wordsworth and radish butter

"Wisdom and Spirit of the universe!
Thou Soul, that art the Eternity of thought!



And giv'st to forms and images a breath
And everlasting motion! not in vain,
By day or star-light, thus from my first dawn
Of childhood didst thou intertwine for me
The passions that build up our human soul;
Not with the mean and vulgar works of Man;



But with high objects, with enduring things,
With life and nature, purifying thus
The elements of feeling and of thought,
And sanctifying by such a discipline
Both pain and fear,--until we recognise
A grandeur in the beatings of the heart."

-William Wordsworth, from "Influence of Natural Objects: In Calling Forth and Strengthening the Imagination In Boyhood and Early Youth"

 

Radish Butter

Combine 1 softened stick of butter with 6 finely chopped radishes, 3 snipped chives, a hefty squeeze of lemon, and the best salt in your cupboard.  Mix, and enjoy.
 

best of the butter lambs

I never quite know what to do with Easter.  Usually we get invited to some egg hunt or other and we eat some chocolate, but yesterday we woke up, and the girls said, "Isn't it Easter?" and we said, "Yes! Let's eat eggs!"
And so we did. It was not our finest holiday moment.
Last year, we celebrated with the butter lamb, and that made me feel quite festive.  Marya came and taught us how to turn butter into art (or rather, lambs), and the holiday was joyous and covered in butter. I swore that I would carve a lamb from butter every year, even though I am neither Catholic nor Polish.
Yesterday, I forgot about the butter lamb. I guess the tradition just isn't in my blood.  Next year.
But today, on this day after the holiday, I thought we'd do a little something special, so that we all can experience the joy of the butter lamb.
Our first butter lamb came home with Joey when he taught Marya's daughter years ago.  We marveled and cooed over it, and wondering what its story was, we did some research.
That is one fabulous thing to google.  And to lift my spirits (as it did then too) I googled that lamb today.
Here it is... the best of the butter lambs.

 

This is from Patti at Comfy Cuisine.  I love the parsley in the mouth.  It's a "grass fed" butter lamb.

 Here's a beauty from the St. Andrew's Ukranian Orthodox ladies auxilliary.  And another, maybe my favorite, the modern art butter lamb from Joeware:

 

Then of course, there is the high end, groomed butter lamb, courtesy of the New York Folklore Society.

And the lovely "lamb among the iceberg lettuce" from DzyneLab SpookyDaffodils:

And, although a little intense, the "final" butter lamb from All About Being Inspired:

(love the nostrils on this one)

There are thousands of butter lambs out there, and today, I'd guess the remnants of them are being spread on toast.  But I have to finish here with the first butter lamb that ever came into my house, the one that Marya made for Joey.  I was just looking through google images, and my eye caught on this image, and I thought, now there is a beautiful butter lamb.  Witness, "butter lamb with pea shoots":

Oh, Butter Lamb!  You are truly divine.  

Happy Monday, friends. 

challah, or, on kids cooking (again)

 

The girls are home this week, and they are hungry.

I'm locked away in my room, doing a final edit (okay, so I wasn't quite done with the book!), and so there is a lot of "Mom, we're going to.." and I say "fine!" before they finish, as long as they don't need my help. 

 

The other day, the activity was challah.  

 Now, I hope I have made it clear in the past that the whole topic of kids cooking is one I continue to try to untangle. I read accounts of parents who claim that they do it every day--that their toddlers stir and whisk and chop and everyone is happy--and I can only think one thing.
That they are better people than I.
Don't get me wrong, my kids cook with me a lot, but it rarely ends well.  I hand over the dry ingredients for a cake and they whisk whisk whisk until most of the powder has migrated out of the bowl.  I take a breath, and say, "can I help?" and they say no, and then we all get grumpy.  But lately, I've figured out the secret.  I've got it.

Get the hell out of the kitchen.
Of course, it helps if they can read, which they can! And the twelve-year-old aunt, that helps too.
But as long as I'm out of there, it all goes well. At least, they solve the problems that come up and I don't have to witness them. 

Sadie's been requesting that my next book be a kids' cooking book.  I guess it should be called, "Get the Hell out of the Kitchen."

