Begin Again.

~ Katherine ~ Leave a comment

It’s been six years since my last post here; five or so since I was published. COVID brought everything to a halt including my public writing. It ignited a fear in me which at first was loud. I, like most, was afraid for my life and the lives of my family. As the months wore on, that fear became a quiet simmer that I suppose remains a part of me to this day. What have I got to say that could be of any relevance in a world so battered and abused? A world already so noisy? A world where our attention span is short, our ability to sit still long enough to read at length a dying art?

I don’t want to blame the pandemic and honestly I hate even writing its’ dreadful name. The fact is the world may look different today then it was back then, but I doubt the heart of the human experience has changed. I believe at our very core we still long for a good story which tells a relatable experience. To my mind, there is little more relatable than a tale of food – a good meal or a lack thereof. Even a time when our favorite meal brought us out of a funk, or quieted a disagreement at the table, or a time when a food made us sick or we were made to go without. Taste memories can open the door to a shared experience; can bring us to gather at the table.

Six years and so much has changed for me personally. I became a pastry chef overseeing a staff of eight or so bakers at a bakery/cafe. This is the same local establishment where I began as a barista when my three children were small. They’ve since grown into young adults making their own way in this world that is not always kind but offers an abundance of joy as well. It is a daily prayer from me that my husband and I have done enough to show them how necessary it is to find that joy.

Most recently my father passed away and it feels as if I am now part of a club of those who’ve experienced the loss of a parent. And how life changing, perhaps even life affirming that is. I’m sure I’ll have more to say on this in a later post. For now, the experience is a bit too raw.

Just after the new year, it’ll be two years since I got diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. This has also not quite settled with me where I feel I can reflect and impart lessons learned. I am in it. In the center of the fire with it. I don’t like it and although I’ve always considered myself a quick study when it comes to blessings and gratitude, I’m taking my time with this drastic life change. Sorting through all the pieces of it. What to keep? What to toss? When I’m not at work, I’m in my chair, looking out the window. I observe seasons of birds, squirrels and bunnies coming and going in my backyard. I’ve been told by my therapist that this is depression. I feel it’s grace. A bit of kindness that I somehow muster to offer myself these days. This disease has forced me to sit still. It has grounded my plane. For what? I am still unsure.

All this sitting still leaves me precious little time to cook and bake in my own kitchen and to continue to self learn. I miss that. But, the fact that I’m writing to you now means a change is coming. I’ve recently pulled out a few old food magazines: Saveur, Bon Appetit. Over the years, I had kept the holiday issues which is an annual joy for me to look them over this time each year. How far we’ve come in giving voice to those once relegated to the outer margins of our society. How far we’ve yet to go. I’ve amassed quite a cookbook collection featuring a culinary tour of the world I hope to experience for myself one day. For now reading and learning about the people and places across oceans will have to do. I thought maybe I would share what I’m learning here. Maybe we could begin a conversation and just maybe this writing will bring us to the table together someday.

My Soft-Baked Life

~ Katherine ~ Leave a comment

Today I needed a cookie. More than actually eating the cookie, I needed to bake. My kitchen is small; my cabinets are not deep, nor wide, nor plentiful, so I have to move things over to get to my ingredients, mixing bowls, and so on.  Then I have to move things back when I put them all away again.

This is a task that requires energy and determination and hunger.

Today was not the day to organize or devise better systems for food storage. My body and mind needed to come together and work deeply; to flow with the rhythmic act of creaming butter and sugar, measuring flour, and placing each uniformly scooped mound equidistant from each other.

I haven’t baked in a while and had forgotten how good it makes me feel–how it brings me to the wise little girl living inside of me who likes to play quietly by herself.

Crostata Marmellata

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Crostata Marmellata or jam tart is simply what its name describes. Jam, preserves or marmalade spread inside a baked tart shell. It’s then baked in a 350 degree oven for twenty minutes.

I made the marmalade from California-grown kumquats that looked shiny and cheery sitting in a box at Willy Street Coop, a Madison neighborhood grocery store.  They were so tasty with a thin sweet rind and a mildly tart juicy center, that I had to stop myself from eating “Just one more.”

Perhaps the most diminutive member of the citrus family, originally cultivated in China, the kumquat can be eaten whole…the peel, the tiny soft pit or two inside and the flesh.

Kumquats make a delightfully bitter and sunset-hued marmalade. The recipe of which I followed from Chez Panisse Fruit, a beautiful book by farm-to-table food pioneer, Alice Waters.

