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It’s been awfully rainy in Portland, even by our standards. We’ve gotten more than five inches in the first three weeks, when, on average, we get about 3.75 for the whole month. Wet! So when the sun busted out during dinner last week and made my plate look so pretty, I had to take a picture. It’s the small things in life…
Tags: Portland
I am doing my best to embrace an ebb period, gaining strength as I swim circles in the vortex of life. Writing, for me, right now, is pretty difficult. Keeping a single train of thought is also difficult, and, quite frankly, tiring. I feel as though my brain is chasing some bit of ephemera. Every time I feel I have it, it slips from my grasp. There are, however, moments of illumination, which I hold gratefully in a tight metaphorical embrace. Like that last post, it came pouring out while I was making the soufflé pictured above (which was delicious), two minutes on a blue legal pad, boom. I’ve got it! This post, well, I’ve been at the keyboard for about an hour, scratching my head, and it still feels a bit off. Definitely ebbing. Hoping the best for you.
p.s. Thanks Katie, for asking. I appreciate it!
Happy Wednesday!
I hope you are warm and happy and getting around safely in all the crazy weather. I think we Pacific Northwesterners have got the best of the lot, dry and frigid, so I won’t complain about my toes being in a permanent state of cold. Which also reminds me, the hubster brought home something nasty from the woodshed, tee hee, no not really, from somewhere virus laden, and has been battling a cold for a week. I was feeling a bit smug thinking my immune system superior and all the yoga I’ve been doing acting like a samurai defense system. Alas, I have been taken down a peg. My nose is stuffy and my throat a bright shade of crimson. Boo. I still practiced yoga this morning (there’s no stopping the challenge today!), and actually feel a tad better.
Anyhoo, I hosted a little Valentine making party last night with some of the ladies and made these pretzels. Truth be told, I’ve been on a bit of a pretzel bender. I’ve made a couple of batches, ordered them at restaurants (Gruner – you’re next! Sorry about the missing umlaut, too. I can’t make them here.), and gone to the mall just to feed my craving. As for these, they are pretty darn good: chewy, with a slight crunch, and super easy to make. The ladies and the hubster loved them, too. Double happiness! Or would that be triple?!
Pretzels
adapted from All Recipes
1 package or 2 1/4 teaspoons dry active yeast
2 tablespoons brown sugar
1 1/4 teaspoons salt
3/4 cup warm milk (110 degrees)
3/4 cup warm water (110 degrees)
1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
2 1/2 cups flour
2 cups warm water (110 degrees – it’s the magic number!)
2 tablespoons baking soda
2 tablespoons melted butter
2 tablespoons coarse salt
Dissolve the yeast, brown sugar, and salt in the warm milk and 3/4 cup warm water. Allow to sit until the yeast blooms and is slightly frothy. Stir in flour, and knead dough on a floured surface until smooth and elastic, about eight minutes.
Place in a greased bowl, turning to coat the surface. Cover and let rise for one hour.
Grease two full size cookie sheets, set aside.
Combine the 2 cups warm water and baking soda in a bowl with enough room for you to swish your hands.
Cut the risen dough into 12 pieces. Roll each piece into a long, thin rope, about three feet long. If you leave it too thick, your pretzels will be more like rolls. Dip the rope into the warm baking soda and water mixture. Place on the cookie sheet, and twist into a pretzel shape. Sprinkle with salt.
Bake at 550 degrees for about 8 minutes or until a dark golden brown. Brush with butter immediately after removing from the oven. Remove to a cooling rack.
I recommend eating them as soon as they are cool enough to handle, served plain or with coarse ground mustard. They’d also be great sprinkled with cinnamon sugar, black pepper, or garlic. Come to think of it, I might add coarse ground pepper to the dough next time.
Enjoy!
Tags: Cooking and Baking, Recipes
Ceci n’est pas une pipe. Do you know that painting by Magritte? Well, it’s kind of in alignment with today’s post, as it really isn’t about pitas, though I did make them today, from, you guessed it, the book pictured above. I love home baked bread goods of all kinds, and the way these puff somehow make them even more delicious. Maybe it isn’t steam filling that interior but magic, the kind that you make with your hands. Make your own sometime, and see if you agree. I have a feeling you will.
