the rest are going into soft butter for garlic bread). Soon I'll purée the squash mixture with some more duck stock. I've also cooked shaved Brussels sprouts with bacon to garnish/stir into the soup. I'm really looking forward to it, though the boys will balk!"

That was three weeks ago. The boys did not, in fact, balk, and the soup was rich and earthy and belly-warming and the garlic bread was pungent and soft, and it was such an all-around pleasant affair, what with the swirling snow outside and the glowing candles inside, and the flame-orange soup served in the much-loved childhood soup bowls that I inherited at Christmastime.

It snowed again yesterday and now the weather has turned stark and severely cold, and after the other night's child-led rejection of kabocha in a different form (mashed, with lots of herbs and more of that garlic butter, and I for one loved it), I'm thinking we may need another round of roasted squash soup, just to get everyone back on the bandwagon.

not quite done

2012-11-20T14:17:00.001-05:00

My kids have started listening to Christmas music. Which, by extension, means that I have also started listening to Christmas music.

I didn't stop them when they asked. I may have even encouraged it, by subtly humming under my breath some of my favorite Burl Ives tunes. And certainly, I was the most excited of us all when we drove past two little pine trees, all lit up for the holiday. The first of the season.

But still.

With my boys getting more and more into the swing of it (Christmas music every day! Drawing Christmas pictures! Playing Santa games!), I'm realizing I wasn't quite ready. I love Christmas, I really do. But I also love deep fall. It might be my favorite time of year. I love the lull between seasons, the pause between the crazy of late summer and the crazy of the holidays. I love the color show, the one that explodes naturally in my backyard, no extension cords and spare bulbs needed. I love the parade of birds that passes by my windows, making pit stops in my normally sparrow-dominated yard to gorge on berries and sunflower seeds as they go about their seasonal travels. Cedar waxwings, purple finches, tufted titmice - these guys are just as exciting to me as any downtown holiday window display. I even love the temperature change. My house feels cozier with the heat turned on, and it makes me want to light candles and roast something delicious. This is a different — perhaps better? — cozy than Christmas Cozy, more wool sweaters and hunkering down, less tinsel and expectations. Even walking across the lawn after a frost, hearing the blades of grass crunch under my feet and feeling the nubs of exposed dirt crumble from the shifting pressure of my shoe, even that bit of unremarkable normalness is a sensory delight I never tire of.

But to embrace Christmas means embracing winter. And winter it is not. I only just yesterday finished raking the mounds of leaves shed by our towering maples, and underneath I found sprightly green grass and a lone, brave dandilion! Wylie took his coat and hat off while playing outside the other day, and didn't get chilled. And while I have to break a film of ice off the hens' water each morning, it's never cold enough to freeze back up during the day.

Deep fall. Not winter.

And besides, I haven't quite finished all my fall activities yet. There are those leaves, for one, now pushed into piles scattered blatantly across the yard, that I still have to contend with. Speaking of leaves, the boys and I have only managed to make one leaf rubbing so far, but with still more leaves coming down every day (our trees hang on to their summer garb longer than anyone else in the neighborhood!), we should be able to find time for a few more. There is also the cider situation. We haven't had nearly enough warm cider this year. And what about the caramel apples that Wylie has repeatedly pressured me for?

I'm just not quite done with fall. Give me one more day of yard work under a warm sun, a couple more intensely cold and crisp apples eaten out of hand, and another batch of pumpkin spice bread, and then I'll be ready.

Happy Thanksgiving, friends! Wishing all of you good food, warm homes, and plenty of cozy as we make the transition to winter and the holiday season.

Pumpkin Spice Bread
Yields two 8x4-inch loaves

It was my turn to bring snack to Wylie's preschool last week, and since we didn't have any super-ripe bananas for banana muffins, pumpkin bread was his second choice (along with sliced apples and bananas and super-sharp cheddar cheese - those kids are enthusiastic eaters!). And what a good second choice it was! The house smelled amazing as it was baking, and the kids at school devoured it. It was also oh-so-satisfying from a baker's perspective, as the batter only filled the pans halfway but rose to glorious heights once tucked away in the oven, cresting almost two inches above the lip! But there wasn't nearly enough leftover for my own family, and given how easy it is to throw together (I made the first batch right before bedtime) and the fact that there is a can of pumpkin just sitting in my cupboard, denied its appearance at this Thanksgiving in favor of a sweet potato pie, I think there is more pumpkin bread in our very near future.

455 grams Tara's all-purpose gluten-free flour blend, or your favorite all-purpose blend
2 teaspoons baking soda
1¾ teaspoons xanthan gum or psyllium husk powder
1½ teaspoons fine sea salt
1 rounded teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
½ teaspoon ground cloves
½ teaspoon ground ginger
1 15-ounce can of pumpkin puree (not pumpkin pie filling), or homemade pumpkin puree
4 large eggs
250 grams unbleached cane sugar
150 grams light brown sugar
150 grams water
135 grams unsweetened applesauce
95 grams canola oil
1 teaspoon vanilla

Preheat the oven to 350ºF. Lightly grease two 8x4-inch loaf pans and set aside.

In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, xanthan/psyllium, salt and spices. Set aside.

In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, combine the remaining ingredients and mix on medium speed until well blended. (You could also use a handheld electric mixer for this.)

Add the dry ingredients to the pumpkin mixture and mix on low to blend, then increase the speed to high and beat for one minute.

Divide batter between the prepared pans and bake for 60-70 minutes, or until a tester inserted near the center of the loaf comes out clean. Cool for 10 minutes in the pans, then remove the loaves from the pans and finish cooling on a wire rack. Wrap airtight and store at room temperature, for up to four days.

that primal, wild part of you

2012-10-31T01:12:00.001-04:00

Apple season is coming to an end around here. Maybe it’s just in Maine, but Halloween always feels like the turning point, when the once-vigorous, crisp days of early fall abruptly launch their descent into the truly frigid, gloves-and-hat weather of deep fall. The foliage show is past its peak (and we can usually count on there being at least one big storm on the horizon to barrel through and rip off any leaves refusing to give up the ghost), and the apples have matched pace and all fallen or, more likely, been plucked.

It’s been a busy fall for us, and half of our little family never made it to our local orchard. Wylie and I, though, went on an apple-picking field trip a couple weeks ago with his preschool class, and were very productive. Most families paid their $5 and were given small, kid-sized paper bags to put their pickings in. Wylie, however, announced repeatedly to anyone who would listen that he was going to pick “a billion” apples, and thus we needed the giant plastic bags the orchard also had on hand. In the end, Wylie proved a bit optimistic in his estimate, but we did walk away with over twenty pounds of Macoun apples (some of my favorite, second only to Northern Spy), along with a jug of tart, fresh-pressed cider.

The day was gorgeous, clear and bright with an early chill in the air that had receded by the time we were deep among the apple trees. We rounded up all the little ones after a brief cider-making lesson, head-counted thrice for good measure, and started off. Walking the wide path through the front orchard, we passed the barely-trickle of a stream and the red-orange berries of the hawthorn trees, and continued up the curving hill, all eyes peeled for the pink ribbons on the end of the rows signaling we had reached the Macouns. Eighteen children eagerly set upon the trees, weaving and ducking under the lowest bows, excited to see how quickly they could fill their bags with the abundance surrounding us.

The five-pound totes were quickly filled from trees so bursting with fruit that their canopies were just as much red as green. Harvesting complete, the kids set about playing in the orchard, something I don't think grown-ups spend nearly enough time doing. Hide-and-seek among the heavy, low-hanging branches, racing down the rows, "testing" the apples to find the one with just enough snap, sweetness and bite to be deemed Perfect - all were natural inclinations for children let loose among the apples, unaware as they were that for some people, row upon row of laden fruit trees equals many days of manual labor.

As I watched them, first in the orchard, then later as they sampled cider, and finally when the class trekked to the playground across the street for snack and play time, I noticed how freely all the children just . . . were. They barely noticed the yellow jackets wizzing around their heads, who were looking for their share of the sweet, fermented fruit; the adults' hands waving the wasps away were a much bigger nuisance. They made no pains to avoid the oversized ruts of soft, cracking mud left behind by the tractor. They were unencumbered by worries about how far one could run away before crossing the line into "too far." They were outside in October and the sun was shining and it was good. And as I took it all in, it occurred to me that children are often a lot better at what they do than we grown-ups are at what we do.

It's partly the nature of the beast, I know. But I can't help feeling that it's too easy to let obligation and responsibility and inhibition creep unhindered into our lives, until it sometimes seems as though those are the things that define our lives. When was the last time you bent down close to watch a wasp have a drink? Or got excited about the geometry and texture of giant tire ruts stamped into the earth by farm machinery? Or even swung as high and fast as your legs would pump you? Because really, I don't think many of us actually outgrow "kid" stuff. We just tell ourselves we do, in our eagerness to grow up and prove ourselves to be far too mature to appreciate the silly things that occupy the time of a four-year-old.

We are doing ourselves a disservice.

The heaviness of adulthood, the worries and requirements, distractions and ambitions, could be put in better balance if somewhere along the way we could remember that, even in grown-up hands, play dough feels good. And running through a field can release that primal, wild part of you that gets repeatedly tamped down under towering piles of "I ought to do . . " And that some of the most fascinating things we will ever see often take place on a very small scale, way down at ground level.

I wish we went to the orchard more. Without an agenda, without time constraints, without fear of wasps. Because, amongst the apples and the bugs and the funky-sweet scent beneath the trees, it can be beautiful to just be.

Apple Snacking Cake
Yields one 11-inch cake

After making two apple pies, a batch of applesauce, eating numerous apples out of hand and with our stash dwindling, I needed a more substantial, but less dessert-y vehicle for my apples. Most years, I'd turn unthinkingly to Louisa May Alcott's apple slump, but this year I wanted something a bit more refined, though not too fancy. Enter the snacking cake. Equally at home first thing in the morning or alongside a cup of tea in the afternoon, this cake is a lovely study in contrasts. Soft apples are held in place by a sturdy batter, a batter which manages to be both delicate (due to the spices) and hearty (thanks to the relatively small amount of sugar). It's inspired by Marie-Hélène's Apple Cake, from Dorie Greenspan's Around My French Table, but the end result is a very different cake indeed. Though it is delicious on day one, after having a full day to settle into itself it becomes even better. But, be forewarned, it is almost too moist to enjoy by day four. Not that you'll have any left by then, anyway.

202 grams Tara's gluten-free pastry flour
1½ teaspoons baking powder
¾ teaspoon psyllium husk powder
½ teaspoon cinnamon
¼ teaspoon freshly ground nutmeg
pinch fine sea salt
2 large eggs
100 grams light brown sugar
114 grams butter, melted and cooled
1 teaspoon vanilla
4 large, tart apples, peeled, cored and thinly sliced

Preheat the oven to 350ºF. Butter an 11-inch removable bottom tart pan (a springform pan would also work here).

In a small bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, psyllium husk powder, cinnamon, nutmeg and salt. Set aside.

In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, whisk the eggs and sugar on high speed until pale yellow and thick. Add the melted butter and vanilla and whisk to blend well.

Switching to mixing by hand with a wooden spoon, stir in the sliced apples and then add the dry ingredients and mix to incorporate. Pour into prepared pan and spread evenly. Bake for 45-55 minutes, or until golden brown. Cake may be served warm or at room temperature, and you will find that no one objects to a little scoop of vanilla ice cream on the side. Store cake, wrapped airtight, at room temperature for up to three days.

brimming with tradition

2012-10-03T14:25:00.000-04:00

Some notes from around here:

Two of my favorite women each just had a baby, and my family went to The Fair. (Though not necessarily in that order, that is certainly how their importance is ranked in my mind.) And they have both, for good reason, put my mind on a children-and-traditions sort of path.

Every single time someone I know has a baby, I am immediately rushed back to my own early experiences with motherhood. All those little details that made up the bulk of my bleary, milky first and second and third days as a mother, and then a mother again — the fiercely protective cocooning impulse that descends on the house, the funny way that nursing and my own thirst became urgently, critically synchronized, stroking the satiny tops of my babies' heads and their rumpled fingers, the strangeness of being utterly exhausted yet also too paranoid to sleep soundly — all the things that never flash across my mind during the regular goings-on of my life, they all seem suddenly and completely relevant again and in need of a good reminiscing. As if it was me who had just given birth, I am driven to obsessively rehash my own labor and delivery stories, their individual challenges and triumphs, even — or especially — when my only audience member is the appreciative voice inside my own head.

And then once I've really fleshed out my own transformation into Mama, I start thinking about my boys, and what their experiences as members of this family have been like. Wondering what things they'll remember, what in particular is going to stick out of the busy whirlwind of early childhood. Their own rambling chatter suggests that they've been paying close attention.

"Do you remember when I was a baby, Mommy, and I always wanted you to read me Oh, The Places You'll Go!"

"When I was very little, I didn't know how to say scavenger hunt."

"Wylie, when you were a baby, your favorite food was avocado. You mushed it everywhere."

So yes, they notice things. In fact, at this age their memories of their childhoods are probably sharper and brighter than mine are, mine which have already been smudged around the edges — and in some cases obscured altogether — by the competing need to multitask my mothering with the rest of the demands of adult life. There's just no way to retain it all. And yet I am always chagrined when they ask, "Remember when I was little and I . . ." and I don't. I don't remember. I wish I did, and I am so thankful for their reminders of the things I've let slip. Seriously, I am often surprised and touched by how many small, seemingly insignificant things they do remember.

And that's where I think traditions come in. For helping all us aging grownups to remember, and to connect, again and again, with our loved ones. Repetition, you know? Because while I thrill in watching my boys enjoying and looking forward to the traditions we've created for them, it is certainly me who finds a deeper meaning in it all, and who feels the burning urgency to keep these customs going. As much as I want my kids to experience the security and sacredness of family traditions, even stronger is my own desire to want to remember my boys taking part in them. I need to remember. And I want to know that the heritage I am passing on is one rich with established practices, ways to mark the year that say, repeatedly, this is who we are. I want to know that we did these things together.

Which brings me to The Fair. The Common Ground Country Fair began in 1977, making it just barely a year older than I am. And while I haven't attended every year, it's safe to say that I've been at least twenty times, probably more. Certainly long enough for it to be established, as securely as Thanksgiving and the Fourth of July, as yet another way in which we celebrate and mark the rhythm of our year. And just as The Fair itself has morphed and evolved over the years, so too has my experience of it, culminating in this year, when Kalen emphatically informed me that, when you have kids, the whole point of going to The Fair is to spend as much time as possible in the Children's Area. Seeing as much of what I remember about my own early Fair days are children's activities and entertainment, it would seem that he's entirely right.

So while this year I may have missed out on some excellent presentations, didn't really shop at all, skipped the sheep dog trials, and never even set foot inside the main building to ogle all the prize-winning vegetables, I still had a brimming-with-tradition Fair experience. The garden parade, fresh-cut potato chips, live music, wagon rides, ice cream, face painting . . . it was all there, just as I'd remembered it, just as I want my children to remember it. Because while going to The Fair is fantastic in itself, it's the memories of being there with my growing family that sustain me throughout the rest of the year. That help me to remember all the other Fairs I've been to in my lifetime, and that, most importantly, bind me to the friends and family I've shared them with.

Indian Pudding
Serves 6-8

One thing that always says "Fair" to me is warm Indian pudding, with barely-sweetened whipped cream melting down its sides in milky white ribbons. For some unknown reason Indian pudding, although a traditional New England dessert, has never played much of a role in my life outside of The Fair. I treasure this fact, since part of the charm of The Fair for so many of us is eating foods that we only encounter that one weekend a year. This year, though, due to the confluence of my traditional dish of ice cream and an I'm-hoping-becomes-traditional fish taco on a freshly-pressed corn tortilla with homemade sriracha, I didn't have the appetite for more than a couple bites of Indian pudding. This resulted in me moaning to the boys, days later, that I didn't have nearly enough Indian pudding to get me through to next year, and so we were going to have to make some. This went over well enough until we dug into the first servings, at which point we all realized that what I'd made was not the Indian pudding from The Fair. (Keep in mind, I never make Indian pudding. I didn't know what I was doing.) So Round One went into the trash (it was way too sweet, with a texture that was equal parts broken custard and watery syrup), and after significant alterations to the recipe, I landed on a dish that we all agree tastes and looks much more like the one ritually eaten every September. It was just what I needed to close out the month. And while the technique — more polenta than pudding — might not be historically traditional, it wins points for being an entirely stovetop affair. A keeper for sure, even if I hardly ever end up making it again, in order to preserve Indian pudding's special status as an annual Fair Treat. I wouldn't want to break too much with tradition, after all.