The tart crust or pasta frolla, a sweet pastry flecked with zest from either orange or lemon, I borrowed from my pastry hero, the late Gina DePalma (Dolce Italiano, Desserts from the Babbo Kitchen).

What I learned…when Ms. DePalma instructs us to make a lattice top across the tart, it is not a suggestion. This dessert needed more pastry to balance out the jam to pastry ratio.

As I write this, it is the end of April in Wisconsin and it is snowing. Seems fitting to have a little more citrus to enjoy while we wait patiently for the first fruits of spring to arrive. I think this is the way to do it.

 

 

 

Pink Snowballs—A Nostalgic Farewell to Winter

~ Katherine ~ 1 Comment

It’s the end of spring break. The kids go back to school on Monday. We have a small house guest for the week. A Yorkshire Terrier puppy not quite a year old. He’s barking right now at the window at nothing in particular as far as I can see which is why he’s made mention in this post.

Daylight is still pretty strong at 5:30 this evening, even with a thick cloud cover. A sure sign spring is asserting herself into our part of the world once again. I’ve noticed more cardinals creating flashes of color in the brown branches above and I’m on the look out for snowdrops and crocus.

Remember Hostess Snoballs when you were a kid? A few weeks ago, I made a version of them based on the recipe in one of my favorite cookbooks, The Back in the Day Bakery Cookbook. In place of the signature marshmallow frosting, Cheryl Day uses coconut buttercream. There were several steps involved from baking to assembling these chocolate cakes (they are actually cupcakes turned upside down) which included filling them, frosting them and finally coating them generously with beautiful fluffy pink coconut–the stuff of sweet childhood dreams.

I would gladly make these again. For now they were a perfect way to say good-bye to winter and Hello, spring!

 

 

 

Fiori di Sicilia

~ Katherine ~ 2 Comments

I find it hard to maintain focus for too long.

When I was in kindergarten, my parents were called in for a meeting with the teacher. It seemed I was getting up during seated story time on the rug and walking over to the post office set-up in the corner of the classroom. There I’d hoped to play with the mailbox and stamps alone.

This was becoming a common disruption, Miss Spina told my dismayed mother as I waited in the hallway on a too-tall, long wooden bench. I could only let my feet dangle and sway back and forth, side to side. I knew I shouldn’t get up. I knew I was in trouble but I couldn’t figure out why.

As an adult it seems I’m thinking about one thing one moment. The very next I’ve lost my train of thought to the neighbor in the camouflaged jacket outside my kitchen window and his brown Labrador licking the snow.

When I bake I find concentration and the flow that keeps me still while my hands, arms and fingers are moving continuously, rhythmically.  It’s where I settle down and find my focus. I don’t think about texts or emails, Facebook updates or to-do lists. I am no longer replaying our last conversation in my head.

I made these Fiori di Sicilia spritz cookies from Sift magazine’s Holiday 2018 issue. First I had to buy a bottle of Fiori di Sicilia flavoring by King Arthur Flour. I found it in town at Sur La Table. It has bright essences of orange and lemon beneath a creamy aroma of vanilla.

These dainty “flowers of Sicily” didn’t last very long in our house. I barely got to enjoy but a couple before they were gone.

You can use either a cookie press or pipe them with a pastry bag and a decorating tip. There’s cream cheese and butter, making the dough thick and firm, zest of a whole orange and lemon as well as vanilla extract, the flavors of which pop from the Fiori di Sicilia.

I learned that you cannot use a parchment-lined cookie sheet for this recipe. The dough needs something to grab as you click the press, give a quarter turn and pull up, ideally leaving behind a perfect flower. Even on a clean cookie sheet, I had a hard time getting these orange and yellow-flecked little buds of dough to stick to the pan.

Sprinkle them with coarse sugar just before baking. Out of the oven they will sparkle on a cold and sunny January afternoon on a plate placed near window panes frosted with snow and ice.

 

 

Luxury in Simplicity

~ Katherine ~ Leave a comment

We’re just about two weeks into the new year and following another aggressive holiday season, I’m only just now feeling my systems begin to stabilize again.

My need for sleep is leveling off from twelve hours of hibernation a night to a more reasonable seven or eight. My head isn’t quite so heavy, my thoughts less fuzzy, my throat is finally less scratchy. Looks like I’ve made it through another year of holiday haze and craze.

How about you?

I’m spending January getting the rest I need, baking the cookies I didn’t get to, and reconnecting with friends I’ve missed during the hustle bustle days of December.

