I’m learning French because thoughts of happiness have consumed me lately and research says that we don’t get happiness from our jobs alone. So I’m learning French. Also, I want to be able to order food in French should I ever go to France. Also, I’m afraid of just getting by.
Happiness research says if you are not challenging yourself and learning to do new things at home, that satisfaction with your life will be elusive. I worry about this. And so that is why right now I have a blueberry pie in the oven with a recipe I have never tried before. And a recipe that I can’t share with you either, well, until the competition is over.
From past experience I knew a couple of tricks about making pie crust, and then Cooks Illustrated points Smitten Kitchen in the direction of vodka. And I knew what had to be done. Vodka will mostly evaporate in the oven, meaning that your crust gets the liquid it needs but much of it will not stay. Also, Vodka is by definition, colorless and odorless, so once it’s baked, you’ll never know that it was there to begin with.
And so I mix ingredients, and I roll out the dough, and I wait by the oven, watching my pie bubble.
Photo Credit: Flickr: Joana Hard
Why an empty pie crust here? Well, like I said you’ll have to come to the competition to find out what filling I used for this Vodka concoction.
In the meantime, I’m trying to figure out what my next baking project should be.
And sometimes when I’m baking I have the KitchenAid Mixer in a not accessible position so that I would have to lift it in order to use it. I will count that as exercise too.
Today: I am happy about having written this post.
Side note:
Also, if you’d like to go to the Wild Blueberry Festival this weekend, here are details:
Thursday night and everything is fine except that I made six Lemon Chiffon cakes, each one either cracking, or coming out of the oven not having cooked properly because of air pockets, or teasing me with a look that said, “Oh, I am golden brown and look like I’ve risen enough and all is good”, but in fact be dense and doughy inside.
Sigh.
Nothing airy, light, and summer-like about the cakes that I made. I should have known given the looks the egg whites were giving me that they would not be cooperating.
It turns out that there are three categories of foam cakes: those that contain fat (like the Chiffon cake which uses vegetable oil) plus egg yolks, those that contain no fat (Angel Food Cakes), and those where the only fat is from egg yolks (Sponge Cakes). From the list, I really like the Chiffon cake because the oil makes it very moist and also because I thought Lemon and I had a secret deal. An alliance of sorts.
Photo Credit: Flickr: Food Muse
I was going to make a Lemon Chiffon Cake with lemon cream and caramel layering it. Lavender was going to make an appearance in the frosting. All was to be happy.
I am sad to report that the six cakes I made found their home in the garbage — not good to even be re-used in a fruit trifle. And during the 49 hour period where I attempted cake after cake, separated egg yolk after egg yolk and talked to my oven so that it would distribute the heat properly through my cake, I may have cried a little, had a slight nervous breakdown, and suffered from the delusion that for some reason the next cake I’ll try will turn out okay even though I’m following all the same steps! But then again it could all be because I hadn’t slept in so long.
Kate Nash says:
My fingertips are holding onto the cracks in our foundation,
and I know that I should let go,
but I can’t.
And that’s exactly how I felt: that I couldn’t let go! And I didn’t just embed this clip here because I love the scene with her eating lemons. Or that I like the shoes and the yellow tights she is wearing. Honest.
So this is what I’ve learned:
Keep all ingredients at room temperature — especially eggs. You get much better volume when you whip the whites if they are not cold.
Use alum-free baking powder if you can. It creates a finer crumb.
Do not use a non-stick pan. I really experimented with not using a tube pan either but at last got the best results when my cake was baked in a tube pan.
I also learned that in Canada our flour has more gluten and so even though my recipe was asking for just all-purpose flour, I should have really used cake flour to not have the doughy results that I was getting.
Most important step of all is surrounding the egg whites. Make sure that they are not under or over-beaten. The egg whites should still be glistening and when you turn your bowl upside down they should be stuck to the bottom of your bowl. And hopefully you have better relations with your eggs than I do. I’m currently working re-establishing our friendship.
Photo credit: Flickr: sparktography
Really it seems like a lot of things to keep track of, but the results will be worth it. Trust me.
This is the recipe that I used yesterday and at last had that perfect cake!
