Life goes on.  Between episodes of grief, between tirades & protests, we still eat.  We still sleep, & do all the mundane acts of everyday life.  So yes, I have still been cooking.  And yes, I have still been writing.
      More importantly, I have been listening.
      The murders of George Floyd and Manuel Ellis have been vivid splashes of horror in an already rough point in time--but only for those who live in privilege.  For people of color, these were not sudden, shocking events: they are the other shoe that people of color perpetually wait to drop.  They expect it every day.  This time, our communities have reacted with greater volume & energy than at any other point in my life.  Those reactions have been myriad & intense.  More than ever, I see the social equivalent of Newton's Third Law: every action has an equal & opposite reaction.  So there are a lot things I could say, a lot of events on which I could comment.
      But as a white woman, born into upper-middle class privilege, I have only one thing to say:

      Find your way to contribute to the cause.  There cannot be just one approach to finding justice, it takes many voices, many tools to dismantle the sickness of so many generations.  Take action, & stay strong.


      This is not a political blog, although I believe that any act of life can be political if approached correctly.  Next week I will return to my usual topics of writing & food.  But I will strive to give my art & the mundane actions of living meaning in these times of change.  I invite you to do the same.

      These days, delight has become a precious commodity.  The struggle between monotony & health risks can be exhausting.  When my instincts debate my logic, I prefer the debate to be internal, & I prefer the stakes to be no higher than whether or not to eat second brownie or maybe staying up past my bedtime.*  The constant slog of self-denial in the name of public health has to be the most boring way to take a stand every...but it is taking a stand!  A stand...

      For me, one of the best coping strategies has been actively seeking & embracing delight.  I got the idea from an episode of This American Life at the beginning of the year & I swear it has been a sanity saver.  More than that, it has opened me to little experiences I would normally say I don't have time for, including the best, most wonderful story time I have had since elementary school: Taika Waititi doing a celebrity reading of James & the Giant Peach.
      Full confession: I've never actually read the book.  I saw a children's play based on the book when I was a little kid & I remember thinking it was great.  But I only had a passing acquaintance with Roald Dahl's children's books through movies, I rather preferred his Unexpected Tales.  But Taika Waititi is, in himself, charming.  I don't care if he's playing a vampire, a pile of rocks, or a Hilter as an imaginary friend, the man is just lovely.  So when I saw that he had rounded up some celebrities to read James & the Giant Peach as a fundraiser, I was in! 

So far my favorite is the second episode, which does have Meryl Streep & Benedict Cumberbatch reading as Aunt Sponge & Aunt Spiker!

      The story is being read in six parts, the two final videos being released today.  It's a long weekend here in the U.S.  Some people will be flouting the social distancing restraints of the last couple months & going out to enjoy the spring.  Others (such as myself) will be staying in & trying to get as much fun & relaxation out of a restricted holiday as possible.**  And some people will be working, possibly for the first time in weeks.  Whatever your Memorial Day holiday is looking like, treat yourself to something whimsical.  Listen as Taika & friends bring this piece of children's fiction to life.  Your heart will glow, & you, too, may feel compelled to donate to Partners in Health.
      Stay safe, everyone!





*Do I live dangerously or what!

**We're setting up a tent in the living room, right in front of the fireplace.  We intend to roast marshmallows & "camp" all weekend long!

      In an earlier post, I noted that I have a list of foods to make as research for my current writing project.  One of the new foods on my list to learn was Conchas: sweet Mexican rolls with a sugar crusted top, scored in a distinctive curving pattern meant to resemble a conch shell.  Classic conchas are flavored with vanilla, maybe chocolate in the sugar disk topping, & that's it.  I put a tiny twist on mine to be more spring-ish, & created Lavender Cardamom Chonchas.  And YUM!
      You will need lavender sugar to make these.  Sounds gourmet, right?  But it's just plain white granulated sugar that has been pulsed in a food processor with food-grade dried lavender.  This results in a superfine sugar powder with a gentle lavender aroma, & delicious lavender flavor.  How superfine?  The texture will be almost identical to powdered sugar.  I recommend a proportion of 1 teaspoon lavender to every 1/4 Cup of sugar.  (This is also a good way to use up those sugar cubes you've had sitting in your pantry forever.)

