One more time, from the beginning

Sometimes, you have to start with a dumb idea.

There's a whole Zen thing - and I am not even remotely well versed on the subject so don't yell at me if I am slightly off in my interpretation - about having a beginner's mind, Shoshin.  You come to an activity with a willingness to try everything, no preconceived notion of what can and cannot be done - no idea that something is a dumb idea.  From there, you allow yourself to explore possibilities that wouldn't occur to the expert, rigid in thought and process.

The idea that mixing ice cream and flour could make bread, for example.

I find weird ideas like this exciting. Of course I had to try it.  To me, the batter immediately suggested biscuits, rather than bread, so that's what I made - butter pecan biscuits, topped with raw sugar.  The only bad parts were my hands got really cold mixing the dough, and now I have to keep a supply of self rising flour around the house.  Because I don't already have enough flours around the house.

The good parts?  I have been inspired to play more with my baking. Not just with this recipe (although I really want to try using a good pistachio ice cream next. Or maybe beer and chocolate ice cream), but with bread in general.  What makes bread? Most bread doughs are variations on the theme of 5 parts flour, 3 parts liquid, plus leavening and flavoring.  But what does that mean?  If the liquid is water, I can develop a passable baguette, but what if I use the liquid I strain off yogurt? What if I just use yogurt?  How do different fats affect things? Different flours? So many possibilities.

There's a trick here, though.  It wasn't hard to get excited about an idea that involved two ingredients, little time and intuitively seemed like it would work.  Also, there was cheating involved on my part - someone else had already tried the idea and presented it to the world as something that works.  But when there isn't someone else showing you the silly, weird, odd ideas that shouldn't work but maybe they could work, where do they come from?  Being open to all possibilities means being open to bad ideas, as well; how can you recognize those ideas, and do you try them anyway?  Crazy Brain Me says yes, you should try them anyway, because you still get answers from failure.  You just need to not let those failures and successes stop you from trying more ideas.

Good thing I have biscuits to sustain me through the process.

Demon's Farts and Other Legacies

So, I have a new job. Actually I've had this job for a smidge over a month now, but I'm just starting to get a finger and toe hold of an idea of what my life will be like on this train I am currently riding. It's been a fun, crazy, breathless time, and somehow in there I managed to learn something about pumpernickel.

 Me and pumpernickel, we go way back. I know it appeared for sandwiches (pastrami was probably my gateway to pumpernickel) but mostly I remember the bread dip. It was a recipe from my aunt, and it was creamy and full of dill and always served in a bowl of pumpernickel bread. On such occasions as this dip would appear, I would happily eat what was left of the bowl, with its thin layer of remaining dip, delighting in the flavors and textures. Those loaves even had the occasional raisin in them. I have no idea what made that baker put raisins in the pumpernickel, but it's probably the reason I like raisins, especially in savory items.

When faced with the prospect of making my own pumpernickel, it was that pumpernickel of my memories I wanted to recreate. Like so many other cooks before me, I found the task daunting, frustrating and perplexing. True pumpernickel is not what most Americans eat. The name refers to a sourdough rye bread that was baked low and long to get its dark color and was considered so indigestible that the name describes what the consumer was to experience later as a result of eating it. I'm not quite sure what demon's farts are supposed to be like, but it sounds really awful. So I'm mostly glad that the recipe in America was lightened up and enhanced, even if the name stuck. My sticking point was the enhancements. Pumpernickel color makes a nice dark loaf, but it is really just food coloring. Bleh. Pumpernickel flour, when checking the label, turns out to be dark rye flour with a variation that existed only on the price tag. Phooey. And everyone who loves pumpernickel has their own absolute list of what can and cannot appear: caraway or no, onions or no, coffee, chocolate, etc, etc, etc.

So I made my own list, and did what anyone experimenting with food should do - I played until it tasted right. I know without a shadow of a doubt that there are those who will tell me how wrong I am doing it, but this is mine. Yes, dammit, there is caraway.  And despite the naysayers, there are those out there who have told me, "Hey, this is really good pumpernickel." I'm glad they like my memories.