Lemon Chiffon Cake Recipe adapted from Martha Stewart Living
Makes 1 seven-inch cake
Ingredients
3/4 cup cake flour (not self rising)
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup plus 1 tablespoon granulated sugar
3 large eggs, separated
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1 tablespoon freshly squeezed lemon juice
2 tablespoons grated lemon zest (about 4 lemons)
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract (I used lemon extract instead)
1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar
Confectioners’ sugar, for dusting (I skipped this step and used a chocolate ganache frosting)
Direction
Heat oven to 325F, and have ready an ungreased 7-inch tube pan. In a medium bowl, sift together flour, baking soda, salt, and 3/4 cup granulated sugar; set aside.
In a large bowl, whisk together egg yolks, vegetable oil, 1/3 cup water, lemon juice, lemon zest, and lemon extract. Add reserved dry ingredients, and beat until smooth.
In the bowl of an electric mixer, beat egg whites on medium speed until foamy. Add cream of tartar; beat on high speed until soft peaks form, about 1 minute. Gradually add remaining tablespoon of granulated sugar; beat on high speed until stiff peaks form, about 2 minutes.
Gradually fold egg-white mixture into the batter; start by folding in one-third, then fold in the remaining two-thirds. Pour batter into pan. Using an offset spatula, smooth the top. Bake until a cake tester inserted in the middle comes out clean and the cake is golden, about 45 minutes.
Remove cake from oven; invert the pan for 2 hours to cool. Turn cake right-side up. Run a table knife all the way down between cake and pan; invert again, and remove cake and serve to your enjoyment.
As the narrative of The Secret Daughter jumped between multiple characters, continents, and foods (from mashed potatoes to masala roti), I jumped from thoughts of Indian food to ice cream — well, it’s been very hot here in Toronto — and lastly to thoughts of Iran.
You might think that I would say I thought of Iran because The Secret Daughter is a book about identity, where India is almost one of the main characters having so much of the story devoted to it. And that it’s a book about home countries. About tradition. About family.
No. I thought of Iran because on my way to an ice cream shop the other day, I came across sour cherries!
Photo Credit: Flickr: MGF/Lady Disdain
I hadn’t eaten sour cherries for over fifteen years and suddenly could taste albaloo polo (sour cherry rice) in my mouth and knew what was going to be made for dinner. Many would have albaloo polo with chicken and so would Rosa Montazemi, the ultimate Iranian cook whose book called Honar-e-Ashpazi (The Art of Cooking) is in every household. And this is not hyperbole. Really. Every family has a copy.
In my family though we had albaloo polo with mini meatballs. I searched and searched and couldn’t find a recipe for these meatballs in my Montazemi Art of Cooking book. So here it goes, albaloo polo broken up into three sections:
Mimi Meatballs (recipe adopted from the small meatballs Turmeric and Saffron prepared for a pomegranate stew)
1 pound ground meat (beef or lamb)
1 teaspoon salf
1 teaspoon pepper
1 teaspoon turmeric
1 large onion
In a mixing bowl combine the ground meat, salt, pepper, and turmeric until mixed thoroughly. I guess you could use a large spoon to combine the ingredients together, but I just remember how my mom used to do it and it was with her hands. So I also used my hands to work the salt/pepper/turmeric combo into the meat.
Make small-sized meatballs (maybe just slightly bigger than a cherry in size) and set aside.
In a large frying pan, heat some vegetable oil (I use 1 tablespoon of grapeseed oil because I’m trying to be good with my fats, or at least I have the illusion of being good with my fats) and saute the onion until golden brown. Add meatballs; stir until all sides of the meatball are brown.
Sour Cherries (modified from The Art of Cooking by Rosa Montazemi)
Ms. Montazemi recommends that we pit our sour cherries and prepare an almost jam-like cherry syrup the night before we are going to make our sour cherry rice. This will really help the flavours set and the cherries to solidify themselves.
2 kg of sour cherries, pitted
1/5 kg of sugar
I modified this slightly and used 5 cups of cherries and 1 cup of sugar. She says to pour sugar on top of the cherries in a pot over medium heat until the resuting syrup starts to boil (approximately 20 minutes). Remove from heat and cool. Once completely cool, refregirate overnight.
We would keep the syrup and pour over the meatballs.