834 grams whole milk
133 grams heavy cream
140 grams yellow cornmeal
170 grams maple syrup (preferably grade B)
150 grams molasses (use blackstrap molasses for more authentic "Fair" flavor)
30 grams unsalted butter
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon fine sea salt
½ heaping teaspoon ground cinnamon
½ heaping teaspoon ground ginger
¼ teaspoon freshly ground nutmeg

In a large heavy saucepan set over medium-high heat, scald the milk and cream. Rain in the cornmeal, whisking constantly to prevent clumping. Reduce heat to low and simmer, stirring, for 10 minutes or until the mixture has thickened to the consistency of thin porridge. Add the remaining ingredients and whisk to thoroughly combine. Cook at a low simmer, whisking every 10 minutes or so, for up to 2 hours. You're looking for the pudding to be quite thick and reduced, and when you scoop out a spoonful for testing, it should firm up as it cools. Once you're determined that the pudding is thick enough, it's ready to be served right away topped with lightly sweetened whipped cream, or transferred into another baking dish, plastic wrap pressed on the surface, and chilled for up to three days. The pudding will be very firm when cold, but can be gently reheated over low heat and stirred to return to its creamy state. And to state the obvious, it makes a fabulous hearty breakfast on crisp Fall mornings.

how greatly i appreciate

2012-09-06T10:23:00.001-04:00

I sat here for a long time wondering what to write. Wanting to pick up right where we left off, but unsure of where that was, exactly.

There was a gin and tonic next to me, which was slowly drained until nothing but the spent lime wedge bumped against my lips as I futilely tipped the glass to my mouth. Still dripping rivulets of its own sweat, there was then more water pooled around the base of the glass, spreading across the forest green nightstand, than there was left in it, the inevitable outcome of a chilled highball meeting the still-warm breath of a late-summer night.

The dog was stretched out on the floor next to me, the front half of her body hidden under the thrifted bird-print chaise in the corner of my bedroom, a recently-discovered-but-now-favorite napping spot.

The boys, asleep across the hall, were mostly quiet, save for the occasional dream mumbling and thrashing about of duvet-bound legs.

I ordered Wylie's birthday present. (A personalized super hero cape. If it's half as cool as it looks online, he's going to be over the moon.) I became the last person on earth to set up a Paypal account. I fought with Paypal a bit while trying to retrieve money I had been sent. I thought a lot about pie.

I think about pie (and its close relatives) a lot lately. My Instagram feed seems full of them these days, all the scattered-about people I follow taking advantage of the late-summer berry and stone fruit harvests with pies and tarts and galettes. And practically every day at work, I'm rolling dough, cutting out circles, folding up the edges on individual black plum and walnut frangipane crostatas. Pie is my constant companion right now.

Which is why I was disappointed in myself when I realized that it had been ages since I'd made anything in the pie family for my family to eat. Not in over two months, not since the Pie Party. Seems that when I have my hands on dough every day, feeling the smooth coolness of it stretch under the gentle, rhythmic pressure of my rolling pin, smelling the intoxicating scent of nubs of butter melting and browning as the pastry bakes, I forget that none of it is for me. I forget that there are people in my life more important to me than restaurant customers who might enjoy some pie of their own.

I thought about all of this for a while, and when I had myself feeling good and guilty for all that lack of family pie-making, and had held my own virtual pie making session, mentally mixing and matching fruits and spices, assembling a cornucopia of crave-worthy pies, after all this pie obsessing, I ran downstairs and transferred a disc of pastry dough from my freezer to the fridge, to thaw overnight.

The next day, there would be pie.

But first, the next day there was a lot of non-pie business to attend to. Wylie's new preschool held an Open House. Which might as well have been an Open Play Day, for the amount of time the boys insisted upon staying there. Trying to quell the impatient, nagging voices inside my head, I told myself that it was very important for him to feel fully comfortable and at home there. Later, I frustrated myself to no end trying to track down a very specific style of baking dish, one which a Google search would lead me to believe exists only in the UK, except for the fact that twelve of them currently reside at 40 Paper. I had to fit in a couple hours' of work at the restaurant. At around the same time, I may also have forgotten to feed the boys lunch until it was loudly pointed out to me that they were starving, and there was the inarguable fact that I didn't have any fruit in the house to make pie with. Just a typical day, in other words.

Still, early on I had let the boys in on my pie-making intentions, and they had immediately picked up on my urgency. "When are we going to go home so we can make pie?" was the refrain my hectic day kept looping back around to, pushing me not to lose my resolve or my eye on the clock.

We managed to get to the market before it closed. We had a heated discussion about fruit, whether it was better to use summer-y fruit that wouldn't be around much longer, or dive into fall with the first local apples of the season. Summer won out, with the promise of an apple pie very soon helping to console the looser. Knowing that pie-making would seriously cut into dinner prep time, we picked up a box of what might as well be called Mother's Little Helpers, for how greatly I appreciate their assistance in getting vegetables into my boys on hurried, complaint-laden nights. We rushed home and turned on the oven.

Donning our aprons, we talked about pie dough.

"See all those yellow polka dots in the dough? That's butter. We need that butter to stay cold. Let's be gentle with the dough."

Starting with the rolling pin in the center of the dough, Kalen and Wylie took turns exerting uncharacteristic muscle control to maintain a light, even pressure as they passed the pin back and forth, top to bottom, each finding their own rhythm, pausing to shift the disc a quarter turn, dusting it with more flour, patting and smooshing any cracks that were forming.

"Wylie? Remember how we're being gentle? Please don't dig the butter out with your fingernail."

The kitchen heated up; our oven is an ancient and inefficient old restaurant range, which does double-duty as a furnace when it's turned on. The dough was getting soft, squishing under the occasional too-firm pass of the rolling pin.

"Kalen, can I take a turn? I want to figure out what size circle we need, so I can give you and Wylie the scraps."

I eased our roughly 12-inch diameter circle of dough onto a sheet pan and quickly shoved it in the fridge to regain its composure. The boys got out their little rolling pin to practice with their golf ball-sized pieces of dough; rolling was fun, the liberal, frequent application of flour turned out to be more fun. It got goofy. Pastry dough has a fairly short life span in a hot kitchen, though, so this stage of the show was brief - after all, they wanted to be able to eat the pie crust cookies they were making!

We moved on to the fruit. Wylie has been garnering much praise and admiration around our house lately for his "fruit salad." Simply bananas and peaches, what makes it remarkable is that he does it all himself, working diligently to make sure all the pieces of fruit are cut to the proper size. Kalen has been warily watching from the sidelines, not sure what to make of all his brother's unassisted-sharp-knife use, but apparently pie is a bigger motivator than salad, and he and Wylie went to town chopping up a handful of late-season nectarines.

This took a while. And a while longer. I was glad I had bought those veggie-patty-things, as I scurried around behind my pastry cooks, popping a trayful of animal shapes into the toaster oven and getting some chorizo sizzling in a skillet. Dinner was going to be haphazard and late, but at least it would be more than just pie.

And about that pie. I keep calling it pie because that's what the boys kept calling it. Technically, due to the fact that it only had a bottom crust and was going to be a free-form affair, we should have been calling it a crostata or galette. But it's hard to change the terminology after you've been talking about making pie all day, so pie it was.

We tossed the chunks of nectarines with wild blueberries, cane sugar, lots of lime ("That's sour, Mama! Put in more sugar!" "No, trust me, it's going to be fine after it bakes."), ground ginger, and some tapioca starch for thickening. The boys stirred, and stirred and stirred, and I was glad we hadn't started out with lovely crescents of nectarine, which surely would have been broken and pulpy by the time it was determined that sufficient stirring had taken place. The whole lot was dumped in the center of our dough circle, minus a lot of the liquid that had amassed during all that stirring. And then my perfectionist, control-freak pastry chef side reared its head, and I shooed the boys away as I commandeered folding and pressing the edges of the dough up around the fruit, tucking it in as gently and lovingly as I would soon be doing to my own boys.

Because wouldn't you know it, pie-making when your kids are in charge can take you way past bedtime, way past an acceptable time for six- and almost-four-year-olds to be eating dessert. Which is why those pie crust cookies were so important, as was the vanilla ice cream bought to go with the pie. For two little boys, presented with bowls of sweet, flaky crust and rich, intensely vanilla-y ice cream, along with promises that breakfast would be the pie that was still tantalizingly bubbling away in the oven, all was still right with the world, and the pie-making had been a success.

End of Summer Pie/Crostata/Galette
Yields one roughly 10-inch diameter "pie"

1 disc gluten-free pastry dough
5 nectarines, skin on, pitted and roughly chopped into bite-sized pieces
1½ cups wild Maine blueberries (frozen is fine)
1 cup cane sugar
2 tablespoons tapioca starch
zest and juice of one lime
¾ teaspoon ground ginger
pinch of fine sea salt
egg wash, for brushing crust
granulated sugar, for sprinkling

Preheat the oven to 375ºF. Line a sheet tray with parchment or a silicone baking mat and set aside.

On a gluten-free-floured board, using gentle pressure and additional gluten-free flour as needed, roll out the disc of pastry dough to a roughly 12-inch diameter circle. Rotate the dough after every couple of passes of the rolling pin, to make sure it's not sticking to the board. Depending on how rustic you want your pie to look (and whether or not you want scraps to make "cookies" with), you may want to use a paring knife to trim the scraggly edges of the circle. Gently transfer the dough to the prepared sheet tray, patching any cracks that may form. Refrigerate if you think it may be a while before you're ready to pile fruit onto it.

In a medium bowl, gently combine the nectarines, blueberries, cane sugar, tapioca starch, lime zest and juice, ground ginger and sea salt. Spoon this mixture into the center of your pastry circle, reserving any accumulated juices. Spread the fruit out to within 1½ inches of the edge of the dough. Carefully fold the dough up around the fruit, brushing with egg wash as you go to help seal the edges of the folds to each other. Press together any cracks that form. (If your dough is too cold, it will be too stiff to bend and will just break. Let it warm up a bit until it feels smooth and pliable.) Give the whole crust one more brush with the egg wash and sprinkle it with granulated sugar. Refrigerate the pie until cool and firm, 15-20 minutes.

Remove pie from fridge. Drizzle 2-3 tablespoons of the reserved fruit juices over the filling. Bake for 50-60 minutes, or until the crust is golden brown all over and the filling is thick and bubbling. Cool on the tray. Serve warm or at room temperature, with ice cream if it's dessert or with coffee if it's breakfast. Pie keeps, wrapped airtight and stored at room temperature, for up to three days.

all the stars

2012-08-01T07:00:00.000-04:00

"I know!" he proposed. "Why don't we all take naps, and then tonight you can work on your blog and I can go see the new Batman movie?"

The nap part sounded nice. But there's this thing that has happened around me and writing and this blog. I don't want to do it at 11pm anymore, which has been my modus operandi since I started writing here. I don't want to sit bleary-eyed in front of the computer at the tail end of an exhausting day, forcing myself to push out legible sentences. (Which, by the light of the following morning, are never as legible as I'd thought.) I want to give myself permission to relax a bit after working so hard, to read a book or pull up an episode of The Daily Show or even - incredibly - go to bed early without feeling guilty. I want down time, and I want it at the end of the day, when my body itself is naturally cycling down, along with the rest of my house and the world outside, when even my favorite radio station has switched over to the kind of mellow, contemplative programming that goes best with a glass of wine and soft, gentle lighting, without a side of self-induced pressure to work.

So when Josh suggested I schedule some writing time that night, after the boys were asleep and he was off to a late-night movie? I felt something inside me tense up and take a step back, refusing to commit. I didn't tell him that, though. Instead I made excuses, about how I don't have any good recipes to give you, and haven't been taking any pictures related to food, and the only post that I've been working on lately is rambling longer and longer, when really it all boils down to two sentences. (This is, in fact, all true. And to spare you from having to read my insufferable blabbering, here are those two lines: I'm so sorry, I haven't meant to stay away from the blog for so long, it just happened without my having time to notice it. My life, what with summer and kids and the restaurant and hen-raising, is ridiculously, overwhelmingly busy and exhausting and often frantic right now. There you go; now you're getting two blog posts in one.)

What I should have said was, "If the rest of my house is going to be sleeping, in the middle of an afternoon in which there is nowhere I am required to be, no less, then that is when I want to be writing. Plus there is the fact that the rain has just started up again, so I need to make a cup of lapsang souchong tea, which, as everyone knows, is the best-ultimate type of tea to drink on rainy days, particularly quiet ones. And also, there are wild blueberries on the kitchen counter, gifted to us by my just-departed in-laws, and I would love to be alone as I gorge on them, so as not to have to share with the little fingers that squish the neighboring fruit as they dig around for the perfect handful."

I should have said all that. Instead, I did all that. And it has been lovely.

For you, in this spirit of taking advantage of any and all available downtime, I'm presenting images from a recent (i.e. several weeks ago, which really does feel recent, given the pace of our lives) sail we took with a friend, when all the stars lined up and gave us free time and beautiful weather and happy children and chilled rosé. There is nothing like being on a classic, old boat sailing away from the shore (along with everything waiting for you at home), to remind you that your only job right now is to relax and enjoy yourself. May we all be reminded of that more often.

(There is also some food-related stuff down at the bottom. Not actually a true recipe as such, but more like a food chat, instructions and inspiration if you're looking for that type of thing. And it's about really satisfying food and the type of meal you can eat for days on end without tiring of it, so it's got that going for it.)

Bringing Back the Supper Salad

The other evening, in the middle of feeling defeated once more by the crushing pace of our days, I somehow managed to get a second wind. (Or it might have been my eighteenth, but who's counting?) Instead of tackling the mountain of laundry, or forcing the mower through the calf-high grass, I used the energy to make sure that dinner would not again be a randomly thrown-together, hurriedly-eaten affair, one best forgotten as soon as it was over. I gave myself permission to think for a moment about what I most felt like eating, and promptly decided to make a salad. Growing up, I remember having many salad-for-supper nights. I'm not sure why I'd apparently forgotten that option still exists, though Kalen's dismissal of all things "salad" can certainly explain part of it. No matter, I emphatically want this to be part of our summer meal rotation now. But while the dinner salads of my youth were heavy on veggies from our garden, with cubes of cheddar cheese tossed in for protein and lots of Catalina dressing poured over it all, I unfortunately have no garden this year, and besides, what I was craving that night was a little more refined.

Our local grocery store chain sells an "herb salad mix" that has a wide variety of baby greens in it, things like tat-soi and kale and two kinds of chard and mizuna, all of it punctuated by tufts of parsley and lacy dill. I am usually very picky about where I'll accept the addition of dill, but I have discovered that I love it — in fact I adore it — in my salad. It's zingy and green and earthy in all the best ways, and to date it's complemented everything I've scattered on top of it. Put some dill in your next salad. It's better than you can imagine.

With a fluffy pile of this salad mix as my starting point, I looked around to see what else I had. An avocado, three pieces of bacon, two ears of corn, and half a dozen eggs. Perfect. In retrospect, I would have preferred the corn cut off the cob raw and sprinkled over the salad, to give it a bit more crunch and sweet pop. But the boys like their corn steamed, so that they can gnaw away at the cobs. You've got to give in to your kids somewhere, I figured.

The biggest accomplishment of this salad for me was the eye-opening experience of a perfect soft-boiled egg. Creamy and more custardy than a hard-cooked egg, without the underlying fear of that glob of uncooked egg white that sometimes hides inside a poached egg, this is the egg I want on all my salads from here on out. I used the technique explained here, and have no need to elaborate on it; it is without reproach. I, on the other hand, received a stern self-talking-to, for having ignored this vantage point of egg consumption for so long.

While the eggs cooked, I had just enough time to throw together a vinaigrette. Good olive oil, white balsamic vinegar (classic recipes will advise a 3:1 ratio; I always go a bit heavier on the vinegar), a clove or two of crushed garlic, some mustard powder, a squeeze of lemon juice, and salt and pepper all went into a canning jar, and a vigorous shake brought them together in a quick emulsion that held its shape just long enough to get it onto the greens. Topped with a still-warm egg, it was just the salad I'd needed, and the one I've been pining after ever since.

What have been your favorite salads this summer?

i wasn't kidding

2012-06-20T16:36:00.002-04:00

The full impact of it didn't hit me until the end of the day.

Late last Thursday night, talking on the phone with Josh while he closed up the restaurant, I was reflecting on the day we'd just had and remarked on what a crazy, completely bipolar day it had been. That is never a good way to remember a day.

There had been short tempers, snarkiness, tantrums, broken glass, slammed doors, a lot of tears, and very little patience to carry us through it all. It was a family affair; only the non-human occupants of our home seemed immune to it. It was interminable.

