Switching from running to mostly walking has been quite an adjustment.

But, then again, not really.

You see, the last few years of my professional running career, I could hardly wait to be able to slow down and enjoy the journey without feeling guilty. Without feeling like I was “getting behind” or “not training hard enough”. I felt like I was living with the perpetual stress of the mantra of “MORE MILES’ and “FASTER”. I was burnt out, both physically and mentally.

But, even though switching to walking came as a relief in most respects, it took a while to adjust to a slower pace, a slower attitude, and a slower lifestyle.

Without an important race – one that could determine my fate on the US National Team – looming on the horizon, I had to really search for meaning in my miles. Yes, there was still satisfaction in hitting my daily goal of 20 miles, and yes, there was still reassurance that I could continue to (mostly) eat what I love without the risk of blowing up like a Macy’s Day Parade float, but the PURPOSE of my daily miles became vague and, if I’m honest, somewhat pointless.

I started creating “Projects” – yearly mileage goals that I would post updates daily on social media. This helped for a few years. But, eventually, that became mundane and, frankly, pretty mind numbing. I found myself sinking into a bit of a depression. All of this was exacerbated by lockdowns, the stress of taking care of my dying mother, and worst of all, the crushing grief that came from her eventual death.

Truly, I was lost.

What does a middle-aged retired athlete do? Yes, I had an active law license to fall back on, and for a time, I zealously took up political activism (all while getting in my 20 miles per day), but that didn’t fill the hole left by the loss of a life I loved – purposeful hard training and the adventure, world travel, and great food that came with it. I physically craved an older, wiser, but less extreme version of the life I loved, and lost.

Was that even possible?

I searched. And I searched. I read and watched documentaries. I traveled. I cooked, ate, and tried to write about it. But nothing felt right. It all just seemed rather pointless.

Then Tim and I started hiking around the UK.

Turns out, I LOVE hiking. Growing up in the high desert mountains of West Texas, I had only really ever experienced HIKING – scary wildernesses, predatory animals lurking about, and the almost absolute necessity of camping if one wanted to do more than an out-and-back day hike.

In the UK, you can hike from beautiful town to town, spending the night in every type of accommodation, from pubs to seaside resorts to 5 star country houses. And in between, eat the most fabulous food imaginable.

Yes, the most fabulous food.

So what started out as a running blog that very quickly morphed into a food blog, is now a…what? Well, I guess it is really just more of the same. But more grown up. Slower, and hopefully, more thoughtful.

Thank you for joining me – or sticking with me if you have been here for all these years. The only thing better than hiking and eating is sharing it.

The post Will Hike For Food appeared first on Carilyn Johnson.

Gougeres, or “savory cream puffs” (don’t tell someone from France that is how I translated it), are divine. Light, airy, and crispy like a cream puff, but not sweet. Think, the pastry version of popcorn. I dare you to eat just one.

I like some sort of cheese/chive mixture in my gougere. There is something about the combination of the neutral bread (the pastry) + the saltiness/fatiness of the cheese punctuated by the slight bite of the chives that just gets me. I love it. It feels like a perfect balance between umami and texture. While I love a cheese straw, cheese ball, or just plain cheese and crackers, it doesn’t feel hyperbolic to say that a gougere is the pinnacle of the bread/cheese duo.

And so, I strongly urge you to make some. Please. Any audience will do – your best friends over for weeknight cocktails, brunch starters, or just for yourself when you are lying in bed binge watching Wednesday, Emily in Paris, Shrinking, or The Last of Us. These treats will play well right along side goth, froth, feel-good, or deadly fungus folk. And, if your bed/couch ends up being your chosen venue to enjoy your gougeres, you are less likely to have to share them. (Sidebar: If your solo TV binge involves wine, these go great with whichever white you would pair with the type of cheese you put in them. Keep that in mind.)

Tampiquena Gougeres

(adapted from Alain Ducasse)

1/2 cup water

1/2 cup milk

1 stick (4 oz) unsalted butter cut into cubes

pinch of kosher salt

1 cup AP flour

4 large eggs

3 1/2 ounces of pepper jack cheese (shredded) + more for sprinkling

pinch of salt (1/4 tsp)

Paprika/Chipotle/Aleppo spices

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Line 2 baking pans with parchment paper.

