Blueberry Boy Bait

Now is the time for staring out of windows at gray skies, or lying on your bed and looking at the ceiling. 
Is it wrong that sometimes, when terrible things happen in the world, I can't quite summon the energy to feel rage or even sadness? 
I just feel numb. 
It is winter now, and I am methodically eating my way through a box of clementines and wishing that someone would cuddle me, while we both drank wine and got silly. 
This is not happening. 
To comfort myself, I baked a cake for the first time in months and months and months. 

I forgot about the calming power of baking: You measure everything, neatly arrange your ingredients on the countertop. The mixer hums, and the measuring spoons clink, and for a while, your mind can just rest from thinking about everyone and everything. The world dissolves in favor of blueberries and brown sugar. This is what I like about making things. This is why I like kitchens and washing dishes. It's real. Tactile. You can feel it. Hear it. Smell it. Taste it. 



There is a line from the T.S. Eliot poem "The Wasteland" that I will never forget, it goes:

“What shall I do now? What shall I do?
I shall rush out as I am, and walk the street
With my hair down, so. What shall we do to-morrow?
What shall we ever do?”

What shall we ever do when babies cry or your parents cry or people get sick or death happens or people forget your name or the grocery store is unbearable? As my dear friend Zoe said, "And I want to save everyone and I don't know where to even begin to fix so very many broken things." How do you fix the broken things? 

I don't know. 

I don't know if walking the streets with your hair down is the answer. 



I think you should bake this cake. Not only because it's called Blueberry Boy Bait, (the idea being that it's so delicious you'll have to beat your suitors away with a stick)  and the alliterative possibilities are endless. 
You should bake this cake because it is simple. You should bake this, because in a world where nothing is certain, to know that you can measure things and combine them in such a way, that when you are finished there will be cake to eat, that's special. That's something. 

Now is the time for staring out of windows at gray skies, or lying on your bed and looking at the ceiling. 

But is also the time to hold the ones you love close, despite all our imperfections and collective weirdness. 

All I feel is love. 

xoxo

Blueberry Boy Bait
via SmittenKitchen.com who adapted from Cook’s Country, which adapted it from the original

Serves 12, generously
2 cups plus 1 teaspoon all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon table salt
16 tablespoons unsalted butter (2 sticks), softened
3/4 cup packed light brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
3 large eggs
1 cup whole milk (though buttermilk, which was all I had on hand, worked just great)
1/2 cup blueberries, fresh or frozen (if frozen, do not defrost first as it tends to muddle in the batter)
Topping
1/2 cup blueberries, fresh or frozen (do not defrost)
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
For the cake: Adjust oven rack to middle position and heat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour 13 by 9-inch baking pan.
Whisk two cups flour, baking powder, and salt together in medium bowl. With electric mixer, beat butter and sugars on medium-high speed until fluffy, about two minutes. Add eggs, one at a time, beating until just incorporated and scraping down bowl. Reduce speed to medium and beat in one-third of flour mixture until incorporated; beat in half of milk. Beat in half of remaining flour mixture, then remaining milk, and finally remaining flour mixture. Toss blueberries with remaining one teaspoon flour. Using rubber spatula, gently fold in blueberries. Spread batter into prepared pan.
For the topping:
Scatter blueberries over top of batter. Stir sugar and cinnamon together in small bowl and sprinkle over batter. Bake until toothpick inserted in center of cake comes out clean, 45 to 50 minutes. Cool in pan 20 minutes, then turn out and place on serving platter (topping side up). Serve warm or at room temperature. (Cake can be stored in airtight container at room temperature up to 3 days.)

Why I Eat Doughnuts

Right now I feel a rage at college and at the process of "being educated" in general. 
Because I don't know how what I'm currently being taught in my philosophy class about a bunch of dead white men, specifically John Locke, applies to my own strange life of early mornings and late nights and too many Conversations About Everything and The Future. 



I want someone to explain to me why I should care. 

Because I have a job at a restaurant where chefs work fourteen hour days so that people can pay $40 for a a plate of pasta. And at that same restaurant the other night I ate a sea urchin that tasted what the ocean would taste like, if the ocean gave you only the sweetest kiss.




I want someone to explain to me why John Locke matters when you can taste kisses from the ocean, prepared by fat men in white, whose life's work is to make you remember a flavor?

I want someone to explain to me the value of John Locke, when I go to parties and make small talk with people who are determinedly hipper than me, though they are not cleverer or more interesting. But the point is, none of them will be impressed by my knowledge or lack thereof, of John Locke. 