A love letter to my kitchen

I went to fill the bird feeder yesterday and somehow, an hour later, I was standing in front of my stove with a toothpick cleaning out crevices and muttering darkly about ill fitting drip pans. I'm not quite sure how that came to happen, but the bird feeder did get filled. Eventually.

What I realized while I was doing this mad cleaning was that I spend more time cleaning my kitchen than any other room in my house. More time wiping, soaping, sweeping and clearing space in a room that has the same footprint as one armchair from the living room.

If I had to describe the kitchen, I would say small. My sweetheart goes to get a drink from the fridge and I stop moving because otherwise something will go horribly awry. I would then add comments about cabinet doors that don't close true anymore, especially in the rain. The single cabinet wide enough to hold my pans. Burner coils that only half work, and don't stay level. The fridge light has never worked properly. Two oddly placed outlets, total.

And yet, that tiny space is home. When I need comfort, I go there. When I want to celebrate, I go there. To bring together friends and neighbors, to find peace in solitude, that is the part of our house where I can make the world, for a little while, be what I wish it to be.

And really, that is why I cook for a living. Not because I love the craft of it, which I do. Not because I love the result, which without question is true. It's because that world that exists in my kitchen is a good world. If I move to a larger kitchen, then that good world I've created becomes larger, as well. If the people in that larger kitchen share their good world with mine, that good world becomes even larger. "Trying to make the world a better place" is trite and cliche to me. There is no try. When I cook, the world is better to me. I just want to get everyone else in on the action.

penuche, panoche

I have this thing about fudge. I don't know if it is a New England thing, a childhood thing, or what, I just know that when I was a kid, and it was summer, at some point there would be fudge. Miraculous stuff, made on marble slabs, creamy, rich and never, ever found at home. I suppose it had something to do with recipe cards that warned against making the stuff in cold weather, warm weather, humid weather, on a day that ended in the letter Y and any time between noon and four am, or something like that. whatever the reason, real fudge (not anything made with Fluff) was only found in shops, and sometimes those shops had Penuche.

Penuche originally referred to a coarse brown sugar, usually from Mexico. Around the turn of the 20th century, right around the same time that chocolate fudge was "invented", a brown sugar confection of similar texture to chocolate fudge started appearing under the name penuche. (Who knew the OED is an excellent food reference?) I found a recipe from 1919 from the book My Candy Secrets by Mary Elisabeth Evans for something called Mexican Penuchi that was made like fudge and contained three ingredients: brown sugar, molasses and water. The result tastes almost like it contains maple syrup, but the thing I wanted was the kind that my grandfather loved: buttery, creamy, a hint of vanilla, nuts. So I went forward two years and found a recipe for Panocha in a cookery textbook (yes, textbook) from 1921 that had exactly what I was looking for.

A note on fudge: seriously, if you are going old school and don't want to make fudge that contains corn syrup or marshmallow, you need a thermometer. It's going to be the closest you can get to an insurance policy. That being said, bad fudge that crumbles from overheating? Still tasty. I won't tell if you put it on top of your morning Cream of Wheat.

Penuche (adapted from Foods and Cookery by Mary Lockwood Matthews, 1921)

200 g brown sugar
200 g sugar
120 g milk
15 g butter
5 g vanilla
4 g salt
50 g toasted chopped nuts (pecans are common, I used hazelnuts)

1. Put sugars and milk in a large pot and stir briefly to combine. Boil to 238 degrees F and remove from heat.

2. Put butter, salt and vanilla on top of sugar mixture and DO NOT MIX. Leave it alone until the temperature drops to 110 F. This will help ensure small microcrystals rather than coarse crystals that taste gritty. In the mean time, warm your nuts a bit.

3. Add nuts and stir until your arm is about to fall off. The fudge will go from being shiny and glossy to dull and flat. Pour out on to a parchment lined sheet and mark for cutting. When cool, store in an airtight container

4. Fun Fact! Fudge is actually at its best the day after it is made, but those crystals do wonky things after that day, so better eat quickly!

Let's Try Science! Antler Cookies part 1

I sat in my living room, looking at a piece of naturally shed antler from Bend, OR, a box grater, and a tiny pile of shavings that were the result of almost an hour and a half's worth of labor.

This... was going to be interesting.