In a medium saucepan, mix the water, milk, butter, and salt, and bring to a boil. Add in flour, and stir vigorously with a wooden spoon until a smooth dough forms. Continue to stir over low heat until the mixture pulls away from the sides of the pan, about two minutes.

Scrape into the bowl of a stand mixer. Beat in one egg at a time – one minute between – until fully incorporated.

Add shredded cheese and mix.

Scoop 1/2 in round mound onto the parchment covered baking sheets. If desired, sprinkle with other spices (paprika, chipotle, aleppo – know your audience).

Sprinkle with remaining cheese.

Bake for 22 minutes until puffed and golden brown.

Delicious hot, but also great if reheated at 350 degrees.

Fill with salpicon, chicken salad, guacamole corn salsa, or pimiento cheese.

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As kids of the 70s, my siblings and I were part of the original “free range” generation. We ran wild, along with all the other kids in the neighborhood. Hide-n-go-seek, kick the can, fort building, tree climbing, water balloon fights, skateboard races, badmitton and ping pong tournaments, and backyard carnivals. Nobody was sitting inside watching television because there was nothing on during the day. No young kid was watching Edge of Tomorrow, trust me. So we played. And we played hard.

Until it was dinnertime. Like roaches when a light is turned on, the first call to dinner had every kid scattering. Despite all the freedom we had, we also knew better than be late for dinner unless we were looking for 70s style punishment. To summon their kids home, most mothers would rely on the standard open the front door and yell. So long as one kid heard the call, everyone was safe. But, too many times we would be playing in one of the many arroyos around our neighborhood, and no human voice was going to be loud enough to get us to the dinner table.

With four kids eleven years apart, my mother had no time for this malarkey. She refused to serve a cold dinner because her brood didn’t make it home on time. As a daily cook, she would spend a couple of hours every night making sure we had a from-scratch meal, and her lack of a bullhorn voice was not going to interfere.

Enter the Dinner Bell.

Now, I know what you are thinking: how the hell would a dinner bell bring all the kids running? Well, our dinner bell was a Liberty Bell replica (minus the crack) mounted on a basketball pole. When it was time for dinner (or, in the summer after dinner, at bedtime), my mom would head outside and pull on the long, hanging rope.

“Clang! Clang! Clang!” the bell reverberated all around the neighborhood, and beyond. Even with most houses on our block filled with kids, there were a few houses with elderly neighbors who I now realize were exercising an off-the-charts level of patience by not complaining. Picture the cannon scene in Mary Poppins. That was our neighborhood every single night. And my mother was the Admiral.

One of my favorite parts of dinner were the rolls. My mom wasn’t a baker, but my grandmother was. So, when we were lucky, we would get a fresh batch delivered, or brought back from a family meal at Grandmother’s house, to have with whatever Mom cooked that night. They were amazing – soft, pillowy, browned with butter, and topped with a sprinkling of flaky salt. Hot, with melted butter can still be an entire meal for me (okay, maybe three or four rolls make a meal, but who’s counting?).

As a fan of Smitten Kitchen, I was so happy to discover Deb’s Dinner Roll recipe. They are exactly how I remember my grandmother’s – and they are a regularly requested item again in my family. While the recipe is a little time consuming, I promise it is worth the effort. You will not get a better roll, I promise.

Dinner Bell Rolls

(adapted slightly from Smitten Kitchen)

1 cup (235 grams) warm water (about 85 degrees)

1 1/4 oz. packet (2 1/4 teaspoons/7 grams) instant yeast

2 tablespoons (30 grams) unsalted butter, diced

1/4 cup (50 grams) sugar

1 large egg

2 1/2  teaspoons salt

3 1/2 cups (455 grams) AP flour

oil for bowl

3 tablespoons salted butter for dipping, and then brushing, the tops of rolls (2 separate steps)

flaky salt for finishing (optional)

In a bowl or measuring cup, mix warm water and instant yeast. Add to bowl of a stand mixer, then whisk in diced butter, sugar, egg, and salt.

