I Have A Sweet Dream

I have a dream, a song to sing 
To help me cope with anything 
If you see the wonder of a fairy tale 
You can take the future even if you fail
-Abba

Source: grouprecipes.com via Ada on Pinterest

My friend Sarah and I have been talking about a tangerine cake for a few months now. I missed her birthday celebration earlier this year and she admitted that what she really wanted was a tangerine cake, like the one served up the Diane Keaton character in Because I Said So. So when I was down in the Cities last weekend, I made it a priority to bake up a tangerine cake with Sarah, which we brought to a game night gathering. We used Paula Deen's Fresh Tangerine Cake recipe, which incorporates tangerine juice and zest, as well as a tangerine cream cheese frosting. It wasn't quite as pretty as the cake pictured above, but I can assure you it was delicious: moist, light, and fresh.

On the ride home, as I sat with the remnants of the cake on a plate in my lap, I couldn't help but let my mind wander to some warmly-lit, yet to be realized, cozy space, with a glass display case filled with homemade bakery items baked by me. You see, ever since I was a little girl I've dreamed of owning my own bakery. For a long time now, if you asked me what my ideal life would look like, I'd tell you I'd spend the mornings in my bakery, my afternoons in the garden, and my evenings writing (creatively).  A happy life really boils down to good things to eat (in moderation, of course) and nice things to read, no?

Oh, I'm a realist. Don't worry, I know that everyone fancies themselves a chef or baker and I know that restaurants/bakeries are some of the most volatile small businesses ever due to high start up costs and the low profit margin. Besides, I live in a small community which already has an established baker, along with a beloved donut shop. Any bakery of mine will have to wait until I have nothing to lose. 

The road blocks between me and my bakery can't stop me from daydreaming, so sometimes when I'm in a pensive mood I like to imagine what I'd fill my bakery display cases with. (When I'm stressed out, I also often read canning books like Food in Jars or The Blue Book of Food Preservation.)

Loaves of freshly baked bread.  White and chocolate layer cakes and a seasonal cake of the month (tangerine, strawberry shortcake, carrot, apple spice, maple cream, etc.). Fruit pies. Cinnamon rolls. Blueberry muffins. White chocolate scones. Normal sized cookies (no one needs a cookie the size of a dinner plate and normal sized cookies make them kid-friendly) stored in cookie jars: chocolate chip, peanut butter, oatmeal, sugar, thumbprint. Carafes filled with coffee and Earl Grey tea. Shelves with a selection of homemade jams and granola. No dairy-free and gluten-free items, just old fashioned, homey baking. And for the love of God, no caking decorating! And despite my affinity for them - no cupcakes except for holidays. (I'd rather frost the cake in one shebang, rather than frosting 24 individual cupcakes, thank you very much.)

I find comfort in my bakery fairy tale. Just imaging the design of my bakery cases calms me down and makes me smile. So I hold my sweet bakery dream dear and in the meantime, I keep my eyes peeled for the next perfect recipe.


What castles do you build in the air?
 

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The January Tipping Point

Because I've been in a constant state of coming and going this past month, I've been feeling a little out of touch with my kitchen. While I normally spend a fair amount of my free time in the kitchen, I find it surprisingly easy to break the home cooking habit. If I spend several nights eating out of the home, I often find the thought of actually having to cook my own dinner a little horrifying when I return home.

But after returning from my latest out of town jaunt, it was clear that I couldn't ignore the calls of the kitchen any longer. When I made a lazy dinner of spaghetti on Sunday night, I realized we were down to a single container of marinara sauce in the freezer. We'd been limping along without any bread since sometime shortly after Christmas. It was time to replenish.

So yesterday, while the wind whistled past the cabin windows, I got a batch of marinara burbling in the crockpot, prepared some make-ahead pizza dough, and baked three loaves of "our daily bread." This morning I pulled a loaf of crusty bread (Andy's favorite) out of the oven. Not only do these kitchen projects make the cabin smell great, they also help me re-ground myself in home life and reclaim my kitchen mojo.     
 

I always notice an interesting shift in my kitchen mentality each January. I don't mind really putzing in the kitchen this time of year and during deep winter days, I'm most likely to try out new recipes - probably a mixed result stemming from Christmas gifted cookbooks, the new year, and dark evenings. It's also the time of year when I decide all of that food I worked to preserve over the past summer and autumn, really ought to be eaten up. Although the gardens provide us with plenty of instant-ish gratification during the summer, now is when I'm most grateful for the hard work we put in to growing our own food the summer before.

And so we start slowly eating our way through the pantry and freezer, enjoying the tastes of far-off seasons. Oatmeal with a dollop of blueberry butter or breakfast bars that use a jar of jam to start off blustery January mornings. A pot of green bean soup burbling on the stove top. Blueberry pie or apple crisp hot out of the oven. Cabbage thrown in with a venison roast. Snacks of peach salsa on a tortilla chip, applesauce straight out of the jar, or bread and butter pickles paired with a grilled cheese sandwich. There's such abundance in our pantry this year; so many flavors to play with. What to do with all of those pickled jalapenos? Or all of those pickled cranberries for that matter . . . .

