My Kind of Weekend

 

Ah, this is the life, isn’t it?  Two sweet potatoes, just hangin’ out in the sunshine like old friends.  I took this photo on Friday afternoon, just me and the sweet potatoes.  And a gorgeous bunch of kale.

Can you see me in this photo?  I’m the shadow at the bottom left.  Those knobby-looking things are my knuckles, perched above my camera.  I think I am having way too much fun with the new camera.  There have been photo sessions almost every day this week, and what’s really amazing is that it is during those impromptu photo shoots that I feel happiest and most relaxed.  I love the way the camera is helping me to see the world through fresh eyes, and I love the challenge to capture an image the way I can see it in my mind.  Photography is my new muse.

With a pang of regret, I turned those adorable sweet potatoes into a pan of Kristin’s Sweet Potato Fries.  I’ve always found sweet potatoes to be a difficult vegetable.  For one thing, they are sweet—usually too sweet for me.  In recent history, I have made two different soups calling for sweet potatoes, and both of them smacked me on the head with sugar.  It’s weird: I love dessert, but when it comes to soup, I need savory flavors.  Even soups with a bit of sweetness, like my favorite carrot soup, need something savory to add depth to their bowls.  These sweet potato soups—which shall remain anonymous—just didn’t do it for me.

But oh!  Kristin’s fries—oh yes, they did it for me.  Cloaked in a spicy mix of cumin, coriander, sea salt, and a pinch of cayenne, these fries are savory and sweet.  While they are baking, the scent of cumin drifts through the house, a gentle reminder that dinner is on its way.  I tweaked the recipe ever so slightly, using lemon juice instead of lime, and I peeled my sweet potatoes because their skin was a bit rough.  My fries didn’t crisp up, probably because they were crowded on their baking sheet, but surprisingly, I liked the softer texture.  Next time, I might bake them on a larger sheet so I can give them more room to roast, but regardless, this recipe is a keeper.

In other news, I make no apologies for being an insatiable reader.  As such, I’m always on the look-out for new blogs to read.  I learned this week that Life, Love, and Food has a cousin: life.love.paper!  This lovely photography blog and diary is my newest favorite site.  Whenever I find a site that I enjoy, right off the bat I start working my way backward in the archives, finding the old gems and beauties.  I loved this post about an impromptu trip to Seattle.  Tina’s photos of the city are stunning.  I love the fountain rainbow shot.  Then there’s this post about a spontaneous pot of risotto.  I’m kind of a romantic when it comes to the idea of unplanned fun because my life is so dominated by planning.  Tina seems like a master of unplanned fun, and I get to indulge in that by reading her blog.  Nice.

I’m ready to start my weekend.  On the docket is a haircut, some olive oil shopping, lentil soup, and a book club gathering to talk about Committed by Elizabeth Gilbert.  Off the docket I’m secretly hoping (but not planning!) that there will be some spontaneous fun of my own.  That’s my kind of weekend.

Friends, I hope your weekend is everything you want!

Neither Magic Wand nor Fairy Dust

I must tell you that it feels great to be able to walk like a normal person again.  After running 13.1 miles in and out of town, past real Texas longhorns and a gorgeous brown horse, my legs weren’t quite themselves for a few days.  The day after the half-marathon, I contemplated hiring a nice, strong-looking male undergraduate to carry me, piggy-back, to the bus so I would no longer have to endure the pain of putting one foot in front of the other.  It was so, so tempting, but I’m cheap, so I squinched my face up in pain and walked over to the bus, setting myself down ever so gently in a seat.  Sitting had never felt so good.

As if finishing a half-marathon weren’t good enough for one week, I learned yesterday that three out of the five DNA constructs I’m trying to make for my big project at work are finished.  That means that 60% of this project has been moved to the next stage.  This is very good news for me.  Very, very good news.  What would also feel very good is if I were not feeling a vague sense of letdown, of deflation after all this success.  Why is it that success can be such a mixed bag of emotions?