They found the recipe themselves, appropriately from the big book on the shelf called "Baking." And all afternoon, they kneaded and stirred.  And then they braided and baked. 

And then there was this beautiful loaf of bread.
I have to admit, I've never made challah.  Those girls teach me a thing or two.

The next day, Rosie and Sadie were fighting, and Sadie got upset, and she stormed into my room with a stomp! stomp! (She actually stomps even when she's happy)  And she said, "Mom?  I need to make a cake.  Cooking is the only thing that can calm me down."

That's my girl.

She had her eye on a recipe that she had seen on the back of the Hershey's Unsweetened Cocoa box, some basic chocolate cake recipe.  She wanted to do this one all on her own.  So I got the ingredients of the higher shelves for her, I gave her my best cooking advice (Read the recipe 3 times!) and then I got the hell out of the kitchen.  Half an hour later, she tip-toed back into my room. "Mom, the cakes are in the oven!" Start to finish, that girl made her cakes.  She was calm, and happy, and couldn't stop turning the light on in the oven.  I also was feeling pretty self satisfied.  Look at me letting go of control! Honoring my daughter's power!  I must be getting better!
The rest of the day and a frosting mess later, we cut into that empowering and beautiful cake.  I couldn't help but notice the tiny white dots of baking soda scattered throughout the cake, but I figured that frosting could solve it all.  Sadie had the first bite.
"AHHHHHHEEEEEEEEEUGGGGHHHHHHHHH!" (Really, that was the sound she made)
Rosie took a bite and let out a similar sound, with a retch at the end.  They both fell off their chairs laughing before I could even taste it.  I figured that the baking soda had gotten them.  But then I looked closer at the cake itself.  There was a strange lighter colored center, and some chemical process hadn't quite occurred.  I braced myself and took a bite.  I couldn't even swallow it, but just having the cake in my mouth, I knew what had happened.
"Sadie, is it possible that you didn't put any sugar in this cake?"
She stopped, and put her chocolate covered fork to her chin in thinking pose.
"Yes, Mom, that is entirely possible."

Challah
from James Peterson, Baking (a totally beautiful book, by the way)

makes one loaf

5 cups flour
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup milk, barely warmed
5 eggs, warmed in a bowl of warm water
2 egg yolks
1 teaspoon active dry yeast, proofed in a 1 tablespoon barely warm water with 1 teaspoon flour
1 teaspoon salt
room temperature butter for the pan
egg wash (1 egg beaten with 1/2 teaspoon salt)

In a medium bowl, combine 1 cup of the flour with the sugar, milk, eggs, egg yolks, and yeast. Whisk lightly until smooth.  Cover with plastic wrap and let sit for 1 hour at room temperature.
In a large bowl, combine the remaining 4 cups flour with the salt. Pour the egg mixture over the flour mixture and mix for 2 minutes.  Cover with an inverted bowl and let rest for 20 minutes.
Knead the dough by hand for 10 minutes or with a stand mixer fit with the dough hook for 7 minutes, until the dough is smooth.  Cover with plastic wrap and let rise for 2 hours, or until nearly doubled in volume.
Punch down the dough and divide it into 3 equal pieces. Stretch each piece into a rope about 2 feet long. The dough is quite elastic so do this stretch in stages, letting it rest in between.
Butter a 13x17-inch sheet pan. 
Lay the three stands next to each other on the sheet pan so they all touch at the top.  Take the left strand and fold it over the center. Take the right strand, lift it over the now-center strand. Repeat until you are at the end of the dough, and pinch the ends together.
Cover with plastic wrap and let rise for 1 to 2 hours, or until almost doubled in volume.
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F, and set a metal sheet pan filled with water on the bottom shelf of the oven. Brush the loaf with egg wash. Put the challah in the oven.
Crack open the door and spray with water at 30 second intervals. Turn down the heat to 375 degrees F. Bake for about 45 minutes, or until the loaf is golden brown.

what i do

With a sign this beautiful, anything is possible.  Ask Harkins, what do you do?
Harkins is a florist.

I had a conversation with our friend John the other night.  He's a therapist, and was down from Vermont to visit for a night. We were talking about the challenge and deep worth of finding the words to express what you do.  That in some ways, being able to say what you do is the first step to really taking it out into the world.