Every season is a pretty tasty one around these parts, but there's something about January that makes the homemade flavors of the kitchen even more satisfying and reassuring. The jars I pop open while the snow blows and drifts outside remind me that the seasons do change and the abundant goodness of this life.

What do you cook this time of year?
 

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There's Something About Pie

Fresh baked pies (cherry/cranberry and peach) waiting to head over to the pie and ice cream social at work today

"What is it about pies," Andy asked the other night. "Why do people go so nuts over them?"

Where he works, they're in the habit of providing their week-long stays with a pie. In the years that Andy's worked at the business, they've gone through a series of pie-bakers. (I suppose if we didn't live in the woods, we might go so far as to call them "pastry chefs.") One baker made pies that were too sweet and goop-y (instant pudding has no place in a pie shell, I say), another had trouble achieving an affordable wholesale price, the last had a severe gluten allergy that made assembling pie crusts rather tricky. In the end, the business opted to go the frozen, pre-made pie route, buying the pies directly from a wholesale restaurant supplier. But homemade or "home-baked," the guests don't care. They just want their pie.

What is it about pies?

I'm hard-pressed to think of another common dessert that strikes more fear in many of even the most experienced bakers' hearts. You're either a pie baker or you're not, although these days, with the advent of frozen and pre-made pie crusts, many non-pie bakers can limp along admirably. But despite the fact that many bakers would rather serve cake, cobbler, cookies, anything but pie for dessert, pie remains the ultimate in all-American desserts. (Keeping in mind, of course, that apple pie isn't really American - it's English, don't you know.)
    
A pie's complexity lies in its simplicity. More often than not, it's just two layers of pastry with some sort of fruit filling in between it. But a beautiful pie can quickly turn to disappointment if the crust doesn't flake when cut in or the pie filling spills out in a puddle when served.

I didn't really come from a pie eating family. My grandmother was well known for her fresh berry pies, which involved fresh fruit placed in a vegetable oil pie crust and covered with a Jell-O glaze. The fresh strawberry pie (which my brother still requests for his birthday) was delicious . . . the fresh blueberry pie with lemon Jell-O glaze remains a memorable flop. My mother's fear of pie crust meant most pies I ate as a little girl had a crumb topping, so she could avoid the hassle of a top crust. It wasn't until I discovered pie baking at age 13 that pies started be served with some regularity at home.

If you asked me if pie was my favorite dessert, I'd probably tell you "no." Ice cream and cheesecake rank above pie in my book. But when it comes to birthday treats - both those I request and those I bake for others - I find I gravitate towards pie. Key lime for me, please, molasses bourbon pecan for Andy, pumpkin or cherry for Dad.

You can't make a good pie without confidence and a bit of love for the craft. I once told an apprehensive pie baker that the secret to good pie crust was "telling the pie crust how good it was going to be the whole time you're making it." Oh and time. It doesn't take that long to roll out a homemade pie, but you just wouldn't want to rush a good pie.

So what is about pies?

I think a good pie conjures up a warm, fuzzy feeling of nostalgia and love. A good pie speaks of a slower pace of life, when there was time to futz about in the kitchen, when people worked hard enough to have their pie and eat it each evening, when ingredients were fresh and locally sourced, when our chief worry about what was going in our mouths was how it tasted.

 

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I am the Rain King

They always say, be careful what you wish for . . .

Here on the Trail, after a good long week of near hysterics about how dry it was and how high the fire danger was, we've now apparently entered monsoon season. Since Thursday, we've gotten close to 4 inches of rain, plenty of moisture to keep the fire danger down for a good long while. While some are currently bemoaning the all too successful rain dancers, I rather like the rain.

That's not to say I don't feel the inconvenience of near constant rainfall. I'd hoped to have all of the seedlings in the ground by this date, but since there's currently standing water in the raised bed, it's not exactly prime planting weather. The little seedlings especially seem to be struggling with all the moisture. They could really use a nice sunny day so they could dry out a bit instead of tipping over the side of their peat pots with the look of death in their little leaves.

 

In the last couple day, I've managed to get all of the flowers and tomatoes in their permanent homes for the summer. As I bide my time, waiting to get the rest of the vegetables and herbs planted in the raised bed, what better activity to keep myself busy than a batch of Magnolia Bakery brownies? (Granted, I didn't have the cake flour or unsweetened chocolate the recipe called for, so these are made with a slightly lower amount of all-purpose flour, less sugar, and bittersweet chocolate.) Last night I made a batch of rhubarb sauce and am now scheming up a batch homemade vanilla rhubarb swirl ice cream.