Replace whisk attachment with bread hook. Slowly add flour on low. Mix for 2 minutes until all flour is incorporated, then turn to medium/medium high and mix for 8 more minutes. Dough should pull away from sides of bowl.

Lightly oil a large bowl and place dough inside. Cover with plastic wrap. Proof (at about 80 degrees F) for approximately 1 and 1/2 hours, or until dough has doubled in size.

Melt 3 tablespoons of salted butter in a pan on low. Line a half-sheet baking pan (or 2 smaller sheet pans) with parchment paper.

Measure out 20 rolls, 40 grams each, to make 5 rows of 4 rolls. Handle gently. No need to knead dough. Simply roll into a ball and place in rows on your baking sheet.

Next, take the rolls over to your pan of melted butter. Tip the pan of butter so that you can “bathe” each roll in the “shallow” end of the pan where there is simply a layer of butter. You just want a thin coating on each roll, NOT a dunking. Deb describes it as a “kiss” of butter. Gently place each roll back in its place on your sheet pan.

Cover your pan of now-buttered pan of rolls with plastic wrap and let them proof for another hour. Preheat your oven to 400 degrees. After the hour is up, uncover and bake for 10 – 14 minutes until golden brown. Light brush the tops again with the remaining melted butter. Sprinkle with flaky salt, if desired.

Best straight out of the oven, so plan accordingly (I usually eat too many and then am full at mealtime).

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I miss my mom. It has been six months since she passed away after several years of declining health. As one of her primary caregivers, it was a hard few years, but nothing is worse than knowing she is gone forever. Now that the initial shock is over, and relief that she is no longer suffering has settled in, I just feel sad. Deep in my bones sad. And for some reason, Mondays are always the hardest.

So, today, I wanted comfort food. I wanted a homey recipe that harkened back to the nights I would come home from swim practice to find a plate of pot roast (one of my favorites) saved for me. I rarely ate what my family had for dinner because I usually had a full meal before going to practice, and then just had a snack when I got home right before showering and going to bed. A big plate of food at 8:30 was not my normal preference. But my mom’s pot roast was different.

As a teacher, mother to four children, and full-time carpooler for those same kids, my mom wasn’t making gourmet meals every night. She cooked every single day, but she focused on nutritious, from-scratch, comfort foods. Very few things came from a box or a can, but none of it was “fancy”. And, while I didn’t know escargot from escarole, I learned the basics of what makes food taste good at a very early age from watching my mom cook. Without understanding it, I was taught the fundamentals of good cooking every day.

While there isn’t really a specific recipe for my mom’s pot roast, it is the perfect foundational recipe for understanding how to balance flavors. Instead of a step by step set of instructions, it is just some basic guidelines: use some sort of roast, carrots, onions, celery, potatoes, red wine, beef broth, and seasonings. The beauty of it is that you don’t have to measure or have specific herbs and spices. Only have salt and pepper? That’s fine. The tomatoes, wine, and vegetables will make up for it. Understanding that searing the meat first to get a nice crust will give you a ton of flavor, and then cooking everything low and slow, is the perfect example of how time, and good ingredients, will yield a most wonderful meal. Want something you can throw together and then walk away? This recipe is for you. And, if like me, you just want your home to smell like a warm hug but you aren’t up to a full day in the kitchen, you won’t find anything easier.

Basic Pot Roast

I’m not giving exact measurements here because the point is to give you a foundation from which to work. The essentials:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Salt and pepper both sides of your roast (chuck and round are the most commonly used). Sear the meat on both sides in a hot dutch oven with a couple of tablespoons of oil until you have a nice crust – about 3-4 minutes per side.

If you have time, remove the roast, and soften up your mire poix (diced carrots, onion, and celery) in a little more oil. If you don’t have time, don’t worry about it. It adds more flavor, but the long braise will make up for skipping this step.

Line the bottom of your dutch with some chunks of carrots, celery, onions, and potatoes. Lay your seared roast on top. Pour on a can of diced tomatoes and a couple of cups of red wine. Add a couple of cups of beef broth (or a bouillon cube and some water), making sure the liquid goes about 2/3 of the way up the side of the roast, and then layer on the last of your vegetables. Feel free to add some thyme or rosemary.