Combine in a food processor or clean spice grinder & pulse until soft & powdery.

    So these were delicious, & the recipe is long & complicated so no more preamble, let's get baking!
YOU WILL NEED: a stand mixer, other baking bowls, a whisk, a wooden spoon, parchment paper, & a digital kitchen scale.  Trust me.


Lavender Cardamom Conchas

Ingredients:
1 generous teaspoon active dry yeast (half of an envelope)
1/4 Cup warm whole milk
2 large eggs, room temperature
3 Tablespoons white granulated sugar
3/4 teaspoon kosher salt, generous, divided
1 & 1/2 Tablespoon nonfat dry milk powder
1/2 teaspoon ground cardamom
1 & 1/2 Cups bread flour, plus more for surface
5 Tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into small pieces (about 20)
1/2 Cup all-purpose flour, generous
1/3 Cup lavender sugar (see above)
1/4 teaspoon corn starch
1/4 Cup ghee (clarified butter)
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions: 

- In the bowl of your stand mixer, stir together the warm milk & yeast, & let sit for 10 minutes.  Meanwhile, select a small bowl & place it on your scale.  Tare the scale.  Crack your eggs into the bowl & whisk thoroughly until they are a uniform liquid, then use the scale the check the weight.  Take a second small bowl & pour out 1/4 of your eggs (it's easiest to measure this by weight, hence the scale!).
The small amount of egg will be what you use for your egg wash when you put the sugar topping on the conchas.  Cover & set in the fridge until you need it later.

- To the bowl with the remaining egg, measure in a generous 1/2 teaspoon of kosher salt (set aside the rest for the topping) & all of the plain granulated sugar.  Whisk together, then pour into the stand mixture with the yeast.  Sprinkle in the milk powder, cardamom, & the bread flour, then stir with a wooden spoon until a shaggy dough forms.

For some reason I just like the words "shaggy dough."

 - Place your bowl into the stand mixture fitted with a dough hook.  Turn on the mixer to medium speed and & beat until the dough comes together, about 2-3 minutes.  Turn the mixer speed up slightly & set a digital timer for 15 minutes.  Watching the timer, add in a small piece of your butter every 30 seconds.  The dough will slowly absorb the butter as you go, be patient.  You will finish adding all the butter before the 15 minutes is up, that's fine, let the dough continue to knead for the duration.


 - Cover the bowl tightly and allow to rise until doubled in volume.  In the refrigerator this will take at least 12 hours, at room temperature only 30-50 minutes.  (I compromised & used my garage, which is usually at some temperature in between during the spring, & my dough doubled in about 5 hours.  The time isn't really what matters, you want the dough to have doubled in size & smell like the yeasty, buttery concoction that it is!)  At this point, remove the cover and use your fingers to gently press & fold the dough to deflate entirely.

- Line a rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper.  In a medium bowl, use a hand mixer to beat together the all-purpose flour, lavender sugar, cornstarch, ghee, vanilla, & remaining salt, until you have a homogenous paste.  Using your scale, divide this topping into 6 equal pieces.  Transfer to a plate, cover loosely, & set aside.

Here's your crumbly paste.  Press it together...

...& you get these!  And lick your fingers afterwards, because yum!  (But then wash them before you continue, because obviously.)

 - Turn out your dough onto a clean work surface.  Using your digital scale one more time (aren't you glad you have this thing?) divide the dough into 6 equal pieces.  Roll each piece into a ball & transfer to the prepared baking sheet, spaced evenly apart.


- Take out your remaining beaten egg, add a generous teaspoon of water, & then beat to combine.  Set egg wash aside.  Now you have all your pieces, it's time for the final assembly!

- Take a rectangular piece of parchment paper & fold it in half.  Unfold, & use a pencil to draw a circle in the center of one half, about 4" in diameter (I traced a saucer).  One at a time, take a piece of your sugar topping & place it in the middle of this circle, then fold the parchment paper over & push it out into an even 4" circle. 