The Rice
I think that in Iranian cuisine your skills as a esteemed chef are dependent on your rice cooking skills. The individuality and length of rice grains can really make or break any dish, no matter how tasty the concoction may be. So I highly recommend that you make rice with a grain that you have tried before and know won’t be sticky or too starchy.
Photo Credit: Flickr: Emily Barney
Wash 4 cups of rice several times until cold water. Ideally, if you were to pour water on top of your rice, you’d want the water to appear relatively clear.
Pour rice with water (until water almost fills up the pot) in a large pot and bring water to a boil. It is very important to not let the rice cook too much at this stage. I always stand right next to the pot as the water is coming to a boil and steal little rice grains from the pot, trying the rice, and removing pot from heat when the rice grains can be chewed but are still a bit crunchy.
Remove water through a strainer. Return pot back to the stove top, reducing heat to low, adding some oil, and pouring layers of rice and sour cherries (just the cherries, no syrup) into the pot. Cover and cook for 30 minutes.
While I was waiting for the rice to cook I went in search of some Iranian music — specifically the music that I used to listen to when I was in my early teens. Andy, known as the “king of pop” in Iran, used to be one of my favourites, but wanting to spare you the long hair and flashy videos of the time, I thought to instead post this video. If you still really want to see some crazy long hair action, pirate shirts on stage, and soft-lens overboard, click here.
Oh, and then there were The Black Cats. Really, what was I thinking?
To serve mix sour cherry rice with meatballs. Montazemi also suggests sprinkling some crushed pistachios on top of your rice mixture and well, of course, don’t forget to add some saffron too.
I must admit the Farsi portion of the song has gotten me all emotional and nostalgic, and I’m thinking that more Iranian recipes will be posted on this blog going forward. For now, I will think back to sour cherries and stand by my rice!
Maybe maybe they’ll stay true
My seeds will cross and then take root
And leave you to an empty room
Lonely lonely that is you
Okay! Okay! So I couldn’t ignore the rhubarb anymore and knew what had to be done. Strawberry rhubarb pie! And so I got chopping and thought about Smitten Kitchen‘s superstitions about pies. Maybe it is true that pies can smell fear; if you’re certain your pie will be a mess, maybe it will become a non-fluffy crust, water-filled pie. But what about the filling? Can the rhubarb rebel in defiance of being ignored for so long on my counter? Can the lonely rhubarb make this pie a mess?
Photo Credit: Flickr: Chopped Rhubarb by FotoosVanRobin
I continue chopping the rhubarb and hulling the strawberries — thinking good thoughts. No, the pie will turn out well. I try and remember to keep all crust making ingredients cold. Ice cold. Smitten Kitchen says that despite 1/4 cup of corn starch in the filling, that the pie still turned out watery. So I set aside the rhubarb and strawberry mixture with sugar and wait for the sugar to get as much of their juice out as possible. I can then drain and place the fruit and sugar concoction with the rest of the filling ingredients inside the crust.
Crust: 3 cups all purpose flour
2 1/2 teaspoons sugar
3/4 teaspoon salt
2/3 cup chilled solid vegetable shortening, cut into pieces
1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons (1 1/4 sticks) chilled unsalted butter, cut into pieces
10 tablespoons (about) ice water
Filling:
3 1/2 cups 1/2-inch-thick slices trimmed rhubarb (1 1/2 pounds untrimmed)
1 16-ounce container strawberries, hulled, halved (about 3 1/2 cups)
1/2 cup (packed) golden brown sugar
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup cornstarch
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 large egg yolk beaten to blend with 1 teaspoon water (for glaze)
The oven is pre-heated, the pie dish is ready and in the oven, and now I wait. It’s a good thing that my hindsvik crates arrived last week and now I have an empty apartment with an assortment of wooden crates to use as shelving and a Louis Ghost Chair to sit on, contemplating the fate of this pie. I am excited about the unexpected turn decorating my apartment has taken. This mixture of modern and vintage furniture goes well with pies and unlikely ice cream flavours. And I got thinking: even if the rhubarb rebels, I won’t be left to an empty room. I’ll be surrounded by all the history these crates carry on them. The smell of wood. The non-perfect texture of these crates, telling stories of their travels across Canada. And the Ghost Chair? Well, that one can hardly be seen, but oh boy, it does make me think about spices like nutmeg and the warm, nutty feeling they bring to the dishes they are added to, even if they can’t be seen.