Cover and place in the oven. Check on the roast periodically to assess tenderness (you want it fork tender), and to make sure there is enough liquid. You don’t want the roast to burn or dry out. Depending on the size of your roast, cook for several hours. About 30 minutes before serving, take off the lid, and with two forks, separate the meat into chunks, put the lid back on, and return to the oven. This will ensure that all the meat is flavorful and enrobed in the gravy.

After you’ve made this basic recipe a few times, you will start thinking of fun ways to improvise. Try adding mushrooms, garlic, or other vegetables. The beauty of low and slow braising is that it is very difficult to mess up. Trust your palate and go with what means “comfort food” to you.

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I loooooooove lemon olive oil cake.  That said, a cake is a commitment.  Tim doesn’t eat a lot of dessert, even healthy desserts, so I’m responsible for making sure it doesn’t go to waste.  Ahem.  I am a saint, right?  But even though I live for desserts, even I cannot eat a whole cake, and I’m not a fan of freezing them because I forget them, only to find a frosty brick of something unidentifiable three years later.

In comes a cookie.  I make A LOT of cookies because you can eat as many as you want, and then give a few away to various friends and relatives.  Cookie recipes are also much easier to scale down if you decide to just make enough for your snack (like one dozen).  This is one of those recipes.  It is perfect for a couple of days of dessert/recovery treats, especially because everything in them is actually good for you.  These cookies are gluten free, dairy free, high protein, and refined sugar free – truly my favorite kind of sweet snack, especially after a day of training.

The other thing that makes this recipe fantastic is that it only has a few ingredients, all mixed in one bowl, at one time.  You aren’t waiting for butter to soften, no need to sift and combine dry ingredients before adding to the wet, and no risk of over-mixing and ending up with a tough cookie.

Basically, these cookies are quick, healthy, and fool-proof.  What else could you ask for?

Lemon Olive Oil Cookies

(adapted from Sweet Laurel)

2 cups almond flour

1/3  cassava flour (or coconut flour)

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

juice and zest from one lemon

1/4 cup good quality olive oil

1/4 maple syrup (can sub in agave or coconut sugar)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line a large baking sheet (half sheet) with parchment paper.

Blend all ingredients together in a stand mixer, or very well by hand. Dough will be very soft.

Place dough on a sheet of plastic wrap and form into a cylinder, about 8 inches long. Twist ends, and roll wrapped cylinder until you have an evenly round log – like a giant Tootsie Roll. Unwrap and slice 10 -12 even disks of dough. Place on cookie sheet, leaving a couple of inches between.

Using the bottom of a measuring cup, gently press down on the dough disks until you have a flat circle cookie (about 1/4 inch thick).

Bake 12 minutes. Let cool on the baking sheet for 5 minutes before moving to a cooling rack. Allow to cool completely before glazing.

Glaze

1/3 cup arrowroot powder

Juice from one lemon, plus zest reserved for sprinkling at the end

3 tablespoons olive oil

Combine all ingredients except the zest. Mix vigorously, as the juice and the oil want to separate. Once you have a pourable glaze, work quickly to pour over cookies. Sprinkle with lemon zest.

The post Lemon Olive Cookies appeared first on Carilyn Johnson.

I seem to make a lot of banana bread, mostly because I too often find myself the owner of many very ripe bananas.  You see, I am a lover of smoothies, especially ones that start with a banana – which is especially weird since I don’t really like bananas, in general.  And as a lover of banana-based smoothies, though, I sometimes overshoot how many I will use before they turn to “banana bread brown”, thus the plethora of banana bread posts on this blog.

As a kid, I had one of those scratch-and-sniff picture books full of delicious “smelling” drawings of cupcakes, peaches, strawberries, chocolate ice cream cones, and cookies.  And one stinking banana – and I mean that literally.  To me, very few things are as noxious smelling as fake banana sent, or as cloying in taste as banana extract flavored baked goods. Blech. But, when one uses real bananas, and mix them with sugar, butter, flour, and eggs, I. Am. All. In.  Once again, as we discover almost every day in the kitchen, the alchemy of cooking magically transforms something gross into something craveable.