The problem, I think, is that I have no template for letting success wash over me like a warm rain.  This problem has plagued me for as long as I can remember.  I can recall bringing home report cards lined with A+ after A+, and my mother would tease me, “Only six A plusses?  Aren’t there any more?”  She meant well, I know, but I always longed for a more serious response.  Right now, I can’t even remember what my father used to say, which probably means he rarely said anything, at least to me.  My parents had a lot on their hands—five kids, one marriage, often two jobs, a house, a cat—so it’s understandable that their attention was drawn to the things that really needed attention, like sick children, broken cars, or a hungry cat.  But their parenting style has imprinted itself on me in some unpleasant ways, such as my tendencies toward anxiety and depression.  Less grave than mental illness is my need to constantly demonstrate my worth through achievement.  I am a middle child, an attention hog, and I don’t know how to relax when the hard work is finished.

Despite all the wonderful news this week, I’ve been restless and irritable.  I don’t like it at all.  I suspect hormones may also be in on this, as they are wont to do, but there is little I can do about that problem.  So I did what I could to pass the time.  Yesterday, I snuck out for a 4 PM coffee, just in time to catch the summerlike warmth of the afternoon.  Earlier in the week, I took a 5 PM phone call from Matt, who was out riding his bike, and we discussed the history of marriage.  Today, with 20 minutes to kill before my flies would be finished with their feeding assay, I went outside again, this time to stroll around campus, checking out the cacti and the clouds, so majestic and mountain-like in that big Texas sky.  And in the meantime, I’ve been reading blogs and Salon.com like a word-starved fiend.  These days, I am insatiable.

Matt has told me many times that I have a “rage for order.”  It sounds awful when he puts it that way!  But he has a point: I love order.  I love the feeling of an organized home, an orderly method, a systematic approach.  It just makes life seem so much less chaotic and more manageable.  It is a top-ten reason why I became a scientist.  Tonight, I decided to embrace my rage for order.  I emptied the dishwasher and cleaned the black gunk out of the sink.  I made a delicious and minimal-mess dinner of nachos, using flour tortillas made at the tortilla factory down the street from me.  I even plated my nachos so they’d look cute and festive.  And later tonight, I’ll sit down with a needle and thread to repair the buttons on my favorite white sweater, the one that lost two buttons on the day of my thesis defense.  (That, my friends, was disorder.  And embarrassment.  But kind of hilarious too.)

 

I wish there were a magical way that we could make ourselves feel the way we think we should feel.  It would save me a lot of grief.  But with neither magic wand nor fairy dust, I realize that my only hope is knowing that tomorrow is a new day and maybe, just maybe, after days of restlessness and grumpiness, tomorrow will bring some peace and contentment.  I hope, I hope, I hope.

13.1 Miles Later

I am so glad to be sitting down right now.

This morning, I rose before dawn.  The green lights on my alarm clock read 5:10, but I obeyed its beeping and pulled on my grey running tights, pink sports bra, orange tank top, and a long-sleeved t-shirt that says Albion College Dancers on the front.  I washed my face, ponytailed my hair, and bobby-pinned a bandana headband in place to keep my hair under control, no matter what the wind might try to do this morning.

I ate breakfast, the sun still nowhere to be seen.  At 6:30, with the sky just beginning to lighten to a rich velvety blue, I took a cab over to Veterans Park.  Or rather, I tried to take a cab over to Veterans Park.  The road we tried to take to the park had already been blocked off, and there was easily a mile of traffic backed up, cars and trucks probably filled with half-marathon participants who, like me, had been thwarted from getting into the park via Harvey Road.

So I hoofed it.  After paying and abandoning my cab-driver to the traffic jam, I walked and, later, with some amount of panic, jogged to the starting line of the 4th Annual Armadillo Dash, relieved to see that no one had left the starting line.  I made it.

The air was cool but calm as we all stood together, mentally preparing to run 13.1 miles.  For me, running with other people is always a strange experience because I hardly ever do it.  Usually I’m a solitary runner, racing against myself and the desire to quit.  With other runners, I’m a stew of excitement and anxiety, with a pinch of competitiveness.  With others, I want to demonstrate that I belong there, among that pack of runners of all ages and sizes, all speeds and desires.  I’m willing to bet, though, that every single one of us shares one goal: finishing.

The race started off very slowly, a logjam of runners trotting together as we squeezed through the tight opening miles.  I think my first two miles averaged out to be fifteen-minute miles, which felt frightfully slow compared to my normal nine- or ten-minute miles.  My body felt tired and sluggish, unaccustomed to running at such an early morning hour.