Made in two 9x9" pans, because my 9x13"s are all occupied with seedlings

Of course, it hasn't all been fun, games and rhubarb ice cream. I wrote out my time card yesterday and realized that I haven't had a full day off since the 13th. Suddenly my burnout felt a little less wimpy and a little more acceptable. (To be clear, I only worked 80 hours this past pay period, the hours were just spread out in funny, funky ways.)  Opening day (Saturday) has come and gone and after the 175 visitors we had through the museum yesterday, I'm very much looking forward to the day off that tomorrow brings.   

This is the start of my third season at this place and much of the initial glamor and allure has worn away and it's likely time for me to start plotting what comes next. But I have to admit that a gift shop all stocked and ready for opening day is truly a thing of beauty.

Happy Memorial Day all. Enjoy your day off (if you have one) and celebrate the rain (if you have some). 
 

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Tastes of Spring

Cinnamon Rhubarb Muffins

Andy's mom gifted us with some rhubarb from her patch on Tuesday and it ended up being the exact right amount for a batch of muffins. (Yes, I'm kitchen nerd who whipped out her food scale and weighed it.) I whipped up the muffins on Wednesday and oh yum, did they ever taste of springtime. It just isn't springtime until you've gotten a mouthful of tangy, sweet/tart rhubarb.

I used the cinnamon-rhubarb muffin recipe from Fine Cooking. I didn't have any sour cream on hand, so I substituted yogurt. The substitution didn't make the muffins any less luscious, but then I'm not really sure a muffin recipe that makes 12 muffins and calls for an entire stick of butter can be anything but luscious. If you're interested, you can find the recipe here.

I'm hoping to scare up some more rhubarb before the season's done. I'd like to make a batch or two of rhubarb sauce, which is the best served warm over vanilla ice cream, but is also not half bad over yogurt or oatmeal if you're feeling particularly wholesome. I wouldn't turn down a rhubarb custard pie either. . .

Our rhubarb plants have been experiencing growth spurts this week, so there may be hope yet that we'll be producing some of our rhubarb supply this year.

While I got my taste of spring, someone else was in the backyard, scrounging up their own taste of spring. There's been a bear about for the last couple weeks, but while he/she (okay, I've decided it's a "him") has made visits at most of the neighbors' places and have left numerous piles of scat in the road, our place has been ignored. That is, until last night when Mr. Bear decided to have a tumble with our compost pile.

Andy surveys the damage

Andy spent a good portion of the weekend raking up leaves from the perennial beds, so the bin was pretty filled with brown material, while green material, like kitchen scraps, was buried. Mr. Bear must not have liked what he found because he appears to have simply tipped over the bin and gone on his merry way. After righting the bin, Andy got the spilled compost back in the bin in just three handfuls.

I don't want to gloat, but I have a feeling my taste of spring was much tastier than Mr. Bear's.

 

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Out of Season Cookies

If the vast amount of asparagus we've been consuming lately is any testament, we eat pretty seasonable around here.

But when Andy wanted chocolate chip cookies the other day . . . just when I'd pull the last container of what was once these guys (below) out of the freezer . . . 

 

Well, suddenly, these guys seemed like a really good idea:

I haven't made pumpkin chocolate chip cookies in ages (if ever), but the recipe I tried out from King Arthur Flour produced lovely soft, yet chewy cookies. While spring days seem more inclined towards delicate shortbreads, slender fingers of lemon bar, mini fruit tarts, and other pretty, petite sweets you might serve at a tea party, the combination of spiced pumpkin and semisweet chocolate has been just the right cozy treat for some rather cool, rainy days.


Seasons, schmeasons.

What have you been baking lately? 
 

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Saturday Outtakes (Easter edition)

Yes, a Beanie Baby. From a Happy Meal. (No, not my Happy Meal.)

 

Happy Easter everyone! Despite having a bucket load of St. Paddy's Day decorations, I realized last week that I have a total of three (count 'em) Easter decorations. There's the two in the picture above, and then there's this gal:

Yes, she does totally lay bubble gum eggs. Apparently this plastic wind-up hen is as close as I'm going to come to real actual chicken ownerships, although I do have some plans to domesticate the neighborhood grouse this summer . . . . Just kidding. . . . Kind of . . . .

The bubble gum eggs will also be the closest we get to dyed eggs this year. Every year I think I'll dye some eggs (of course using some of those cool techniques that have been popping up on Pinterest lately), but then I remember that I'm not actually the biggest fan of dying eggs. It can be tedious and I'm just not artistic enough to create spectacular colored eggs. I'm sure we'd dye eggs if there were some littles around, but since there aren't, any eggs that will be consumed tomorrow will be fried.

I'm amused by this picture. I think I'll sell it to the MN tourism agency . . .

Andy's mom is up for the weekend to celebrate the holiday and last night we went over to the nearby campground for a picnic to soak up the beautiful spring weather we've been experiencing this week.