This season I didn’t get to bake the traditional sugar cookies, gingerbread, spritz, serinakaker and rosettes. Instead I kept it simple (and reminded myself that I’m doing the very best I can) and made these big meringue kisses. It was an exercise in concentration and patience. The reward was a confection of bittersweet chocolate that simultaneously shattered against the teeth and melted on the tongue.

Perfection in simplicity. Luxury and sexiness. All in one bite. And my mantra for the new year.

Thank you to Domenica Marchetti for sharing “Silvia’s Chocolate-Swirled Meringue Kisses”  http://www.domenicacooks.com/recipes/silvias-giant-chocolate-swirled-meringue-kisses/ .

 

 

 

Halloween

~ Katherine ~ 3 Comments

The dying lawn has received its annual farewell with a confetti of fallen red and gold leaves. Our quiet street outside my kitchen window is slick with intermittent drizzle. The sky is a muted white, a complete cloud covering above–the underpainting for stark brown lines of trees. A skeleton sits in a shallow grave on our front lawn. Fun-sized chocolate candies are scattered among the house. It must be Halloween.

No where to go this Sunday. No place to rush off to. We stay inside while our bodies and minds are allowed the space they need (following a very busy summer into early fall schedule) to settle and restore; to quiet down.

Last January I submitted my last post to Madison Magazine, completing the end of my contract. For the first time in three years, I did not renew.  With the exception of continuing my daily journal-writing practice, I promised myself I wouldn’t write for several months. I had decided that I was constantly putting my words out, leaving little time for replenishment. Instead I read novels and put the cookbooks down. I read less of the New York Times Food section and more of the Science Times. I purged my cookbooks and sold what no longer suited me. I cleaned the house. We had a yard sale offering what we had outgrown.

I had coffee with friends without looking for a story about the shop. I let my subscription to Bon Appetit magazine run out. And I cooked plain food for my family–mostly without recipes and mostly from what we had on hand in the freezer or pantry.

I worked my shifts at the bakery and simply did the work that was in front of me, without stressing over deadlines or questioning what it was I was doing with my life (Ok, at first I did do a little of that). But mostly I just trusted myself and waited patiently for my hunger to return.

And now I am feeling hungry; for food I make with my own two hands in my home kitchen for my family and friends. I am hungry for the family table, for a little more slow-down time–for glowing candles and a wreath of pine, birch, acorns. For the scent of cider warming on the stove with cinnamon, nutmeg and orange peel. For apple cakes and beef stew.

 

 

 

 

All the little (dolce) things

~ Katherine ~ 4 Comments

Things are different now. The kids are getting older and don’t need me to remind them to shower, eat or even when to go to bed. The husband and I are still running them each to his and her activities: sports, music, a friend’s house. He and I see each other some days only in passing through this house, to drop off a bass, a baseball bag, soccer gear before making the next practice or game.

I gently ease my way out of this house before dawn, not unlike a cat burglar most mornings to make it in time for the opening shift of the cafe on the east side. I wash the floors and the toilets, put on the coffee, set out the pastries and switch on the open sign by 6:30. I note to myself that the kids and the husband are just now rising. The night before these shifts my bedtime is that of a well-scheduled toddler’s. I’m bathed and asleep most nights before 9 leaving the husband on the couch to watch a week’s worth of TV he’s DVR’d for us.

Auggie, our oldest, is about to become a licensed driver and is looking to have a summer job. Fritz and Harriet are still kids. All three now do their own laundry. And that, my friends, is going well. Except now there is chewing gum stuck to the inside of the dryer that the husband has been prying off for the past two days. I have since banned all gum from this house.

I am baking and cooking on my days off. I’ve recently purchased Dolce Italiano–Desserts from the Babbo Kitchen, a cookbook by the late Gina DePalma. I’ve made her baci di cioccolato (chocolate kisses) and pane di pasqua (Easter bread). In the past and not from this book, I’ve made her sausage and swiss chard soup, and her fig and walnut biscotti which I blogged about last year https://thelittleblueapron.com/2017/01/25/fig-walnut-biscotti/.

Her recipes bring me home to my Italian-American roots–to the family table. To a way of cooking and eating that I understand and know in my bones. Seasonal ingredients prepared simply by hard-working, thick hands. Nothing fancy, only good and made with passion, love and dedication to one’s family.

Whenever I feel lost or unsure of who I am, who I’ve become, I only have to go to my kitchen and I’m there with the women in my family wisely telling me to sit down and have a little something to eat. And asking “When’s the last time you went to the bathroom?” And when I reluctantly tell them, they say “Really? No wonder you have such problems. Go… try and go…you’ll feel better.”