But I slogged on, because the only thing worse than running a slow half-marathon is quitting for no good reason.  The pace magically righted itself as the mile markers appeared in an orderly procession, 5, 6, 7, 8.  I was running almost perfect ten-minute miles, which felt like a minor miracle.  Though I had started this race thinking that a half-marathon run in two and a half hours would be fine with me, I realized that if I finished strong, I could easily shave fifteen minutes off that time.  Maybe more!

Since I had no running buddy to chat with me, my thoughts wandered like toddlers in a grocery store.  I thought about writing this post and how nice it is to have a blog.  I thought about the funny things I had overheard that morning (“I dreamed last night that we were at the starting line and you had to go to the bathroom and I couldn’t tie my shoes!”) and how important it is to run your own race.  Other runners around me must have thought I was nuts because I would pass them running, then they would pass me while I walked.  But that was all part of my running plan: run for 25 minutes, then walk 5.  Repeat as needed.  For whatever reasons, it’s easier for me to run a faster pace and take walking breaks rather than to run a slower pace with no walking.

I thought about God.  There was a prayer before we left the starting line, though I could hear only mumbling through the loud speakers.  A man wore a t-shirt whose backside read, I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.  We passed a handful of churches, the final one of which had a dozen volunteers.  One of them wore a shirt that read, My quads are in awe of your quads.  I liked that one.

Like a true agnostic, I decided that it couldn’t hurt to have God on my side that morning, so I thought about whether Jesus could help me lift my legs so I might continue to run.  I couldn’t tell for sure if it worked, but I did finish strong, so maybe!  But what really made my scalp prickle with astonishment was the very idea of faith.  Even though my knees were hurting and my legs were growing heavy with exertion, I had absolute faith that I would finish.  What more could I accomplish if I always had such faith in myself and my abilities?  What mountains could I move, what rivers could I swim if I wore faith on my heart like the bib pinned to my shirt?  We usually think of faith in its religious garments, but even agnostics need faith because every adventure is started without knowing whether we will succeed.  I try to think of this whenever I’m scared of what the future holds because while there are no guarantees, we’ll never know what happiness could have been ours if we take no chances.

Two hours, seven minutes, and forty-one seconds later, I crossed the finish line.  And just like that, it was over.

Except that it wasn’t.  There were bathrooms to be found and post-race snacks to be eaten.  Last night, I had baked a batch of Mollie Katzen’s Breakfast Biscotti, tweaking the recipe to taste.  And before heading into the predawn morning, I had packed a little baggie of them to accompany me to the race.

Foolishly, I thought they would make a good mid-race snack.  Certainly they were tasty enough, flecked with bits of lemon zest and bittersweet chocolate chips, but biscotti pose one major problem for a runner: they are dry.  Dry and crunchy, which makes them about the worst mid-run food ever.  When I’m running, I want liquids—water, orange juice, maybe a yogurt smoothie made with banana.  During the race, around mile nine, I think, I had just one bite of biscotti.  The chocolate (for energy, of course) was wonderful, but the texture?  No, thank you.  I’d rather have Gatorade, whose taste I dislike but whose wetness I love.

But I didn’t toss my remaining cookies along the roadside.  They remained in their little baggie until later, when I sat in front of a Remax on University Drive, waiting for a cab to take me home.  By this time, I was rehydrated and still a little hungry, so I munched on my homemade treat.  Sitting there, on that cloudy morning with tired legs and a salt-crusted face, these biscotti tasted perfect.  Lemony, not too sweet, with a faint almond flavor and the crunch of cornmeal, they were delicious.  They provided some much-needed fat and protein in a homemade, perfectly portable package.  While I won’t think of them as mid-run food again, I will keep them in mind for the post-run afterglow, along with a bottle of water and a nice resting spot somewhere outside.

Half-Marathon Biscotti

Adapted from Mollie Katzen’s Sunlight Cafe

Makes 20-30 biscotti, depending on how thickly you slice them

May I confess something here?  I discovered that I love making biscotti more than I love eating them.  Yes, it’s bizarre, but it’s the truth.  There’s something about forming the dough into logs, and then slicing that baked log into neat little cookies that I find incredibly appealing.  It must be my need for orderliness.  Despite my love for the double-baking process, I think I prefer my biscotti on the softer side.  I am generally not a huge fan of super-crunchy cookies; I like soft, chewy ones much better.