I want someone to explain to me how John Locke will make me a Better person. I want someone to explain how John Locke will make me a wiser, kinder, more joyous, more thoughtful, more industrious, more generous, less judgmental, more loving human being. 

Because at the moment, John Locke and my philosophy class are doing absolutely none of those things. And it is making me lose some faith in the ultimate purpose of education. 

I just wanna be Better y'all. 

However, I do know one thing that always makes me Better:

Doughnuts. 





Always. Every. Single. Time. 

spoons

I keep trying to collect my thoughts.

I keep wanting to SUM IT UP.

To say,

here is what I have learned, and this is what I've felt, and this is what people are like sometimes, and goodness how time passes so so so quickslowquickly, and isn't the world so fucking confusing.

SO FUCKING CONFUSING.

But there's just too much.

It's impossible to sum up.

I started working in a restaurant as a hostess, and so far, my favorite part of the job is drying the silver. I like that there is a big box of wet knives and forks and THREE different kinds of spoons, and all I have to do is wipe them dry. And once I have dried them I have accomplished something:

I DRIED THOSE SPOONS.

I like that. I like the tactile simplicity of it. It is not complicated. It does not require my brain. And I like that the restaurant hums around me, and I dry spoons and loose myself in just being.

I like that I can just be.

I don't have a recipe for you. I have not been cooking. How I miss it.

What I really wanted to say is: I'm still here.

I am 19 years old and 2 months today.
I do not know where I am going.
I don't know what I'm doing.
And I don't know what's going to happen tomorrow or the next day.
I know that I like to sing and I like to dance and I like to write and I like to talk and I like to be hugged and I like to be kissed and I like to be loved and I like to eat and I like people and I like you and I like being.

And I like drying spoons.

On milkshakes. And bitterness.

Someone wrote me a letter recently.

He questioned the happiness I express here.

Why must everything you write be happy? 

He asked me.

Why must you focus on the positive? 

Why don’t you explore the pain, the hate, the bitterness that touches you too?
Because those things all relate to food too. 

Lemons are sour. Onions make you cry. 

It was out of the blue

I didn’t expect it. 

And it hurt me. 

Scared me. 

Seared my soul a little bit. 

There are two sides of anxiety for me

when I am upset I eat

when I am really upset I cannot eat. 

Food does not taste. 

I couldn’t eat that day. 

When I cannot eat 

food is like swallowing

sawdust or marbles 

asphalt

that is what food tastes like.

And for someone who loves to eat 

as much as I do

this is unendurable.

But this person had a point

you cannot be happyhappyjoyjoy all the time,

you have to let it out. 

You cannot have a high without a low. 

You have to feel the pain. 

Let the pain show in your words 

when pain happens

Honesty. 

This person was telling me to be honest

about all of it: 

The joy and the sorrow

to eat it all up. 
And share it. 

So

darling

I hurt sometimes. 

I have had some awful days recently.

If my soul had bones

my bones would have been aching like crazy.

I struggle with self doubt. 
I get so tired sometimes,

all these words and people and places

and repetitive classes and boring lectures

and things I do not care about

coming at me all day every day. 

And all the time, a little voice inside me says

you must care you must care you must care

but I can’t make myself. 

And this year I think my heart ached a little, for the first time,

and that was interesting and achey.

And I ate at the most

miserable steakhouse in the world the other day 

and the floor was covered in peanut shells and I was disgusted.

And I am ready for summer.

I want to stick my head out of a sunroof in a car going fast 

and I want to scream and I want to go skinny dipping and I want to 

write a song that is great not good and I want to be free and I want to be impossible

and I want to do good and I want to do bad and I want to be together and alone. 

There you are. 

There is some of me that is not all light and joy. 

There is a taste of my bitterness, a few of my more minor grievances against the world, 

like those tiny samples they give you at the grocery store in little paper cups. 

But let me tell you something.
When your stomach is coiling in knots
of bitterness or anxiety or sadness or worry or fear and love or wonder or bliss or joy or delight or happiness or boredom 
or none of those things
there is one thing you can always do:





Milkshakes. 
The sweetness rolls around your tastebuds
and freezes them
and the cream coats your belly
and you will feel better. 