And just when I think they’re all crazy–the problems of the world cannot be solved by a trip to the bathroom. I feel better and think maybe they’re on to something after all.

My Latest Interview: Melissa Clark, NY Times Food Writer

~ Katherine ~ 2 Comments

Recently Melissa Clark, food writer, author of the NY Times column: A Good Appetite and 38 cookbooks came through town promoting her latest work Dinner: Changing the Game.

I was able to sit down with the recipe maven responsible for creating both sweet and savory dishes for the NY Times on a weekly basis along with helpful and anxiety-reducing cooking videos. You can find my interview on Madison Magazine’s website here: http://www.channel3000.com/madison-magazine/dining-and-drink/cookbook-helps-those-in-a-dinner-rut/424537389.

The following are conversation bits left out of the original article for the sake of word count.

Clark doesn’t plan dinner for her husband and 8-year-old daughter ahead of time. It’s usually 4 o’clock in the afternoon when she gets around to thinking about it. Her family’s dinner staple (which her daughter won’t eat) is pasta with anchovies, garlic and chili peppers.

Dinner is her test ground–the starting point for her recipes. If it’s good she’ll make it again, this time measuring and taking notes. Then she’ll make it a third time to test it. It’s a keeper when her hired taste-tester makes it and approves it.

Dining out is part of her research. She says she will always order the “weirdest thing on the menu” and says, “It’s like a dare” to see if it works.

“I want to push myself. I’m testing. I’m changing. I’m trying to learn. I’m just there looking for what’s good.”

As for those weekly column deadlines she’s managed for ten years now, I wondered if she has a system, a schedule, a plan for getting it done. If it’s become an effortless process.

She answered a resounding No. “It’s always an assault every time. Every. Single. Time. That moment of looking at the empty page and the freezing of the muscles.”

And always she questions “What do I have to say? What do I have to say about this? I said that before. No one wants to hear that.”

Then she begins to talk herself down and instructs simply that you have to fight it.

“You have to. You have deadlines. Deadlines are lifelines.”

Finally, and this is when I think I got an opening into the most relaxed version of Melissa Clark. I told her how I had watched a cooking video where after she shows us how to grill a whole fish, she pops the fish’s eyeball into her mouth and chews it with delight.

I told her that I had to stop myself from gagging and she threw her head back and laughed so hard, a wicked, childlike laugh. At that moment it was like we were two kids out of ear shot from the grown-ups and she had won the What’s grosser than gross? contest.

Last I asked her what comforts her when she’s ill and unable to enjoy food. It’s her husband’s hot toddy and she happily shared the recipe.

  • 1 shot bourbon or brandy
  • 1/4 fresh lemon
  • big glug of honey
  • nutmeg
  • boiling water to fill the mug

She will take this in bed along with her lap top and says she doesn’t miss a day of work.

 

 

Good Dish: Flourless Matcha Tea Cake

~ Katherine ~ 2 Comments

photo credit: Macha Tea Company

Until this month, I was new to matcha, that gloriously green powder from tea leaves grown in Japan. I had viewed the ceremony of it many times, in food magazines and in documentaries on TV—the bowl, the whisk, the warm, frothy healthful drink it becomes.

And so I wasn’t sure how this tea–the flavor of which can best be described as a freshly picked young blade of grass– could be made the star ingredient in a flourless cake. Then again, like I said, I was a newbie.

What I didn’t know was something Macha Tea Company co-owner Rachel Verbrick (with husband, Anthony) knows very well, that a green cake—a flourless one at that—is a good cake. A really, really good cake.

Verbrick whisks by hand the vibrant matcha powder into egg whites and then folds the mixture into white chocolate melted with butter, before gently combining with the yolks and then baking at a low temperature under a watchful eye.

Of this moist and tender cake, she says that it’s a “good vehicle for matcha” and that it “shows what matcha can be.”

The matcha is not just there for color, but it certainly works to build intrigue. The flavor is present, gentle at the same time. Finished with a dusting of powder sugar, the memory of it lingers, long after you’ve savored the last bite.

And of course, enjoy it with tea. Something delicate, Verbrick offers. If not matcha then from their menu, perhaps Japanese Sencha or the Yue Guang Bai “Moonlight White”.

Of note, and an important one at that: Verbrick makes this cake when she makes it and when it’s gone, it’s gone. Best to check Macha Tea Company’s Instagram feed or Facebook page for the announcement that it’s about to come out of the oven and then get there.

Quickly.

Macha Tea Company

823 E. Johnson St., Madison, 608.283.9283

http://www.machateacompany.com/