Today, I'm keeping busy in the kitchen, getting set for tomorrow's Easter dinner. So far, I have my pie shell baked and there's bread dough raising in a warm corner. This evening I'll mix up a batch of hot cross buns.  My parents are coming up tomorrow for dinner, so we're having a big ol' holiday celebration at the cabin this year.

2011's hot cross buns

Here's our Easter menu:

• Hot Cross Buns 
• Greek Salad
• Lamb and Green Beans (Arni me fasolakia)
• Yet-to-be-determined rice dish
• Lemon Meringue Pie 

Currently, Andy and his mom are out fixing up our two new raised bed gardens. There's something about Easter weekend that makes me want to shove my hands in the dirt in get gardening. Must be all the talk about renewal and rebirth associated with Easter.

However you celebrate the weekend, I hope you have a lovely one filled with the promise of spring. 
 

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Pie Confessions

So here I sit, sinking my teeth into a bite of banana creme pie leftover from my birthday. I do like me some banana creme pie and I haven't had it in years, but there's another reason why I requested it when my mom asked me what sweet treat I'd like for my birthday. I requested banana creme pie because Andy said he didn't like it.

You see, I'm usually a key lime pie sort of girl when it comes to birthday treats. But apparently Andy is a key lime pie sort of boy and whenever there's a key lime pie in the house, it has a mysterious way of disappearing. When I go into the fridge, expecting to find a third of a key lime pie, I find the plastic wrap all akimbo over the pie plate and a miniscule piece of pie with fork tine grooved sides tipped over in a pile of crust crumbs.

It's no secret that Andy and I are good eaters. Despite being 8 inches shorter and many pounds lighter than Andy, I can often match Andy bite for bite during meals. ((Bless you, metabolism.) But that all changes when everything gets tucked in the fridge and the kitchen light goes out for the night. Andy is the kind of person who thinks nothing of going into the fridge "after hours" to scoop out cold forkfuls of whatever he pleases. If he's especially fond of whatever was cooked for dinner, he'll eat it for breakfast and lunch the next day.

This "no rules" eating shocked me in the early days of our relationship. How could a 9x13 pan of lasagna, enchiladas, or what have you, be gone in less than 24 hours? I was raised in house where dinner was, and still is, a structured event. Leftovers were expected to be reheated and served for dinner at a later date and under no circumstances were you to eat those leftovers before that designated date unless you were specifically invited to. But when I moved in with Andy, leftovers go a lot less civilized. I learned that if you wanted a second piece, by gum, you were going to have to fight for it.

Things have calmed down a bit as we enter our late 20s. Entrees that used to last mere hours, now stretch out over two or three days.  Still, it's not unusual for me to grab the doggie bag I brought home the night before and find 2/3 of the contents gone when I go to eat it at lunchtime.

They say it's a dog eat dog world out there, but around here, it's boyfriend eat doggie bag world.

For my birthday this year, I wanted a truce. I wanted a temporary end to the angry squealing that ensues when I opened up the fridge door and viewed the latest leftover carnage. So here it is, four days after the pie's creation and I'm polishing off the final piece of banana creme pie on my schedule.

Honestly, this whole banana creme pie has been kind of dull. It's not much fun not sharing and anymore I think food tastes better when you've used wile to obtain it.

But never fear, the leftover games begin again tomorrow.

 

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Fall's Fruit: Apples

I've been noticing a lot of posts popping up on the blogosphere lately about apples and what to do with them after picking a bushel or so of them.

There's no apple tree on the cabin property and honestly, I'm not sure if there is an apple tree on the Gunflint Trail; I suppose they constitute bear bait.

Growing up in my great-grandparents' house, we had three apple trees in the backyard, all in the "winter" of their life. For years we gathered loads of apples from the yellow transparent apple tree and turned out pies, applesauce, apple butter, and crisps. But after sustaining considerable bear damage, the trees finally kicked it and my parents planted two new apple trees the spring I graduated from high school. This year, eight years after the seedlings went in the ground, my parents' apple trees produced enough apples for a single apple crisp.

While I have fond memories of peeling apples and rolling out pie crusts, I wasn't expecting to join in the annual apple harvest this year. But Andy's mother's neighbor has a well-established apple tree that they apparently don't use and I was more than happy to take some apples off their hands.

I thought I'd share a couple of my favorite uses for apples in this post, besides apple pie. 

(Why is it that I can only ever get a picture snapped of mostly eaten pie?) I just used Joy of Cooking's apple pie filling recipe. The crust recipe is a secret. ;)

What with my new water bath canner and all, I knew I wanted to make a big batch of applesauce with the apples I scored this year. While some people (ahem, Andy) may say I eat like a kindergartener, to me applesauce is the ultimate comfort food.