Photo Credit: Hindsvik.com
And so I sit on the Ghost Chair and admire how this strawberry rhubarb pie looks so beautifully red on my new crates. Yes, the pie turned out well! I guess the rhubarb forgave me after all.
It is not often you purchase a necklace that makes you feel strongly compelled to make some pie!
Photo Credit: Pretty Betty Designs
This Pretty Betty vintage gold broach inspired necklace was exactly that purchase — the prettiest shade of blue underneath a golden bow-shaped crust. The off-centred bow is very Gossip Girl, no? And we know that Blair Waldorf must pie! Naturally I had to mix some flour, butter, and water and get started on making a blueberry pie.
For some reason, Blonde Redhead has become my pie making music (and not because they have an album called The Melody of Certain Damaged Lemons — honest). Today I listen to Misery is a Butterfly; its music and vocals eerily resembling my fear of the crust.
They say that temperature is key to making that perfect pie crust. Ingredients MUST be cold. Ice cold. I try to keep this in mind as I make my way through this recipe.
I put the butter in the freezer, refrigerated the bowl that I’m going to use for mixing my ingredients, and made sure I have ice cubes ready — they are going to be floating in my water to make sure that it’s COLD water. Just to be sure, I decided to put my hands over some ice to even cool my hands. Everything is now cold. I’m ready.
My favourite part of making pie is rolling out the dough. It’s been chilling in the fridge while I went through another round of Blonde Redhead on repeat and is now ready to be worked. I roll and roll and roll. Pie dish is now covered.
As for the filling: thanks to my Mary Boulton aspirations, I had saved a bag of blueberries from the summer farmer’s market.
Toss 4–5 cups blueberries, 1/2 cup sugar, 2 Tbsp cornstarch, 2 Tbsp lemon juice and 1 tsp. vanilla in a bowl. Cover your lower crust with finely crushed cookies (Nilla wafers work well) or nuts to soak up excess moisture, add the blueberry mixture and the top crust.
Some oven time, and done!
Next time you’re wondering what to bake, mayhap take a look at your necklace collection?
Turned the last page. Finished Fall on Your Knees. Closed the book. Mixed some cocoa and made cinnamon toast.
Because that’s what one does after babies drown in a river. Cinnamon toast and hot cocoa is what one has after a series of tragic events hit one another and end your day in tears. Or at least this is what the characters in Fall on Your Knees do. This is what the Piper family does.
They eat cinnamon toast and drink hot cocoa — making all their troubles vanish. It seemed to be their ultimate comfort food.
So naturally, after finishing this book, after all the sadness, I had to mix in some cocoa and make cinnamon toast!
Photo Credit: Flickr: Mixing in the Cocoa Powder by Lisa Brewster
Photo Credit: Flickr: Cinnamon is Good For You by Cinnema Addict
I followed this recipe to make the cinnamon toast, and as I was fooled by thoughts of simiplicity, thinking that cinnamon toast won’t really need a recipe, I’m glad I followed the recipe. It was methodical and didn’t disturb my thoughts of the book. Fall on Your Knees was a very intense book that I had to think about it and think about it and think about it some more. And of course, think about it while devouring cinnamon toast and hot cocoa.
At the end, this book was about motives for me. The characters in this book, even those outside of the Piper family, all dreamed. They dreamed of a future where they would be educated and successful and happily married. They dreamed of a future free of the bounds of where they were living. And a future where they would be able to show them. These characters all strove to rise about it all — driven to evil doings in the process. The book definitely showed that none of these characters were truly good, except for… well maybe Lily. Every other character had an evil side, masked by these dreams.
So.
At last, what will be my decision? Will I move forward with defending this book for Canada Reads 2010? Well, I still have Nikolski to finish (my final book). And, I still need to think about the emotions of Fall on Your Knees more. Perhaps I should make some kibbeh and tabooleh, in memory of Materia.
Side note:
I listened to many songs while going through this book and am thinking that maybe putting a soundtrack together will help put my emotions in check.
This song made me think of Materia (the mother of the Piper family), who was ghost-like, walking by the edge of a cliff, looking for answers and salvation. She only had one wish too, to protect her daughter.