To make these biscotti a little softer, I cut the baking time a little shorter.  In the future, I might even go shorter to make a softer, cakier cookie.  Below, I’ve listed a range of baking times so that you can test and tweak with pleasure.

Nonstick cooking spray

3 large eggs

1/3 cup packed brown sugar

1/4 cup granulated sugar (I used vanilla bean-infused sugar here—a nice touch but not strictly necessary)

1/3 cup canola oil

Grated zest from one lemon

1 tsp. vanilla extract

1/8 tsp. almond extract

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 cup almond flour

3/4 cup old-fashioned oats

1/4 cup cornmeal

1/2 tsp. salt

3/4 cup bittersweet chocolate chips

1)  Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.  Spray a large cookie sheet with nonstick spray.

2)  In a large bowl, beat the eggs lightly.  Add the sugars, oil, lemon zest, and extracts.  Beat together until combined.

3)  In another bowl, this time medium-sized, combine the flours, oats, cornmeal, and salt.

3)  Add the dry ingredients to the wet ones.  Stir until combined.  The batter will be thick but not as stiff as other cookie doughs.  Stir the chocolate chips into the batter.

4)  Divide the dough in half and spoon the two halves into large mounds on either side the cookie sheet.  Shape the mounds into logs about 2 to 3 inches in diameter.  The logs should be a few inches apart.

5)  Bake for 20 minutes and then remove the tray from the oven.  Use a pancake flipper to move the logs to cooling racks.  To save your hands, let them cool for a few minutes.  (The chocolate gets really hot during baking.)  Then, working with one log at a time, place a log on a cutting board.  Use a serrated knife to slice the log into individual biscotti about 1/2- to 1-inch in width.  I tend to slice mine bigger, partly out of laziness and partly because I find it easier to slice biscotti when they are thicker.  Mollie recommends that you use a sawing motion to slice to prevent crumbling.  Repeat with the other log.

6)  Place the biscotti on their sides on the baking tray (same one as before) and put them back in the oven.  Bake for 8 minutes, then turn them over.  Bake for 4 minutes, then turn the oven off and bake for another 4 minutes.  Alternatively, you could remove the biscotti after turning them over and baking for 4 minutes.  A longer baking time will give a harder, crunchier cookie; a shorter baking time will give a softer, cakier cookie.

7)  Remove the tray from the oven, transfer the biscotti to a cooling rack, and allow them to cool until they are cool to the touch.  Eat or pack away for future snacking. 

Eager, Focused, Ready

Do things look a little different here today?  I thought so.  I also thought you might enjoy some Texas sunshine this morning.  It’s awfully pretty.  I wanted to share breakfast with you today.  I made a pot of oatmeal Charlie-style, cooked with lots of raisins and unsweetened coconut.  Then I topped my bowl of oatmeal Rose-Anne-style, with wheat berries, Naturally More peanut butter, and chocolate chips.  The chocolate is for energy, of course.

On Thursday, a brand-new camera entered my life.  It was a big day for me.  I’m thrilled and scared to begin integrating photos into Life, Love, and Food.  The truth is, it’s a challenge to weave different media together without losing the narrative.  A good story requires a bit of focus, and too many photos can distract from the written word, which, to me, is where the real action is.  But I love a good photo or two as much as the next blogger, so I’m going to try it.  It might be a little bumpy at first, or blurry and strange, but it will be an adventure.  And that, my friends, may be the most important part.

It’s a big weekend for me, and not just because I’ll have a camera glued to my hands for most of it.  Tomorrow is the 4th Annual Armadillo Dash, and I’m running in the half-marathon event.  Like most running events, this one will require me to peel myself out of bed before dawn so that I can trot 13.1 miles alongside perfect strangers.  Personally, I think the whole idea is slightly insane, but I can’t wait.  The feeling of accomplishment at the end is huge—bigger than words, even.  When I ran the Chicago half-marathon three years ago, I remember feeling buoyed up by the energy of the crowd, all those other runners and the spectators lining the streets.  The city stretched out before us, a ribbon of pavement winding through downtown Chicago and alongside Lake Michigan.  I felt strong and confident, each footstep bringing me closer to the finish line of what had become a five-month journey.  That same year, not too long after I started training for the half-marathon, I started this blog.  With running and with writing, I still feel that same sense of wonder, of being swept up in the momentum of the occasion.