I speak from experience.


xoxo


My Favorite Places for Milkshakes in Austin, TX


Top Notch 7525 Burnet Rd., Austin, TX 78757 (THERE IS A DRIVE IN AND THEY BRING THE MILKSHAKE OUT TO YOU AND OH MY IT IS WONDERFUL) 


Hopdoddy Burger Bar 1400 S Congress Ave., Austin, TX 78704


Hut's Hamburgers 807 W 6th St., Austin, TX 78703

Hill-Bert's Burgers 7211 Burnet Rd., Austin, TX 78757

P. Terry's 404 S Lamar Blvd., Austin, TX 78704

Chocolate Raspberry Pavlova

I want to tell you something:


If you want it, and you claim it as your own, it's yours. 


Several years ago, I wanted to be a Dancer. I danced every day, for hours and hours. But I started late. And I did not dance on pointe, and I worked so hard, and I loved to dance so much. 
But I could never call myself a Dancer. 
In my mind, I was always just Someone Who Danced. 





(My ballet shoes.)


I thought that being a dancer was a title that was earned, something you were eventually given when you were "good enough." I thought that to be a Dancer you had to be some kind of rarified angel. A sort of god. 


And then, just the other day, I realized that being a Dancer isn't something you earn, or win or are entitled to. It's something you claim. 


And now, several years later, after giving up that dream, I'm a Dancer. Finally. 


I wish I had realized this much sooner. I would have saved myself so much heartache. 


If you want it, and you claim it as your own, it's yours. 


OWN IT BABY. 


Anna Pavlova certainly did: 


And she was so utterly fabulous that the spectacular dessert The Pavlova is named after her. 

Pavlovas are light and airy: egg whites are whipped and whipped until they are basically cloud, baked until crisp, and then topped with whipped cream and berries and shredded chocolate. 
Pavlova is oh so divine. Pavlovas are bold and different, a sort of anomaly in the dessert world. 

So,

because according to modern dance goddess Martha Graham, 

"First we have to believe, and then we believe." 

Which I guess means OWN IT.

And I am a Dancer. 

Finally. 

xoxo

Chocolate Raspberry Pavlova

from Nigella Lawson via The Food Network

For the Meringue Base: 6 large egg whites 2 cups superfine sugar 3 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder sifted 1 teaspoon balsamic or red wine vinegar 2 ounces dark chocolate finely chopped

For the Toppings: 2 cups heavy cream 4 cups raspberries 1 to 2 ounces dark chocolate

Prepare the pan: Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F and line a baking sheet with parchment. Draw a 9-inch-diameter circle on the paper with a pencil, tracing a round cake tin that size. Flip the paper over so your meringue doesn't touch the pencil marks - you'll still be able to see the circle. Make the meringue: Beat the egg whites with a mixer until satiny peaks form, and then beat in the sugar a spoonful at a time until the meringue is stiff and shiny. Add the chocolate: Sprinkle the cocoa, vinegar and then the chopped chocolate over the egg whites. Gently fold everything with a rubber spatula until the cocoa is thoroughly mixed in. Shape the meringue: Secure the parchment to the baking sheet with a dab of meringue under each corner. Mound the meringue onto the parchment within the circle, smoothing the sides and the top with a spatula. Bake the meringue: Place in the oven, then immediately turn the temperature down to 300 degrees F and cook for one to one and a quarter hours. When it's ready, it should look crisp and dry on top, but when you prod the center you should feel the promise of squidginess beneath your fingers. Let it cool: Turn off the oven and open the door slightly; let the chocolate meringue disk cool completely in the oven. When you'reready to serve, invert onto a big flatbottomed plate and peel off the parchment. Decorate the Pavlova: Whisk the cream till thick but still soft and pile it on top of the meringue, then scatter the raspberries on top. Coarsely grate the chocolate haphazardly over the top so that you get curls of chocolate rather than rubble, as you don't want the raspberries' luscious color and form to be obscured. You want the Pavlova to look like a frosted cake. 

Raspberry Coconut Cake

The question is, ultimately, how much do you say? 

Do you say too much?

Too little?

And I watch people conduct these elaborate dances around themselves. I do it too.

We talk and we text and we tell and we photograph every moment, because this youth we're living is so effervescent. 




And there are a million mediums to communicate through and with. And sometimes it is too much. Too many heys and howsitgoins and whatareyoudoinglaters and holdonsomeonetakeapictures. 

I want to just stop. 

I want to stop. 