Our family recipe for applesauce is pretty specific:
Fill a soup pot with apple slices. (At best guess, I'd say this is approximately 2 gallons of apple slices)
Add just enough water to keep the slices from sticking - start out with about a cup and add more water as necessary
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups sugar.

Cook until soft, stirring occasionally. Puree if you like, but I prefer it chunky. Place hot applesauce into hot, sterilized canning jars. Process in water bath for 20 minutes. Makes approximate 3.5 quarts.

When I made applesauce earlier this fall, I rushed it along a little bit, which resulted in me using a high heat when cooking it and adding a lot of water. It still tastes homey, mildly sweet and delicious, but it's got some big chunks in it. If I were to do it, I'd probably simmer it for much longer over lower heat.

If I had more time (and apples) I'd have probably make a small batch of unsweetened apple sauce too for using in baking. I've made apple butter in the past and to be honest, I'm not over the moon about it. I guess I prefer berry-centric fruit spreads. Another favorite use for apples that are just about to turn is Magnolia Bakery's Apple Pecan Quick Bread.

May your baskets overflowth with apples this fall and may your home smell of cinnamon.

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The Dog Days

I've recently stumbled across a couple quotes about August.

The first one was shared with me by an Of Woods and Words fan: 

"The first week of August hangs at the very top of summer, the top of the live-long year, like the highest seat of a Ferris wheel when it pauses in its turning. The weeks that come before are only a climb from balmy spring, and those that follow a drop to the chill of autumn, but the first week of August is motionless, and hot. It is curiously silent, too, with blank white dawns and glaring noons, and sunsets smeared with too much color." — Natalie Babbitt, Tuck Everlasting 

The second quote I found while leafing through the latest issue of Minnesota Monthly:

"If the calendar were a family, August would be the great, bosomy aunt who turned down her first proposal and never again had the chance to marry. Here she comes, all smothering warmth, smelling of Aqua Net, and accompanied by a slight sense of sadness for opportunities missed." -- Shannon Olson.

I found the second quote last night when I'd finally put my feet up after an afternoon and evening of what some people might call homesteading and what I prefer to refer to as "fridge damage control."  It all started when I went out to survey the gardens and came back with four more large zucchinis in my hands. Which brought our total of harvested zucchinis and yellow summer squash that had not been transformed into anything edible and delicious up to eight. EIGHT. 

Too much zucchini

"Okay," I said to Andy, holding up the latest zucchini harvest, "who can we plant bomb?" It's that awful time of year when everyone has zucchinis (too many zucchinis) and there's no one out there to accept the (gracious, selfless) gifts of zucchini. And so, instead of setting up a "free zucchini (!!!)" stand on the side of the road, I turned on the oven, and got busy. I cranked out a double batch of both zucchini lemon muffins and chocolate zucchini bread, and chopped up two of the larger zucchini to dehydrate for later use in soups and chilis. Before I dealt with the zucchini, I had to do some reorganizing in the fridge, which resulted in a vat of fruit salad and another cold savory salad. 

"Congratulations," Andy said as I worked to get the water bath canner up to a boil to seal four quarts of blueberry pie filling. "You've successfully made it 20 degrees warmer in the cabin than it is outside."  

At the time, the thermometer in the kitchen said the indoor temp was 87, while the outdoor temp was down to 73. (Thanks for exaggerating, Andy.)

Steamy stuff

I'm not going to lie. When I looked at all those zucchinis piled on my counter, my first thought wasn't a prideful "we totally grew that." Nope, it was a feeling of sheer, body-surging horror: "What the heck am I going to do with all of these." By the time I got around to the blueberry pie filling (which had really been my sole ambition for the day), I stood over the pot, stirring the 25 cups of steaming berries and muttering under my breath "just fucking boil already." I think I lost points off my "happy homemaker ala1950s image" for the profanity. C'est la vie. 

So yes, the first week of August is certainly hanging hot and heavy in these parts. Thank goodness there's a lake 20 paces or so from the sweltering stove to provide instant heat relief.

As for the sense of missed opportunities, already Andy and I are heading out to the gardens to survey both the successes and failures and saying those fateful words: "Next year . . ."

Next year? Already the kohlrabi and broccoli have had their time in the sun. The evenings are becoming noticeably shorter. The first load of winter firewood has been ordered. It won't be long until that autumn crispness starts to sneak into the air.

But for now I'm planning to enjoy this first week of August, with all its warmth, all its sunshine, and all its zucchini.

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Guest Post: Book Club Friday Betsy-Style!

<center><a href="http://www.ofwoodsandwords.com" target="_OfWoodsandWords"><img src="http://i1125.photobucket.com/albums/l600/celinestar18/Booksicon-1.jpg" border="0" alt="Of Woods and Words"></a>

Note from Ada: This week I'm asking some of my bloggy friends to help fill the Of Woods and Words soundwaves. Last year, my dear friend Betsy from In the Past Lane, suggested I check out Made from Scratch, a book by Jean Zimmerman, after reading my post about baking bread. Instead, I grabbed Made from Scratch by Jenna Woginrich, which fueled my desire to have a backyard filled with vegetables, chickens, and bees and which I have no regretted reading one little bit. But to set the record straight, here's Betsy talking about the book I was supposed to read! 