Cooks get excited about weird things. If it is stinky, obscure, odd and edible, chances are a cook wants to do something with it. So, there was a sense of inevitability in my soul when I first heard about antlers being an early method of leavening baked goods. "I! Have! To! Do! This!" The synapses declared it, and there but for the grace of St. Honore go I. Or something like that.

First: acquisition. Luckily the internet makes conversation between strangers possible, so Ron Zimmerman was not simply helpful, but also supportive of my internet stalking/agenda. A hunter, eBay, antique store... the age didn't matter, he stated. OK! I explained the situation to basically everyone I met. My neighbors casually made my day, "Oh yeah, "they said, "we sell them as dog treats at the pet store. " Genius!

Second: preparation. Um, dudes, bones is hard. Antlers are hard. I looked at the antler piece. The cats sniffed it. I consulted awesome people. Microplane, maybe? Well, kind of, and the result was very fine but miniscule amounts and the microplane needed an edge to work from. Well why not the stubbly, sharp, knuckle destroying side of a box grater. Aw, yeah... Still slow going, but the result was a powder finer than I had expected, certainly finer than my salt.

Yes, I thought to myself, I can work with that.

Now I just need to bake. And what should I bake? Cookies, of course...

Grasping at Straws

This has not been the best summer. I admit it, I've been struggling to put a good face on things but when you find yourself listening to Queen's Innuendo for motivation you aren't in the best place.

You need a Shirley Temple.

Ok, maybe you don't, but I do. I don't know what it is about this drink that wraps me up in footie pajamas and says, "It's ok, you can have fun now.", but it never fails to make me feel better about the world. Of course, as a grown up I can play with it in ways that wouldn't have been suitable when I was eight. Also, as a grown up, I can decide how many cherries it gets. This may be the best part, especially when you use cherries you have done up yourself. Or, if you have had a really bad set of weeks, you can do something like what I did. You can get really crazy and take someone else's inspiration and really customize your drink. Like, for example, making a cherry cheesecake shirley temple float.

Put rum cherries in the bottom of your glass(about a dozen, depending on how your day was.) Top with rum from the cherries, and some cherry syrup. Add cheesecake ice cream. If you think cheesecake tastes like ick, you can use vanilla or almond ice cream. Pour ginger ale over the top. You may need another cherry. Or more rum.

And footie pajamas.

Cherry Syrup

750 g of cherries, pitted (I used Ayers Creek's amazing montmorency cherries)

150 g sugar

50 g water

a dash of bitters

a squeeze of lime juice

a pinch of salt

Put everything together in a pot and bring to a gentle boil. Boil for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. Strain through a fine strainer into a bowl pressing all of the syrup out of the fruit. The syrup will thicken slightly when cool, but you can reduce the strained syrup to intensify its flavor and thicken it if you want (you risk scorching it, so use caution!). Cool and store in a covered container in the fridge. I have no idea how long it will keep because I use it too quickly.

18th century brain in a 21st century head

Inspiration is surprising. It involves something like a jolt, an invisible hammer smacking you between the eyes and you had better make sure you don't blink or you may miss it. At least that's how it works for me. And let me tell you, I love being inspired. I love the a-ha, the whoa, the holy crap, even the sound of everyone in the room smacking themselves on the forehead and saying something like, "Duh!" The moment of revelation.

Maybe that's why I'm a sucker for even bad police procedurals and still get all antsy when watching the end of Star Wars.

If I had to shove a label on myself, I'm kind of a stickler. I like making lists, checking statistics. I like having a correct procedure to follow. I tend to lean to the traditional, will absolutely look stuff up in the middle of arguments to see who is correct. Yeppers, one of those. I even still put two spaces in after the period (although I have progressed past the indented new paragraph.) When I decided to go to school for cooking, I went to a pastry school, and not just any pastry school, a French one. The correct way, indeed.

The thing is, having a correct way can be limiting. While it gives a necessary backbone for our skills, it also can provide restriction against the creative, the innovative. I can make a damn good croissant. I've been doing it for years now, regularly critique my own work against my own high standards. I also go out of my way in my free time to compare the work of others. What are they doing differently than me? How can I improve my own technique within the realm of the correct procedure? And always, the beacon is the plain butter croissant. Like those pizza lovers who truly want to appreciate a pizza and therefore always order a plain pie, I look to the basic as the standard bearer. Maybe you make newfangled stuff, but if you can't do the real thing who needs you, right? Right?