I want to wash some dirty dishes in a real sink. And I want to take a long bath. I want to knead some bread. Or go swimming, arms pulling in long front crawls.  Or wash my dog, only I can't because she's dead. I want to sweep a floor. Or paint. I want to water a garden and smell the wet dirt. I want the real things. The tangible things. The holding, touching, clinking, breathing, sandwich-making parts of everyday life back. Because no one told me that college would make me forget what normal living and life is like. 
I wanted to bake a cake. 

I wanted to bake a cake and talk to myself.


So I did. 





And I combined sugar and butter, and listened to the steady hum of the mixer.
And I measured out flour and baking soda and powder with the little silver spoons. 
And I mixed in raspberries and blackberries and coconut. (Beautiful words!) 
And then I frosted it with cream cheese and sugar.
And then I ate that cake. 
Life is so good. 


It is the sweet simple things in life that are real after all. -Laura Ingalls Wilder


But really. 


xoxo

Raspberry Coconut Cake

adapted from smittenkitchen.com

Yield: Two 9-inch round, 2-inch tall cake layers, and, in theory, 22 to 24 cupcakes, two 8-inch squares or a 9×13 single-layer cake (I have yet to audition the cupcakes, shame on me)

4 cups plus 2 tablespoons (480 grams) cake flour (not self-rising)
2 teaspoons (10 grams) baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon (5 grams) table salt
2 sticks (1 cup, 1/2 pound or 225 grams) unsalted butter, softened
2 cups (400 grams) sugar
2 teaspoons (10 ml) pure vanilla extract
4 large eggs, at room temperature
2 cups buttermilk (475 ml), well-shaken

3/4 unsweetened shredded coconut

1 to 1 1/2 cups raspberries or blackberries

Preheat oven to 350°F. Butter two 9-inch round cake pans and line with circles of parchment paper, then butter parchment. (Alternately, you can use a cooking spray, either with just butter or butter and flour to speed this process up.)

Sift together flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a medium bowl. In a large mixing bowl, beat butter and sugar in a large bowl with an electric mixer at medium speed until pale and fluffy, then beat in vanilla. Add eggs 1 at a time, beating well and scraping down the bowl after each addition. At low speed, beat in buttermilk until just combined (mixture will look curdled). Add flour mixture in three batches, mixing until each addition is just incorporated. Using a spatula, gently stir in coconut and raspberries. 

Spread batter evenly in cake pan, then rap pan on counter several times to eliminate air bubbles. (I like to drop mine a few times from two inches up, making a great big noisy fuss.) Bake until golden and a wooden pick inserted in center of cake comes out clean, 35 to 40 minutes. Cool in pan on a rack 10 minutes, then run a knife around edge of pan. Invert onto rack and discard parchment, then cool completely, about 1 hour.

Cream Cheese Frosting

from smittenkitchen.com

5 ounces (142 grams) cream cheese, softened

3 tablespoons (1 1/2 ounces or 42 grams) unsalted butter, softened

1/4 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 cup (4 ounces or 120 grams) confectioners sugar

Beat cream cheese, butter, and vanilla with an electric mixer at high speed until fluffy. Sift confectioners sugar over cream cheese mixture, then beat at medium speed until incorporated. Spread frosting over top of cooled cake.

life lately

Darlings, I miss you so much. I miss cooking. I miss frying eggs. I miss perfect vegetables. Despite these trials though. I think maybe I am the happiest I have been in a long time. These days are so long. They are like Carole King songs. With lots of ache and love all at the same time. 

 I try and talk things through a lot.

 Everyone has so many interesting things to say. 

And even though I never think about being old, or ever really believed I would get old, the other day I discovered that my childhood is behind me. And that is the most bittersweet feeling. 

The other day I imagined living in a beautiful quaint house with windows that had wide sashes and bowls of irises and wide white beds. I'd never imagined that before. I have literally never thought about being a grown up before. I have thought about the privileges that came with being a grown up, but never the actuality of being a grown up. 

I don't read the news anymore. I'm okay with that. I am okay with living in a bubble, because how long can you live in a bubble of youth and homework and wondering what you'll do on Friday night? 

Not very long. 

I'm trying to appreciate all this beauty and weirdness around me, and simply be exuberantly young. 

The point of all this is to say that  I'll have something delicious for you next time. I just wanted to stop by. And say hi. And wish you well. xoxo

Chocolate Whiskey Rum Bundt Cake

So I just watched the movie High Fidelity for the first time. It's fabulous. 

