Midnight Cheese

There's a line from the Joni Mitchell song "My Old Man" that I love, it goes "The bed is too big, the frying pan is too wide."

Baby, that's where I'm at.

Lately, when I can't sleep, I roll out of bed and stand in cold light of the refrigerator and eat hummus and chocolate and cheese in an attempt to fill up the night and the hollow spaces inside me.

Because at night, I easily get lost in the past and overwhelmed by the future, and food is so tactile and so real that something as simple as a snack brings me back to the present, which is also intimidating, but better, because there is chocolate to be had in the present. 

And chocolate is comforting. 

The famous food writer Ruth Reichl wrote a beautiful memoir called Comfort Me With Apples, which is a mostly perfect title, but if I were to write that food memoir right now it would be called Comfort Me With Chocolate. Or, Comfort Me With Cheese. 

Baby, if we're being totally honest, I just can't bring myself to really cook meals these days. 

The frying pan is too wide. 

So mostly I am eating eggs, hummus, beans out of a can and apples and coffee and beer. 

Which is simple and small and just fine. 

But this is really to say, I think about you all the time and I have a lot to say, I'm just figuring out how to say it right. 

I don't know. 

I'll bake you a cake soon and we can talk about that. 

But right now my frying pan is too wide, and I really just want to eat two kinds of cheese until I'm full enough and then go laugh and drink beer with my people. 

Because right now that feels nice and sweet and good. 

So. 

Cake soon. 

Meals again soon. 

But for now. 

I love you I love you I love you. 

xoxo

mary 

Excellent Midnight Cheeses:

Tillamook Sharp Cheddar: http://www.tillamook.com/

Cabot: http://www.cabotcheese.coop/

Barber's 1833 Vintage Reserve Cheddar: http://www.barbers1833.co.uk/

Dark Chocolate Brownies with Raspberry Goat Cheese Swirl

I keep comparing myself to who I was two years ago. 

Because when I was 18, I was pretty certain I knew what was up. 
I knew what I liked, and what I didn't. 
And I had a certain way of being and speaking and seeing. 
I thought I knew myself. 
Now two years have passed and I'm different. 

Go figure. 

And the only reason this is exciting is because I've surprised myself. 
I mean, actually really surprised myself. 

I've done a lot of things I never thought I would do or could do or was even capable of doing. 

I think I'm braver. 
I think I'm also quite a bit dumber, but maybe that's the tradeoff for being "vulnerable" or "impulsive." 
I now appreciate Taylor Swift, who I was definitely too much of a snob for at 18. 
I've gotten better about saying thank you. 
I now have a very long list of things I've learned since 18 called "Life Lessons." 
It has some absolute PEARLS of wisdom on it such as, "Always keep tums on hand" and "Save money." 



Whatever. 

However, what brought about these scintillating ruminations, is that at 18, other than Taylor Swift, I had absolutely no interest in cheesecake or cheesecake related edibles. 

Oh how the tables have turned. 

These are raspberry goat cheese brownies. Basically cheesecake's cousin. 
And they are really fucking good, especially when frozen. 

What I am trying to tell you is, you don't have to wait two years to become the new, improved you.
 You can start right now. 
With these crazy cheesecake cousin brownies. 

‎"To change one's life; start immediately. Do it flamboyantly. No exceptions."
                                              - William James

You're welcome. 

XOXO 

Dark Chocolate Brownies with Raspberry Goat Cheese Swirl

via thekitchn.com

Makes about 30 small brownie squares

Raspberries
2 cups raspberries, lightly mashed
2 tablespoons brandy or Kirsch

Brownies
8 ounces unsweetened chocolate, chopped
2 ounces bittersweet chocolate, chopped
3/4 cup (12 tablespoons) unsalted butter, cut into chunks
1/2 cup milk
2 cups sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
4 large eggs
1 cup flour
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt

Raspberry Goat Cheese Swirl
8 ounces goat cheese, softened at room temperature for an hour
4 ounces cream cheese, softened at room temperature for an hour
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened at room temperature for an hour
1 egg
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon almond extract

Heat the oven to 350ºF and lightly grease a 9x13-inch baking pan (or any 3-quart dish, like the gratin dish I use here) with butter or baking spray. Place the raspberries in a bowl and stir in the brandy or Kirsch. Set aside.

Melt the chocolate and butter until liquid in a 3-quart (or larger) saucepan over low heat. When the chocolate is completely melted, remove from the heat, whisk in the milk, and cool for about 5 minutes. Stir in the sugar and vanilla. Stir in the eggs one by one. Add the flour, baking powder, and salt and fold in until just combined. Fold in about half of the raspberries and spread this brownie batter in the prepared pan.