What happens when you find someone who can shoot your basic technique the hell out of the water at a significant distance who is also choosing to ignore that in favor of the new, the different, the (dare I say it) incorrect? Can you be so arrogant as to be dismissive simply because it is not the done thing? Or do you see the hammer coming and don't blink?

Today I took croissant dough and stuffed it with kimchi and cheese. It was fun. And tasted amazing. Hell, yeah.

I just came for the appelflappen

If you spend some time looking up the finer details of Dutch cuisine (and I know you want to) you will find some discussion about the celebratory food of New Year's Eve. Alongside the oliebollen (oily balls! yummers!) you find a note about "apple folds"aka appelflappen, a short pastry filled with bits of apple not unlike a turnover.

That is not my appelflappen.

My appelflappen (I love the word so much, even if spell check doesn't.) is entirely a product of my experiences at the Big E, the Eastern States Exposition, the greatest fair anywhere ever. You can have your county fair. Your state fair, with its butter cows and demolition derbies or whatever? Not even close to the Big E. You see, the Big E wasn't just for my piddly little New England state. It was for all of them. Oh yeah! You could get maple sugar candy at the Vermont building, wait in line forever for the tiniest, most wonderful sample of wild blueberry ice cream at the Maine building. And standing proud among the fried doughs and turkey legs was the Appelflappen.

Appelflappen! A deep fried, beer battered apple ring served hot with powdered sugar. And if you were bold enough to suggest aloud that it was not simply a reason to go to the Big E but *the* reason to go to the Big E, a bell would ring, angels would chorus and you would get an extra piece.

You know I always got an extra piece.

Sadly, I hear there is no longer appelflappen at the Big E, and what I make at home, with its microbrewed beer and heirloom apples, could be construed as an elitist Portlandia version. Instead, I recognize it for what it is, a tribute to a very sweet taste memory.

Appelflappen, Big E style

The key here is getting a good baking apple, not one that cooks into sauce, but can stand up to the rigors of battering and frying. A tart apple is a nice contrast to the batter and powdered sugar.

2 c all purpose flour

1 egg

12 oz beer (I used a Pyramid Apricot Ale which was lovely, but any beer you'll drink will do)

a pinch of sugar

a pinch of salt

4 apples, peeled, cored and cut into rings

oil for frying

powdered sugar for dusting

1. Mix together flour, sugar, salt and the egg. Slowly add the beer while whisking to form a smooth batter

2. Heat the oil over medium heat until hot

3. Dip the apple rings in the batter and gently place in the hot oil

4. Fry the apple rings, turning over as necessary, until the rings are a lovely golden brown (how dark your batter will get will depend on the beer you use, use your best judgement).

5. Drain on paper towels, dust with powdered sugar, eat while still warm. Don't forget to give yourself the extra one.

The Long Dark Apple Time of the Soul

Late January.

It's an odd thing. Sure, it's citrus season but citrus does so much better in the summer. I blame lemonade ads. There are nuts and chocolates, as always, but really, what we come to in the wonderful winter world of working seasonally is apples.

Not that it is apple season.

Oh yeah, that's right, all those apples were in season back in the late summer and fall and have been sitting in storage ever since. They aren't fresh. Our cabbages are fresher. But there they are, a dutiful standard until the rhubarb comes in. And the rhubarb is still a long way off.

I love apples, actively seek out interesting varieties and yet in late winter I too look at glorious apple pies and think, "Eh, ok. I don't need dessert today." And that is so wrong. Because apples are endlessly wonderful, useful, nutritious and far more interesting and challenging than any old berry. Best way to serve a berry? Straight up. How boring is that? But what is the best way to serve an apple?

In a pie? a cake? dipped in caramel? as a sauce? baked? fried? spread on toast? a tart? As chips? Dumplings? Juice? Cider? Layered with almond cake and served with toasted almond ice cream?

Straight up?