I used a spice jar as a rolling pin to create these sugar disks.

 - Peel off the parchment paper carefully.  Brush egg wash over one dough roll, then fold the sugar circle over & tuck the edges underneath.  Repeat with all remaining topping & rolls.

The sugar disks will fully cover the top & sides of your rolls--it's like tucking them under a blanket!

 - Place in a draft-free, warm space, & let conchas rise until doubled in size, another 1-2 hours.

- Position your rack in the middle of the oven & preheat to 325º F. While the oven is pre-heating, use a small, sharp knife to gently score the top of each roll with the conchas pattern--this is done by making crescent lines from left to right, then top to bottom.  You just want to cut into the dough, just score the topping.

- Bake until the visible dough is golden brown & the sugar topping is just every so slightly darkened, 20-28 minutes.  Allow to cool on baking sheet, then transfer to a wire rack and cool completely.  Once fully cooled, conchas can be placed in an airtight container & saved for three days--but they are DEFINITELY best the first day.


      Because of the long baking time, I made these the day before I wanted to eat them.  I started in the morning, ate dinner while they were going through their final rise, & then popped them onto the cooling rack just before bed.  The next morning, they were perfection.  I partner & I enjoyed them with bacon, herb omelettes & fresh coffee.  And when COVID-19 finally takes a hiatus, I plan to make them again for a belated Mother's Day brunch.  I highly recommend you do the same!

     Working on a story can feel a lot like living in two worlds.  Whether I'm taking a (responsibly socially-distanced) walk, or doing chores around the house, my mind inevitably wanders to my characters.  I think about their conversations & their backstories, their quirks & their next steps.  Sometimes that comes back to bite me, because I get a brilliant idea when I'm driving on the freeway with no reasonable means of stopping to write it down.  But lately that hasn't been a problem because I'm always near my laptop--can't imagine why.
      In my current project, the story takes place in a small town in southwest Oregon (totally fictional location, & no, it's not Gravity Falls).  The town is very haunted, with ghost hunting being one of the biggest tourism draws.  So I've interjected the first five chapters of the manuscript with exerts from the town's official ghost tour!  I love a good ghost tour, & since I can't go on one right now this has been a lot of fun to write--not just coming up with the spooky stories, but then putting them in the voice of a tour guide.  It makes a nice break from my usual style & it's a good exercise for my craft.  Anyway, as an intermission from my recipe adventures, here is the first draft of one such ghost story. 
Enjoy!

This is the Walker-Ames House, one of the most haunted buildings in the most haunted town in Washington State, Port Gamble. I went on their ghost tour a few years back with my best friend & we got to go in--at night!  And...nothing happened.  But the house itself was definitely the visual inspiration for the story below.

     So what do pierogi have to do with a ghost story?  One of the themes of my novel is culture, & how it evolves through immigration, often with pieces being lost.  When we lose the stories & memories of our families, it's a kind of little death. Tiny traces get left behind, disconnected--a grungy heirloom here, a recipe there--and they can linger like family ghosts.
      Of course, my novel also includes REAL ghosts...more on that in future posts.  But for now: Polish comfort food!
      I have no Polish ancestry of which I am aware* but as far as I'm concerned, dumplings belong to everyone.  I don't care if it's gyoza or piroshki, samosa or pasties, give me a savory filling wrapped in some kind of dough & I am a fan.  So I was happy to try making pierogi for the first time!

Emphasis on the "try."  Although they look pretty good, eh?

     They turned out Ok, but I have a feeling I have a long way to go.  The dough was the toughest I've ever worked with, so it came out thick & a little dense--although thankfully not as tough as I feared.  I filled them with a mixture of caramelized onion, braised cabbage, & potato, which turned out tasty.  But next time I will definitely add bacon (the only reason I didn't this time was because we served them alongside homemade corned beef).  I had just enough filling for all my dough & they boiled up without leaking. The brown butter fry at the end was delicious.  I have about a dozen left in my freezer & I am looking forward to eat them later!
      Here's the recipe I used:

Pierogi

Ingredients: 
1 large egg
5 oz whole milk
3 Tablespoons sour cream (full fat)
1 teaspoon kosher salt

...oh my gods, I just figured out how I messed up the dough.  *face palm*  Ok, actually I was halving a larger recipe, which called for 4 cups of flour.  I should have only put in 2.  I think I put in 3.5 cups of ap flour total.