So I've been giving it a shot.

I'm a writer. (That's the short answer)
I write about food and family and how to live well on fewer resources.  I write about empowerment in the kitchen, and about dodging other peoples assessments and judgments about what you should or should not eat/cook/feed your family.  I think that you know what you want cook, and if you need a friend with whom to share that bottle of wine while you try to figure it out, here I am. 

That's what I do.

What I do is a work in progress, I think.

But I have to say that getting this all into a few sentences is not only useful, it's harder than I thought it would be.  And I wonder, I mean, I have to ask, if you might be willing to try...

what do you do?

dandelion greens with dill and a crispy egg

 

I have, in recent weeks, formed a voracious hunger for dandelion greens.

I think that dandelion greens are something of an enigma.  When I am working at the farmers market and those proud little red stemmed leaves are on the table, people either go straight for them (only a few people, that is), or they entirely pass over them.  It is confusing as to why one would pay 2 dollars a bunch for a thing that grows so wildly and uninvited through the yard.  And even if you are not confused, perhaps you are not a bitter greens kind of person.

 

Bitter does not seem to be much of an American flavor. I think that we go for the sweet vegetables around here: carrots, gentle lettuces, candy-like beets, cucumbers.  The bitter greens like radicchio, endive, broccoli raab, and dandelion are only for those who love the extremity of the flavor, for those of us who sucked on lemons or ate entire jars of hot peppers as a child.

 

I have been told all sorts of wonderful things about dandelion and its bitter sisters.  That the nutritional values are far higher than most vegetables.  That the more bitter the green, the more aid it provides to digestion. That there is nothing like a bitter green to give a wonderful health boost to your liver. But I love the bitter greens for the particular way that they balance other elements.  Their flavor is extreme, yes, but it makes others pop and blend in a symphony that I crave through the early Spring.  These days, I can't get over the affair between the dandelion green and a runny-yellow-crispy-white egg.

A word on the dandelion.  Of course dandelion greens grow aside their prolific flowers, but by the time the flower has arrived, the green is (if you can believe it) just too bitter to eat.  Right now, the dandelion greens should be small enough to be delicious, and so if foraging is your thing, go out and do it.  However, dandelion greens are also available at many supermarkets and most Spring farmers markets, and the varieties that you will find there have been cultivated for their flavor. Try both and see what you think.  Wild dandelion greens are free and numerous, and it's hard to beat that. I find that I love the purple stemmed dandelion green most of all, and it is far more exotic that the green taking over my backyard.

Dandelion greens are wonderful raw, and you can chop them and mix them with lettuce to infuse your salad with depth and balance. Many recipes will lead you to a quick wilt in hot oil, and this is good too.  David Lebovitz grinds them into a pesto, and I think this would be brilliant.  As soon as I can get over these eggs, that might come next. If I can get over these eggs.  We'll see.

 

Dandelion Greens with Dill and a Crispy Egg

serves 1

2 tablespoons olive oil

hefty pinch red pepper flakes

1/2 bunch dandelion greens (about 8 stems), the lower tough part of the stem removed, greens roughly chopped

1 egg

1 tablespoon chopped fresh dill

salt and pepper

Heat the oil over medium/high heat in a saute pan.  Add the red pepper flakes to the oil, then the dandelion greens. Toss the greens in the hot oil for about 20 seconds, or until they just begin to wilt.  Transfer the greens to a bowl.  Crack the egg into the pan, adding a bit more oil if it seems like you need to.  Fry the egg until it is crispy around the edges and runny in the center.  Gently place the egg over the greens.  Top with the dill, salt, and pepper.

cinnamon buns, part 1

Sadie and Willow were born 12 hours apart.

 

We met Willow's parents in birth class, when both girls were in the belly, so the girls extend the length of their lives by 3 months, and they say, "we have known each other for that long."

They have celebrated almost every birthday together.  Sadie and Willow have joint birthday parties where they fight over the guest lists, or they plan grand voyages, and then they settle for a day in New York.  This year, the request was dinner out together with the 2 families, then a sleepover, and then Sadie asked for cinnamon buns instead of a cake.