Having just done a big 200 mile week, gotten Covid, kept doing miles while recovering, and trying to get over the lingering cough, I have been wanting my comfort food to provide extra-level comfort.  To that end, what better way to make banana bread tickle your toes than to add chocolate chips, of course.  Then, after you’ve scarfed down half the loaf during your afternoon “recovery” snacking, turn a couple of pieces into a peanut butter and chocolate chip banana bread sandwich.  Yes, please.  It is all so good.

Even after the banana bread, I still have two bananas on my counter that look like they spent the weekend in the Caribbean getting a nice tan and a patchwork of freckles.  I think the only rational adult solution is to turn them into another loaf and put it in the freezer.  It has been a hard couple of years, and I don’t think there is any shame stockpiling necessities, just in case.  For some, this means extra toilet paper and meat.  But for others, it means having a ready-made supply of things that remind us of kitchen magic.

Chocolate Chip Banana Bread

1 1/2 cups AP flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

1/3 cup melted unsalted butter, slightly cooled

1/2  cup packed brown sugar

1 large egg

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

3 ripe banans, mashed

3/4 cup chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Grease a 9 x 5** inch loaf pan using butter or baking spray, then, if desired lay in a parchment “sling” for easier removal (spray the sling, too).

In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, and salt. Set aside.

In a stand mixer, on medium, beat together the melted butter and brown sugar until the brown sugar is fully softened – about 2 minutes.  Add the egg and beat on medium for 1 minute.  Add the vanilla, mix on medium low, and then the mashed bananas, mixing until incorporated.

With mixer on low, slowly blend in the dry mixture. Beat only until fully incorporated.

Add the chocolate chips and mix gently.

Pour into prepared loaf pan and bake for 50 minutes, or until a knife in the center comes out clean.

**  This mixture fits a smaller loaf pan better, but most people only have the standard 9 x 5, so I’m using that. If you do have a smaller pan, you will need to adjust your bake time accordingly.

The post Another Banana Bread Post appeared first on Carilyn Johnson.

This isn’t a recipe post so much as it is an ode to eating, my favorite pastime.  With all the stress, turmoil, illness, strife, and general unhappiness that we have witnessed over the last couple of years, one shining ray of positivity has broken through the dark clouds of despair many of us have felt on and off – learning to eat at home again.  I love that eating out had become such an expected part of our regular life experience.  I can think of very few things that give me more pleasure than a great meal cooked by someone who loves to feed people.  I love supporting people who choose the restaurant industry as their calling, and who make their living in it.

But, with so much accessibility to “other-made-food”, I believe we started trending back towards the days when convenience trumped quality.  As a child of the 70s and 80s, I had a front row seat to the quick and cheap “modern” foods – TV dinners, canned pastas, shelf-stable cheese.  While I don’t believe eating out a lot is exactly synonymous with that time period, I do think many of us had gotten a little too comfortable just “grabbing” something on our way home, or “throwing something in the microwave”.

Lockdown, as heinous as it was, seemed to shake us out of our trance.  While “I MADE BREAD!” posts became ubiquitous on Instagram, and turned into mocking memes, really, that was awesome.  People who had never known the self-satisfaction of taking a few humble ingredients (flour, yeast, salt, water) and making something sustaining and delicious were suddenly so moved by it that they posted for all to see, even when their loaves were misshapen, burned, too blonde, or just plain disasters.  People were cooking, and feeding themselves, and they were proud.

As a cook, I loved every story I saw.  I appreciated every person who went into their kitchen and created something from random ingredients.  I loved the pride.  I understood the excitement.  I reveled in the joy.

And that is how I feel every time I cook a “feast”.  And by feast I mean any meal that is intentional, generous in courses, not rushed, and celebrated with shared photos and conversation.  I love the communal quality of cooking with Tim, music playing, a glass of very chilled Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc on the counter, and knives, cutting boards, the salt cellar, blocks of good butter, and pans spread out across my kitchen.  We always have good music playing in the background, and better conversation going on between the “hand me the olive oil,” and “did you check on the veg?”  Every time, every meal, feels special.