Hey, you don't know what you don't know!  I didn't know that when I thought to myself: "Wow, this looks really try & floury" I was totally, 100% right!

      LOL!  Ok then!  Well, the good news is, you can totally over-do it on the flour & these will still come out pretty decent!  But I'm going to stop there rather than continue sharing my recipe since I didn't actually follow it.  When I take my second shot at these, I'll share that instead.
      In the meantime, I also made my first batch of cookies in search of the perfect cookie for my novel, I went with Salty Buckwheat Chocolate Chunk Cookies from Bon Appetit.  These were darn good cookies, I am happily eating my way through them (I also halved this recipe & they turned out fine).  But they aren't everything I need for the cookies in my story, so oh darn!  I have to keep experimenting with cookies!
     In the meantime: Conchas for Easter!



*No, I'm not interested in having my DNA tested.

     I'm not sure why I can't write a story that doesn't have food in it.  It's like food is a recurring character across all my manuscripts, regardless of setting, plot, or genre.  I'm starting to think my personal paradise would be the Hobbiton Public Library, if such a place existed--nothing like a good novel over second breakfast, after all!

Today, second breakfast will be doughnuts, apparently.

     Sometimes I use food as a way to add depth to a character.  Sometimes I use it as a means of setting a mood for the scene.  But in my current project, it actually plays a pivotal role in uncovering the main character's lost history, & in putting ghosts to rest.  Literally.
     This means cooking will be a part of my literary research!  If I'm going to have my character preparing plot-critical dishes, I'd darn well better know how to make them myself!  It's not enough to go out & find them at a restaurant or bakery (which is a little challenging at the moment, regardless).  I need to know about the ingredients.  I need to hear the sound of my knife against the cutting board.  I need to feel the texture of the dough.  I need to experience the changes in aroma as the recipe progresses, and the satisfaction of eating things freshly made from scratch.
     Have I made you hungry yet?  No?  Well, here's the growing list of what I need to learn to cook for this novel:

   - Kimchi
   - Golabki
   - Pierogi
   - Conchas
   - Pan de Muertos
   - Cookies

     Yes, it's a motley list.  It's a complicated plot.
     "Cookies" I intentionally left vague, because these have to be mind-blowingly delicious cookies, so I anticipate baking several.  They will probably be some variation of chocolate-chip, because chocolate.  If you have an outstanding recipe for chocolate chip cookies you would like to share with me I would be very grateful.
     As I try my hand at these dishes I will document my efforts here, & let you see my glorious mistakes and tasty triumphs as they occur.  In the meantime, I have writing to do...& doughnuts to find.

     These days, the letter "C" is very much the theme of my life.*  "C" is for Corona virus, and COVID-19, and even though "quarantine" starts with a "Q" there are first graders who will misspell it with a "C."  But we're not calling it quarantine in my household--we're calling it "temporarily banished for the good of the realm."  I encourage you to do the same.
      But "C" is also for coffee, & chocolate, & conchas (which I intend to try baking later this week).  It's also for chats & chums.  It's also for Critique Groups, & I am here to happily report that I have been able to join a new one!  Admittedly, I'm joining at a point where we have to meet remotely so I'm giving & receiving feedback to disembodied voices (we haven't figured out the video features yet), but it has given me the extra motivation needed.  Writing is once more a part of my routine.  Now I get up in the morning, put on my comfy composition clothing (pj pants & a fluffy hoodie), & get in front my laptop.  It has already improved my mental health.
      So thank you, new critique comrades.  Thank you, cat who sits next to me & purrs while I write.  Thank you cup of caffeine.  And thank you, readers: you may not start with a "C," but I cherish your continued check-ins on the content of this blog.

Here's a baby porcupine.  It has nothing to do with anything, but it's super cute, and "cute" starts with "C."  You're welcome.

*Oh yes, hello!  And by the way I'm not dead!