Except when it wasn't. Because, day of extremes that it was, there were also absolutely beautiful periods of calm and laughter, relaxation and rejuvenating solitude. To really understand the complete cliché-ness of those good times, you need only to know that they included snuggling adorable kittens and children running with abandon down grassy hills.

I wasn't kidding when I said the day was bipolar.

As challenging as it is to make it through a day like that in one piece, as hard as it can be in the moment to adjust to the pendulum swings of emotion, it can be useful to look back on them and notice the little things that carried you through. The extra hugs and cuddles, the forgiveness (even if it was born of exhaustion), the sunlight and vibrant strawberries.

Strawberries. The season starts a bit later here in Maine than in the rest of the country, but when it finally arrives, it feels like jagged sparkles of sunlight on the water and the morning chorus of birdsong and waves of heat rippling up from the sidewalk all rolled into one. Summer is here. And when it's accompanied by strawberries, the really good ones, the ones that are red through and through, that have never seen the inside of a refrigerated case, that have a heady perfume that reaches your nose while the berries themselves are still three feet away . . . well, it's just magic.

On that fateful Thursday I had snagged one of the last-of-the-first quarts of strawberries to show up at our farmer's market. For the rest of the morning, wandering amongst the stalls of radishes and tiny carrots and wildflower bouquets, I apologized to everyone who asked me where I got them, as I regretfully pointed towards the long-since sold out stand. That early bird adage really does have merit.

The boys and I were torn between wanting to devour them all right there on the grassy common, and bringing them home to "make something." Somehow, I couldn't bear to see those shiny, sought-after berries disappear so quickly, so all but the biggest, reddest, temptress berries on the top of the pile became homeward bound. (There is just something about eating a strawberry warmed by the sun that can't be completely denied.)

Later, during a too-brief pause in the ruckus that was threatening take over our day, I rushed into the kitchen, determined to do something with those strawberries. I pulled a disc of pastry dough out of the fridge, letting it shake off its chill while I attended to the fruit. Working with the speed and concentration of someone who knows her reverie might be broken any moment, I took stock of what I had and threw together a rustic berry-frangipane crostata. A not-too-sweet crostata. A redeeming crostata.

Because by that evening, its existence on the kitchen counter was one of the few high points of productivity and peacefulness for me as I looked back over the spiral of time that had us so shaken up all day long. And the next morning, at breakfast, it was an encouraging way to begin anew, gently, sweetly, and with appreciation.

Maine Berry & Frangipane Crostata
Yields 8-10 servings

Did you know that today, June 20th, has been designated Pie Party 2012? It might not be listed on any calendar, but it's an Internet event that's been taken hold of with enthusiasm, which is good enough for me. The Facebook page is where to go to find links to all sorts of lovely pies that people have been baking as a way of celebrating pie and sweeping away any fears that may linger over perfect crusts, soggy bottoms, and runny fillings. We did this last year, too, and it was so wonderful to see the blogosphere bombarded by pies of all stripes and sorts. Because pie is great. Pie is great even when it's not perfect. Pie can make not-so-perfect days feel much, much better when you've got a fresh slice in front of you.

You should make some pie.

1 single-crust recipe of gluten-free pastry dough, left on the counter long enough to soften slightly and become pliable
1 pint Maine strawberries, hulled and quartered
1 cup wild Maine blueberries (frozen is fine)
4 tablespoons (¼ cup) Maine honey
2 teaspoons tapioca starch
¾ teaspoon vanilla extract
¼ teaspoon almond extract
1 batch of frangipane (recipes abound online, or just do what I did and use the recipe on the bag of Bob's Red Mill Almond Flour, substituting gf flour for the all-purpose and increasing the butter and sugar each by a tablespoon)
Egg wash
Granulated sugar, for sprinkling

Line a baking sheet with parchment. Set aside.

On a gluten-free-floured board, roll out the dough to a diameter of roughly 14 inches. Dust the dough with additional flour as you roll, and rotate it a quarter-turn with every few passes of the rolling pin to keep it from sticking to your board. Transfer the circle of dough to the baking sheet.

In a mixing bowl, gently stir together the strawberries, blueberries, honey, tapioca starch, and vanilla and almond extracts. Let this sit for a moment while you spoon the frangipane onto the dough, spreading it evenly to within an inch and a half of the edge. Pour the fruit mixture on top of the this, easing it out to the edge of the frangipane. Gently begin folding the edge of the dough up over the filling, brushing the dough with the egg wash to seal the folds. When the filling is fully enclosed, give the crust one more brush of egg wash and sprinkle granulated sugar over it. Chill for an hour.

Preheat the oven to 375ºF.

Bake the crostata for 45-60 minutes, or until the crust is a rich golden brown and the filling is bubbling. Cool on a wire rack, and serve warm or at room temperature. Crostata keeps, wrapped airtight and at room temperature, for up to three days.

{ratio rally} sandwich bread

2012-06-06T08:00:00.000-04:00

I need to get something off my chest.

I'm getting tired of rustic, artisan bread.

That feels like a really bad thing to say. As if, by saying it, I'm also implying that I'd like to throw out all the artisan cheese, and the small-batch organic fruit preserves, the heritage pork, the farmer's market bounty, and everything else the current food revolution has brought our way.

No. Obviously not. I love all of it, and the whole truth is that I'm not actually done with gluten-free artisan bread, just finding myself needing more. More flexibility. More versatility.

More everydayness.

You see, I love the hearty, rustic breads I've learned to make over the past couple of years. I love the yeasty, nutty smell they exhale into my kitchen while baking, the chewy toothsome texture, the feeling that I'm being good to my body by feeding it all those different whole grains. Slices of them toasted and slathered with butter, nudging my morning eggs away from the center of the plate, are perfect. Alongside (and dunked into) a bowl of steaming, thick soup, they're comforting. And they make great cheese toast.

But sometimes, when I decide to give up some pride and be honest with myself, I'll admit that I don't really like those breads for sandwiches. Or French toast. They're useless for bread pudding, and they don't make good croutons. Versatile they are not.

But, stubborn one that I am, I resisted taking the next step and actually doing something about it, so loyal was I to artisan crusty boule.

It took the challenge of the Gluten-Free Ratio Rally to give me the kick in the pants I needed to finally admit that sandwich bread — soft, bendy, mild-flavored, adaptable sandwich bread — was urgently required.

If you had asked me before I starting working on this bread recipe what my top priority for it was, I'm sure I'd have said flavor. And that's still important to me. But now, having the benefit of the final loaf in front of me, and the memory of so many loaves of long-ago-consumed gluten-full sandwich bread behind me, I can definitively say that I am most excited and impressed by its springiness and bendiness. Truly, I was amazed when I held the first slice in my hand. Kalen was so impressed, he couldn't stop playing with it.

This bread can be folded. It can be twisted. It can be sort of scrunched in your fist, which you might find yourself doing unthinkingly when your children energetically launch into their 708th fight of the day. And then it boings back to its original shape.

Writing it out like that, it almost sounds too weird. Like it's rubber bread, and might bounce off your plate. I assure you, it's not rubbery. Or tacky or gummy or sticky. The interior is dry, with a nice crumb, not at all dense or coarse. The crust is firm and crisp, just enough to provide a good contrast to the loaf's tender insides. (It doesn't come close to the crust on that epic crusty boule from my childhood, the one so hard it knocked a not-yet-loose-tooth out of my mouth and flung it across my grandparent's kitchen, pinging it off the refrigerator before I had time to realize what was going on.) And it happens to taste really good, like a faintly sweet honey-oat bread.

The fact that it compresses gently when you take a bite of it, then springs back up, reinflating itself, should just be the icing on the cake.

Except that, in the often-frustrating realm of gluten-free sandwich bread, it suddenly seems like the most important thing in the world. The novelty will wear off eventually, I imagine. But until then, you can find me reveling in soft, untoasted sandwiches, tender, eggy French toast, and, especially, plain ol' bread and butter.

Gluten-Free Sandwich Bread
Yields one standard 8½ x 4½ inch loaf

I am so grateful to this month's host, Karen, of Cooking Gluten-Free, who challenged us Rally-ers to come up with our best versions of gluten-free bread. I know I wouldn't have made time in recent weeks for bread experimentation without her motivation! There is a great group of bloggers participating in the Rally this month, so be sure to check out the links to all the other entries that Karen has posted on her site!

This recipe makes such a lovely loaf of sandwich bread, I know that I'll probably be sticking to that for a while. However, I did try baking it as a boule, the dough shaped and risen on a piece of parchment, then put — parchment and all — directly onto a hot pizza stone in a 425ºF oven for 45-50 minutes. It was wonderful. Its adaptability is yet another reason I love this recipe!

The ratio for this recipe is approximately 4 parts flour:3½ parts liquid:1 part egg

100 grams tapioca starch
63 grams light buckwheat flour (I use this brand; darker buckwheat flour will yield a different result)
53 grams brown rice flour
40 grams certified gluten-free oat flour
1 packet (2¼ teaspoons) active dry yeast
2 teaspoons xanthan gum
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon psyllium husk powder
110 grams whole milk, heated to 115º-120ºF
110 grams water, heated to 115º-120ºF
1 large egg, room temperature
2 tablespoons canola oil
2 tablespoons honey

Lightly grease an 8½ by 4½ by 2½ inch loaf pan and set aside.

In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, combine all dry ingredients and mix on low until thoroughly blended.

Gently whisk together the remaining ingredients and, with the mixer running, slowly pour the wet into the dry ingredients. Mix on low until combined, then increase speed to medium and beat for one minute.

Scrape the dough into the prepared loaf pan, and use wet fingertips to smooth out the surface. Cover loosely with plastic wrap, and let rise in a warm, draft-free spot for 2-2½ hours, or until the dough has risen to the top of the pan.

Preheat the oven to 375ºF. Remove the plastic wrap, and bake the bread for 55-65 minutes, or until the bread makes a hollow sound when you thump it on the bottom. (I took my loaf out of the bread pan for the final 15 minutes of baking, and set it directly on the pizza stone that lives in my oven, because I wanted a crispier crust. Leave the loaf in the pan if you prefer a softer crust.)

Cool bread completely on a wire rack before slicing into it. (This is the hardest thing in the world to do. I suggest you leave the house and go run errands. Or at least occupy yourself with a complex project with the kids!) Wrap airtight, and store at room temperature.

it pleases you immensely

2012-06-03T23:17:00.002-04:00

"We're Back!" the sign proclaims, below the hand-painted cartoon of a monstrous ice cream sundae, pressuring me every time I head north out of town to get excited, oblivious to the fact that I hadn't noticed its off-season closure.

It's the take-out shack that sprung up in a driveway last summer, the one that seems a little too home-grown, makeshift even, to be legitimate, the one that may actually serve excellent, cheap road food, which Josh and I will never realize, because we're too skeptical to go there. Why I get flushed with excitement over a food truck in the city, but squeamish at the thought of take-out from a roadside trailer, is obviously a case of foodie snobbery. Authenticity in measured doses, apparently. To ease my guilt, I tell myself it's simply because I know I won't be able to eat anything at a place that's all about fried food and burgers.

Because, also hovering there underneath the pastel-colored sundae, large, off-center letters loudly proclaim Fried Clams. I can't have those. I don't even like those, to tell you the truth. Clams are the only shellfish I've never understood the appeal of. Odd, coming as I do from a long line of fishermen and lobstermen.

But seeing that sign reminds me of that other fried clam shack, the one just over the bridge, on the edge of one of my favorite islands, the one we drove past every summer on our way to our annual stay at Uncle Skeet's camp, the one Mom always claimed had the best fried clams. Fat Pat's. A wobbly little building, perched on the edge of the road and adorned with a hand-painted sign, serving up pints and quarts of crispy, golden nuggets. That one, though, is long gone, and I wonder now how many people still miss the traditional stop there on their way out to Cundy's Harbor.

I always wanted to like fried clams. They seemed so ubiquitous coastal Maine, I felt it should be in my blood to want baskets of them every summer. One August night many years ago, Mom took a drive across the islands all the way to Pat's, and brought back to camp a fragrant batch of whole belly fried clams. It was a chilly night — not actually a night that should have felt cold, except that it had been a very muggy day, so the dark air was, appropriately, clammy. Which is good on the ocean, because air like that better carries the scent of saltwater to you and lays it thickly over your nose, lest you forget how lucky you are to be there. I had bare feet, naturally, and under them the ancient linoleum floor of the camp kitchen felt sticky. Gathered around the table, swinging our toes against that tacky floor, we ate the clams. I remember liking the crispy, salty batter coating the best. Because underneath that, there were strange, shifting textures and sandy flavors that confused my tongue, so different from the clean, high-pitched song of my favorite bivalve, crinkle-shelled clams. (Oysters, to the rest of you.) I tried not to pay too much attention.

My fried clam experiences after that were few. But it didn't matter, because for a long time I was blind to all other forms of fried seafood due to my deep, head-spinning, soul-satisfying love affair with fried Maine shrimp.

Those? Those I could eat by the bucketful. I did eat them by the bucketful. I became so predictable that, out to dinner with my grandparents, I didn't even need to look at the menu, and they didn't even need to ask me what I wanted. Fried shrimp basket, please. Extra tartar sauce. I even started to weave "fried shrimp lover" into the basic elements of my identity.

When you're up to your neck in an obsession, it can be hard to really understand why you're in that place. You just are, and it pleases you immensely, and there's no need to analyze it further. But it's interesting to note that I never branched out to fully embrace the entire category of batter-fried foods. Sure, I also loved onion rings and wouldn't pass up a good piece of fried chicken, but I never became doggedly single-minded in my consumption of them. I only had eyes for sweet, delicate Maine shrimp.

And then I went gluten-free. I don't remember doing all that much mourning when I first realized I had to give up gluten. (Living with my celiac father for all those years made the change-over fairly painless.) I do know, however, that it took significant willpower to pass up fried shrimp in the early days, and after a while I tried not to let my eyes even see them on the menu when I found myself at a seafood restaurant. Out of sight, out of mind.

It worked for a while, and eventually I didn't suffer despairing cravings when summer rolled around and fried seafood seemed to be all anyone in Maine could talk about. I learned to live without fried shrimp, and was even happy.

Until recently, when my children discovered them, and I was forced to sit and watch while they devoured the crunchy morsels, and hear about how good the fried shrimp were when they went out to eat with their grandparents, and suddenly I realized I wasn't over my obsession, not by a long shot. And with that, making batter-fried Maine shrimp jumped to the top of my short list.

I didn't have a trusted recipe to follow. I have no idea what type of batter my childhood favorite diner uses for their fried shrimp. All I could do was think about the qualities that were important to me, and go from there. Crispy and crunchy, but still delicate. A batter that would puff up, but not get soggy, during its time in the hot oil. Enough richness and spice in the batter that a dipping condiment, though appreciated, would not be a necessity. And it had to be easy - I wasn't up for the three-bowl affair that involves giving the shrimp layered coats of flour, egg, and seasoned crumbs.

Frying them up, they looked right. Out of the oil, they smelled right. I gave the first ones to the boys, who immediately forgot their insisted-upon-by-me fear of a pot of scalding oil as they clambered closer to me, begging for more. And as soon as I tried one, I knew. I knew by the headlong dive into a swoon my tastebuds were taking, by the feeling of urgent, passionate desire I was suddenly experiencing. I knew by the siren call repeating in my ear.

"We're back!"

Gluten-Free Batter Fried Shrimp
Serves 4-6

Deep frying. Two words that strike fear into the hearts of many, both for the fire danger and negative health implications they carry. I believe that caution and moderation will solve both of those problems. Make sure you aren't multitasking while frying (the quickest way to an accident, even if it's just burnt food, is to lose track of what you're doing), and have at the ready a heavy lid that can be quickly thrown over the pot of oil, should it catch fire. Long, close-fitting sleeves will protect your forearms from splatter burns. And, like cotton candy and triple-thick milkshakes, those other summertime treats our doctors wish we wouldn't indulge in, consider deep-fried shrimp (or deep-fried anything, really) a very rare, very delicious treat.

1 pound peeled, raw Maine shrimp (unlike other shrimp, there's no need to devein them), or the shrimp of your choice
4 fluid ounces whole milk
70 grams (½ cup) yellow cornmeal
66 grams (½ cup) all-purpose gluten-free flour blend (I used a mix of equal parts white rice flour, sorghum flour, and tapioca starch)
1 large egg, well beaten
2 tablespoons sake (or dry white wine)
½ teaspoon baking powder
¼ teaspoon plus 1/8 teaspoon psyllium husk powder
¼ teaspoon kosher salt
1/8 teaspoon smoked hot paprika
liberal dash of Tabasco sauce (optional)
Salt and pepper, for seasoning
Canola or other neutral oil, for frying
Candy thermometer, for frying

Spread the shrimp in a single layer on a plate or cutting board. Season with salt and freshly ground black pepper, and set aside, at room temperature, for 10-15 minutes.