20 Things from 2010

1. Ayers Creek Polenta

2. A lovely glass of scotch at Laurelhurst Market

3. Getting the poached egg just right

4. Toasted 3 seed bread

5. Good Stuff NW

6. My walk to work

7. Fresh horseradish

8. Gaffer's Fish n Chips

9. Black Basque beans

10. My namesake

11. Braising greens that I harvested

12. Creme brulee can suck it.

13. Lobster mushrooms foraged by my neighbor

14. Hannah Bridge cheese from Ancient Heritage Dairy

15. Cranicocktails and brussels sprouts fritters for Thanksgiving

16. Passing around Soul of Chef

17. How I Fell In love with a Fish

18. A single sour orange

19. Fried green tomatoes

20. Half Smoke

Frittered

I can tell you when I stopped worrying and learned to love brussels sprouts. It was the day they came to the table as fritters.

I come from hearty New England stock. We do not, as a general rule, fritter. Frittering is Bad News. In fact, these fritters may have been the first fritters I ever had. It opened new worlds of frittering to me. With the help of friends, I experimented with frittering on my own. Eventually, there was even Appleflappen, but that's a story best told at a bar with a few drinks in me.

Still, these remain one of my favorite fritters.

Here's the trick about working with brussels sprouts: cook them as little as you can manage. I'm not saying raw, although you could eat them that way, I'm saying don't put them in a pot of boiling water and then walk away until the air smells of sulphur. If this is how you cook your brassicas Captain Cabbage will hunt you down for the villain you are. Also your sprouts won't taste good, and this kind of overcooking is often responsible for people making the yuck face.

Instead, try these fritters.

4 c brussels sprouts*

1.5 c all purpose flour

1 c grated cheese (I used half parmesan, half gruyere following the "It's what is in the house right now" rule of thumb)

2 eggs

.5 c heavy cream plus a little just in case

3 t baking powder

1 t salt

1 t black pepper

.25 t nutmeg

oil for frying

1. Get a big pot of salted water boiling. Drop those happy sprouts in for 4-5 minutes. Drain and shock them with ice water to stop the cooking. Drain again.

2. Chop the sprouts into small bits. If the sprouts are big, something like an eighth is dandy, very small sprouts can be just quartered.

3. In a large bowl beat the eggs lightly. Add the flour, baking powder, salt, pepper, nutmeg and cheese to mix. It will be super thick. Add the cream to thin it. Stir in the chopped sprouts. You want to end up with a batter that is thicker than pancake batter, but not stiff, so feel free to add a bit more cream if you need it.

4. If you have a deep fry rig you could deep fry these, but I don't, so instead I heated a quarter inch of oil in my cast iron skillet to slightly above medium heat. A generous spoonful of batter makes a good sized fritter. Fry a few fritters at a time (I could only do 4 at a time in my pan), leaving plenty of room between each, and flip with tongs when golden brown. Fry until golden brown on both sides, and then place on paper towels to drain. (See, really, it's kind of like cooking bacon, not scary.)

5. Serve these hot, with lemon wedges to squeeze over them. If you have to fry them in advance, you can reheat them in the oven. If you are me, you won't care if they are hot, cold, or from yesterday.

*The recipe that I adapted this from called for 4 cups of brussels sprouts, but I have no idea how much that is actually supposed to be. I don't have time to put brussels sprouts in cups! Instead, I took one of those stalks of brussels sprouts and cut the sprouts off, and used however much that was. I didn't measure it. It turned out fine.

Popovers and other impromptu party fare

Man, the 70s must have been rough.

I make this grandiose assumption not based on my own childhood, the tales of family and friends, or any real evidence. Instead, my hunch comes from the Betty Crocker Recipe cards circa 1971 that I have tacked up on my kitchen wall.

"Hurry Up Main Dishes" (favorites like liver with piquant sauce!), "Family Breakfast Brighteners" and "Dessert Spectaculars" are just a few of the categories of recipes. I can feel the pressure to provide good, fun and exciting food for every meal just ooze off these cards. Michael Pollan may say that America's food disorder stems from our overwhelming abundance but I think back then it was about being able to produce culinary awe at any hour of any day no matter what the status of your pantry, budget, or to do list. Sheesh.