In the bowl of a stand mixer (or with hand beaters, or by hand with a heavy whisk) beat the goat cheese with the cream cheese, butter, egg, sugar, and almond extract until light and fluffy. Gently fold in the other half of the raspberries and their juices. Drop the goat cheese mixture on top of the brownie batter in spoonfuls, then swirl it through the batter with a knife. Bake for 30 minutes or until just barely set. The top will be just turning light brown. Let cool for at least 10 minutes before slicing.

Store at room temperature, well-covered. The flavor and texture of these brownies really bloom when you let them rest overnight.

Chocolate Chip Cookies & Valentines Day

February, man. 

It's a rough month. 

School is hard. The weather is fickle. Life is tricky. And there's Valentines Day. 

 

Lately, I've been asking the cosmos to just throw me a bone. 
This past week I fell over twice because my backpack was so heavy, which simultaneously made me want to laugh and cry. 
I chose to laugh, but really wished that someone would just give me a hug instead. 

Also, Valentines Day is this week. 

There are about 2 things in the world that I hate. 

I hate papayas.

And I hate Valentines Day, even though it means lots of marked down chocolate on february 15th. 

Which is definitely a win for the stress-eating singles of the world. 

Whatever. 

Tonight, I made these cookies. 

This is the third time I've published this recipe here, and ironically, the last time I posted it was exactly around this time last year. These cookies somehow answer all my comfort food cravings and February sweetness needs. 

I hope you have a lovely week, and I hope your backpacks are a little lighter, and I really hope you make these cookies, because February man, it's a rough month. 

XOXO

m

Perfection In Your Mouth Chocolate Chip Cookies

from Baking: From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan

2 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon salt

3/4 teaspoon baking soda

2 sticks unsalted butter, at room temperature

1 cup sugar

2/3 cup (packed) light brown sugar

2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

2 large eggs

12 ounces bittersweet chocolate, chopped into chips or 2 cups store-bought chips or chunks

1 cup finely chopped pecans or walnuts

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.

Whisk together flour, salt and baking soda.

Working with a stand mixer w/paddle attachment, or with a hand mixer in a large bowl, beat the butter on medium speed for about 1 minute until smooth. Add the sugars and beat until well blended. Beat in vanilla. Add eggs one at a time, beating for 1 minute after each egg goes in. Reduce mixer speed to low and add dry ingredients in 3 portions, mixing only until each addition is incorporated. On low speed mix in chocolate and nuts.

Spoon on tablespoons of dough onto baking sheets, leaving about 2 inches between spoonfuls.

Bake cookies, one sheet at a time, for 10 to 12 minutes. Until light brown on edges and golden in center.

Allow cookies to rest for one minute. Then using spatula transfer to cooling rack.

bones

Hi Sweet Darlings,

I haven't abandoned you exactly.

I have been so busy and so tired.

Which maybe is not a good excuse but I'm using it any way.

 I've been thinking a lot about what it means to be strong. And brave. 

Because this year, the one thing I've learned is how strong being vulnerable makes you. 

When you say to someone: Here are my bones. Here are my insides. 

And some people will take you and hold you and all of your ligaments and vertebrae, and they help you love and forgive them. 

And others do not. 

These things make you strong. And brave. 

You will trip and fall and be foolish. 

And you and your bones and insides will get up again. 

And this will make you strong. And brave. 

You are strong. And brave. 

I am too. 

Be safe. Be good. Maybe next time there will be something zesty and delicious to share with you. 

But until then. 

XOXO

Blueberry Blackberry Buttermilk Cake

This morning at 8:20 am, my cousin Claire sent me my weekly inspirational text: 

LIGHTEN THE FUCK UP.

She texts me this every Monday, religiously. That is just how beyond fantastic she is. 



It is the most important thing in the world to remember. 
I was having such a fine day today. I slept in. I went for a beautiful walk. I felt a lot of love for humanity and life and trees and just everything. 
I thought about the change from summer to fall, and how it's almost a physical feeling: you feel it in your bones. I thought a lot about how I need to find some new dreams to fit the new season. And then I started thinking too much, and suddenly I got overwhelmed with school and with life and how little I know, and how many people I talk to in a single day, and how much there is to learn, and where am I going and what am I doing and what will I do tomorrow and the next day and I want to talk to everyone and do everything, but I also need to read books and write and sing and how do you fit all of this into a day when things like Facebook exist? 