Whisk together the milk, cornmeal, flour, egg, sake, baking powder, psyllium husk powder, kosher salt, paprika, and Tabasco until no lumps remain in the batter. Set aside.

In a heavy, deep pot heat at least three inches of oil to 350ºF. (You'll have to continually monitor the heat while you're frying, raising or lowering the heat to maintain as constant a temperature as possible.) While the oil is coming up to temperature, add the shrimp to the batter and stir gently to thoroughly coat.

Working in batches, carefully drop the shrimp into the hot oil. (I found it easiest to pick them up with my hands; that way, I avoided also grabbing big spoonfuls of batter.) Cook the shrimp until they're a deep golden brown, about two minutes for Maine shrimp, up to four minutes for larger shrimp, then remove with a slotted spoon or spider and transfer to a paper towel-lined plate.

Serve hot, with ketchup, tartar sauce, lemon wedges, etc.

where is the rhubarb?

2012-05-23T00:31:00.001-04:00

I keep meaning to grow rhubarb in my yard.

Every spring, rhubarb has a place on my mental to-be-planted list. Every year, I never quite get around to it. I think this is partly due to the fact that rhubarb feels like such an unintentional plant, growing randomly and wildly wherever it takes root, that the idea of deliberately preparing a bed for it and tending to it seems wrong, inauthentic somehow.

(Then again, so does buying it at the grocery store.)

But still, as a child of rural Maine, I can't shake the feeling that there should be a hulking, canopied patch of rhubarb in the yard, taking over its corner as aggressively as the dandelions claim the rest of the lawn. And it should be the same in the yards of the neighbor and the neighbor's neighbor, and we should all be banging down each others doors with slightly apologetic offerings of armfuls of the pink-streaked stalks, or just one more pie, or maybe even some rhubarb syrup and an invitation to share a drink. This scene, of course, would be repeated throughout the growing season with all the rest of the overly-productive produce - tomatoes, zucchini and the like.

However.

Across the street from my house, conveniently blocking the view (but not the scent!) of the only-a-stone's-throw-away-from-us ocean, is a financial data center. They're not growing anything over there. To our right is a church, with only a scraggly, meager flower bed out front, and on our left is a lovely old house with perennial gardens that are a joy to glimpse across the fence, but since the seldom-there owners use it as a vacation home, they tend not to grow anything edible (and thus needing to be harvested) on their plot of land.

And our house? It's over a hundred years old. At one point in its life, it was a general store. Several decades ago, it was apparently quite the party house (as evidenced by the never-ending collection of broken glass in the yard, slowly being unearthed as each rainstorm erodes ever more of our topsoil). Before it was ours, an old lobstering family owned it. You'd think someone would have made sure there was rhubarb somewhere on the property. Someone didn't.

Where is the rhubarb?

I found some meager, beat-up stalks at the grocery store earlier in the month, but then those disappeared, their place on the produce shelf taken over by the fiddleheads. Josh asked our favorite farmer, the lovely lady who supplies our restaurant with much of our produce during the growing season, if she had rhubarb. To our (and her) amazement, there are no rhubarb patches on her farm.

I had no choice. In order to put rhubarb crisp on the restaurant menu, an idea I'd latched on to and couldn't let go of, I resorted to ordering rhubarb, that prolific, exuberant springtime vegetable that seems to grow with ferocious abandon wherever it can, from a produce supplier.

So, so wrong.

Of course, a week later, after I'd stocked the walk-in with a large supply of the blushing stems, it began showing up at the first farmer's markets of the year. And at the restaurant last Friday, sitting in on a birthday dinner for one of my mom's friends, I was regaled with stories of a hundred-year-old rhubarb patch growing at the birthday girl's grandmother-in-law's house. Rhubarb as tenacious and sour as the elderly Italian woman who had grown it for many decades, after settling in to her new life in Maine. Rhubarb that couldn't be killed.

Rhubarb that has been offered to me, in the form of a couple of hearty rhizomes when it is divided later this year. And so I've been given the opportunity to nurture a cutting of rhubarb with a century of history behind it. To transport it from one old home to another, where it can continue feeding successive generations of Mainers, ones who won't have to give a second thought to the question of where to find rhubarb.

Yes, please.

Rhubarb-Wild Blueberry Crisp with Gingered Whipped Cream
Yields enough for one 3-quart crisp, or 9 individual ramekins

The beauty of a restaurant recipe is in its do-ahead nature. So much of what we make at 40 Paper is a series of components, meant to be assembled - and in some cases, cooked - at the last minute. This crisp is no different. The filling and crumble topping can both be made (separately) in advance and refrigerated until you're ready to bake the crisp. Then it's just a matter of pouring the fruit into your baking vessel of choice, topping it with a thick layer of crumble, and baking until the crisp has browned and the filling is bubbling up around it. And to make things even easier (and fruit crisps that much more of an impulsive event), the crumble topping may be frozen for up to three months. So whenever you've got fruit of any sort laying about, just begging to be baked with some spices, you can be minutes away from having a crisp in the oven. Which might be my very favorite type of planning ahead.

Crisp Filling
508 grams frozen wild blueberries (black plums are also good here, as are raspberries)
415 grams rhubarb, cut into 1-inch chunks
125 grams light brown sugar
55 grams unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
10 grams cornstarch
1 tablespoon honey
1¼ teaspoons cinnamon
zest of one lemon

Crumble Topping
200 grams Tara's gluten-free pastry flour
150 grams granulated sugar
150 grams light brown sugar
100 grams gluten-free rolled oats
1½ teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon xanthan gum (optional)
½ teaspoon kosher salt
228 grams (½ pound) unsalted butter, cubed

Preheat the oven to 350ºF.

In a mixing bowl, stir together all filling ingredients. Pour into a 3-quart baking dish (or divide among 9 ramekins). Let it sit while you make the crumble topping, to allow the fruit to begin to juice itself. (If you are making the filling in advance, go ahead and pour it into a baking dish. Cover it with foil, and bake for 45 minutes. Cool on a rack, then refrigerate until you're ready to assemble the crisp. You may also find that the filling is so delicious on its own, you can't help but dip into it for a spoonful to go over your ice cream, or granola and yogurt, or pound cake . . . the possibilities are endless!)

In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, combine all the topping ingredients except the butter, and mix on low speed until blended. Add the butter, and mix on low until the topping has come together, with very few visible pieces of butter remaining. Breaking it up with your fingers, evenly spread the crumble over the fruit filling. (Freeze any extra topping you may have.)

Bake the crisp for 45-50 minutes (less for individual crisps), or until the topping has browned and the juices are bubbling and thickened. (The color of the filling will be taken over by the deep pigment of the blueberries. Don't worry - one bite and you'll be assured of the rhubarb's presence!) Cool on a rack, and serve warm or at room temperature, topped with gingered whipped cream.

Gingered Whipped Cream
Yields 1 pint

225 grams heavy cream
14 grams powdered sugar
½ teaspoon grated fresh ginger
¼ teaspoon vanilla extract
25 grams candied ginger, cut into very small dice

Combine the cream, sugar, fresh ginger and vanilla in a mixing bowl and whip to soft peak. Gently fold in the candied ginger. Serve immediately, or refrigerate for several hours, and up to overnight, to allow the ginger flavor to deepen. Stir gently before using to reincorporate any separated whey.

all good things

2012-05-14T22:57:00.002-04:00

Images from a gluten-free shoot I did at the restaurant late last week. Looking at them, I realize all sorts of things. About the limitations of my camera and lens and how much I love faces and also how different the energy of the restaurant is during the hours I am normally gone from that space. All good things to think about. But mostly, it makes me feel so good to know that our gluten-free diners can have such a fabulous restaurant experience when they step over our threshold. It makes me wish I knew the faces of the people I'm making agnolotti pasta for.

I'll be back soon with the recipe for that rhubarb-wild blueberry crisp I mentioned . . .

"those things I love"

2012-04-25T06:41:00.001-04:00

Well, would you look at that.

I took that photo a month ago, with every intention of casually throwing it up here one afternoon, accompanied by some earnest urging for you to all make waffles the next chance you get, highlighting their amazingness for any of you who haven't found the recipe on your own as you wade through this blog.

Um, yeah, I didn't do that.

Instead, I went to work a lot, because I created a new chocolate dessert for the restaurant that is going over like gangbusters, and I can barely keep up with production. (It's a chocolate olive oil soufflé, by the way, with milk chocolate mousse and bitter chocolate caramel. If you're anywhere near Maine, you should come eat it.) Then I added a rhubarb-wild blueberry crisp to the menu, served bubbling hot with mounds of gingered whipped cream melting down the sides, and it's become clear that people are craving bright, tangy fruit desserts as we finally pull away from the dreariness of a long, grey winter, because its sales are actually surpassing those of the chocolate desserts. Which, in the restaurant industry, is unheard of. I also learned how to make some adorable agnolotti pasta, which is my new favorite shape, due in no small part to the cute little ravioli stamp I get to use to seal them shut. Seriously, pasta gadgets are awesome.

And then there was the fact that school vacation happened. It's always an interesting balancing act when the kids are on break but the adults are very much not. And by balancing, I mean figuring out how many days one can realistically bring the kids to work before they realize they are missing out on valuable vacation time. So we also made time for play dates, an overnight with the cousins, museum trips, and big kid bike shopping, and we worked on preparing for our chicks to arrive. We had Easter. We met alpacas.

The chicks I have been planning for and dreaming about since last fall finally got here on Thursday. Aside from the unexpectedly sweltering hour-and-a-half drive home from the farm store where we picked them up (did you know that day-old chicks need to be kept very warm, as in 95º warm? The boys and I were not properly dressed for the return trip!), and the hours I could while away watching those cute little girls and their silly antics, they're surprisingly low-maintenance. So low-maintenance that Kalen and Wylie keep forgetting they're here! The fact that they currently live in the basement probably contributes to that. (I would like to show them to you. But every time I try to take a picture of them, they come out resembling lumpy orange blobs with dark eyes, due to the infrared heat lights they live under. Weird, and certainly not an accurate reflection of their absolute adorableness. You'll just have to use your imaginations for now.)

And . . . that's about it. That was my month. Sitting here thinking about it, and looking at how little space it takes up on the page, it doesn't sound like much at all. Is that really all we did? How did it take up all of my energy and fill my days to bursting? Truthfully, I have no idea. The past month has existed in a strange vortex of time, one that feels very rushed and busy all day long, but that reveals, upon reflection, to not have much to show for itself.

I blame spring.

\
Spring has really gotten going around here, with an explosion of growth and color and motion and chatter (oh, those noisy sparrows!), and I think I may have mistaken Mother Nature's furious rate of productivity for some semblance of my own. But that actually feels to me like the right thing to do. When the world around you is bursting forth with life, when the scenery on your drive to work changes from one day to the next, when the flowers you planted last summer and promptly neglected come barreling forth from the earth in all their furry, oddball glory and then promptly bloom, well, I think it's right to take a bit of a break from the pace of our own lives to really pay attention to something bigger than ourselves. Even if that something bigger is only the mockingbird who has just shown up in the yard, and keeps exuberantly burying his face in the pompoms of green that have burst from the branches of the maple trees.

And now? Now I feel invigorated. Now I feel like harnessing some of that energy for myself, and getting out there to get things done. Things like mowing the lawn, which hasn't happened since the fall, and planting gardens and teaching Kalen the mechanics of pedaling the above-mentioned bike, and maybe even ordering that bench cushion I've needed for years and have put off buying. Oh yeah, and readying a coop for our quickly-growing chicks to move into!

So before I jump into all of that, let's get back to those waffles for a moment, okay? It's not a new recipe; in fact, it's from the early days of this blog. Which is why I'm worried many of you don't know about it. Because who wants to read blog posts from the first few months of a blog's life? (And if you do, please, please let's not mention the quality of some of those photographs. Thank you.) But, all early-blog-embarrassment aside, these waffles need your attention. There are many recipes on the site (as I'm sure there are on many food blogs), that haven't landed very often on my dining room table since landing here. I think it's the nature of recipe development: there are always so many new things to try, there isn't time to come back around to everything you've already made before. Onward and upward, as it were.

But these waffles are different. These waffles, so simple in their ingredients, so easy-to-the-point-of-neglectful in their preparation, these unassuming waffles have moved into the realm of Can't Live Without It food for my family. Wylie, for whom the word "waffle" seems to frequently slip his mind, simply refers to them as "those things I love with the holes in them."

We all know what he means. We all love them as much as he does.

About a month ago, I held a talk, more of a casual group discussion really, at my local natural foods market that was all about gluten-free breakfast baking. I brought biscuits and multigrain scones for everyone to snack on, but I also wanted to give them waffles. After going gluten-free most people, if they eat waffles at all, get by on the frozen ones from the grocery store. You know the ones I mean. They're small, and thin, and they have an odd, dusty feeling in your mouth, no matter how much maple syrup you drown them in.

I want people to have real waffles back in their lives.

So I confirmed with the market that I could have a little table, placed next to an electrical outlet, during my talk. I arrived that morning bearing my waffle iron and a bowl of puffy, bubbling batter that I'd made the night before. And while people drifted in, and introductions and small talk and earnest discussions got underway, I made fresh waffles for everyone. Big, fluffy golden brown waffles, with a satiny-smooth interior and crisp edges, and a complex yeasty flavor, made sweet by the butter and maple syrup it had been fermenting with.

They were quickly devoured, with great joy, and it reminded me that when you've been living gluten-free for years, watching everyone around you eating foods that are off-limits to you, the gift of perfect waffles can be a pretty big deal, indeed.

Gluten-free waffles. Humble ingredients, spectacular results. That, in a nutshell, is my goal in almost all of the baking that I do. That, and also convincing everyone around me that they can do it, too. So if you missed seeing this recipe the first time I posted it, please, make waffles now. Make them for Mother's Day, all dressed up with berries and whipped cream and flowers and a card on the tray next to them. Or make them on Friday morning, a special breakfast treat to end the kids' week on a good note. Heck, make them for dinner when you don't have the energy for chopping and sautéing and braising. Whatever you do, find a way to make them part of your everyday life.

Because we all deserve great waffles. Especially if we are gluten-free.

Gluten-Free Yeast Waffles

Yields five 7-inch Belgian waffles

245 grams (about 1¾ cup) Tara’s gluten-free pastry flour

25 grams (about ¼ cup) certified gluten-free oat flour

1 teaspoon xanthan gum or psyllium husk powder

1½ teaspoons rapid rise yeast

12 fluid ounces whole milk

85 grams (6 tablespoons) unsalted butter

2 tablespoons real maple syrup (preferably grade B)

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

¾ teaspoon fine sea salt

2 large eggs, lightly beaten

In a small bowl, whisk together the pastry flour, oat flour, xanthan gum/psyllium husk powder and yeast. Set aside.

Heat the milk until very hot (but not boiling). Pour it into a large mixing bowl and add the butter, maple syrup, vanilla and salt. Stir to melt the butter. Allow to cool to lukewarm, then add the eggs and flour mixture. Stir to combine, working out most of the large lumps but stopping before the batter is completely smooth.

Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let the batter rest on the counter for 1 hour. The mixture will begin to bubble. At this point, you can cook the waffles now, but the flavor will be better if you refrigerate the batter overnight and cook it the next morning.

To cook, follow the manufacturer’s instructions for your waffle maker. Serve hot, with maple syrup, fresh berries, or, for a really decadent treat, Nutella and sliced bananas.

{ratio rally} flourless brownies

2012-04-04T08:00:00.003-04:00

I just deleted a whole bunch of text right here.

I'm sorry you didn't get to read it, but truly none of us have time for it right now. Lots of chatting and loud statements about what characteristics I look for in an ideal brownie, but not really going anywhere fast, if you know what I mean, and fast is what we need to focus on.

Because the germs are spreading in this house. For over a week, at least one member of my family has been sick at any given moment. Nothing serious, but at this snail's pace of recovery it feels like a tremendous burden to still be dealing with it. Especially since, with an irony that seems unique to motherhood, it is just now striking the youngest and most neediest member of my family, and me.

I can feel my already-limited time for doing anything other than caregiving slipping away quickly, with only a quick backwards glance and a hasty good luck lady, you're on your own with this one.

I know.

Except, I'm not on my own, not really. There's Josh, who is incredibly helpful when he's home and offers support and empathy for the exhausting, frustrating times when he can't be here. And Kalen, amazing six-year-old that he is, is able to entertain himself when needed and can play extra-gently with Wylie if asked, with an understanding and patience far beyond his years.