A simple request, really.

Oh, Mommy, won't you make cinnamon buns?

I was a little off this weekend.  Blurry in the eyes, short on patience, and I kept telling myself to get it together.  I perused the cookbooks and softened the butter.  I had to work on Sadie's birthday, so it was essential that the recipe benefit from sitting in the fridge all night before I could bake it in the morning before work.  But my unmerited crankiness and impatience got in the way.  And my unmerited crankiness and impatience made me even crankier and more impatient with myself.  And that's how I found myself in the kitchen far too late on Saturday night, squinting at a recipe and cursing at my yeast (always always a bad idea! living thing!) while Joey tried to stay awake in front of an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer in order to keep me company. 

This, in truth, is my least favorite kind of cooking. The kind where I think I should be one way, but I can't quite be my best self. The kind when I am trying to make something fabulous for my kids, but I have gotten in my own way.  The kind where I realize that the recipe actually calls for 12 more hours of rise time (no!!!!! how could I have missed that!)  than I have allowed for. And new-agey as it might be, you know and I know that bread above all other things takes in the emotions of the person creating it.  It just does.  And no matter what I did, I couldn't change my attitude.

It was strikingly similar to the same day 8 years earlier.  

I'd like to think that I do what I need to with grace and patience and calm, but really, that is more of an ideal that I strive for.  And as I sat 8 years ago, so so pregnant, I was convinced that I would never give birth, that my body wouldn't behave--in short, I was overcome with crankiness and impatience.  I had been in and out of labor for weeks, and it seemed to me that my life would just continue like that forever.  But more than all that, I was annoyed with myself for being so cranky and impatient--I felt like I should be able to calmly embrace the reality--that I would have a baby soon, that my body would come through, and that I should enjoy these last days before my life changed forever.  But I couldn't. I was trying to be a patient earth goddess, but in truth,  I was pissed and ready for birth. 

You know how the story ends.  The baby came, I became a mother, and life changed forever.  But this weekend as I tried to change my attitude, I couldn't help but see the continuity of it all.  I was mad that I hadn't asked for the day off from work, that I had botched the cinnamon buns, and that I was just feeling so off.  But the world worked it's ways around me, and it took care of Sadie.  Willow kept her laughing for nearly 24 hours, Rosie showered her with gifts and privileges, and Joey kept the day running smoothly.  Sadie's auntie (fairy godmother) Eilen came up from Boston and took the girls out for a whirlwind pizza and toy store day.  Joey came in to see me at work, and I sat with him for a few minutes, and I realized that 8 years ago that very moment, I had finally called him at work to tell him that my water had broken and it was really going to happen this time.  We were quiet, and we just sat there at the table for a minute.  And by the time I got home and started rubbing herbs on the chickens for Sadie's roast chicken birthday dinner, my mood had shifted.  Sadie came home and showed me all her birthday bootie, talking a mile a minute about every single thing in the day. We sat around the dinner table and we were exactly the group of people who were in the room when she was born--me, Joey, my mother, stepfather, Maia, and Eilen (and Rosie of course!) And when we finally tucked Sadie in, right at the moment that she was born 8 years ago, the calm that I had been waiting for all weekend really came to me.  Because again, again I realized (why does it always take so long!) that I do what I can, but the world takes care of these girls, and the girls take care of themselves!  Sadie is strong, and smart, and so capable.  And she has such a support system of people who love her--they carried her through the day.  Eesh, mothering.  I am just not everything, and once we get them into the world, the world will take over. Thank whoever is looking out for that.  I don't know that it takes a village.  I think it takes a universe.

And the cinnamon buns?  Well, I don't know what took over, but they were fabulous.  I botched the recipe so many times throughout, I have no idea how I made them. I'm going to go through and see if I can reconstruct what I did, so that will be part 2.

Happy birthday to my sweet girl. And thank you to the world that holds her. 

Kitchen Mix (Birthday Girl Edition)

 

Hello there. It's me, Joey. Yeah, the husband. Alana has asked me to write a few words about the mix we made in honor of our birthday girl. Well, we made a mix, and it's her birthday, anyway. If it was really up to Sadie, we might have "Mamma Mia" by Abba six times in a row. Instead we have this. Enjoy.