I don't know. 

The thing is, I want to be the kind of girl who simultaneously talks about Botticelli paintings AND rides a motorcycle.



And I had the realization that I'm just not that girl yet. 

I was feeling pretty terrible, until I remembered about LIGHTENING THE FUCK UP. 

And then I began to laugh. And I thought back to this weekend, which was kind of a dream, but also very weirdly wild, and I thought about all the crazy people I know, and I thought about this fantastic cake I baked late last night, just because I wanted to. 

And I remembered that things really aren't bad. 
Perfect? 
Never. 
Actually, that's a lie. 
Things are actually perfect when you eat this cake. 

But just because you do not know what is coming next, it does not mean that things are bad, and just because you are uncertain, it does not mean things are bad, and just because you are young and occasionally do ridiculous things that you maybe say you regret but actually don't, it does not mean things are bad. 
So just LIGHTEN THE FUCK UP. And bake that angst right out of your system. 
Right. Now. 

xoxo


Raspberry or Blueberry or Blackberry Buttermilk Cake
via SmittenKitchen.com who adapted from Gourmet, June 2009

I used blueberries and blackberries instead of raspberries as the cake originally called for. This is divine. A very tender, and very perfect everyday cake that takes minutes to whip together, and even fewer minutes to devour. 

1 cup (130 grams) all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon (2 grams) baking powder
1/2 teaspoon (2 grams) baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 stick (56 grams) unsalted butter, softened
2/3 cup (146 grams) plus 1 1/2 tablespoons (22 grams) sugar, divided
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon finely grated lemon zest (optional)
1 large (57 grams) egg
1/2 cup (118 ml) well-shaken buttermilk
1 cup (5 ounces or 140 grams) fresh raspberries OR blueberries OR blackberries OR both
Preheat oven to 400°F with rack in middle. Butter and flour a 9-inch round cake pan.
Whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt and set aside. In a larger bowl, beat butter and 2/3 cup (146 grams) sugar with an electric mixer at medium-high speed until pale and fluffy, then beat in vanilla and zest, if using. Add egg and beat well.
At low speed, mix in flour mixture in three batches, alternating with buttermilk, beginning and ending with flour, and mixing until just combined.Spoon batter into cake pan, smoothing top. Scatter (see Note) raspberries evenly over top and sprinkle with remaining 1 1/2 tablespoons (22 grams) sugar.
Bake until cake is golden and a wooden pick inserted into center comes out clean, 20 to 25 minutes. Cool in pan 10 minutes, then turn out onto a rack and cool to warm, 10 to 15 minutes more. Invert onto a plate.

Strawberry Custard Pie

Let me tell you about something that is really spectacular. 

Friends. 



I mean. Friends are the people who hold your hand when you are crying because LIFE is just too much to handle, and friends are the people you jump on beds with, and friends are the people who you are so comfortable with you don't even have to talk, and friends are the people who get your thought machine and your laughter machine and your happiness machine going. Friends are the ones who serve as your wingmen, who text you inspirational quotes informing you to FUCKING LIGHTEN UP, who show you how to refold a paper crane six times until you finally know how to do it, who assure you that you didn't do anything TOO embarrassing last night, who dance with you in awkward public places, who call you at midnight, the ones who tell you that you better get it together, the ones who walk you back to your apartment late at night, who come to your shows, who write you letters telling you all the things you needed them to say without you even knowing that you needed them to say it, they're the people you spill to, they are the ones who somehow got your trust and wormed their way into your life without you even knowing it. And sometimes they are new/old strangers and sometimes you have known them since playgrounds and baby swimming pools. But somehow, they are THERE. 

Some come and go. Some never go away. Some keep your trust. Some lose it. 

And this is all painful and all good at the same time. 

Who can know why? 



All I want to say is that I am so impossibly grateful for the friends in my life. The new ones. The old ones. The best ones. Even the distant ones. 



They mean the world. 

I baked out all of this friend love into a Strawberry Custard Pie. Strawberry Custard Pie is dedicated to my frambly. For the good times and bad times we are about to have, and for all the talking and laughing we are going to do about it. 

I'm already so grateful. 

xoxo



Strawberry Custard Pie

Pie Crust from BAKED by Matt Lewis and Renato Poliafito 

1 cup (2 sticks) butter

3 cups flour

1 Tablespoon sugar

1 teaspoon salt

3/4 cup water

In a food processor whirl together the flour, sugar and salt. Cut the VERY COLD BUTTER into small pieces and blend until the mixture forms into pea-sized chunks. Dribble in water and whirl until dough just comes together. Or, you can just do all of this with your fingers! 