And then there's my good fortune that today is Ratio Rally day, with means that I am surrounded by amazing friends and bakers, all banding together to bring you lots of ideal brownies, of all types. So even if you don't share my predilection for chewy, intense fudgy brownies, with crisp edges and crackly tops and insides that go all satiny in your mouth, you're going to find something in today's line-up that is, for you, perfection.

It's pretty nice to not have to carry that burden around on my own.

It's also pretty nice to know that if your ideal brownie sounds an awful lot like the one I'm posting here, it's an infinitely forgiving recipe, perfect to make when you need to be able to drop everything to care for a sick child, and/or when the illness steadily creeping through your own body camps out in your head, fogging your thoughts and making it difficult to remember to keep an eye on things in the oven.

Because (as my children will tell you) these brownies taste really, really good, no matter that some may have gotten their tops singed, and all got a bit over-filled, causing the batter to rise too high and collapse in on itself. (Which, it must be pointed out, makes them the perfect shape for holding a scoop of ice cream. Never call an ugly brownie useless.) They're easy to make, since your mixer does most of the work (even when I'm not sick, I don't get very excited about whipping eggs and sugar to ribbon stage by hand), and if you get called away from the kitchen for a bit and your melted chocolate cools too much and starts to get firm, a quick blast over a pot of hot water (or in the microwave) loosens things up and you're right back on track. You can even make this batter in the evening, and when you look at the clock and notice that it's 11:30pm, and rightly decide that baking brownies at this time of night is clearly the train of thought of a sick, crazy woman, you can pack it into a container and stick it into the fridge overnight. The next day, still sick but at least a little less tired, you only need to microwave the container of batter for 10-20 seconds, until it's just warm and soft enough to pour thickly, and you can be baking brownies, this time with the added benefit of daylight and a cup of coffee close by.

Aside from their forgiving nature, the thing that I love about these brownies is that they taste great both for what's in them (excellent chocolate, the best butter, free-range eggs, and lots of mint), as well as for what's not: flour.

That's right, no flour. I've decided that flour is the enemy of my perfect brownie. I don't want anything powdery and fine to get in the way of the deep, robust chocolate flavor. I want chewiness in my brownie, not a tender crumb, and if any crumbs do form, I want them to be sticky, not dry. I want something that has the density to stand up to the aforementioned ice cream without getting mushy, but that is also flavorful enough that it is a complete dessert on its own, no adornment necessary. Getting rid of the flour does all of that for me.

The other thing I want to point out about these brownies is that they definitely benefit from being baked in single-serving-sized portions. As you probably already know, the edges are one of the biggest pleasures of a good brownie — that quick transition from the crisp, chewy outside to the yielding, smooth center has been known to cause fights over the last corner piece in the pan. By making them in paper baking cups, everyone gets a maximum amount of outer crust, making each bite decidedly satisfying. It's all about keeping the peace, you know?

So that's it. Really good, really fudgy, flourless brownies. A recipe box staple, I should think. But since recipe boxes need far more than just the staples, I highly suggest you browse the rest of the Ratio Rally submissions. Our host for the month, Mary Fran of FrannyCakes, has done a wonderful job organizing all of us, and the rest of the bakers have come up with some pretty fabulous brownies. So please, go and ogle everything. While you're sufficiently occupied, I think I'll just quietly ease out the back and go take a nap.

Adina from Gluten Free Travelette made Chocolate Brownie Pie with Orange Zest
Angela from Angela's Kitchen made Gluten & Dairy Free Cream Egg Brownies
Brooke from B & the boy! made Triple Chocolate Brownies
Caitlin from {Gluten Free} Nom Nom Nom made Peppermint Brownie Bars
Caleigh from Gluten Free[k] made White chocolate and marshmallow brownies
Caneel from Mama Me Gluten Free made Triple chocolate brownies
Charissa Luke from Zest Bakery made Slutty gluten-free brownies
Claire from My Gluten Free Home PB&J Brownie Whoopee Pies
Claire from This Gluten-Free Life made St. Patty's Day Marshmallow Swirl Brownies
Erin from The Sensitive Epicure made Mexican Cocoa Brownies with an Almond & Pepitas Crust
gretchen from kumquat made Salted caramel brownies
Heather from Discovering the Extraordinary made Nutmeg Blondies
Irvin from Eat the Love made Blueberry Citrus Marble Brownies
Jean from Gluten-Free Doctor Recipes made Blue Ribbon Brownies
Jenn Cuisine made Grain free brownies with no-bake ricotta cheesecake cream
Jonathan from The Canary Files made Vegan Marbled Banana Walnut Brownies
Karen from Cooking Gluten Free! made GF Chewy Crackled Top Brownies with Raspberry Puree
Mary Fran from FrannyCakes made Gluten-Free Hazelnut (Nutella) Brownies
Morri from Meals with Morri made Oaxacan Brownies & Mesquite Cacao Blondies
Mrs. R from Honey From Flinty Rocks made Black Bean S'More Brownies
Pete and Kelli from No Gluten, No Problem made Caramel Mexican Chocolate Mesquite Brownies
Rachel from The Crispy Cook made Co-Co Nut-Nut Blondies
Shauna from Gluten-Free Girl made Gluten-Free Brownies
TR from No One Likes Crumbley Cookies Gluten Free Berry Fudge Brownies

Mint Chocolate Flourless Brownies
Yields 1 dozen

The ratio for this recipe is loosely 4½ parts chocolate:½ part butter:2 parts eggs:3 parts sugar

225 grams high-quality bittersweet chocolate, chopped
28 grams unsalted butter
150 grams granulated sugar
2 large eggs
6 grams peppermint flavor
½ teaspoon baking powder
pinch fine sea salt

Preheat the oven to 350ºF. Arrange 12 shallow paper baking cups (sturdy ones that don't need to be in a muffin tin) on a baking pan.

In a bowl set over a pot of simmering water, melt the chocolate and butter, stirring occasionally, until the chocolate is almost completely smooth. Off the heat, continue to stir the chocolate until fully melted and smooth. Set aside to cool. (You can also do this in the microwave, stirring every ten seconds.)

In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, whip the sugar, eggs and peppermint flavor on high speed to ribbon stage (the eggs are thick and pale, and drop off the whisk in ribbons). With the mixer on low speed, slowly pour in the melted chocolate, mixing until fully combined. Scrape down the bowl. Add the baking powder and salt and mix just to combine.

At this point, the batter may be refrigerated for up to 4 days. Prior to baking, microwave the batter just until it warms up enough to be pourable, but isn't hot. Proceed with recipe.

Scoop two heaping tablespoons of batter into each baking cup. Bake for 15-18 minutes, or until the surface of the brownies are cracked and dry and center feels soft, but not liquid, to the touch. Cool on a rack. Serve warm or at room temperature.

who we are

2012-04-01T23:17:00.000-04:00

My grandparents were the welcoming type. As in, the "coffee's on, door is always open" type. And I mean that literally — there was always a hot pot of coffee in that house, from before daybreak to after dinner, and their door was rarely locked.

Their home had an open floor plan, with the kitchen, dining room and living room all sharing the same large space. My grandfather, Putt-Putt we called him, when not out in his shop, fixing cars or building tuna fishing boats or houses or airplanes (really), would sit at the head of the dining room table, mug of black coffee permanently at his side, and, as I remember it, almost immediately be joined by some friend or relation, stopping by for a chat. Nanny, often in the kitchen, would serve up another cup of coffee and offer a sandwich. The dining room had French doors opening onto the deck and windows wrapping around one corner, and the southern exposure guaranteed that that part of the house always felt wide open, bright and warm.

Welcoming.

And everyone felt comfortable there. From the dining room table you could watch cars pull into the parking-lot-sized-driveway (because a normal driveway won't do when you've got boats and skidders and backhoes to move around), and soon Uncle Donny or Chuck or Barbie or Ricky would make their way up the stone steps and through the door, no need to wait to be asked in. This happened daily, and repeatedly. Naturally, my grandparents went through a lot of coffee, of the most pedestrian kind. Folgers or Chock full o'Nuts, something that came in a big metal can that afterwards could be repurposed as a container for nails or paint stirrers or the tadpoles we scooped out of the pond. The smell of cheap drip coffee is still to this day one I love.

It was a long time before I realized that this was a different way of living than what we did at our house. And longer still to understand why I was so attracted to it. It wasn't so much that I was drawn to the constant parade of people coming and going; after all, they were all grown-ups, and once the initial, required jesting-with-the-visiting-grandkids was done, they mostly left us alone. No, it had everything to do with my grandparents, and the atmosphere they created. It felt like a slower pace of life at their house, one where no job was so urgent it couldn't be put aside for half an hour to allow catching up with a friend over hot coffee and, depending on the season and your luck, maybe some strawberry shortcake or a piece of pie. Nanny and Putt-Putt greeted everyone as if their arrival was just what had been missing from the day up 'til then, and no one ever felt like they were imposing.

This was due partly, I'm sure, to the fact that by the time I was old enough to really know them, to be paying attention to the goings-on of their home, they were retired. As were most of their friends. I can only assume that the retired lifestyle allows for such spontaneous socializing. Busy as they may have kept themselves, it appeared to be a much less structured busyness than their former nine-to-five lives had been.

But also, I think there was something about the two of them that made people want to swing by, to dip their toes into life at the house on Mere Point Road on a regular basis, something steadying about it. Whether they came to gossip or gripe or seek advice, everyone always left feeling good, always looking forward to doing it again soon.

Nanny laughed a lot, and Putt-Putt's language got very animated when he talked. These were people that everyone wanted to be around. They were easy and outgoing, comfortable with themselves and indiscriminately doling out kindness to everyone who crossed their threshold. And as I moved into my own version of adulthood, I came to understand the fundamental role they really played: they were our Sun. Not just for our immediate family, although their gravitational pull on all of us scattered members was undeniable and irresistible. But I began to see them as an important commonality in the random orbits of all their friends, too. They provided a much-needed stillpoint in everyone's lives, a little bit removed from the rest of the day, restorative and energizing. And not because it was necessarily always calm at their house, because sometimes it wasn't. But it was constant, dependable and — there's that word again — welcoming.

I always had this sense, vague and undefined though it was, that I would have a home just like that when I was grown up. I would cultivate friendships with people based largely on this arms-wide-open philosophy, encouraging my house to be a hub of socializing and bonding over unlimited cups of coffee. (Though, maybe not the same coffee my grandparents served.) My home would have that same feeling of warmth and light and unabashed friendliness. I would be welcoming.

However, as anyone who knows me well can probably guess, that scenario neglected to take into account who I actually am. Someone with forces other than nostalgia tugging on her personality, ones that balk at interruptions and sudden changes in plans, that resist letting friends see the dust bunnies under the dining room table and the toys scattered ~~in the living room~~ everywhere (while simultaneously resisting doing the work needed to banish them), and that keep her days so fully occupied that finding a moment to relax with a warm cup of something is hard enough on her own, never mind coordinated with a friend. So, while I welcome the occasional unannounced visitor, my house sees very little social traffic on a daily basis. It's just not me.

Sometimes I think that my hesitance to embrace impromptu gatherings means that when we do have people over, I can appreciate the significance even more. I can feel the change in atmosphere in the house, from banal normality to festive anticipation, a convivial feeling of opening ourselves up to the outside world, our community ties strengthening before my eyes. It's very, very good, and I'm working on doing it more often.

Which is why I loved our bo ssam party last week. Friends new and old were gathered together to eat food we'd never had before, a fitting way to welcome the new season. It was during the crazy-warm spell the atmosphere had gifted us with, so we dragged the dining room table out into the yard, threw a seldom-used tablecloth over it, and had our first garden party of the season. (Never mind that there was no garden. We're working on that.) We scooped soft, sweet meat into crisp leaves of lettuce, piled it high with jasmine rice and kimchi and two kinds of pickled carrots and daikon and ginger-scallion dipping sauce, and ate it all with much gusto and boisterous approval.

More than that, though, we spent quality time together. We caught up and got acquainted. We told stories, we laughed, we learned about who we are. We debated wines and lit the fire pit, we were dazzled by Wylie's self-designed superhero costume and impressed by Kalen's chess tutorial. As the cool darkness eased over us, we moved under the pergola, eating our just-made ice cream closer to the warmth of the fire. The kids got drowsy. The after-dinner drinks came out. The fire burned low. And the music kept playing.

Grapefruit Crisps
Yields 1 dozen

Having some dessert essentials always on-hand helps manage my stress levels when I don't have time to plan out a real dessert for a dinner party. These crisps, with the unexpected flavor of grapefruit shining through brightly, are a snap to make and keep for ages. Paired with my go-to cinnamon cream cheese ice cream, dessert that night was a refreshing and low-key way to wind down our evening.

23 grams/¼ cup almond flour
56 grams/approx. ¼ cup granulated sugar
29 grams/2 tablespoons unsalted butter
45 grams/2 tablespoons corn syrup
½ teaspoon vanilla extract
22 grams/approx. 8 teaspoons Tara's gluten-free pastry flour blend
6 grams/1½ teaspoons granulated sugar
1/8 teaspoon xanthan gum OR psyllium husk powder
finely grated zest of one large grapefruit

Preheat the oven to 350ºF. Line two baking pans with silicone baking mats and set aside.

In a baking pan, cast iron skillet, or other oven-proof sauté pan, toast the almond flour for 3-4 minutes, or until it's just beginning to turn a lovely light brown color. Keep an eye on it, it can burn quickly. Set aside to cool.

In a small saucepan set over low heat, stir together the 56 grams of sugar, the butter, corn syrup and vanilla just until smooth. Off the heat, add the toasted almond flour, pastry flour, 6 grams of sugar, xanthan gum/psyllium husk powder, and the grapefruit zest. Stir to combine well. The batter should be very loose and pourable.

Scoop the batter by the scant tablespoon onto the prepared baking pans, six per pan, leaving room for lots of spreading. Bake the crisps for 6 minutes, or until they are a rich brown color and are spread very thin. If any crisps have merged together, gently use a knife or the edge of a spatula to separate them. Cool on the pans for 2 minutes, then use a thin spatula (an offset spatula also works) to gently move them to a wire cooling rack. Cool completely, then stack the crisps, separating them with pieces of parchment or wax paper, and wrap airtight. Crisps keep, stored at room temperature, for up to two weeks.

the promise of summer

2012-03-17T14:11:00.000-04:00

On a recent breezy afternoon, the boys and I were outside in the backyard. They were excited to be geared up in lightweight jackets and puddle stompers instead of arctic wear, and were sloshing about in the mud in the shady back corner, the one where we've given up trying to grow grass and have handed over to them and their digging activities. The mud was the kind that kids delight in the most, soft and slimy and deep. The kind that slowly pulls you in the longer you stand in one place, so that Wylie had to repeatedly call for help after finding his feet firmly suctioned into the goo, unable to move.

Mud season.

Mud season is well-known in Maine. In fact, many people will refer to it as an official season, dropping "spring" from the lineup in favor of this much more accurate moniker. There are still enough dirt roads in the state that almost everyone has a story to tell about that time their car got stuck in 8 inches of muck, or was sliding precariously around the road, the deep ruts seeming to take over navigation responsibilities, pulling the car this way and that with no regard for such things as lanes. Some of us have many, many of those stories.

And even if your street is paved, the ground around it is not, and yards all over the state become giant, oozing, ultra-saturated mudflats. It's infuriating if you're an adult, exhilarating if you're a child. To step out onto what looks like a piece of solid ground, covered with a thick, matted coat of last year's lawn, only to have the earth move under you and your foot sink in, with a bit of a sideways slide as your weight shifts to balance you against the unexpected motion, means that walking suddenly becomes a much more deliberate, mindful act, as you choose each step carefully, looking in vain for the path of most resistance as you try to make the short trip from your front door around the corner to the picket fence gate in the backyard. To the kids, the ground has never been more thrilling.

Each mud season always feels more epic than the last, but this year's, based on length alone, is already one for the record books. We've been suffering through it since January, thanks to the continent's bizarrely mild winter and early spring. It hasn't been a constant presence for three months, since we've had enough cold snaps to make it more of a freeze/thaw/freeze/thaw cycle, but the deep ruts and wide patches of sod churned up by the dog's paws each time she chases a squirrel or cat across the yard are enough to make me wonder if we will even have a lawn come summertime. Last summer, our eighth in this house, Josh's eighth of deliberate, intense efforts to get a lawn to grow, was the first time our backyard looked truly filled in with green, and was soft enough and thick enough to feel good under bare feet. But now? I fear our hard-won turf, smashed and broken and shredded as it is, will be just another victim of the Mud Season of 2012.