I have to get my preparations for tomorrow underway soon.  My race packet awaits me at a nearby hotel.  This week I replenished my stash of eggs, so I can bake a batch of Breakfast Biscotti, several of which I’ll tuck into a baggie to take with me to the starting line.  In anticipation of how I’ll feel after the race, I want to make a big pot or two of soup today, something nourishing that will make for tasty leftovers.  I’ve got my eye on this Green Lentil Soup with Coconut Milk and Warm Spices from Orangette.  The recipe comes with a strong recommendation from my friend Daphna.  But I might double up on the lentil soups this weekend because I’m tempted by another soup—this time from Moosewood Restaurant Cooks at Home—which is quite different from the green lentil soup.  It’s a red lentil soup, spunky with tomatoes and bell peppers, spicy and tart with cumin, coriander, and lemon juice.  There’s no coconut milk involved, but the red lentils should cook down into something creamy and soothing, a nice backdrop for all those vegetables and spices.  I’m eager to stock up on soups this week because I want to spend more time outside after work, soaking up the last rays of sunshine before the sun sinks down into the western sky.  It feels like spring around here, and I don’t want to waste a minute of that feeling.

Have a happy weekend, adorable readers.  I can’t wait to see what the days bring.

Cookies: Any Time, Anywhere

The more I cook, and the more I write about cooking, the easier it is for me to see that my recipes generally fall into two camps: the cooking-for-one weeknight recipes and the more elaborate, festive, leftover-generating weekend recipes.  Sometimes a recipe will nicely toe the line between both camps, but that’s a tough thing to do.  I don’t expect it from any recipe, but occasionally, there will be a recipe that I’ve firmly planted in one camp, and that recipe, upon further investigation, proves to be quite feisty.  Today’s chocolate chip cookie recipe is one such example.

All I really wanted was a few cookies to satisfy my sweet tooth.  I wanted to make them myself, and I didn’t want three dozen leftover cookies lurking in my kitchen afterward.  A quick search on Google yielded a very promising looking recipe, a vegan recipe called “Cookies for Two.”  Bingo!  A quick peek at the recipe told me that it was an easy, simple sugar cookie recipe dressed up with a few chocolate chips and an optional sugar/salt coating.  Most importantly, I could make it without trotting over to the grocery store.  I was sold.

I was fairly obedient in my first date with this recipe, only making substitutions so I could use butter and cow’s milk instead of their vegan equivalents.  Out of laziness, I skipped the cookie coating.  The result was delicious: a thin, delicate cookie with crisped edges and a soft interior, dotted with big bittersweet chocolate chips.  It was hard to restrain myself at two cookies, but I did, which left me cookies for the next day’s lunchbag.  They were deceptively sturdy in transit and made for an excellent deskside dessert.

Of course I can’t resist tinkering with a good recipe, so the next time a cookie craving struck, I made a whole-wheat version with graham flour and a tiny spoonful of instant espresso powder.  I wanted the nuttiness of whole wheat and the bitter warmth of coffee, all melded together into a thin, crispy cookie with melted chocolate oozing throughout.  It seemed like a lot to ask of a cookie, but I knew this recipe wouldn’t let me down.

My first batch tasted fine enough, perhaps a little more fragile in texture than the original.  The night I made them, I really needed the calm warmth of my kitchen and the satisfaction of making something with my own hands.  I tucked the leftovers away without much thought.  The next day, I plotted my lunch: a Pita Pit pita after a brief visit to the lab, then an orange and a homemade cookie for dessert.  I ate outside, because you can do that in Texas in February, and the air smelled like spring.  I took a bite of my cookie, and, bewildered by what I tasted, said aloud, “Whoa.”

The cookie, it seemed, had somehow changed overnight from something tasty and basic to something far more complex and interesting.  The flavor had blossomed, bringing out rich notes of nuts and sugar, a subtle depth of coffee and the full round flavor of good chocolate.  It amazed me, and I thought maybe it was the alchemy of cookie with the taste of orange that lingered on my tongue, or even the spicy falafel of my pita.  Whatever it was, I sat there, stunned, unsure of what to make of a cookie that had surpassed all expectations.

