baking
Cutting it Close
Dessert First
Home Kitchen
we’re a restaurant:
first, chicken tortilla soup
dessert: crème brûlée
Wabi-Sabi (Perfectly Imperfect)
New Year, New Health
Ode to Toaster Oven
why yes, i bake things
(zucchini things in summer)
feels like Hell’s Kitchen
my oven burned me
burned us all with its heat spread
well, not anymore
that’s right, baby:
a 9×13 glass dish,
two 8-inch cake pans
this Breville will hold
a 12-inch cast iron pan
without burning us
worth every penny
(it’s not even Christmas yet)
boy am i ready
Farewell
Insomnia, guilt, and a conversation I had today are the inspiration for this post. Why can’t I sleep when certain thoughts creep into my brain? More importantly, why can’t I let things, people, or “friends” go?
It’s all about the brownies. If you had one day inadvertently come across this recipe as I did, you would understand. The scrumptious perfection of these brownies, modified by my specification of Hershey’s Special Dark chocolate chips and dutch process cocoa, make every morsel a delectable experience. When I first started making them, it was an occasional treat, a decadence the whole family could enjoy. But I was quick to discover that they don’t last, that from-scratch bakery items must be enjoyed to their fullest almost immediately after emerging from the oven, or all sense of richness is lost. And so I brought a few to work. The reaction was astounding, and people began to ask about them. I brought in a few more. Soon I was making weekly batches of brownies and bringing the entire 9×13 pan into work, cutting them up, bagging them individually, and setting aside corners for certain colleagues and the coveted “center cuts” for a special few.
So as I lay in bed just now, thinking about the F-bomb and my purposeful use of it under imperative circumstances when the whole FUCKING world ought to agree it is necessary, I started adding up the ingredients of my weekly brownie list. Fifteen brownies a week, four eggs, two sticks of butter, a bag of chocolate chips, one and a quarter cup of cocoa, a tablespoon of premium vanilla, one and a quarter cup of flour, two cups of sugar, one teaspoon of baking soda, fifteen sandwich baggies. What does it add up to? $10 a week, $40 a month, 10 months in a school year, $400 a year.
Now let’s talk about my coworkers, who have two incomes and car payments and student loans and childcare expenses and every other FUCKING excuse in the world to NOT have any money. And me, family of five, ONE income, NO debt (other than a mortgage), who rides my ass up thirteen miles of hills with those heavy ass brownies ON MY BICYCLE and specifically sets aside the best cuts for the BEST people, and I am spending $400 a year so that if I USE THE WORD FUCK ON FACEBOOK I GET DE-FRIENDED??
That’s it. Farewell to the fucking brownie list.
Baking
For those of you unversed in baking, this is all you need to know:
Don’t waste your money on cheap flour.
Scavenge magazine recipes like a hungry bear.
Talk to chefs. In person and in your dreams.
Surprise your coworkers at least once a week. It’ll make both of your days.
Never underestimate the delectability of pure butter.
A Kitchenaid standup mixer is God’s gift to the kitchen.
Balk at store-bought bakery items. Teach your children to balk as well.
Plan your birthday parties and holiday desserts months in advance.
Make everything that comes out of your oven a culinary orgasm.
Hershey’s Special Dark Cocoa and chocolate chips. Need I say more?
Swallowing Our Sadness
After two gloriously quiet hours,
they are ready for the flourless cake
that this time (after multiple envious complaints)
I have made just for them.
They emerge from the family room
after watching The Velveteen Rabbit,
tears streaming down their
reddened-with-sadness cheeks.
“What’s the matter, don’t you want cake?”
Daddy asks, his voice dripping with confusion.
“The movie was so sad.” Sobs erupt
from their throats and trap any more anxious words.
“Really? What’s it about?” he asks, never having seen it.
As I begin to describe the rabbit becoming Real
(Isabella chimes in about the high fever)
their tears find their way into my own eyes.
I look at the three pained faces of my girls
who for the first time have been touched to tears
by a movie, and I wonder if I’m crying because of
the story or because they’re now old enough to understand it.
Either way, as I slice up the cake
that they take tiny bites of and abandon,
swallowing their sadness with delectability,
I am not able to swallow my own sadness.
Before I have even had a chance to stop time,
I have a houseful of growing-up girls
who reminded me today how precious
every bite of cake, every rite of passage, can be.
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