-Joey

black bottom cupcakes

The other day, Sadie got in trouble at school.
It seems that a bunch of kids were acting up, and, in her words, "she couldn't help it, and she joined in by accident."  She was on edge when I picked her up from school, and the afternoon just went down from there in flames of tears and 7-year-old sass.  Misbehavior at school is not Sadie's strong suit--she still thinks that "teacher's pet" is a good thing, and she strives for it.  And so I watched all of the emotions percolate through the day, and she would erupt with excuses (It's been 2 whole years since I got in trouble in Spanish class!) to stubbornness to full on lovey clinginess.  The day ended with her emerging bleary eyed from her bedroom at 9 pm, and she catapulted herself towards me with a hug.  She had a stomachache from the whole affair, and she was having trouble getting to sleep.  I gave her another kiss and tucked her into bed in the midst of all of the novels she had been reading that night, and that seemed to do the trick.



But a few hours earlier, before she had found her own quiet, things came to a head before dinner.  It was table-setting time, and when I told Sadie, the hands went on her hips, and she said that she didn't feel like it. 
For better or worse, I pulled out my inner 7-year-old, never too far from the surface these days. My arms went to my hips too.
"Well, maybe I don't really feel like making dinner for you any more."
The emotions of that day flickered across her face, and I saw them all in succession again.  Sometimes she reminds me of August weather around here.  Sunny, then the clouds come in and it pours, and then the sun is back as fast as it left.
She collapsed on the couch, and she stuck her butt up into the air like a toddler.  "I just can't!!!!"

Rosie took over and put the napkins on the table. And I sat there with Sadie for the few minutes before dinner, stroking her hair.  



Luckily it was a moment that I could pause in myself, because sometimes I can't wait for those moments when everything is golden and lovely.  I think that those are the moments that will make me pause, and say, everything is so beautiful! Let's stop here and take a breath.



And those moments do happen--they come often enough.  But more often, someone is having a hard time working through the day.  And if I can, I take a breath, and my eyes glaze a little, and like in this moment, I stroked Sadie's hair.  She will be eight on Sunday, and the complexities will continue to increase.  I think about what a friend of mine once said--how brave to raise women in this world!  What a challenge!  So complicated!



I'm not sure that I had thought about it in those terms before.  But now I do.  And somehow that links my girls to so many others women in my mind.  These moments of emotional complexity, of guilt and self righteousness and the need to be loved and to care for others and to be right and beautiful--I feel like I have more tools to help them start there way through this when I think of it as common.

And I can't say why, but it makes me think about the women in my life who are no longer here.  Maybe because it brings them to me too, and it brings them to Sadie, so that there are a whole lot more hands stroking her hair.

Yesterday, I sat and talked with a new friend, and we talked about a woman who we had both loved, who, more than  anyone, taught me about the meat and the joy in these complexities.  By the end, she was so good at that.

And I think about my grandmother, always my grandmother!  I think she was conditioned to feel miserable about so many things, and she fought it.  She celebrated so many things, despite herself, because why the hell not. 

Which brings me to black bottom cupcakes.  I make them on the first day of spring, because my grandmother did.  Because why the hell not.  It took me a few days to get to it this year--I had a cold, and I didn't want to do it.  But when I got to it, it was snowing, and we were all complaining about the snow gracing this first week of spring.  It was cold, and even the lilac buds were shivering.

But it snows every March, and every April.  And that's the meat of it all.  The freezing and thaw makes it easier to be thankful, I think.  And it teases with the smell of mud, and then freezes it before we can complain about the mud getting everywhere.  I love a good transition.  And a good cupcake.

 

Black Bottom Cupcakes
(I wrote about these a few years ago, but the recipe didn't quite make it for me, and so to line it up with the glorious memory of my childhood Spring party cupcakes under my grandmother's lilac bush, I messed with it quite a bit this year.)


Makes 12 cupcakes

For the filling:
8 ounces cream cheese at room temperature
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1 large egg
5 ounces chocolate chips

For the cupcakes:
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup firmly packed light brown sugar
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup whole milk
1/3 cup canola oil
1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
1 tablespoon vanilla extract

For the filling:
Beat together the cream cheese,  sugar, and egg until relatively smooth. Stir in the chocolate chips. Set aside.