2. Bonobo / Ketto
For some reason the melody of this song makes me think of Frances. The singer’s whispers. The water dripping sound. It makes me think of the time when Frances was pregnant — the prayers and the baths that Mercedes would give her.
3. Llorca / Expectations
Evil is a necessity. It is the food of the genius. And the artist must know that art is ambiguous. And music the most ambiguous of the arts.
Oh, Kathleen!
4. Gabriel / Lamb
This book wasn’t all about sadness. There was love too. And momentary happiness.
5. Sibylle Baier / Tonight
Is this what they all wanted James to be like?
6. Mi and Lau / Older
Okay, so this one is out of place, disconnecting the flow of song to song. But in a way it reminded me of Frances’ plot, which also seemed out of place. No?
7. Mohair / Stranded
James was stranded in No Mans Land, in limbo, and so was Materia before the births of Mercedes and Frances, and so was Frances after the assumed death of her son, and so was, and so was, and it seemed like being stranded, being all ghost-like was what you just grew into.
8. Camera Obscura / Razzle Dazzle Rose
How serendipitous that I found this song? And it has Rose in it.
The salvation for the Piper family. The book ends with Rose. It ends with hope.
Rose, I’m feeling older
I was lucky like a four-leaved clover
tried to be happy but it wasn’t easy
When I choose my colour be Razzle Dazzle Rose
Oh, I’m feeling older
Courage my love will make me bolder
Expecting softness can lead to foolishness
When I choose my colour be Razzle Dazzle Rose
Materia yearns to make sense of life, searching for answers at the edge of a cliff. And as I finish Book 3 of Fall on Your Knees, I can’t help but listen to this Royskopp song on repeat.
It’s a song about life. About its meaning. About where we come from and where we go afterwards. Mercedes (twelve and going on forty where I finally decide to put the book down) tries to capture her history in a family tree, knowing that it still doesn’t answer questions about her future. “It tells us where we came from. But it doesn’t tell us where we’re going. Only God knows that”, says Mercedes.
It was me on that road
But you couldn’t see me
Too many lights on, but nowhere near here
The Piper family struggles with loneliness. With wanting nothing more than being seen, being recognized, and yet, remaining unseen. They inch towards answers on separate roads, muddied by flash lights and the C sharp explosion all those years ago that started all the nightmares.
In this song, the singer also yearns for someone who can give her answers. Who can explain her being. Who can grant her just one wish.
It’s about you and the sun
A morning run
The story of my maker
What I have and what I ache for
Needless to say: this song has become my soundtrack for this Canada Reads book. The singer’s one wish to be with the love of her life was granted. And all it took was just the one right wish to be granted for her to be truly happy.
Will the characters in Fall on Your Knees find happiness? I hope so. And someone please stop Frances from squishing my heart into a piece of black and white candy! To be able to continue reading through this sadness, I made Mac and Cheese. Then ate two slices of almond cake.
Love. Is it almost as good as chocolate?
Hugh MacLeod goes on to say that “love is the easiest thing in the world to do, until it isn’t. Until we get overwhelmed by stuff.” I say, thank goodness for chocolate! Because it is this cocoa soother that gets me through ‘stuff’. For me, chocolate is the ultimate guilty pleasure, whether in ice cream, a torte, cookies, or even in Ragù!
Photo Credit: www.gapingvoid.com
It’s really sad when you realize that you’ve eaten an entire box or block of chocolate in one seating though. Or that in fact you’ve had a slice of chocolate cake for breakfast followed by a mid-afternoon hot chocolate and a late night cocoa snack. But at the end, I guess it’s all good. Because you will have love and because like Freshly Ground says: a pot belly, still gives good loving! Happy Valentine’s Day!
The Jade Peony read like a love affair between the old and new — the Old China, the Old China ways, and the Old One, aka Poh-Poh or simply grandmother, versus the new traded secrets of Chinatown in Vancouver. This love affair with China weaved through stories told from the perspective of three siblings, only sister Jook-Liang, second brother Jung-Sum, and third brother Sek-Lung. Though these stories are about the struggles of Chinese immigrants I think all people can relate to the internal conflict of honoring traditions while dreaming of dancing like Shirley Temple and being modern.