Of course I wanted to know what, exactly, had changed this cookie’s flavor so profoundly, but the number of variables involved boggled my mind.  Was it an aging effect such that day-old cookies tasted better than freshly made?  Was it the difference between eating these cookies warm or at room temperature?  Was it just the aftereffects of a boldly flavored lunch bringing out all sorts of nice flavors in the cookie?  Trying to test all those variables felt overwhelming, so tonight I tested just one: warm versus cool.  Then, of course, like the excellent scientist I am, I promptly forgot to add the espresso powder to my cookie dough, thus negating my entire experiment…sort of.  Sadly, I would miss out on the coffee flavor that I craved, but I could still do a taste-test of warm and cool cookies, side by side, baked from the same batch of freshly made dough.  As far as experiments go, this one may not be perfect, but it’s among my favorites.

The results left me with no clear winner.  Or rather, I should say that I had two winners.  The room temperature cookie was baked and then left to cool for about an hour, while the warm cookie was baked, allowed to cool for about five minutes on the baking sheet, and then cooled very briefly on the rack.  Each cookie, I decided, had something wonderful about it.  The cool cookie was sturdier and tasted faintly of toffee.  The warm cookie had that lovely melty warmth of the oven and a delicacy that demanded I hold the plate under my chin while eating it.  Really, I’d be happy to eat a few of these cookies any time, anywhere—inside or outside, warm or cool, espresso or no.  Maybe I need a third category for my recipes: the whenever file.  These cookies will be my first entry.

Graham Cookies with Chocolate Chips and Espresso

Adapted from this recipe for Cookies for Two

Makes 8-9 cookies

1/2 cup plus 2 tbsp. whole-wheat graham flour

1/4 tsp. baking soda

Scant 1/8 tsp. salt

1/4 tsp. instant espresso powder, optional

1/4 cup butter, softened at room temperature

1/4 cup packed brown sugar

1/4 tsp. vanilla

1 tbsp. milk

1/4 cup bittersweet chocolate chips

1)  Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.  Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper.

2)  In a small bowl, stir together the graham flour, baking soda, salt, and espresso powder if using.  Set aside.

3)  In another small bowl, cream together the butter and sugar by hand.  Mix the vanilla and milk into the butter and sugar.  Mix the flour mixture into the butter mixture until combined.  Stir in the chocolate chips.

4)  Use a tablespoon to scoop rounded spoonfuls of dough.  Form the dough into balls and place on the prepared cookie sheet about two inches apart.  (The cookies will spread while baking.)  Bake for about 12 minutes.  Cool for 5-10 minutes on the baking sheet, then remove cookies from sheet and cool on a wire rack.

Time Flies

I’m of two minds this morning: hrrrmmph! and phew!

It was a challenging week in the lab.  Stuff broke.  Experiments gave wonky results.  Instruments decided to take an early weekend by not working on Friday afternoon.  Flies died.  Answers were not found.  Questions loom larger than ever.  Hrrrmmph!

But today is Saturday, and that is always a good thing.  I’m breaking my own rule today by going into the lab to take care of a few things, but my ambition bit me on the ass last night when I realized that I apparently cannot do simple math and failed to set up my flies properly for an experiment today.  Somehow it seems like a fitting end to a week in which things have not gone as one might hope.  Whatever—better luck next time, Dr. Rosiecat!

I was watching an episode of Grey’s Anatomy the other night and in it, a younger Chief Webber says to a young Dr. Bailey, “If you never get a negative appy, that means you’re not doing enough appies.”  This comment follows the surgical discovery that their patient has a healthy appendix, despite presenting symptoms that suggest appendicitis.  Chief Webber’s wisdom is how I feel about experiments: if you don’t get any negative results, if things don’t go wrong from time to time, then you aren’t doing enough experiments.  So I try to be brave and I keep pursuing the data because one of these days, I’ll catch it.

That being said, I’m still relieved that the weekend will be a vacation from bad news.  Phew!  After a difficult week in the lab, I’m not much in the mood for new things on the weekend.  I want a guarantee on my time spent relaxing and unwinding, so I’m reaching for a few trustworthy things to help me say, “Hello, weekend!”