Last fall, I meandered my way to the library of the small-town Minnesota university at which I work, for their annual book sale. Library book sales are a thing of beauty – there’s always some sort of treasure waiting to be picked up for ten cents. That day, I stumbled upon Made From Scratch: Reclaiming the Pleasures of the American Hearth by Jean Zimmerman. The jacket appealed to me – hey, I like crafty things! I like knitting and baking and cooking! Why not?

I thought the book would be an “all girls together” celebration of all things domestic. In a sense, it was – but it was so much more. Zimmerman is an author who has made her name writing books about the challenges women face in the modern world. In this book, she looks backwards – all the way to Ancient Greece, where Hestia, the goddess of the hearth, was the symbol of the strength of housewives and hearth-keepers. She traces the history of domesticity all the way up to the late 19th century. At that time, home economics became A Thing. Instead of domestic arts being consider an art, they were turned into a science, homogenized and sanitized. Instead of making bread the way your mother taught you, you made bread the way your textbook explained to you, because it was healthier and cleaner and neater and my God, don’t you want your children to grow up clean and healthy and neat? This leads into the wild and crazy sixties and the women’s lib movement, which gave women more freedom to look outside the home for fulfillment, at the cost of degrading and vilifying the domestic arts.

These are hardly conjectures or speculation on Zimmerman’s part. She backs up her statements with solid research into historical artifacts and documents, along with her own experiences of growing up in the seventies and subsequent abandonment of homemaking. At the same time that she cites studies and anecdotal research that show us how the loss of domesticity has affected us as a culture. We flock to museums that show us how people used to live, with a nostalgia for how “simple” life was back then. The Food Network is one of the fastest-growing cable channels, yet many children have never tasted homemade bread. We refer to the feeling of “coming home” when something makes us feel whole and complete, yet we neglect the art of making a home. We thrive on fast-and-easy fixes – Easy Mac, Homestyle Bakes, food that fills us but doesn’t really satisfy our souls.

This book resonated with me in many ways. I’ve always had a nostalgia for the past, as evidenced by my hobby of living history (or as others refer to it, historical reenactment). I’m what you would call a crafter – I annex crafts like they are territory to be conquered, leaping from sewing to quilting to embroidery to knitting at a rate that makes my mother roll her eyes. A child of the eighties and nineties, I never learned to use a sewing machine until I sought it out myself; when I did, I felt that “coming home” feeling, of something that clicked and felt right.

I used to think I was born in the wrong century, that I should be ashamed that modern Betsy with a college degree would actually rather bake cookies and knit a sweater. Zimmerman’s book showed me that there were centuries of homemaking traditions alive and well today. After reading the book, I was inspired to learn to bake with yeast, a task that had previously given me fits as it was too scientific. I learned to bake a cake from scratch, and when a friend served himself a third helping of my homemade old-fashioned strawberry shortcake, I beamed with pride. I came home.

The best part of it all is that Zimmerman offers no blame, points no fingers, offers no judgment. She freely admits that her own house is messy, she rarely has enough time for everything, and her kids do eat Poptarts for breakfast. As she states, “The only way forward is for us as a society to relearn to value work in the home without falling into reactionary traps about ‘proper’ roles for men and women”. Domesticity isn’t about being perfect, nor is it about stifling one’s potential. “We owe it to ourselves to live our lives fully,” Zimmerman insists, “to reap the pleasures that present themselves to us as humans.” And the most basic and fulfilling pleasure is coming home.

I’m certainly no messiah – I haven’t got further than baking kolaczys and bagels with yeast, and I still have an affinity for the occasional frozen pizza. But when that little domestic voice inside me starts begging me to knit or sew or bake a cake, I can satisfy it with pride, knowing that I’m doing my little part to keep the ancient hearth fires alive. Hestia would be proud.

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Comfort Me With Oatmeal

I'm either getting good at managing my time or else the stars magically aligned, but this past Wednesday was the first day, in dare I say, months (?) when neither Andy or I had anything in particular that needed doing or any place that needed getting to. While we parleyed about going ice fishing, it seemed like an awful long walk. (Fyi, we can see the portage to the lake we're heading to from the cabin's living room.) Andy pulled the salted minnows out of the freezer, sat down on the couch, and didn't get back up.

By the time 2 o'clock rolled it was clear that we weren't going anywhere. And that was okay. A double batch of spaghetti sauce was burbling in the crock pot, the sun was shining and we'd spent the morning picking up around the cabin.

"I wish you could blog about how good it smells in the cabin right now," Andy said.