For the cupcakes:
Preheat to 350 degrees.  Butter a 12-cup muffin tin, or line the tin with muffin cups. In a medium bowl whisk together the flour, brown sugar, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt. In a separate bowl, use a whisk to beat together the milk, oil, vinegar, and vanilla. Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients and stir in the wet ingredients until just combined.
Fill each muffin cup halfway with cake batter. Top with the cream cheese filling so that the filling comes nearly to the top of the cup.  Bake for 25 to 30 minutes, or until the tops are slightly golden brown. They will keep well unrefrigerated for 2 to 3 days if stored in an airtight container.

new orleans (the last): cafe du monde

 

In the sense that there is a bit of Disneyworld in the French Quarter, I'd say that Cafe du Monde could be considered the food court. Right there in the middle of it all, there is most likely a line of sunburned and drunk/ hungover tourists extending down the street, waiting not so patiently for their tiny plot of land in vast expanse of powdered sugar covered tables under the open air pavilion of the Cafe du Monde.  I am conditioned to stay away from these sorts of places--I pride myself in being a traveler who searches out the real thing, who ducks the waving elbows of the tourists who stay firmly on the beaten path.

We were in New Orleans for exactly 54 hours, and over that time, we went to the Cafe du Monde 3 times.  So much for being that kind of traveler.

Because really, it's a fabulous fabulous place.  When we arrived in New Orleans on Friday night after an entire afternoon of near misses (looks like you'll be staying the night in Hartford... Oh wait, we'll get you a seat on another airline... looks like you'll be spending the night in North Carolina... oh, just kidding, the plane is working after all!), it was midnight, and we dropped our bags in the shower, checked the bed for bedbugs, and ran out into the night.  Joey led me directly to the Cafe du Monde, just a few blocks from the hotel.  Late as it was, there was no line, but nearly all the 200 or so tables were filled with revelers and whoever else, and we ordered two cafe au laits and 2 orders of beignets.  There are only a few choices to make as you slide into a table and brush the powdered sugar from the last customer off the table.

"Will you have your own order of beignets, or will you share?" (own!)

"Will you have your cafe au lait hot (small or large), or iced, or frozen?"  (hot, and small, as the small comes in a perfect ceramic coffee cup, and the large comes in a styrofoam cup)

That's it.  That's all you have to decide.

Then the hurried waiter or waitress in a paper hat will come, and your order and four other tables' orders will be stacked on one tray, and it will be a magnificent pile of fried dough and milky coffee. And as the plates descend onto the table, they do so in a gentle flurry of powdered sugar that blankets the entire place, the entire neighborhood, even.

Joey first went to the Cafe du Monde with his grandmother when he was 14.  He has loved and searched out beignets ever since.  We made them at home with very little success a few years back, and every time we go to Portland, Maine, there is a stop for beignets.  But this, this is the home of the true thing, and as we arrived on that Friday night, he glowed through the haze of the powdered sugar mist with the joy of finally eating real, true beignets with me.  It was the best midnight snack I can ever remember.

 

We were back again the next day, because we had to bring Alice.  We braved the lines, and the beignets were just as good in the middle of the afternoon.  Then the next morning, Joey's birthday, we snuck out at 7:30 into the quiet city, and we ate beignets and drank milky chicory coffee for the third and final time.  Each time, the dough was fried to perfection, so light and crisp that it tasted only like pure loveliness.  When fried is fried right, it's an entirely different animal, or donut, shall we say.  Because a beignet is donut, but better, more filled with joy and love and air.  It's for coffee in the afternoon with a low cut dress so that the powdered sugar dusts the curve of the cleavage better than pressed powder ever could.  Which is why, I suppose, that I had no hope of recreating this at home, no hope of recreating it outside of the city even.  

Some foods are better to stay in their safe places, so that I can yearn and wish to travel for them.  I miss tea in Turkey, but I know it's there for me when I go back.  I miss coffee and sweet milky yogurt in Greece, and oranges in Morocco.  And beignets and cafe au lait, piled on a tray for someone else's table shaken in a snow globe of powdered sugar.