There will be one patch of color out there, however, if only briefly. As I was gingerly picking my way along the fence line, looking for higher ground, I saw little spikes poking out of the ground. Bright green, sliding out of white sheaths, a shocking shot of newness against the drab of the defeated earth.

The crocuses are back.

Some previous occupant of our house must have optimistically planted them, along with some equally tenacious tulips, before realizing that our low-lying land can't sustain much in the way of traditional landscaping. And every year they emerge, to cradle the early honeybees that so entrance my boys, basking in the brief window of warming sunlight before the towering maples overhead leaf-out and swathe our yard in thick shade for another season.

Seeing those emerging shoots catapulted me right through spring and into summer, and for just a moment I could imagine a sun warm enough to make my hair hot to the touch, and a breeze that was refreshing instead of being something to bundle up against. After so much mud, and so much still to come, I could feel the promise of summer.

I've always thought that Mainers crave the warm seasons so intensely because winter lasts so long, and is so frigid and snowy white. And most years, I think it's true. But this winter? We haven't had much in the way of white stuff on the ground, and the typical deep freeze has been largely absent, as well. But still, everyone I know has reached their own personal breaking point and is ready for spring, right now. So I've been thinking that maybe it's not so much winter that puts a damper on our spirits (because snow we can deal with, even enjoy), but the knowledge that even after winter is exhausted we still have mud season to slop through before we can again feel good about our surroundings.

And so there I was, mud practically up to my ankles, craving summer. As is so often the case with me, my craving quickly manifested itself through what I felt like eating. Fresh salads, crisp and crunchy and lively in my mouth, anything grilled and smoky that suggested it was cooked outside, and swollen berries that popped with tart sweetness. And I wanted to eat it all outside, in the newly-returned early evening light.

The thing is, it's not summer, nor even really spring yet. The only fresh produce available is of the imported, grocery store variety, mostly bland and insipid compared to the local specimens that will be arriving in a couple of months. The ends of even the most unseasonably warm days are still cool enough that they leave my fingers cramped from the chill, shoulders hunched as I hustle the boys and their cold-induced crankiness inside. I don't want to eat dinner out there.

But the lovely, if bittersweet, consequence of 21st century agricultural practices and commerce routes means that if I need a completely impractical, unseasonal (and unfortunately probably fairly unsustainable) fruit fix in mid-March, I can have it. Immediately, in fact. I bought raspberries on a whim on my next shopping trip, and Wylie and I could barely wait until we were past the automatic doors before popping a few into our mouths. Such a deep, magenta concentration of flavor in a soft, yielding bundle of velvety flesh, pushing a rush of childhood memories to the forefront of my mind. It felt like the cruelest thing I'd done in a long time, not letting Wylie eat the entire pint right then. But I had plans for those berries, something that came to me in the split second after I decided that I needed to buy them.

Raspberry bars. But not the raspberry bars of my youth, where the "raspberry" is in fact a sticky, tacky raspberry jam baked onto a crust. I wanted my bars to feature raspberries, in all their squishy, intensely tart, baked glory. And I wanted a very tender crust, like the butteriest of shortbreads, and a crumble on top that furthered my warm-weather yearnings with notes of tropical coconut.

I love it when my mind latches onto an idea, and then it turns out that the execution of it is painless, easy even. Because easy these bars are, and fortunately exactly what I needed to give me a quick shot of the flavors of summer, especially since a day later a fast-moving system plowed through and left us with a dusting of snow that hung around for a day before finally giving up the ghost. I try to keep in mind my carbon footprint when I eat, and raspberries from Mexico, even organic ones, don't usually make the cut of what I'll allow myself to buy. But sometimes, the reminder that berries can be had year-round is much appreciated when one is in the throes of mud season. Sometimes, I have no problem at all making an exception.

Coconut Raspberry Bars
Yields one 9x13 pan

Crust
146 grams Tara's all-purpose gluten-free flour
146 grams almond flour
¾ teaspoon psyllium husk powder
170 grams unsalted butter, room temperature
75 grams granulated sugar
1 large egg, room temperature
½ teaspoon vanilla extract
¼ teaspoon fine sea salt

Topping
100 grams certified gluten-free rolled oats
60 grams light brown sugar
50 grams unsweetened shredded coconut
15 grams Tara's all-purpose gluten-free flour
80 grams unsalted butter, cold, cut into small pieces
1 pint (about 120 grams) fresh raspberries

Make the crust:
Butter a 9x13 baking pan and line it with parchment, allowing enough parchment to hand over two sides of the pan (this will help you remove the bars later).

Whisk together the gluten-free flour, almond flour, and psyllium husk powder in a mixing bowl and set aside.

In the bowl of a fitted with the paddle attachment, cream the butter and granulated sugar until light and fluffy. Add the egg, vanilla and salt and mix well, then add the flour mixture and mix until thoroughly blended. Press and spread the dough into the prepared pan (it will be very sticky; an offset spatula is a good tool to use here). Chill the dough for 1 hour, or until firm.

Preheat the oven to 325ºF. Prick the crust all over with a fork and bake it for 45 minutes, or until it turns lightly golden brown. Cool to room temperature. (Keep the oven on, if yours is like mine and takes a long time to preheat. Otherwise, go ahead and turn it off for a while.)

Make the topping:
In a mixing bowl, combine the oats, coconut, brown sugar and gluten-free flour. Using your fingers, blend in the butter pieces until the topping consists of soft crumbles, with no large pieces of butter visible, and all the oats and coconut incorporated.

Preheat the oven to 325ºF if it's not already on.

Arrange the raspberries over the cooled crust and spread the topping over them. Bake for 45-50 minutes, or until the crumble topping has turned golden brown. Cool to room temperature.

The bars may be cut from the baking pan, or you can use the overhanging parchment as handles, and life the whole bar out of the pan and onto a board. Either way, the bars will be crumbly and tender, in a deliciously butter-induced way. Bars keep, wrapped airtight and at room temperature, for up to 4 days.

Special thanks to Driscoll's® and The Baddish Group, for sending me coupons for the berries in this dish. I was not compensated for this post, and the recipe and opinions herein are my own.

breakfast crêpes

2012-03-07T07:12:00.003-05:00

When I was in high school, my friend Jill came over one afternoon and taught me how to make crêpes.

This seemed like a pretty big deal to me, although it was clearly run-of-the-mill for her. She came from a large family, being one of something like seven or nine kids, and obviously had lots of experience whipping up after-school snacks for many hungry mouths. My sisters and I, though, did not cook when we got home from school. Usually we munched on a bag of whatever flavor potato chips we had miraculously convinced Dad to buy for us, or maybe we had graham crackers and peanut butter. But that was it. The afternoons were for kicking back and relaxing, avoiding homework and housework both, not launching some big project like learning to make a classic French food.

But for Jill, it was not a big project at all. She didn't even need a recipe, her easy, intuitive actions implying once more that this was a common occurrence at her house. Our kitchen, which always seemed quite devoid of inspiration to me, had everything she needed for the crêpes, including, incredibly, a cast iron crêpe pan that we unearthed from the back of a cupboard. Clearly, a long-forgotten wedding present.

This impromptu culinary lesson was merely one of many things about Jill that impressed me. She had curly brown hair, first of all. My whole life, I have coveted curly brown hair. Hers was the really wonderful kind that always insisted on being in unruly, tight little ringlets, with random corkscrews that would spring out at endearing angles whenever it was pulled back into a ponytail. To me, hair like that was surely a sign of a slightly wild spirit, an artist, a mysterious, playful soul who would always be interesting, never shallow. Jill's hair didn't disappoint.

I don't know about where you went to high school, but in my neck of the woods, in the mid 1990s, that made Jill fairly unusual. She didn't conform enough to the "in" crowd's standards of beauty or fashion or frivolity or cattiness, and consequently was never "in." And to her benefit, in my opinion. Jill was universally kind to everyone, as if blind or oblivious to the strict social stratification governing the flow of interactions within our high school. She never seemed to worry about what opinion others might have of her, and had the kind of upbeat, positive attitude that made her seem far more adult than the rest of us. She was the kind of teenager who, looking back on her twenty years later, seemed headed for a very fabulous adulthood.

But in our kitchen that afternoon, she was just my friend, beating together flour and milk and eggs and sugar, showing me how to tip and swirl the pan so that the batter flowed evenly across it, accumulating a stack of crêpes next to the stove that would have easily fed her own family and mine.

We found a jar of raspberry jam in the fridge. Every crêpe was spread with a dollop of jam, rolled up, and dusted with powdered sugar. We weren't the only ones home at the time, so my mother or sisters probably snagged one or two. But it couldn't have been too many, as my memory of those crêpes includes feeling really full after Jill and I ate almost the entire batch. They were probably no better for me than all those potato chips, really, not the least because they were chock full of gluten, but at the same time I think they were so, so much better.

They were a lesson in the goodness that comes from doing something a little different, from making something yourself, from choosing your own path instead of mindlessly following the drum of the mainstream. They were also a lesson in what you make when you make food: connections, memories, shared experiences, friends.

I don't make crêpes very often, but every single time I do, I think of that afternoon, and I think of Jill.

Today a lot of us are thinking about crêpes, thanks to T.R., our wonderful host for this month's Gluten-Free Ratio Rally. Please be sure to check out his delicious crêpe creations over at No One Likes Crumbley Cookies, then continue on your inspirational journey by visiting all of the Rally's entries. It's a virtual crêperie!

Adina of Gluten Free Travelette ~ Breakfast Crepes Three Ways
Angela of Angela's Kitchen ~ Savory Buckwheat Crepes with Sweet Potato, Mushroom and Kale Filling
Caitlin of {Gluten-Free} Nom Nom Nom ~ Buckwheat Crepes
Caleigh of Gluten Free[k] ~ Banana Cinnamon Crepes
Caneel of Mama Me Gluten Free ~ Slightly Sweet Crepes with Caramelized Bananas and Nutella Sauce
Charissa of Zest Bakery ~ Black Pepper Crepes with Chicken Tikka Masala
Claire of My Gluten Free Home ~ Victory Crepe Cake
Erin of The Sensitive Epicure ~ Socca with Za'atar & Sumac (Garbanzo Flour Crepes)
Ginger of Fresh Ginger ~ Sweet 'n Savory
gretchen of kumquat ~ nutella crepe cake
Heather of Discovering the Extraordinary ~ "Southwestern" Crepes
Jenn of Jenn Cuisine ~ Braised Duck, Fennel and Chestnut Crêpes
Jonathan of The Canary Files ~ Vegan Crepes for Filipino Spring Rolls
Karen of Cooking Gluten-Free! ~ Gluten Free Crepes Savory or Sweet
Mary Fran of FrannyCakes ~ Gluten-free Peanut Butter Crepe Cake
Mary Fran of FrannyCakes ~ Gluten-Free Vanilla Bean Crêpes Sucrées
Monika of Chew on This! ~ Dessert crepes with caramelized plantains, toasted coconut and chocolate sauce
Morri of Meals with Morri ~ Russian Blini for Two
Mrs. R of Honey From Flinty Rocks ~ Crepes - Spinach & Dessert
Pete and Kelli of No Gluten, No Problem ~ Key Lime Crepes
Rachel of The Crispy Cook ~ Raspberries and Cream Crepes
Shauna of gluten-free girl ~ Gluten Free Buckwheat Crepes
T.R. of No One Likes Crumbley Cookies ~ Brownie Crepes with Strawberry Wine sauce
T.R. of No One Likes Crumbley Cookies ~ Basil Tomato and Feta Crepes
T.R. of No One Likes Crumbley Cookies ~ Fresh Fruit Crepe

Breakfast Crêpes with Eggs and Kale
Yields a baker's dozen (13) crêpes; filling yields four servings

The ratio for this crêpe recipe is 1 part liquid:1 part egg:½ part flour, assuming an average large egg weight of 56 grams

For the crêpes:
71 grams light buckwheat flour
47 grams Tara's all-purpose gluten-free flour blend
22 grams teff flour
280 grams (about 5) eggs
280 grams whole milk
½ teaspoon fine sea salt
42 grams (about 3 tablespoons) unsalted butter, melted and cooled

Whisk together the flours in a small bowl and set aside.

In a medium mixing bowl, thoroughly combine the eggs, milk and salt (I like to use an immersion blender for this, but you can use a whisk, too). Vigorously mix in the flour until no lumps remain, then mix in the cooled, melted butter. Allow batter to sit, uncovered, on the kitchen counter for 30 minutes.

Heat a crêpe pan or 9-inch cast iron skillet over medium heat. Briefly stir the crêpe batter to make sure its consistency is even. Brush the pan lightly with canola oil (I like to use a paper towel to rub just a sheen of oil across the pan), and pour in 2 ounces (¼ cup) of batter, tipping and swirling the pan as you do to spread the batter evenly in the pan. Cook until set, then use an offset spatula (or even a butter knife) to help you gently lift the crêpe and flip it over, briefly cooking the other side. Remove to a wire cooling rack, and repeat with remaining batter. Depending on how well-seasoned your pan is, you probably won't need to re-oil more than every three or four crêpes. Crêpes can be stacked once cool while they wait to be filled, and any leftovers can be tightly wrapped and kept at room temperature for up to two days.

For the filling:
1 large bunch of kale, chopped
3 cloves garlic, minced
sriracha, to taste
extra-virgin olive oil, for sautéing
2-3 fluid ounces chicken stock/broth
9 large eggs
salt and freshly-ground black pepper

Sauté the chopped kale and minced garlic in olive oil over medium heat until the kale has wilted. Stir in sriracha, if desired. Add the chicken stock and simmer until it is mostly evaporated. Season to taste with salt and pepper and set aside.

Whisk the eggs with salt and pepper, and scramble them however you like best. In our family, we add just a bit of sriracha, and cook them over very low heat in a cast iron pan greased with unsalted butter, stirring constantly with a spatula or fork, breaking up the curds as they form. We take the pan off the heat when the eggs are just gently set, but not dry.

Assemble the crêpes:
Pile scrambled eggs and sautéed kale onto one quadrant of each of eight crêpes, garnishing with additional sriracha, if desired. (You should.) Fold the crêpe in half, then in half again to form a triangle. Serve crêpes in pairs, while the filling is still warm.

come and gone

2012-02-26T15:34:00.000-05:00

It's Oscar night.

The buzz of Oscar-worthy party snacks is filling the airwaves and cyberspace and this house, and can no longer be ignored. Never mind that we don't have a TV and probably won't be watching the ceremony tonight, some celebration food is still in order.

Chocolate Orange Popcorn, to be exact.

Using a rasp grater, finely grate about 1 ounce of high-quality dark chocolate. (I especially like Green&Black's Maya Gold, which comes in convenient 1.2 ounce bars. One bite for me, the rest for the popcorn.) Again using the rasp, zest two clementine oranges. Set aside grated chocolate and zest. In a 4-quart saucepan set over medium-high heat, melt 3-4 tablespoons of whole kernel unrefined coconut oil. Put three popcorn kernels in the pan, put the lid on, and listen for them to pop. When all three have popped, add enough popcorn kernels to thickly cover the bottom of the pan, put the lid back on, and shake the pan to coat the kernels with the coconut oil. Listen for the popping to start, periodically shaking the pan as the popping speeds up, to help the unpopped kernels to fall to the bottom of the pan. Once the popping has just about stopped (or the lid has started to lift off the pan, depending on how much popcorn you've got in there), turn off the heat and tip the popcorn into a large bowl. Add the grated chocolate and clementine zest, and use two large spoons (or spatulas) to gently toss together the popcorn and flavorings until combined. Season well with kosher salt, and try to resist eating the whole bowl by yourself.

It's so addictive, you'll find yourself making it again and again, long after Oscar fever has come and gone.

a true connection

2012-02-24T16:39:00.000-05:00

I went to New York two weeks ago.

It was different, very different, from my last trip.

For one, I barely saw the city, save for my final night there when I escaped my hotel to wander around midtown and Grand Central Terminal. I was traveling alone, separated from my entire family for the first time in . . . what feels like forever. And, as much as this trip was focused more on food than any I've ever taken before, it turned out to not be about the food at all.

I was there to attend the Cookbook Conference, which exceeded my expectations and opened up my world in all sorts of ways I hadn't anticipated. I met some of my food writing idols, people whose work I have admired for years, and discovered that the conference provided the perfect jumping off point for making real connections with them — having real conversations — instead of feeling like a starry-eyed fan fawning at the feet of untouchable celebrities. (Although, trust me, there were still times I felt like that. When Judith Jones is standing a mere five feet away from you, how can you not?) I met wonderful, inspiring people I had only before known online, which means that the Internet, and Twitter especially, now feel a lot more friendly and personal to me. And I learned so much, about so many things I hadn't even realized I was craving insight on. Practical things, like using social media to promote your brand, and the differences between ebooks and apps, and why literary agents are more necessary than ever in today's modern, digital world. And more academic subjects, also, like using cookbooks as a means of understanding a particular moment in time, and the social and cultural values hidden in the recipes, and how the cookbooks we chose to buy reflect the identities we are trying to embody.