While the smell of fennel, basil, oregano and tomatoes was just fine and dandy, I need something more to truly achieve the "zen-ish" day we had going on.


Ruth Reichl says "Comfort me with apples." I say: comfort me with oatmeal. I can not imagine a calmer, more comforting food than oatmeal. In Madeleine L'Engle's Meet the Austens, Mother always had a pot of oatmeal in the double boiler waiting for the kids as a snack when they got home from school. How cozy is that?

Since coming back from NYC I've fostered a very unoriginal love for the Magnolia Bakery and was charmed to get their cookbook for Christmas. I must say, at first glance, the recipes are less than thrilling. There's nothing crazy or terrible innovative about the recipes but both recipes I tried so far have turned out wonderfully and taste a lot more exciting than they look on paper. It's just good ol' simple, delicious baking. Imagine my excitement yesterday when I found a recipe for Oatmeal Raisin Almond cookies in the cookbook that I had all the ingredients to.

In no time at all, the smell of almondy, buttery, vanillay, oatmealy goodness was mingling in the air with tomato sauce.

Now that's comfort in one compact package.

Happy Friday to all!

P.S. It did get darn cold last night. We woke up to about -35F this morning. And just remember, that'sbefore wind chill. ;)  

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The Christmas Balls

This marks Andy and my third Christmas together and ever since that first December, Andy has been waxing poetic about bourbon balls. I had no idea what bourbon balls were when he first dropped them into conversation. Coming from a rather teetotaler household, we only ever made peanut butter balls (also called Buckeyes in some parts of the country) for the holidays, but it turns out bourbon balls are quite similar: bourbon soaked pecans mixed with powdered sugar, butter, rolled into balls and dipped in melted chocolate. Despite his talking about bourbon balls every December, for the last two Christmases, we just didn't get around to making them. Maybe I was just a little nervous about trying out something new . . .

As a college kid, fresh to the adult world and anxious to engage in Christmas merriment, my roommates and I almost always did some holiday baking. Despite all being pretty confident (and competent) in the kitchen, when working with unknown and unreliable appliances, these Christmas baking adventures resulted in a number of notable disasters.

My freshman year, my roommates and I decided to make sugar cookie in the dorm kitchen. A number of sprinkles got on the cookie sheets before they went into the oven and while the cookies were baking, the sprinkles proceeded to burn. The smoke alarm went off and the entire building was evacuated. (Luckily, it was 6 p.m. on a Friday night -- not a whole lot of people were affected.) I remember standing in the neighboring building, clutching a pair of hot pads to my chest, while we watched the emergency vehicles arrive.

Oh look, the fire engine . . .

Funny story . . .

Then my sophomore year, my dear friend (and at the time roommate), Sarah, decided to make peanut butter balls. I had made peanut balls a ton of times with my mother, but had never done it by myself. I think the same goes for Sarah. When it got to the part where you melt the chocolate, Sarah and I decided the chocolate didn't look smooth enough . . .so we added water. Of course the chocolate immediately ceased and we ended up with peanut butter balls dabbed with bits of chunky chocolate. We dubbed them Shitballs. They tasted delicious though.

Ever since, Shitballs, aka, peanut butter balls, have been a holiday tradition, something that Sarah and I make together almost every Christmas. Because of something pesky call being adults and have hundreds of miles in between us and crappy schedules, Sarah and I didn't get around to making Shitballs this year, so it only made sense that bourbon balls fill the void. 

After making a test batch last week, Andy tweaked the recipe a little bit and prepared a second batch to share with coworkers, family, friends, etc. The chocolate didn't cease, the butter in the balls didn't melt in the chocolate, and the fire alarm didn't go off. Boring really.

I still prefer the Shitballs (yes, I do choose peanut butter over bourbon) however it's been fun to watch Andy so diligently plug away at a project. Perhaps a new Christmas tradition has been born.

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What are pepitas?

As much as we like to think we treat all birthdays the same, the truth is all birthdays seem prone to a certain amount of seasonal influence. Summer birthdays will hold on to a resentment about their largely ignored birthdays well into adulthood. (Who knew bringing birthday treats into school meant so much?!) Birthdays right around Christmas will inevitably get neglected. And no matter what the season, it seems birthday sweets will always be influenced by the outside weather.

As an early spring (as in, the snow is just starting to think about melting) birthday, my birthday sweets have usually been citrus based: lemon filled layer cake, key lime pie. There's something about the tangy promise of hot places in a citrus dessert that proves to be just what you want at winter's tail end. Meanwhile, the autumn birthdays bring about heavier desserts. Just last year, I made Andy a chocolate stout cake (hello Oktoberfest!) for his mid-November birthday and I whipped up a pumpkin pie which I neglected to put sugar in for my father's late October birthday.