* I’m re-reading A Homemade Life by Molly Wizenberg, cover to cover.  I miss Orangette now that Molly’s posts are sporadic, and I love a good book that lets you sink into it like a warm bath.  Although I’ve read certain chapters from this book many times, there is something altogether different about reading the whole book again.  I think I’ve read it twice, so this time will be my third.  It still makes me very happy—and itchy to bake some banana bread!

* Speaking of A Homemade Life, the other night I bought a bunch of radishes at the grocery store.  I have missed radishes.  For dinner tonight, I’ll be making a radish and butter sandwich and pairing it with sweet Jess’s Simplest Tomato Soup, which is my top choice for tomato soup these days.  And may I recommend that you read the posts attached to those links?  They are among my very favorite posts from two of my favorite bloggers.

* I just can’t enough time with my oven these days.  The alchemy of baking keeps me hovering over the stove like a fruit fly over a banana.  This week I returned to an old favorite, my Crunchy Breakfast Granola, mixing it up a bit by adding some puffed corn cereal to the recipe in place of the quick-cooking oats.  I’ve been eating it by the baggieful, poured over plain yogurt studded with fresh banana slices.  If I eat it sitting at my desk at work, occasionally I have to swat a fruit fly away from me because they know how good it tastes.  It’s funny how time makes you forget your own recipes, but it feels wonderful to rediscover the foods of your past.  It is the best kind of nostalgia, I think.

* Outside of the kitchen, it’s a big weekend for me.  Tomorrow I do my final training run before the Armadillo Dash half-marathon next weekend.  I’ve got 75 minutes of steady trotting planned—10 minutes more than my long run last weekend.  75 is a big number, but I think with a little snack-and-hydration break, I can make it happen.  I’m going to dust off an old recipe from Sunlight Cafe: Mollie Katzen’s Breakfast Biscotti.  She describes them as a cross between a granola bar and real biscotti; I think they’ll be perfect snacks for a hungry, carb-craving runner.  I’ve made them once before, so this time I feel entitled to tinker with the recipe: I’m thinking chocolate chips and a post-baking smear of peanut butter.  Paired with some juice, they’ll fuel me deliciously through all those miles.

Let the weekend begin!  What’s on your list today? 

A Resolution Revealed

I’m not big on New Year’s resolutions.  I think it’s because I’m not really inspired by the new year.  It’s usually cold and dark outside and I’m busy soaking up my alone time after all the family time at Christmas.  I don’t want to think about change in January.  I want to think about comfort and blankets and books, with mugs of tea and hot chocolate by my side.  I want to take couch cruises or snuggle with my favorite carnivore.  For me, winter is a time to relax and contemplate, while spring or summer is the time to put resolutions into action.  But this year, things are a little different.

Recall that I moved to Texas in October of 2009.  Since then, I’ve been bobbing along, doing research in my new lab and only vaguely aware that by accepting this job in Texas, I have committed to staying here for several years.  The days go by so fast, and I sleep like a rock at night.  But the idea that Texas is now home, as in home is where the heart is—that idea has not squidged its way into my heart.  I feel like I’m here on sabbatical, an extended stay while I do some fun work in a different place.  It would not surprise me if a moving truck showed up tomorrow to take my stuff back to Chicago.  I don’t feel like I belong here.  I don’t know how long I will stay.  And I don’t mind either of these things.  Because I feel almost certain that I will leave College Station for another job within five years.  Maybe I’ll be wrong, maybe I will stay longer, but either way, this place ain’t home yet.

It’s not that I dislike Texas.  It has been very nice to me so far, which is to say that I’m enjoying my extended stay down here.  Today was beautiful, balmy day of sunshine and warmth.  I ran around town in a t-shirt and shorts, logging miles for my half-marathon training.  Later, after lunch and a shower, I sat outside by the pool and read science papers in the sun, groggy with heat and exercise.  It felt great.  It felt like vacation.  And maybe that explains why Texas doesn’t feel like home yet: it’s too easy down here.