My favorite is the set on Impromptu Party Fare. The idea is that anytime guests stop by you could be ready. Yes, there is a reference to when "guileless husbands turn up smiling with a dinner guest at six". Right. The recipes themselves are basically dressed up regular meals but one card has haunted me: Creamed Chipped Beef on Popovers.

Yes, that's right, SOS with the shingle being replaced by a popover.

For the record, I love chipped beef (dude, bechamel makes everything good). So I knew I would love this. And I did. But what got to me, as it does every time I make them, is how wonderful popovers can be. Why don't we make them more? I have no idea. It's super easy, can be sweet or savory and is strangely fascinating. I mean, the recipe is almost exactly the same as my favorite crepe batter, but because of the way it is cooked, it becomes a big, crusty, poofy pocket waiting to be filled.

Popovers:

1 Tbsp butter, melted

1 c. milk

2 eggs

1 c (140 g) all purpose flour

a good pinch of kosher salt

The only real key to this recipe is make sure your oven is good and hot when you put these puppies in, no skimping on the preheating, and make sure you give them the time to brown so they don't fall on you.

1. Preheat the oven to 450.

2. Grease up a muffin tin. Yes, popover pans exist, but I use a muffin tin that makes big muffins and it works out just fine.

3. Whisk up the eggs in a bowl until light and frothy.

4. Add everything else and whisk together until smooth. It's going to look like thin pancake batter. Don't be alarmed, that's how it is supposed to be.

5. Fill up muffin tins no more than half way. They will puff up significantly, so don't overfill them.

6. Bake at 450 for 20 minutes, then drop the temperature to 350 and bake another 20 minutes or so until well browned, crusty and crisp outside. Steam is what makes them puff, so don't be tempted to open the oven early! Better to check them after they have had some time at the lower temperature.

Let them sit a few minutes in the pan before popping them out on a rack. These are awesome with all sorts of butters or with soups and stews, and are available for parties. What more could a good hostess need?

Things I have learned here: market edition

I thanked my sweetheart recently for his continuing patience and indulgence where our food is concerned. When we lived in Chicago, food came from the grocery store or the produce market, because that is where I knew food to come from. Sometimes, a lot of it came in boxes. I had heard of farmer's markets, made tentative explorations in their direction, found good cheese.

Then we moved.

We moved to Atlanta, and there is a super big year round farmer's market there. I went there weekly, on my own and with my boss, to pick up fruits and vegetables (and cheese). I brought visitors there. We didn't take pictures because you aren't allowed to. After a couple years of this, and reading a book or two, it occurred to me that it isn't the same when the farmers in question live on the other side of the world. Did I really need berries in January?

Then we moved.

Now, I shop at my local farmer's market almost every week. Here's where my gratitude for my sweetheart's continued understanding comes in. We eat stuff now like weird turnips, and mysterious greens and the best polenta on the planet. The stuff we get is seriously tasty. It may not be the prettiest, and I have learned the hard way to wash stuff, and soak your cauliflower in salt water. (Seriously, folks. Soak it.) We eat a lot of plants, and less meat. I have a hard time buying meat, especially chicken, since I know where to get the good stuff. I also know, from actually talking to the person who raises those animals, how bad that other stuff can be. That holds true for a lot of our food. We aren't completely seasonal or local; I confess I bought bananas at the grocery store today. We make a pretty good effort, though. The only berries in my house right now are the ones I preserved. I know where it came from. It's never been subjected to a crazy giant recall.

Flat out, we also spend more on food.

Can we afford it? Probably, no. But I don't think we can afford not to do it, either.

Also, there is excellent cheese.

My role in the end times: chocolate zucchini cake

Yeah, in case of apocalypse, I'll need a farmer. Or at least a good gardener. Preferably one with no cooking skills whatsoever. The sum total of what I have harvested from all my plants this season, with the exception of herbs, is one (1) orange. I haven't even managed a green tomato, which is fine because I don't like raw tomatoes, but REALLY. Here we are smack dab in the prime season for dumping vegetables on your neighbors because you're sick to death of them and all I can do is be a recipient.

And make cake.