My father's birthday was yesterday and after last year's disaster of a pie (he literary had to poke holes in last year's sugarfree pie and drizzle it with maple syrup to make it palatable), I knew I needed to redeem myself in the birthday baking department. I decided to make a cake from the cover of the latest Fine Cooking which Dad had taken a shine too.

Here it is: Brown Butter Pumpkin Layer Cake - Fine Cooking Recipes, Techniques and Tips

The recipe looked straight forward enough, although I decided to make a couple minimal modifications to the recipe (see note below).  Then I noticed a slight problem. The recipe called for pepitas. What the heck?

I'm no pastry chef, but I'm fairly familiar with all the ingredients that would normally be involved in baking a cake. And pepitas? That was a new one for me.

In the whole foods co-op, I had an epiphany. Turns out pepitas are just hulled pumpkin seeds.

Now: what's the need for all the sugarcoating? Can't we call a pumpkin seed a pumpkin seed? Don't half the problems in the world come from refusing to call something what it really is?

But as I roasted pepitas and pecans in melted butter and tossed them in brown sugar, I started to have second thoughts about my indignation over the sugarcoating of pepitas.

Maybe all that sugarcoating's not so bad after all.

(Note: I followed the directions for the Brown Butter Pumpkin Layer Cake basically verbatim. However, to ease transport of the cake, I baked all the cake batter in a 9x13 pan and increased the baking time to 40 minutes. Many other reviewers of the cake complain about its richness. I resolved the richness problem a bit by just putting a half batch of frosting on top. A half batch of frosting looks a little skimpy, but the topping classes it up and the cake is one rich puppy even with half as much frosting on top.)

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Bake or Buy: Be Happy

By all intents and purposes, the females of my generation – the Millennials – and of my socioeconomic and racial profile – middle class, Caucasian – came into this world a pretty privileged lot. Women had gotten the vote 65 years before I was born and by the time I was toddling around, the Feminist movement was on its last legs (be that good or bad). In fact, females my age sometimes take the idea of “equal opportunity” so for granted that we often treat the word “feminist” like a profanity. We didn’t have a whole lot to prove: we were accepted for who we were.

But as the first generation of women who have basically gotten whatever we wanted, we might be just a tad spoiled. We forget how hard other women fought to get us where we are today. We forget that at its heart, feminism is about equality. More than that, we forget that equality and getting whatever you want are two different things entirely. And we forget that we have feminism to thank for several general ideals we use to navigate through life.

Ideals? Well, like the fact that we can do whatever we want to do, but with that comes an obligation to find some sense of purpose in life and to live up to your full potential. It’s fine to have kids, if you want them, but we were taught that being a mother is meant to be a small part of a larger context. And also, you better be really, really into being a homemaker if that’s the path you decide to head down, young lady.

Often it seems as though I’m in a strange power struggle with feminism. I never know who’s winning and I don’t understand why we can’t just be friends. Try as I might, my inner career woman is always picking battles with my inner homemaker.

Which is why I threw a fit when I discovered we were out of bread yesterday morning. (We’ve been out of butter for ages too.)

Lately, it’s seemed like the gears are finally turning and I’m starting to slowly chug down the tracks towards my career goals. It’s exciting and fun and it means long hours and having to eat store bread while your house falls into an increasingly chaotic mess. In general, I try to keep homemade bread on hand – when there’s time -- but that’s not to say that we don’t eat a fair amount of store bread too. For the last month, we’ve been buying a loaf of bread every now and then to tide us through until I have time to bake. But instead of me finding time to make bread, mostly we’ve just been running out of bread on a pretty consistent basis.

Yesterday, when I opened the fridge door to grab the sandwich makings for my bag lunch and spied only a flat bread bag holding a single crust of bread, I felt as though something in the big scheme of things had failed me. After all: does having it all mean we’re so busy we don’t have time to stock basic food stuffs?

So today I made Betty Friedan roll over in her grave. I baked bread and brownies and attempted to make sense of the piles of crap that had accumulated around the cabin. I realized what a lot of work it is to be a homemaker. For sure, it’s a full time job (I’m exhausted), yet we largely poo-poo homemaking because we fear the great merit of homemaking – comfort – is synonymous with complacency. That’s not really fair.

Maybe the secret to being a female in 2010 is to stop feeling like you’re letting someone down. I don’t want to have to eat store bread just because I have a busy work life. I don’t want to feel like Betty Friedan is glaring at me every time I take a loaf of bread out of the oven either.

I have yet to strike the perfect balance between, well, everything. It’s tricky business determining how to best live life as a privileged female, without squandering or taking our advantages for granted. And at its heart, being a female in 2010 isn’t really about choosing one way to live your life. Rather it’s about mixing together all the life lessons from previous generations of women who taught us to be independent and determined and who reminded us that baking should be a pleasure, not a stressful obligation

So the moral of the story is this: Bake your bread when there’s time. Buy enough to last when there isn’t. Above all else, be happy. After all, we’re a pretty spoiled lot.

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