Without winter to drain my energy and my will to live, I have a lot of time to spend doing other things.  And if it’s the lack of winter that makes this place seem so odd (that, and the ginormous trucks that everyone drives), then clearly I need to do something that will tie me emotionally to this place, something that is not a vacation activity, like sunbathing.  Something quiet and homey and comforting.  Something like cake.

My New Year’s resolution this year is to bake more cakes.  I’m more of a cookie-and-brownie woman, but these days I am finding myself drawn to cake recipes.  There is just something special about even the humblest cakes.  I like the plain, rustic ones best, the ones with minimal fussing and loads of flavor.  I hear this is very French of me.  Whatever it is, I’m going with it because making cakes makes me happy—the sifting of dry ingredients, the cracking of eggs, the pouring of oil, the licking of spoons.  There is just so much tangible fun to be had when baking—I love it.  And I hope that over time and with enough new recipes, I’ll discover my own cake repertoire, the collection of recipes that become my signatures.  When that happens, I will think back to my first year or two in Texas, and how it was my oven and my mixing bowls that sweetly convinced me that a tiny university town in the middle of east Texas could be home, at least for a little while.

Blueberry Yogurt Cake

Adapted from Vegetarian Times

Make 1 round 9-inch cake, or about 8 nicely sized slices

The issue of Vegetarian Times from which this recipe comes arrived on a Thursday and by Saturday I was making this cake.  That is blazing fast turnaround time in my kitchen, which illustrates how delighted I was by the idea of a blueberry yogurt cake.  The original recipe calls for a lemony glaze that you brush on the cake, but after tasting the batter, I decided to hold off on the glaze.  So as not to deprive you, dear reader, I will list it here but be forewarned that I have not tried it…yet.

I also made several ingredient substitutions, which I’ll list below.  The ingredient listed first is what I used; in parentheses I list the original suggestion.

But what I really want to tell you is that this cake is wonderful.  Moist with the flavor of a great yellow cake, this cake is speckled with blueberries inside its soft, large crumbs.  A sprinkling of cornmeal gives it a touch of gritty texture, which I thought would be offputting but turns out to be a nice touch.  You could certainly leave out the cornmeal if you wanted, but I think I’m going to keep it.  It goes well with the blueberries—like an American touch in a European-style cake.

For the cake:

1 1/4 cups unbleached all-purpose flour, divided

1/4 cup cornmeal

2 tsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp. salt

3/4 cup brown sugar, packed

1/3 cup olive oil (or grape seed oil)—I used Mezzetta extra-virgin Italian olive oil, which has a mild, grassy taste

2 tbsp. fruit juice (or Cointreau liqueur)—I used Dole Orange Peach Mango juice

1 tsp. vanilla extract

2 large eggs, at room temperature (mine were still a little chilly…)

7 ounces low-fat Greek yogurt (Fage comes in 7-oz. containers.  The volume for this is 1 cup minus 3 tbsp.)

2/3 cup fresh or frozen blueberries (I used frozen—no thawing required)

For the glaze (optional):

3 tbsp. lemon juice

2 tbsp. light brown sugar

1 tbsp. Cointreau liqueur or water

1)  Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.  Grease and flour a 9-inch cake pan.

2)  Measure out the flour and reserve 1 tbsp. of it in a small bowl.  In a medium bowl, whisk together the remaining flour, cornmeal, baking powder, and salt.  Set aside.

3)  In a separate large bowl, use an electric mixer to mix together the sugar, olive oil, fruit juice, and vanilla until smooth.  Beat in the eggs.  Alternate adding the Greek yogurt and flour mixture to the sugar-oil mixture to make the cake batter.

4)  Toss the blueberries with the tablespoon of reserved flour.  Fold them into the cake batter.  Pour the batter into the pan.

5)  Bake for 45-50 minutes.  Check doneness with a toothpick; it should come out clean save for a few small crumbs (and maybe a blueberry stain if you pierced one).  The top will be golden and bouncy-firm.  Cool for ten minutes on a rack, then run a knife around the edges and invert the pan to remove the cake.

6)  To make the optional glaze, whisk together the ingredients in a small bowl.  Poke holes in the top of the cake with a wooden skewer and brush the cake with glaze.  Serve.  I ate my first (unglazed) slice while it was still warm and thought it was lovely.  It’s also good the next day eaten at room temperature.