So, please keep on cooking.  Please go on sharing photos of what you made.  Maybe you aren’t a chef or a master photographer, but some of us really love your creations, nonetheless.  Because we love what they stand for, what they tell us without telling us: that you are home, creating, feeding, comforting, and living a generous life in spite of how hard and scary life can be.  We can all feast on that.

The post Feasting appeared first on Carilyn Johnson.

I found myself inadvertently heading up the mountain today. I just started walking, determined to get my mileage, but feeling very little enthusiasm. If you read my last post, you know I have been struggling of late. I’m grateful for my Project6240, as it forces me to move every single day, which is wonderful for a bruised soul, but it can also seem a bit like a death march when I’m not feeling it.

I had met Tim for lunch, his way of trying to show me love and support without hinting at sympathy – which I hate. We ate at a restaurant at the base of the Franklins, so, though I normally do most of my miles in the Valley closer to my house, I decided to make the most of the gorgeous weather, and headed up, up, up. And it was perfect. I’d forgotten what it felt like to just head out with no destination in mind. Over the last couple of years, I had felt so limited in where I could go, not wanting to get too far away from my car in case a phone call came telling me I had to rush up to my parents. These calls were frequent, and at all hours, so being miles away from my car just added an element of stress that ruined any outing that was more complicated than loops around a park or on my treadmill.

The mountain miles felt so easy, so unencumbered, that I actually teared up. THIS was why I had always gone adventuring, even as a little girl. THIS was what had kept me moving after all these years. Yes, I had loved my years competing, the challenge of being able to run around a track for 24 hours, staying in the zone, racking up as many miles as possible, but I hadn’t realized how much I had missed just setting out and moving, with no goal, able to take any trail or road that seemed appealing. No one was relying on me to be home at a certain time. No one (knock wood) was going to call me to solve a crisis or handle an emergency. I was no longer on call.

I know I will wake up again tomorrow with the same sense of desolation as this morning, but for a few brief hours, I relished in the freedom of being able to go up and down mountains again.

The post Up and Down Mountains appeared first on Carilyn Johnson.

Trying to get traction after my mom’s death has proven to be difficult. As one of her primary caregivers for the last several years, it has been very strange to suddenly find myself with little responsibility. I basically went from taking care of kids to taking care of my mom. Now, I am a childless mother AND a motherless child.

Where do you go when everything you did every single day evaporates? Who am I now?

I know they say to give yourself at least a year after a major loss before you make any changes in your life, but I don’t know that just sitting here navel gazing is the best way to grieve. I feel like a chained rat trying to gnaw off my own tail. I am anxious to get moving, but also depressed. I’m convinced that my life will never have another purpose, that I will be forever destined to log miles, do laundry, and wait for the next good series on HBO Max. As they say, I’m much too young to feel this damn old. And I want to not feel like this.

I spent the last couple of years while taking care of my mother planning races, trips, and goals that would never come to fruition – goals that I had already postponed to raise my kids. Now, when I have all the time in the world, I lack the desire to do go after any of them. A cookbook? Why? There are a million cookbooks written by chefs much more talented than me. Race? My knee is done, basically bone on bone. I can slog out my daily mileage goal, but without major surgery, my racing days are over. Start a restaurant? That seems like a commitment too far.

So I sit. And I move. And then I sit some more. I try not to drown my sorrows in cake and champagne. I know how easy it is to believe that stuffing yourself is the same thing as dealing with yourself. Been there, done that.

And I know in time I will once again see the path I’m supposed to follow. I’m too old to just hurtle head first down every open road in front of me, but I’m too young to just park myself on the side of the road forever. Right now, I’m just trying to see this as a temporary, albeit sad, pause at one of life’s bus stops. Eventually, I hope, the right bus will come along and I will be on my way again, looking forward to new sights, sounds, tastes, and adventures. But for now, maybe I will just take a long hot bath and read a good book.

The post Lost and Found appeared first on Carilyn Johnson.