Take dough out of processor and knead until dough comes together. Divide into two, wrap in plastic wrap and place in freezer for one hour before using. 

Filling:
5 eggs
1 scant c. sugar
4 T. melted butter
½ t. vanilla

1/4 t. cinnamon

about 2 pints strawberries

1/2 recipe Pie Crust

Position an oven rack to the lower third of the oven. Preheat the oven to 350°.

Lightly butter a 9-inch pie plate. On a well-floured surface, roll pie dough into a circle large enough to cover the pie plate and hang 1 inch over the sides. Fit the dough into the pie plate, crimp the crust and place it in the refrigerator to chill while preparing the filling.

Beat the eggs, sugar, butter, vanilla and cinnamon in a mixer, or with a whisk, until completely combined and pale yellow. Remove the pie shell from the refrigerator, strawberries into shell, making an even layer. Pour filling over the fruit.

Place pie on baking sheet and bake for about 1 hour or until the filling has set and the crust is light brown. Allow the pie to cool. Eat.

Baked Brownies

Something I have decided:


I need to chill the fuck out.


Really. Frankly. Honestly. Lately I have been so intense. About everything. Notably the future, which is scary and big. 


And this just 





WILL NOT STAND.


It is summer baby. 


You are not supposed to worry about things like:


-who you are going to be when you are thirty
-some people have children by the age of thirty
-my god someday i will be thirty


I am getting so ahead of myself. 


Deep breaths all around. 


I tell myself to just appreciate the sky. 


Only lately, I do this and then I am wondering about infinity and thinking about how small and insignificant I am and that is also scary as fuck because I am going to be dead eventually and then the particles that make up my soul are just going to be space, 




which actually isn't even that scary, it's just cool. But that is also more thinking than I need to be doing right now.


Also, I need to take more naps. 



The point is. 


I should just eat some brownies and calm down. 


The chocolate helps with anxiety. 


It's science.





Or whatever. 


I have always had really mixed feelings about brownies. Mainly because I feel like they are the ultimate copout dessert. Everyone can make brownies. And everyone does make brownies. Brownies are not original, thoughtful, or even particularly interesting. They're just- brownies. 
On the other hand, a beautiful brownie is just... heavenly. 


These are heavenly brownies. 

With five eggs, a cup of butter and 12 ounces of dark chocolate chips, eaten with a bowl of vanilla ice cream, how could they not be heavenly? 


This is real talk. 


Anyways, I eat these and get progressively fatter, but also progressively happier. And that is a very good thing. 


My mother was telling me how many small happinesses can rest in simple routines and habits. And that I should work to order and routine and habit things in my head and life as a way to get rid of the anxiousness I feel about the future. Because lately, everything I have done has been disordered and out of habit and routine. 
Perhaps she is right. 


But for the time being, I really just want to eat more brownies. 


xoxo


Baked Brownies
from Baked: New Frontiers in Baking by Matt Lewis and Renato Poliafito


These are really really really outrageously good. I mean it. SO GOOD. Best Brownies EVAH. Trust me. 


1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons dark unsweetened cocoa powder
11 ounces dark chocolate (60 to 72% cacoa) coarsely chopped
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, cut into 1 inch pieces
1 teaspoon instant espresso powder
1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar, firmly packed
5 large eggs, at room temperature
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract


Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Butter the sides and bottom of a 9 by 13 inch glass or light colored metal baking pan. 
In a medium bowl, whisk the flour, salt and cocoa powder together. 
Put the chocolate, butter and instant espresso powder in a large bowl and set it over a sauce pan of simmering water, stirring occasionally, until the chocolate and butter are completely melted and smooth. Turn off the heat, but keep the bowl over the water and add the sugars. Whisk until completely combined, the remove the bowl from the pan. The mixture should be room temperature. 
Add 3 eggs to the chocolate mixture and whisk until combined. Add the remaining eggs and whisk until combined. Add the vanilla and stir until combined. Do not overbeat the batter at this stage or your brownies will be cakey. 
Sprinkle the flour mixture over the chocolate mixture. Using a spatula (NOT a whisk), fold the flour mixture into the chocolate until just a bit of the flour mixture is visible. 
Pour the batter into the prepared pan and smooth the top. Bake in the center of the oven for 30 minutes, rotating the pan halfway through the baking time, until a toothpick inserted into the center of the brownies comes out with a few moist crumbs sticking to it. Let the brownies cool completely, then cut them into squares and serve. 
Yeah baby.