Chocolate Zucchini Cake with Pistachios

340 g all purpose flour

65 g unsweetened cocoa powder

6 g baking soda

6 g salt

8 g powdered ginger

375 g sugar

110 g butter, room temperature

105 g vegetable oil

2 eggs

5 g vanilla extract

110 g buttermilk

275 g grated peeled zucchini (don't use the seedy center because bleh. Also you could leave the peel on but why?)

175 g coarsely chopped dark chocolate (I used a 54%)

75 g pistachios, unsalted

1. Preheat the oven to 325 degrees. Line a 13x9x2" pan with parchment and spray lightly with pan spray.

2. Sift together flour, cocoa, salt, baking powder and ginger.

3. Cream butter, sugar and oil together. The key to this is to have everything at room temperature, so it mixes together smoothly.

4. Add eggs one at a time, mixing well and scraping the bowl between each addition, and then add the vanilla.

5. Alternate adding in the dry ingredients and the buttermilk to the butter/sugar mix. Mix it just enough to combine. Fold in the zucchini.

6. Smooth the batter into the pan. Sprinkle the chocolate chunks and pistachios on top.

7. Bake until tester comes out clean, about 45 minutes. You probably should wait until it is cool to eat it, but who am I to judge, since I didn't.

Why pistachios and ginger? Because I like them with chocolate. You could probably use some other nut, or leave out the ginger. But the chocolate chunks really are better than chips, so don't change that part, ok?

well, there's pie, and ice cream, and jams....

... in case you're wondering what I've been up to lately.

What you can find at the market in winter

It's not complete desolation....

A quick Shout Out

My sweet friend SisterDiane (Diane Gilleland) does a podcast and blog about all things crafty, particularly if it involves building community through social networking, supporting independent crafting or the joys of plastic canvas. She is not a cook, which makes her a nice conversational change of pace in my world, but she does appreciate cooking as a craft.

She decided she wanted to do a podcast on cooking and interviewed me about things like finding inspiration for cooking after doing it all day and how to avoid burnout; I'll probably explore some of those ideas here more later, because they are interesting topics. For now, though, I'm just going to mention this and go back to finishing the next video post.

Coming soon, upsidedown cake!

not exactly a farmer cook

There are certain food absolutes you learn early, hear often. Respect your ingredients. Fresher is better. Know where your food comes from.

In a professional kitchen, this can translate to recognizing the giant truck when it pulls up with your order, or actually visiting farmers, or even doing it yourself.

At home is a different story. At home you are free to explore the whims of your mind and stomach, and not have to worry so much about whether or not the berry yield will last you until January. I have an idyllic vision of what I like my home kitchen to be. It involves, among other things, a home garden with endless fresh herbs, happy vegetables and a cat napping under some heirloom variety of something.

Reality check: I live in an apartment, and I kill plants. Herbs that are "easy to grow" die at my hands. Our little patio gets sunlight only late in the Oregon afternoon. But I try. I can tell you lots of facts about plant needs. I know the difference between xanthophyll and chlorophyll. Facts, however, do not translate into vegetables. I bought my plants this year expecting to soon be throwing away depressing half dead specimens. I threw away the snap peas first.

Why did I go to this expense with a budget stretched thin enough? Because every time one of those plants died, I felt I was somehow failing as a cook. I know what to do with these things when they arrive triple washed and shrink wrapped. I should be able to do better than that, I felt. At home, especially, I should be able to go straight to the source. Sun and soil and water can translate into flavors we can't replicate. As good as my strawberry shortcake may be, it's a biscuit and cream without the berries. And I know the best berries can never see the inside of a fridge, can handle only a few minutes of travel and will never see the supermarket shelves. How good of a cook can I be if I can't get the best ingredients? So I try again.

This summer, I have learned something. The more I ignore plants, except to water them, the better they do. I've actually gotten to make tarragon vinegar with my own tarragon and so far I've harvested exactly one tomato (It was on the plant when I bought it) but it looks like there should be a jalapeno and a cucumber soon. I'm excited for each morning as small as the bounty may be. And each time I cook with these plants, I'm aware of all it took for them to get to where they are. Was that the best tomato ever? No. But I cooked it the best way I knew, and the result was very good. I'm learning. The next one will teach me more.

red rubin basil, the most beautiful basil I've ever seen.