It was so, so wonderful to be there.

But in the midst of all the cookbook and food writing love, a little nagging issue began forming in the back of my mind. By the end of the conference it was a big nagging issue, one I couldn't help fretting over. And one that no one seemed able to help me with.

In a world barreling at break-neck speed towards the future, one that is embracing and promoting technology in all aspects of our lives, in a time when a respected publisher can tell an audience to get used to the size of their smartphone screens, because soon that's how we'll be reading all books, what does that mean for the cookbook? Cookbooks, which are designed to appeal to our senses, to entice us into the kitchen, to encourage us to roll up our sleeves and actually make something - what does it mean for them to become just another functionality of our devices?

The first time this thought crossed my mind, in a brief moment of panic during one of the conference panels, I scribbled in the margin of my notebook: The disconnect between the digitization of cookbooks (apps, ebooks, etc.) and the tactile, sensual act of actually cooking (print cookbooks bridge this gap much better). What does that say about how we feel about and approach cooking? Don't all these devices further the theme of speed, a convenient, detached, sterilization of modern life? Will the romance of cooking disappear?

The more I thought about this, the more I mulled it over, letting it get comfortable and take up residence in my mind, the less panicky I felt. I don't think we're going to lose the romance of cooking. I don't think our approach to food will become sterilized. But I do think that print cookbooks serve a special role in our lives, one we can't afford to lose.

The physical presence of a bound book gives it a permanence in our lives that a digital file would be hard-pressed to replicate. There is no sense of history, of nostalgia, of common experiences weaving through generations, binding us to each other, in an ebook. The quickly-scrawled notes in the margins that tell a reader of cookbooks how the cook had approached the particular recipe, what their family had thought of the end product, are lost in an app. The feeling of flipping through pages, especially ones wrinkled and splattered, looking for a favorite recipe that your fingers instantly recognize by the way the pages spread open more fully from years of use - how does this translate to a screen? And the sense of intimacy, of a true connection to the foods and stories and people behind the recipes, doesn't naturally come through when one is consuming the pages via high resolution touch screens.

I also think the real-life applicability of cookbooks is being affected by technology. When your favorite volumes reside on a digital device, one you take pains to protect from moisture and oils, nevermind hot pasta sauce and egg yolks, you are unlikely to prop it in the midst of your dinner prep area, for guidance and advice as you work to get a meal on the table. For those who bemoan the rise of coffee-table cookbooks as mere status symbols, tomes which are clearly never meant to get down and dirty with us as partners in the actual making of food, well, I think ebooks and apps are getting even more removed, farther away from the kitchen counter.

And how are we supposed to loan a friend a favorite cookbook if it's just a file? Heck, how are we supposed to pass down our most treasured, worn volumes to future generations? Somehow, preserving the past via digital copy doesn't feel very authentic to me. It feels remote, like something that will be hard to establish real bonds with.

Clearly, I don't know what to do about this issue. And maybe I'm just old-fashioned and sentimental, and none of my concerns will ever pan out. Maybe there's really nothing to worry about. Maybe the food revolution we're in the middle of, the one drawing so many people back to the kitchen to cook real food, the one propelling giant lawsuits against corporations like Monsanto, maybe this tide of awareness and caring means that my worries are unfounded. I don't know.

I do know that when I asked two conference panelists from two different publishing houses what their thoughts were on the issue, I got two blank stares. One stammered that she was sure someone was working on the problem (just not her), and the other wondered if maybe the job of maintaining the strong physical link between real cooking and the texts that guide us there has fallen to food bloggers. At which point he got a blank stare from me. (I don't mean to minimize the positive impact blogging can, and does, have on the food world. It's just that I was essentially bemoaning technology's invasion of the recipe and food writing industry, and we food bloggers do the majority of our work on the Internet. I don't see how that is the solution.) It was the only truly discouraging part of an otherwise delightfully inspiring conference.

So, where does this leave me (and you, if you share my feelings)? Fumbling and floundering around, mostly. Continuing to embrace technology while harboring fears of just what all this boundless enthusiasm might beget down the road. Hoping that we are not headed into a future where the printed cookbook is a relic. And cherishing my own cookbook library all the more, determined to help it grow even bigger, heavier, more voluminous. While I still can.

This weekend, I say we all go out and buy cookbooks.

wanting to be there

2012-02-16T23:39:00.000-05:00

One morning awhile back, at work before anyone else, in a kitchen quiet except for the sounds of my own activity, I listened to part of a recent episode of This American Life. (Do you listen to that show? It's wonderful.) Most of what I heard was about the Brooklyn Free School, a school where (to paraphrase the way it was being promoted on the show), "kids make the all rules."

Kids make all the rules.

To most adults, that sounds like anarchy. The only "rules" a kid would make would necessarily be in the realm of ice cream for breakfast, TV all the time, and no bedtimes, right? Because isn't that what kids, left to function without rational adult influence, would naturally gravitate towards? A life of wild abandon, of no consequences and lots of loafing and inordinate amounts of junk food?

Turns out, not so much.

According to the radio show, the students at the Brooklyn Free School do a surprisingly good job of policing themselves, making sound decisions for the good of the collective whole, and promoting ideals of mutual respect and consideration, all within an environment dedicated to learning. They have control over their daily activities, control that has been enthusiastically given to them by the adults in their lives, and it is a responsibility they apparently don't take lightly. Granted, the kids aren't without adult guidance and assistance, but the school appears to function smoothly without the authoritative, top-down administrative style of so many public school systems.

It was really inspiring to listen to.

Kalen's school, while very progressive, is not a free (or democratic) school. But it incorporates many of the same empowering values and models I heard illustrated on the radio. And there is so much respect for the individual student, for his or her readiness and abilities, natural inclinations and inherent thirst for knowledge, that there is a wonderful, school-wide atmosphere of simply wanting to be there. A lot.

It's infectious. A really great place, and Kalen is thriving there.

One thing I love about his school is the way it mirrors some of the ways we function as a family. The kids certainly don't make all the rules in this house (as inspiring as the Brooklyn Free School was to hear about, I am not the kind of parent who could live like that), but their thoughts and feelings get a lot of respect from us adults, with their opinions carrying weight when it's time to make decisions, and they are encouraged to think things through for themselves, to make choices that feel right to them and that they can live with. It's a lot more egalitarian here than it could be, I know, and I hope it results in our boys growing up to be confident, independent, considerate adults. I hope I hope I hope.

It was in this spirit of allowing child-led decision making on issues that affect them that we ended up with grilled cheese sandwiches, a period of very loud noise, and way too much blue food coloring for Kalen's birthday party last month.

He turned six — SIX — which means, as Josh has pointed out, that he is now closer to being ten than one. He has turned the corner, rounded the bend, barreling down the road towards big kid-dom, without so much as a backwards glance at his quickly receding babyhood.

It's quite thrilling to watch, really.

He's got this amazing mind that never shuts off, and he comes up with some remarkable ideas. He's a builder, a creator, a problem-solver, an artist and an inventor. In this regard, he is very much a 44-inch tall replica of Josh. Not a day passes without him working on at least one "project," as he calls them, and he's usually got three or four going at once.

He can also be a very serious child, with the longest attention span I've ever seen, and he is a voracious reader, and not just with books. He is constantly paying attention to the world around him, and noticing signs, flyers, newspapers, computer screens, ads . . . and he is reading everything. As one who remembers a childhood so full of books that I was often chastised for not going outside, for not playing enough, I think I know where he's coming from. Words, quite simply, are fascinating.

And, whether by nature or school/family influence or a combination of both, he likes to be given choices. So when it came time to plan his birthday party, I didn't hesitate to ask him what he wanted.

"Grilled cheese sandwiches."

"Okay, and what else?"

"Nothing, just grilled cheese sandwiches."

"Um, okay . . ." (We ended up supplementing two platters of grilled cheese sandwiches with a big pot of tortilla soup. After some initial consternation because he hadn't chosen it, Kalen was okay with it.)

Instead of party favors and traditional games, Kalen had a better idea. "I know! Each kid can make an instrument! Some can make drums, and some can make noise makers, and then all the grown-ups can watch while we do a parade around the house. Then everybody can take their instrument home!"

Which was an excellent idea, so completely befitting for him, so perfectly Kalen. So his birthday party featured craft time, which was received with great enthusiasm, and soon the dining room was full of paper and stickers and glue and chopsticks and plastic containers . . . and noise. Most kids chose to make noise makers, which, per Kalen's detailed instructions, consisted of lots of dried beans sealed inside a container. Of course that's what everyone wanted. Who wouldn't? (To any of our friends who, in close retrospect, would like to answer that with an emphatic Me, I am so sorry. I find that designating offending toys as 'outside toys' helps.) I thought it was awesome. It was so great to witness a room full of kids, all joyfully engaged in making stuff. I realize we still have lots of birthday parties in our future, but right now, I think this one is my favorite.

And of course, no birthday is complete without cake. Which brings us to the blue food coloring portion of this post. Legos are a very big deal at Kalen's school, and he has quickly jumped on board the obsession train. Naturally, he needed a Lego cake. He gave me the Lego I was to use as a model, and the first thing that jumped out at me was how blue it was. Like really, all the way, deep dark royal blue.

I told him I might not be able to match the color. I needn't have worried.

I'm not even going to tell you how much food coloring I whipped into that buttercream. I don't want it to be public knowledge. But I will tell you that gel food coloring darkens a lot overnight, and if you dig around in your pastry draw and find one labeled 'royal blue,' well, by golly, that's just what you're going to end up with. That, and a lot of guilt and the overwhelming need to apologize to all the parents for turning their beloved offspring's mouths such an unnatural color.

Anyway, in addition to the color, Kalen decided that it would be really cool if "the cake looked regular, but when you cut it, it was chocolate and vanilla." You're right, Kalen, that would be cool. It's your birthday, so let's do it. (If you're ever in the same situation, and looking for a time-saving trick, it's good to know that if you've got a big pan and you're using two similarly-weighted batters — I made two butter cake batters — you can just pour one batter on top of the other. They won't mix, and will bake just fine, and you'll end up with a dual-colored caked without using multiple cake pans or the need for slicing and stacking.)

In retrospect, it could have been a lot worse. He could have asked for a Lego cake that looked like an actual Lego creation, not just one building piece. He could have wanted multiple colors. He could have insisted that little Lego people be involved. He could have asked for something that would have guaranteed a day of head-banging frustration for this cake-decorating-challenged mama.

Certainly, I got off lucky. And the lack of ornate decoration allowed the focus to stay on the cake itself, which was delicious. My go-to birthday cakes have always been adaptations of Rose Levy Beranbaum's butter cakes from The Cake Bible. Long ago, when I first got that cookbook, I read the section that explains the science behind Rose's reverse creaming method, and it was an Aha! moment for the way I approach gluten-free cake baking. Her rationale for beating the dry ingredients with the butter first, instead of creaming the butter and sugar together per the standard creaming method, is to minimize the formation of gluten proteins that will toughen the cake.

Clearly, we don't have to worry about that.

But something about her method made sense to me. I felt like I wanted to coat all my gluten-free flours (especially rice flour, with its tendency towards grittiness) in a cushion of fat. And I wanted to beat the eggs into the batter for long enough to, in Rose's words, "develop the cake's structure." I wanted the soft, tender cakes that Rose promised, no matter that mine had to be gluten-free.

So, although I truly don't know the science behind why her method, designed to minimize gluten formation, would work for gluten-free cakes, I'm here to report that it does. Oh, it does. Every time I make a butter cake it receives wonderful compliments from everyone who tries it. And not the good-for-gluten-free variety of compliments. No, I get told that it's so soft, so flavorful, that it's the best cake they've ever had, all before they realize it's gluten-free. And when people find out its 'alternative' status, well, there's a lot of incredulousness. And requests for more.

You know it's a good cake when the non-gluten-free people in your life prefer it to the traditional gluten-full version.

I ended up making the vanilla butter cake twice for Kalen's birthday. He needed a batch of cupcakes to bring to school on his actual birthday, and he surprised me by choosing vanilla over chocolate when given the choice between the two. Although I'm barely eating any sugar anymore, I couldn't help but have half a cupcake that night, as we sat around the dining room table toasting our newly-crowned six-year-old. And oh man, that cupcake . . . even I was unprepared for how good it was. Exceedingly tender and soft, with a very fine crumb, and such an intense buttery-vanilla flavor. It took all my willpower not to eat more.

Sometimes I think of vanilla cake as "plain." And I've had many vanilla cakes that live up to that characterization. But not this cake. This cake is, quite simply, perfect. And it's a good one to have in your arsenal, especially if you find yourself needing to meet the requests of a child with very particular tastes, one who knows exactly what he wants.

Because sometimes, on the days when it matters the most, you have to let him take the reins. And it's nice to be able to trust that everything will turn out just great.

Gluten-Free Vanilla Butter Cake
Adapted from The Cake Bible
Yields 2 9-inch round layers

Be sure to use high quality vanilla and butter, as the flavor of both really come through in this cake. This recipe scales up and down beautifully, which I find helpful for when I need just a small batch of cupcakes or a large, 12-inch size celebration cake.

242 grams whole milk, room temperature
116 grams egg yolks, room temperature
10 grams vanilla extract
300 grams Tara's gluten-free pastry flour
300 grams granulated sugar
1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon baking powder
1½ teaspoons xanthan gum
¾ teaspoon fine sea salt
170 grams unsalted butter, room temperature

Preheat the oven to 350ºF. Prepare two 9-inch round cake pans by greasing them, lining the bottoms with parchment circles, greasing again, and flouring. (If you don't have parchment, just be sure to grease and flour the pans really well, and your cakes should release just fine.) Set aside.

In a small bowl, gently mix together about ¼ of the milk, the egg yolks, and the vanilla. Set aside.

In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, combine the pastry flour, sugar, baking powder, xanthan gum, and salt, and mix on low just until blended. (You can also do this with a hand-held electric mixer.)

Add the butter and remaining milk to the flour mixture. Mix on low speed to moisten the flour, then increase speed to medium (high if using a hand mixer) and beat for 1½ minutes. Scrape down the sides of the bowl.

Add the egg mixture in three additions, beating for 20 seconds after each addition, scraping down the sides of the bowl as necessary.

Pour the batter into the prepared pans, using a spatula to smooth the surface. (I like to put my pans on the scale and weigh out the batter, ensuring even layers.)

Bake for 25-35 minutes, or until a tester inserted near the center comes out clean, the top springs back when lightly touched, and the cake has just begun to shrink away from the sides of the pan. Cool on a wire rack for 10 minutes, then invert cakes onto racks to finish cooling. Invert again so that the cakes are right-side-up, to prevent cracking.

Cakes can be kept at room temperature, tightly wrapped, for up to two days before frosting.

pleasant in the morning

2012-02-02T12:02:00.000-05:00

I've been waking up early for about two weeks now, with the intention of getting work done before anyone else is awake to distract me. Sometimes I make it downstairs around 5am, other days, like today, it's closer to 6:00. Either way, it's still dark, but feels a whole lot more soothing and inviting than, say, the darkness at 2:30am does.

These morning hours feel like they've been waiting, silently, for someone to join them in this gentle pause before the day explodes. And now I'm here, and we keep each other company.

"What do you actually do down there?" Josh asked me dubiously the other day, mildly suspicious of my willingness to rise at such an hour.

The first thing I do, of course, is make tea. Because, though I'd like to think it's me these hours of stillness were waiting for, I'm pretty sure it's actually the tea. Choosing a mug, boiling the water, trying to keep track of the time so that my favorite jasmine pearl tea doesn't over-steep, and then sitting, in the dark dining room illuminated only by the glow spilling across from the kitchen light, two hands wrapped around the warm vessel and sipping slowly - these are the quiet, deliberate activities that early morning is made for. Tea is the bridge, the companion that gives me a place in the darkness, that eases the dawn out of the night, that guides me over to the computer so that I may sit here typing without a sense of jarring wrongness, that clears the haze from my mind and eyes so that I can notice things.

One recent morning I spent a long time noticing how clean my kitchen was.

Let's be clear right from the start that this was due to no effort of my own. After our impromptu dinner party broke up, parents stuffing young ones into winter jackets and boots and herding them out into the night, headed for their respective bedtime routines, Josh had parked himself in the kitchen and cleaned. In the time it took me to putter about the living room, putting away straggling toys, and cajoling our own boys to begin preparing for sleep, Josh had almost everything washed and put away. By the time the boys were each snuggled into their beds, lights out, there was no sign that twelve people had shared a meal in our dining room.