So to what is not a pipe, but does, figuratively, have to do with the oven. The baby oven. If deciding at the age of eight goes far enough back to be considered never, I have never wanted children. While other girls played with dolls and chirruped excitedly about the day they would become mothers, I did not share their enthusiasm, save for anything but the play. Oh how I loved the play, and, come to think of it, I rarely pretended I was a mother, giving a baby her bottle. I preferred playing grown ups, arranging various blankets and scraps on the floor of my bedroom to serve as a house. I could go on for hours in this fashion (on my own or with any willing party – anyone? Please??) – sending someone off to work, making dinner, getting dressed up for parties. It’s actually a bit like my life now. That’s something interesting, too. Save for the part about me not making money (in my youth, I always thought I would have a successful career, though I didn’t ever imagine myself married, but living with my best friend – which is true, really), my life and house are pretty much as I imagined: I am happy. I travel. I cook. I do what I want. The house is old and has character. Each room is decorated differently. There is art, lots and lots of art.
The part that surprises me is that this decision arrived in a period of relative calm in our household, at least as calm as six loud talkers in a small space can be, anyway. Later, though not terribly so, external forces would add to the laundry list of reasons I needed to confirm that having babies was more problematic than anything:
1. A mentally unbalanced sister who would run away more times than I can remember. Beat anyone who crossed her, including me. Get caught stealing. Get brought home by the police. Get pregnant very young.
2. An equally mentally unbalanced grandmother who would disappear for days only to be found dancing on table tops at a Holiday Inn. Make up lies to send a SWAT team to a perfectly innocent woman’s home. Verbally abuse me for not being complicit in her “lies” (they were real to her).
3. Suffer through my own depression, shame, and heartbreak.
4. Be forced to be an adult by parents doing the best they could.
5. See the “giving birth” film in 10th grade biology. Oh god, that film!
For a while, it was all about the list. I had to defend myself. It had to be more than deciding as an eight year old, even though that’s what it was. I no longer need a list or a reason. I just never wanted to. It seems to me that I should want to have a baby in order to have one. It is not something one tries. Despite what seems to be pretty sound logic, I have been belittled, berated, and called hopelessly selfish, but I don’t and didn’t care. You’re not the boss of me! Besides, I’ve been called worse by people I thought were my friends. And then that day in May of 2009. My junk is no good. It would be a miracle for me to even get pregnant. Seriously?! After eighteen years of condoms? Do you know how much money we could have saved? Such a frugalista!
I owned the decision fully, held it as fiercely as a flag of victory, yet it was never truly my own. God decided long before I did and whispered it on the clouds, in a dream, somewhere, in 1979, saving me the infinite pain of wanting and wondering before the truth. For that and my ever determined nature not to fold under the pressures of society, I am truly grateful. I have seen that sadness and frustration. It has not stopped me from wanting for children, however: their good health, to smell them after spitting up, to ease their cries, to swaddle them in blankets of love, to see their eyes of wonder, and hear their raucous laughter. It’s funny isn’t it? “God plays with us!”
To be more precise, the preparation of what is left of my egg. Raised by our friends’ hen, I might add. I should also mention that I am not engaging in hyperbole. This simple recipe knocked my socks clean off (now that is some hyperbole!). I don’t know if you, like me, sometimes have a struggle with egg preparation, specifically, over-easy. It can be over-difficult and not at all pretty. Maybe there’s not quite enough butter or oil in the pan; maybe I let it go a tad long; maybe the turn of the wrist isn’t just right, and out oozes the yolk.
Well, my friends, this solves all of those problems, is beyond easy (no flipping!), and the final product looks like something served at a restaurant. Here’s the score:
butter or olive oil – enough to lightly coat the bottom of the pan
Egg (s)
1 tablespoon water for every egg
Heat oil or butter in a small fry pan over medium heat. Have a lid or a plate large enough to cover the pan on the ready. When the butter bubbles somewhat briskly but does not burn, add an egg or two. I haven’t tried three but am pretty confident it would work fine. Once the bottom of the egg has cooked, meaning it is no longer translucent, add the water. Immediately cover with the lid or plate, and wait one minute. Remove the lid and slip the egg out of the pan. It will look gorgeous, and the texture, almost creamy, definitely delectable.
I should note that I found this method over at Duckspoon, (in the breakfast category – basted eggs) a terrific and very informative website focused on home cooking. They have a quick video if you want to watch the magic! I would also like to mention that Daniel, the man behind Duckspoon, is an ever so kind and skilled bartender at one of our favorite restaurants, the Country Cat. He does good things with whiskey.
It’s actually sunny here, so I better get it while the getting is good.
Enjoy!
Tags: Cooking and Baking, Recipes