If you follow me on social media, you may have read that my beloved mom passed away a couple of weeks ago. It was not a shock because she had been declining over the last couple of years after she took a fall in the middle of the night and broke her hip. But, it was a surprise because she had rallied, and had even been doing daily physical therapy with me the week before. For the last couple of years she had been in immense pain. My soul wept for her, knowing how mightily she struggled. But even though I knew she was finally released from her misery, I am still grieving beyond my ability to express it. I loved my mom completely, and the loss of her, even after her long decline, will be felt for my lifetime. I am bereft.

When I am in a bad place, I only know how to do two things: move and cook. Today was no different. While I was trying to get in my daily miles, all I could think about were things I had loved from my childhood. No shocker to any of you, but I was a sweets fiend. My mom was a great cook, and so we always had some sort of dessert around. I’ve always loved cake (while the rest of my family was partial to pie), so whenever Mom made a cake, I was always able to eat more than my fair share. Cake, cake, cake. That is what my soul needed today. I wanted to be in the kitchen, channeling my mother, with the end result being something comforting. No, I didn’t truly believe that a cake would soothe my grief, but I needed to be busy – and baking seemed a whole lot healthier than drinking.

Over the past couple of years, I have spent waaaay too many hours trying to perfect my nougat recipe. Since honey is one of the main components, I, of course, being obsessive, started collecting honey from all over the place. Any time Tim leaves town, he brings me a new jar of local honey from whatever city he was visiting. Honey is like wine – you can taste the terroir. Bees drink the nectar from local flowers, and then produce honey with a taste distinctive to that area. Yes, big brand honey is often just the result of mixing a lot of different honeys together making it taste “middle-of-the road”, but if you seek our genuine local honey wherever you are, you will find a true spectrum of flavors.

Today, I was in the mood for dessert, but not something too sweet. I remembered seeing someone somewhere make a “honey cake”, but I wasn’t really paying attention to how she did it. I was just got stuck on “cake” and “honey”. Ding ding ding. After some furious googling, and the realization that I did not have all the necessary ingredients for a “normal” honey cake, I decided to wing it. I figured I would end up with something at least edible, satisfying my cake craving, and that would be the end of it. I was making comfort food just for me, so it didn’t really matter if it was spectacular.

But, lo and behold, it came out pretty darn good! No, this cake is not spectacular, but after reading up on honey cakes, which, it turns out, are a traditional treat served for the Jewish New Year, I didn’t find anyone claiming that honey cakes are supposed to be spectacular. They are, in fact, supposed to be homey and comforting. This is the kind of cake that would be dynamite for breakfast, or, like how I ate it, with your afternoon coffee. It is not fancy, or decadent. It’s just plain good.

And, sometimes, when life is a bit complicated, that is exactly what we need.

Lemon Glazed Honey Cake

2 cups AP flour

pinch Kosher salt (about 1/2 tsp.)

1/2 tsp. baking soda

1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened

1 cup strong honey (not clover – too mild.

3 large eggs, room temperature

1 tsp. pure vanilla extract

1/4 tsp. almond extract

1/2 cup greek yogurt

1 tablespoon heavy cream

For the glaze

2 cups powdered sugar

juice from 1 lemon

2 tablespoons whole milk or cream

Line the bottom of a 9 inch round cake pan with parchment paper. Grease/spray the pan.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, salt, and baking soda.

In a stand mixer, beat the butter for 1 minute. Add the honey and beat for 2 more minutes until light and fluffy.

Add the eggs one at a time, mixing for 1 minute between,

Add the vanilla and almond extracts.

In 3 separate additions, add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients until just blended. Do not overmix.

Add the Greek yogurt and cream until just incorporated.

Pour into the cake pan. Bake for 35 minutes, until top is deep golden brown and a cake tester comes out clean. DO NOT OVERBAKE.

Let cake cool on a wire rack for at least 30 minutes before removing from cake pan.

When cake is completely cooled, make the glaze.

Glaze

Combine the powdered sugar, lemon juice, and milk cream. Check consistency. You want it to be thin enough to pour, but not so thin that it doesn’t cling to the cake. Adjust consistency – add more lemon juice or milk if too thick, or more powdered sugar if too thin. Taste as you go. You want this glaze to be very lemony as the cake is very subtle.

Enjoy!!

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