The man is good.

I can, however, take credit for the reason we had so many people over in the first place. And by 'credit' I mean 'blame for something slightly wasteful that could have been frustrating had it not been for the last-minute save of a dinner party.'

I made an enormous, gigantic batch of chili con carne.

After Kalen, Wylie and I each had a bowl of it the first night, without even making a dent in the way the chili filled the huge stockpot, I knew I was in trouble.

Our freezer is completely full right now. With precisely what is a bit of a mystery. The top layers, the ones you can see without moving things around, are populated with lots of frozen berries, various types of stock, leftover ice cream from Kalen's 6th birthday party (which I keep meaning to tell you about. Soon.), cubes of frozen kale pesto, artist's palates of acrylic paints the boys aren't ready to wash away yet, and a massive pork shoulder. Underneath? Well, we'll find out as we start peeling back the layers, using up what we've stored to make room for new food.

With that batch of chili, though, it appeared that I had jumped the gun. There was nowhere to put it, and even with a diet of nothing but chili it was clear it would be a week before my family saw the bottom of that stockpot.

I love it when these slightly illogical actions of ours, the ones that cause our loving husbands to ask incredulously why we never thought to consider if there was a final destination for our excess, lead to loveliness.

Because loveliness it was when two of our favorite families answered our call to action, and a cold Sunday night turned warm and festive-feeling. There were skyscrapers to build and dress-up games to play. There were jokes to be told and business ideas to hash out. There was a sweet, sweet 7-week-old baby to snuggle. There was a brilliant salad dressing made with Greek yogurt and salsa, and a ridiculously easy and delicious dessert involving bananas sautéed in coconut oil. And there was warm, cake-style cornbread to dip into our generous bowls of rich, fragrant chili. By the end of the night that chili, the problem that had lead us to that point, was all but gone.

A late January dinner with friends. The best possible solution to the best possible type of problem to have. It's even worth another round of intentional problem-causing, I'd say.

And this is the point where I imagine you are all expecting me to tell you how to make your own mythically-large pot of chili, for a cold winter's night potluck or for Superbowl Sunday or for your own, not-nearly-so-full-to-the-brim-as-my-mine, freezer.

I hate to disappoint, but no. It's not my recipe to share; all I did was follow the rock-solid instructions from the fine people over at Cook's Illustrated, who included it in The Best Recipe. (And, I presume, in The New Best Recipe, although I don't have our copy in front of me to confirm.) I'm sure the recipe is available on blogs and forums across the web, but if you want the recipe (and believe me, you do) without picking up a new cookbook, might I suggest you follow this link where you can get a free 14-day membership to the Cook's Illustrated website, including access to their recipe. (And no, no one has asked me to push you in that direction. I just think it's nice to respect copyright issues.) I increased the batch size, obviously, but you might want to be more conservative in your chili-making. However, I do highly recommend following the recipe's advice to get dried chiles and toast and grind them yourself, as it adds a wonderful depth of flavor to the chili. Plus, it smells really great when you're doing it.

So yes, I think you should make some chili, whether the same kind I made or your own favorite recipe. Because you'll then naturally look around for things to accompany it, and (this is where my real contribution to the whole endeavor comes in) I'm here to tell you that you would be very, very wise to land on cornbread.

The cornbread, meek and innocent as it may seem, is actually quite important.

I realize there are strong opinions out there about cornbread. I've witnessed it right here, in my own family. When a Northern girl marries a Southern boy, the cornbread debate is bound to come up. And I'm not here to make a definitive, final case for any of the different styles. Both Northern and Southern styles share the love in this house. (Though I would like to give a shout-out to custard cornbread, which is so old-fashioned I hardly ever hear about it anymore, but which is so uniquely good I might need to help it stage a come-back.) So if you have a favorite version, the one you grew up eating or maybe the one that trumped all others in a cornbread challenge, you can keep it, no defense necessary. And make it, filling your kitchen with it's unmistakable sweet nutty scent, so that it can sidle over and take its rightful place next to your bowl of chili, a delicate contrast to the chili's hearty richness and heat. Any cornbread would be tickled pink to be there.

However. Making cornbread to accompany your chili is not the only reason you should be making cornbread. You should also be making it to have leftovers. To eat for breakfast, to be precise. And in this very particular application, not just any cornbread will do.

You need cake-style, Northern cornbread.

This probably seems polarizing, I know, but hear me out. If you're going to eat leftover cornbread the next morning (next to your fried eggs, preferably), you need to heat it up. And not just warmed in the oven, but toasted. (Please pay attention, because this is where the case for Northern cornbread really picks up steam.) When you're toasting the cornbread, you're not merely warming it up to refresh it. You're preparing it for butter. But if you slather a pat of butter across the smooth top of your cornbread, you'll end up with a slick sheen across the surface, and greasy drips down the side.

This is not what we're going for.

You need a piece of cornbread that is thick enough, tall enough, to be split horizontally, with each half retaining its integrity as bread, and not just crust. Every Southern cornbread I've ever had has been too thin to accomplish this. But this ability is vital, because you need to toast the interior of the bread. You need an exposed crumb to get all crunchy and toasty, with bits here and there starting to singe brown, so that each bite is a study in smooth versus prickly. You need a tender surface that you can schmear butter into, not merely across. You need that absorption factor.

You need Northern cornbread.

I think, in fact, that you need my mom's cornbread. That's always been my favorite for toasting, and for good reason. It's nice and thick, which we've already established as a priority. But also, it's very moist and rich, so the toasting process doesn't risk drying it out. It's just a little bit sweet, which is pleasant in the morning next to a cup of something hot. And, unlike many Northern cornbreads, it's already gluten-free; no adaptation from me is needed.

Surely, you can stick to your current favorite cornbread for most applications. But if you think there's a chance you'll have leftovers, and you'd like to try eating them for breakfast the next morning, I really urge you to give this one a go, at least once. Because, really, I think we've all got room for one more cornbread in our lives.

Mom's Cornbread
Yields one 8x8 pan

2½ cups yellow cornmeal
1 Tablespoon packed light brown sugar
1 teaspoon fine sea salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon baking soda
3 large eggs, lightly beaten
2 liquid cups lowfat buttermilk
1½ Tablespoons oil, melted butter, or bacon fat (I admit to preferring the bacon fat. Sometimes I do a blend of bacon fat and melted butter. But canola oil works great, too.)

Preheat the oven to 425ºF. Generously butter an 8x8 baking pan.

In a medium bowl, whisk together the cornmeal, brown sugar, salt, baking powder and baking soda.

In a small bowl, combine the eggs, buttermilk and oil. Add to the dry ingredients and stir until well-blended. (It will be a very loose batter.) Pour into prepared pan and bake for 20 minutes, or until firm with the top beginning to turn golden brown. Serve warm, at room temperature, or toasted with butter.

i can't do it

2012-01-27T08:11:00.000-05:00

I can't put up text in this space without giving you a visual, too. Even if the two are wholly unrelated.

So here, have some tomatoes. And then you can go read about my morning.

treasure all the more

2012-01-27T07:42:00.000-05:00

It's still dark at 6am. Most days it is, anyway. Today, though, there is a soft light, coming from both above and below, a glow that fills the dark air. White-blue, it feels equal parts magical and softly comforting, a light that hints of cocooning and transformation.

It's a snow day.

Last year was a very snowy winter around these parts. Kalen wasn't in school yet, so snow days weren't part of our family language, but statewide, enough days of school were missed that it became a common topic of conversation, part of the small talk at the gas station and post office and grocery store, even (insomuch as it affected municipal budgets) making it onto the local news.

At our house, it meant I had a lot of shoveling to do. For a while it seemed as if every other night, after dinner, I was out clearing the new pile of snow at the foot of our driveway left behind by the snowplow's incessant pass-bys, so that Josh could pull in when he got home.

I like to shovel. I didn't mind. (Although it became harder and harder to toss the snow onto piles that were approaching five feet tall.)

This year, though?

The ground was bare when we went to bed last night. I've only shoveled once, and that was mostly for kicks - the inch of light, fluffy snow was definitely not in anyone's way. We've had only two storms move through that left a layer of white on the ground, and each time I rushed the boys out to play in it, knowing that it was a fleeting opportunity. Soon, the air would warm, the rain would come, and the snow would be gone.

It's like we're having a Seattle winter this year.

And again today. It's not 6am any more. Closing in on 7:00, I can hear the boys stirring and beginning to chat across their bedroom. They will want to make a snow fort, or maybe a snow whale. I will need to hurry them out once again, because the air has already changed. Looking out the window as the glow fades to dawn, past the bird feeder that the cardinals take possession of in the early hours, I notice that the snow on my car has cracks in in, where it is shifting and clumping together. The precious white covering the yard is quickly loosing the smoothness of its youth, becoming pockmarked and dimpled as it ages into slush. Closer to me, the precipitation that is blowing against the window has become audible. A clickety-tapping sound that reminds me of sparkles. Icy sleet.

It's warming up. The radar says the rain is almost here. Maybe if we hurry we can get in one good snowball fight before breakfast.

These snow day windows of opportunity sure do slam shut quickly this year. Which makes me treasure all the more the times we manage to slip through them, just in time.

one I plan on keeping

2012-01-06T21:50:00.000-05:00

I didn't resolve anything for 2012.

I considered it for about half a minute. I thought about my resolution track record, trying to remember what I'd been determined I should or shouldn't do in past years. But I couldn't remember any of it.

And the more I thought about it, the more I realized that, even when I have made New Year's resolutions, they have always been half-hearted, done because this is what people do, not because I actually cared about them.

Naturally, I can't remember ever accomplishing a New Year's resolution. Or feeling all that guilty about my slacking, either.

Here's the thing: my life doesn't shift at the stroke of midnight on December 31st of each year. The old year's projects and goals are never wrapped up neatly, ready to step aside for the blank slate of the new year. Fresh starts rarely correspond to January 1st in my life. And in who's life could they possibly?

Life is messy, life is jumbled, and life has no concept of the Gregorian calendar. Personal challenges come at me at all times of the year, requiring just the sort of self-awareness, concentration, and resolve that many view as the siren call of early January. And so, if in October I suddenly find myself deep in self-reflection, identifying problematic areas that need my attention, my intentions to work constructively on those issues feel far more valid, more genuine (and more likely to be accomplished) than any reluctant attempt I might cobble together in order to join the New Year's resolution party.

So there you have it. Apparently I'm a year-round resolutions gal, one who never actually uses the term 'resolution.' But self-improvement and growth are always welcome (if not necessarily with open arms), and seem at times to be a near-constant presence in my life. So what does this mean for me? A more relaxed January, for one thing, free of the pressure to change. But also a lovely, more organic sense of time, ebbing and flowing without hard stops and starts. An outlook that allows next month to be anticipated just as eagerly as next year, since they're all blank slates when you think about it. And a commitment to tackle problems now, as they arise, instead of waiting for the right or more convenient time.

Which is why, in early December, I stopped putting sugar in my coffee.

A few weeks earlier, as part of my first annual exam with a new doctor, I'd had blood drawn to "establish baseline numbers" for things like cholesterol and blood sugar, to compare against as I get older. (Yes, I was slightly miffed to be told I'm old enough to have to start worrying about those things. Turns out I should have been miffed that I hadn't been tested sooner.)

My blood sugar registered just high enough to be considered prediabetic.

Prediabetic! I was shocked, as was my doctor. I don't have any risk factors for diabetes! Except, perhaps, for a genetic tendency to have blood sugar problems in spite of a lack of obvious lifestyle risk factors, a tendency that seems to run through my father's side of the family.

Upon hearing the news, I freaked out, naturally. I vowed never to touch sugar again. I turned a blind eye to all the baking and recipe testing I'd been doing (the shortbread for the Ratio Rally, the gingerbread cookies for Williams-Sonoma's blog, the roasted pear and sweet chevre custard for 40 Paper). I began researching all the lifestyle changes a diabetes diagnosis requires, getting ready for a huge switch.

Except that . . . in all the commotion of my panic attack, I forgot that I hadn't actually been diagnosed with diabetes, and that my blood sugar numbers were low enough that my doctor was only mildly concerned. I think her exact, gentle advice was to try to increase my daily activity and eat less refined carbs, and we'd check it again later. No major lifestyle changes required right now. I calmed down and eased up on myself a little.

But still, I've dropped the sugar from my coffee in favor of honey (which I like the flavor of so much more), and went ahead and gave up my beloved morning French press for an Americano, after reading that caffeine can negatively affect blood sugar (espresso being lower in caffeine, since it's in contact with the coffee grounds for a much shorter time). I ate very few treats over the holidays, giving away much of the chocolate and cookies and candy that made it into our house. I'm making a concerted effort to add more low-glycemic foods to our already-healthy eating habits, despite the kids' near-constant requests for pasta. And I'm working on the increased activity part (realizing, finally, that being on my feet all day and chasing after my kids doesn't cut it as exercise).

It almost sounds like I made a resolution, doesn't it? Somehow, with the slight timing difference and health scare aspect of it, it doesn't feel like a New Year's one to me, and I'm adamant about not calling it a resolution, but it's certainly a commitment to change. And one I plan on keeping.

Interestingly, it doesn't (yet) feel all that hard to me. I think living gluten-free helps. Having been told many years ago that celiac disease requires you to permanently change what you eat encourages an attitude of more easily accepting that your eating habits need to reflect what your body does and does not need. No gluten? No big deal, there's plenty else to eat. So now, if my body needs me to stick to blood sugar-friendly foods, well then, that's just what I'll do. I've still got plenty of options, and the kitchen knowledge to make whatever I might be craving.

Except for . . . the cheating. With celiac, cheating isn't an issue. You simply don't do it. But the idea of suddenly (cold turkey, if you will) giving up all refined sugar and all starchy, carbohydrate-heavy foods doesn't sit well with me. I've always believed in the merits of eating everything in moderation, and now is no different. So I'm bucking pretty hard against the notion that I need to avoid sweet potatoes, and corn tortillas, and bananas. (And what about chocolate???) I love them. I consider them healthy. And I can't give them up. But with moderation, and creative food pairings, I think I'll be okay.

In this spirit of being gentle to both myself and my expectations of myself, I made this Thai-inspired dinner the other night. The peanut sauce is delicious and versatile, and the dish is full of lean protein, but embarrassingly few vegetables make an appearance, and certainly the rice sticks are not on the "good" list of low-glycemic foods. I'm okay with that. We rarely eat rice sticks. We eat vegetables all the time. And sometimes, you just have to give in to your cravings.

Which might be another good New Year's non-resolution.

Chicken and Pork with Thai Peanut Sauce and Rice Sticks
Yields 4 servings

For the sauce:
6 tablespoons natural crunchy peanut butter
3 tablespoons fresh lime juice (about ½ a lime's worth)
2 tablespoons gluten-free tamari
2 tablespoons cold water
1 tablespoon honey
1 tablespoon chopped cilantro
2 large cloves garlic, chopped
1 teaspoon chili garlic sauce (we like Huy Fong brand, adjust amount according to preference)
½ teaspoon fish sauce
½ teaspoon sesame oil

For the rest of the dish:
¼ red onion, finely diced, divided
½ pound ground pork
2 chicken thighs, deboned and the meat coarsely chopped
½ package (about 4 ounces) rice sticks, softened in boiling water
4 tablespoons peanut oil, for sautéing
lots of fresh basil, coarsely torn, for garnishing
lime wedges, for garnishing

Make the sauce:
Combine all sauce ingredients in a food processor or blender and process until combined. More water can be added to adjust consistency. Set aside.

Finish the dish:
In a large skillet, heat the peanut oil over medium-high heat until it begins to shimmer. Add half of the diced onion to the pan (reserving the rest for garnishing), and sauté until it softens. Add the chopped chicken and ground pork to the pan, season with kosher salt, and cook until the meat is cooked through. Off the heat, stir in one third of the peanut sauce.

Drain the rice sticks and thoroughly toss them with one third of the peanut sauce. Divide among four bowls, top with cooked meat and garnish with remaining diced onion, torn basil leaves, lime wedges, and remaining peanut sauce.

weekend breakfast::at home

2011-12-10T16:20:00.000-05:00

::The night before, par-bake your favorite pizza crust.

::Next morning, preheat the oven as hot as it will go.

::Top the crust with your favorite breakfast items and bake it until everything is cooked to your liking.

::(Decide that next time, you should probably crack the raw eggs directly onto the crust.)

::Serve with hot coffee, grated Parmesan, and maybe even some sriracha.

::Breakfast pizza. A civilized way to start your day, despite the kids fighting in the background, the dog barking in the yard, and the cold wind whipping around your house.