Five years in

Five years ago this month, I changed careers.

How do you articulate a life changing event? An incident so personal, so entwined with the person you become, regardless of success or failure?

My first day I was delirious. Giddy. High as a kite and soared on that emotion for hours afterward. I have a record of it somewhere in the bowels of the internet and reading it this week, I smiled.

Someone asked me last weekend what it was like, to work in the business. He wasn't sure if he could handle the work. Was it really like what they show on tv? Could it really be that bad?

No, I said. It could be a helluva lot worse. It could be sitting on the side of a major city road during rush hour repairing a cake the fell over inside of the car on the way to an event. It could be going to work at midnight to be ready for a six am shop opening on the day of Christmas Eve. Discreetly ignoring the boss's drug use. Putting your feet up during the train ride home in hopes that you will still be able to walk on them when your stop arrives, if you don't fall asleep and miss your stop. The sinking feeling when you find out that because of business your hours are going to be cut, again. Keeping your head down, continuing to work and saying absolutely nothing while someone has a complete meltdown next to you. Days where you see no daylight. Nights that seem inhumanly hot, humid and endless. Equipment failures that happen at all the wrong times and menial, repetitive tasks that you perform (hopefully) perfectly, endlessly, day in and day out. Having that insane compulsion to push longer, harder, no matter the circumstances, for no good reason other than personal pride.

So, he said, after I wound down, Do you like it?

No. I love it.

Still.

My breakfast is better because I use a scale.

There is nothing I dread more in a recipe than the words "3/4 c. brown sugar, packed".

Seriously.

I almost never baked growing up. I was notorious for being the one who screwed up the toll house cookie recipe. Oh, I could cook. There was no question how I felt about food. My nearest and dearest saw my chosen profession long before I quite my job and went into food service. But baking? Was I sure?

A scale changed my life. My world opened. I have not looked back.

You need a scale to bake. Especially if you bake regularly. Why? Well, I'm not going to rehash arguments made elsewhere. To sum up, scaling is easier. Scaling entices you to play with things. Scaling lets you see how it goes together, not just what. No, rather than go through all that, I'm going to make my own version of grapenuts-like cereal. Now, if I followed the recipe I found, I would have to dirty up a whole bunch of measuring utensils. Instead, I pulled out one bowl, preheated my oven to 350 and then dumped in my bowl:

470 g whole wheat flour
58 g barley flour
65 g buckwheat flour
220 g brown sugar
7 g salt
5 g baking soda
5 g cinnamon
10 g vanilla extract
475 g buttermilk

I love a tare button.

Ok, I would have dumped it in my one bowl if I wasn't dealing with recipe conversion and innovation. Since the recipe I had was not created for a kitchen with a scale, I was forced to convert. Forced to dirty many cups and various sized spoons, pack brown sugar. How hard are you supposed to pack it anyway? Why does my cup of flour weigh something different from that other person's cup of flour? Why has no one ever made a half tablespoon scoop a regular addition to those little spoon rings? I muttered darkly through this process, knowing I won't have to do it again.

And I had to deviate from the text. In the real trademarked cereal, the ingredients (a seriously short list) note both wheat and barley. All the internet recipes I found just had wheat. Wheat is nice, but barley adds sweetness and flavor and why not add it? I had the buckwheat, so, why not add it as well? Those weird numbers are actually a half a cup each, the way I measured them. So inconsistent! But I know that since I scaled them, next time it will work out the same as this time.

I mixed it all together and spread it on a silpat, but I'm sure parchment paper and a little pan spray would work fine. I baked it on a sheet pan for about 20 minutes. I let it cool, then raked it into pieces with a fork and my hands because who needs a food processor anyway. Then it got the granola treatment- I divided the crumbs from one pan into two pans, to give them space to brown and get crunchy. Baked for an hour at 300, with lots of stirring (which I continued to do with the fork to help further break up the clumps), they smelled like cinnamon rolls and looked like, well, breakfast cereal. They cooled into the dense crunchy clumps that I adore with my yogurt only better.

And next time? I'll only need to wash one bowl.