My favorite part of the film is this concept about The Top Five. In the film, your Top Five is a crucial part of your identity, a musical litmus test of your hipness, snobbishness and finally, personality. I've been thinking about my Top Five: 

Joni Mitchell     

Stevie Wonder

                                          

Amy Winehouse

Bob Schneider

And then I'm stuck. I like all these whiny singer-songwriters, and I feel like I need a real BAND to complete my list. The thing is, I love so much, and picking my fifth... It's too hard. Maybe Louie Armstrong, but he's not a band. I kind of have this serious thing for The Rolling Stones. I'm actually reading this book right now: 

It's really interesting. It's also very, very long. He did a lot of drugs.

Anyways, I'm just not sure about who my fifth is.

On a similar musical note, since winter break began, I've rediscovered my adoration of Earth Wind & Fire:

It's kind of embarrassing. 

I love it.

I don't think that Earth Wind & Fire is exactly Top Five material for me. Maybe Top Ten, but no one cares about your Top Ten. I don't think my love of Earth Wind & Fire would impress the music snobs in High Fidelity. Actually I doubt that any of my Top Four + One I Haven't Figured Out Yet will impress anyone, music snob or not. 

Whatever. 

Anyways, I started wondering what's in my Top Five of Favorite Things to Cook/Bake:

Scrambled Eggs

Pies

Chocolate Chip Cookies

Homemade Spinach Pasta

Desserts With Rum and Whiskey

Desserts with Rum and Whiskey are undoubtably The Best. There is something about the boozy, luscious quality of the liquor, that when paired with sugar and flour and butter, simply equals perfection. 

This Chocolate Whiskey Rum Bundt Cake is no exception. 

I mean, this cake is basically the reason to have a Top Five of Favorite Things to Cook. 

This recipe calls for American Whiskey, and forgive me, but I am not really a snob about liquor and figured no one would never be able to taste any difference, so I used what was left of our Irish Whiskey and then some Rum, because I really like Rum, and because I couldn't find any American Whiskey in our kitchen.  Anyways, as soon as I had combined this inventive duo with the rest of the batter, my brother informed me that we had a massive handle of Maker's Mark in the pantry. C'est la vie. 

Also, I added frosting, because obviously, a Chocolate Whiskey Rum Cake is not decadent enough. 

Also, did you know you can spell Whiskey two ways? Whiskey with and 'e' and Whisky without an 'e'. 

Who and what are in your Top Fives? 

xoxo

Chocolate Whiskey Rum Bundt Cake

barely adapted from Gourmet Today by Ruth Reichl 

1 cup unsweetened cocoa powder (not Dutch process), plus 3 tablespoons for dusting pan

1 1/2 cups brewed coffee

1/2 cup American whiskey (Or Irish Whiskey or Rum or a combination of them all or whatever)

2 sticks (1/2 pound) unsalted butter, cut into 1-inch pieces

2 cups sugar

2 cups all-purpose flour

1 1/4 teaspoon salt

2 large eggs, left at room temperature for 30 minutes

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Put a rack in middle of oven and preheat oven to 325 F. Butter Bundt pan well, then dust with 3 tablespoons of cocoa powder; knocking out excess.

Combine coffee, whiskey, butter, and remaining 1 cup cocoa powder in a 3-quart heavy saucepan and heat over moderate heat, whisking, until butter is melted. Remove from heat, add sugar, and whisk until dissolved, about 1 minute. Transfer mixture to a large bowl and cool for 5 minutes. 

Meanwhile, whisk together flour, baking soda, and salt in a bowl.

Whisk together eggs and vanilla in a small bowl, then whisk into warm chocolate mixture until well combined. Add flour mixture and whisk until just combined (batter will be thin and bubbly). 

Pour batter into Bundt pan. Bake until a wooden toothpick inserted in center comes out clean, 40 to 50 minutes. Cool cake completely in pan on a rack. 

Run a thin knife around sides of pan, then invert cake onto a rack. Sift confectioners' sugar over cake OR frost with My Favorite Chocolate Frosting. 

My Favorite Chocolate Frosting

from Allrecipes.com

Adding this frosting unfortunately makes this cake look like a large chocolate doughnut. Which is okay. Only, massive doughnuts however delicious they actually are, are not photogenic or attractive looking. Also, sprinkles are always nice. 

1 cup butter, softened

4 1/2 cups confectioners sugar

1 1/4 cups baking cocoa

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/2 cup milk

In a large mixing bowl, cream butter. Gradually beat in confectioners sugar, cocoa and vanilla. Add enough milk until frosting reaches spreading consistency. Frost and sprinklelify.