For me, Two Gallants’ The Deader was the soundtrack of Jade Peony, explaining this love for China with lyrics alluding to the raging sea, which was what metaphorically and geographically separated these characters from the Old China, from war, and from their dreams of heroism and lost relationships, specially after the departure of the Old One.
In My Name is Red, miniaturists in the Ottoman Empire set to solve a murder by studying a set of paintings. These paintings are rebels amongst the 2-dimensional miniature designs of the time. They are 3-dimensional, almost abstract. Modern. Wickedly painted.
I’ve been contemplating bacon ice cream for awhile and being afraid of committing the unthinkable. Can bacon really be savoured in frozen form with cream, sugar, and eggs (umm… lots of eggs)?
So naturally I put The Deader on repeat and inspired by the Jade Peony started to candy some bacon! Following this David Lebovitz recipe I simply used some brown sugar over strips of bacon and with just 15 minutes in the oven I had perfect candied bacon.
Photo Credit: DavidLebovitz.com
And 24 hours later, after the ice cream custard was chilled and ready for the ice cream maker, I realized: the old and new don’t need to be battling each other. I think through friendships and story telling (a theme that I’m beginning to notice in this year’s Canada Reads with Generation X’s omelet of stories) the old ways can complement new, modern, and wickedly painted ideas.
At last, I absolutely enjoyed reading The Jade Peony and was grateful that it finally got me to make some bacon ice cream!
To me this was the big theme of Good to a Fault. Clara (Clary) Purdy starts the book with a bang — a bang being her car crashing into another family’s car. From there on, Clary and all the other characters in the book go on to discover goodness, selfishness, sadness and happiness. These discoveries are mingled with constant internal conflict as each character battles with what goodness entails — having gotten “the love”, the characters reach out and do things to help each other instead of fretting or wallowing in misery (well, maybe there was some fretting and wallowing too).
I was very excited when the Canada Reads 2010 booklist was announced earlier in December. And it was with excitement that I started reading Good to a Fault, especially after hearing Simi Sara‘s thoughts on why she is defending this book.
Alas, I don’t think that I will be defending Good to a Fault. I found the book very frustrating. And found myself constantly telling Clary to bake some cookies already! As she was struggling to connect with the kids’ from the accident, to take care of them, and to create a home-y environment, baking cookies might just have done the trick.
At last, a Christmas party inspires Clary to bake a twelve-layer chocolate torte “assembled into a towering improbability of cinnamon-smelling dark and light stripes, pastry flake held together by chocolate air.” The kids were happy, singing Twelve layers dancing, Twelve lays a-laying. Everyone was connected and proud for having had a part in constructing this 12 layer edifice. The fact that the torte flew into the air and crashed to the ground is besides the point.
Naturally, I had to make a chocolate torte. At first my thoughts were to attempt a 12 layer assembly, but once I came across this Capri Chocolate Torte recipe, I knew what had to be done, specially since we’ve already established that I have a lot of hazelnuts at hand. So I started grinding the nuts, beating butter and sugar, and melting some chocolate. My favourite chocolate these days is a 64% dark chocolate from Papa New Guinea, smelling like tobacco with a wood-like, earthy after taste. I thought it would go well with the hazelnuts, and also with Bourbon ice cream! So while the cake was in the oven, I set to make the custard for ice cream.
I remembered a recipe for Creme Anglais and thought to modify it by substituting heavy cream for light cream and increasing the amount to 3 cups, 2 tablespoons of Bourbon for the vanilla bean, and increasing the sugar to 1/2 a cup. To make the custard I brought 1 1/2 cups of the cream to a simmer and then added the egg yolk and sugar mixture, stirring constantly and being careful that the mixture doesn’t boil and the eggs don’t cook. When the mixture thickened slightly, I poured it into a bowl. Let it cool. And then added the Bourbon and the remainder of the cream.
Sadly, must leave the custard in the fridge overnight before pouring into the ice cream machine. So, torte + Bourbon ice cream concoction shall be enjoyed with friends in a couple of days. We shall see what the taste verdict will be.
My thoughts on Good to a Fault: too many doughnuts were consumed in this book! Not my favourite of the Canada Reads 2010 list. But hey, it got me to bake a chocolate torte. So maybe it’s not all that bad.
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