Brown Rice Pudding

We came from German stock, from Britain and France. My family has been in America for a long, long time but still my mother held onto the Pennsylvania Dutch heritage of her mother's family. My mother, with her easy-to-tan skin and her copper-lined face, declared her family history, passed down, passed down, passed down from people I have never met. Her mother, who died in 1981, lives on in the stories I can coax out of my own mother every now and then.

When the timing is right.

When there's nothing to talk about on the phone.

When we find old photographs wedged in a Bible.

We didn't grow up comfortable, but we grew up satisfied in what we could do. My mother, a coupon collector and tectonic force in our house, was able to work the night shift and still have time to make dinner. My mother, who made boxed soup and stayed home with us when we were sick. My mother, who I associate with the smell of fresh sheets and open windows and the burning embers of a dying candle. 

My mother, who has invited us down to their house in North Carolina every time I talk to her this week.

And while I am not able to go, not able to see her as much as I'd like, there are pieces of her I still hold close.  Like pouring milk and sugar over leftover rice. A recipe my mother says is from her ancestors, but I do not know this for sure. A mix of economical forces and the vestigial remains of immigrants' milchreis is probably more like it. But it has always been a favorite of mine, and for which I turned into a proper pudding below.

Almond and Cherry Brown Rice Pudding

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup heavy cream
• 1 1/2 cup whole milk
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 3-5 sage leaves
• 1 1/2 cup brown rice, cooked by factory directions
• 2 egg yolks
• 2 TB butter
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1/2 teaspoon almond extract
• 1/3 cup dried cherries
• 1/3 cup sliced almonds

Directions:

1. First, infuse your milk mixture by combining cream, milk, brown sugar, and sage leaves in a small sauce pan
2. Heat on medium-high until bubbles form on the rim of the milk
3. Cover, remove from heat, and allow to steep while you prepare your rice
4. Prepare your rice according to instructions on your bag
5. When rice is done, remove sage leaves from small sauce pan and transfer milk mixture over your rice
6. Simmer on a low heat until thickened (about 10 minutes covered, then 10 minutes uncovered, stirring occasionally)
7. In a small bowl, vigorously stir a bit of your rice mixture into your yolks, tempering them
8. Add the yolks and butter, simmer for about 5-10 minutes. It should be very thick by now
9. Add remaining ingredients, take off heat, and enjoy! It can store for up to 5 days in the fridge

Almond and Cherry Palmiers

Last year for my 25th birthday, Nolan took me to Paris. A month later we began looking for a house to start over. I don't think I fully appreciated either of those two thing--no, in fact, I know I did not. I think it was too hard to look ahead. Too easy to look behind at California and the mistakes we chose to make as two separate people. I took the easy way out; keeping a grudge close to my breast like an ingot that warms with my body heat.

I don't want to be like that anymore. 

We moved into our house in January and I am in silence for the majority of the day. I have a full-time job; working remote requires conference calls, but I choose to stay on mute. I keep the TV off and the dogs bark when the mailman comes and sleep in the sunlight the rest of the day. Because of this, my mind gets to wander.

Because of this, I think about escaping with Nolan again for a week. Getting lost in the archipelago of streetlamps that pain broken sidewalks in shades of yellow light. We talk about going to London this year, but we have a wedding to plan. We talk about going to Iceland and Spain and Mexico again. We do a lot of talking and planning and it's not a quiet house when he comes home.

I made these palmiers as a relic. A promise. A souvenir. An assurance of times to come. We'll be back in France and may spend our honeymoon in Lisbon. It's all up in the air, but I'm excited to see how the lots cast themselves when it all comes back down to earth.

Almond and Cherry Palmiers

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 cup white sugar, divided
• 1/2 cup sliced almonds
• 1 sheet of puff pastry, thawed
• 1/4 cup dried cherries

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 400* and line a baking sheet with a silicon mat or parchment paper
2. On a work surface, pour out a cup of sugar and your almonds, mix with hands to evenly distribute almonds
3. Press pastry on top of this and roll out until pastry is about an even 12" x 12" square (or as close as you can get)
4. Rub remaining sugar and cherries on top of the pastry
5. Take one side of your pastry and fold to the middle. Do with remaining side
6. Fold one half on top of the other
7. Cut into one-inch slices
8. Place and press slices onto baking sheet
9. Bake for 8 minutes or until edges are golden, turn over and bake an additional six minutes
10. Allow to cool and keep in an airtight container for up to three days (though the high butter content means these dry out quickly!)

Almond Plum Loaf

A week goes by fast when you’re not doing much of anything. The day after New Orleans, I packed up my car and drove seven hours to my parents’ house in North Carolina. They bought it a year and a half ago, from my brother and his wife. They bought it as a homestead for us, a central place for holidays and to run away.  One not tainted by the gravitas of childhood arguments and grudges we hold onto and fortify each Thanksgiving. It’s beach-themed, though it’s three hours from any beach. It’s only half-done, the foyer is still the color of bruised floral patterns and wicker.

I brought Milo on my trip. He sat and licked my hand when it started to get dark, when the traffic slowed down, when the thunder hit the distant Appalachia. He’s a nervous dog when he’s alone, when he’s unsure if he can sleep and what he’ll miss if he closes his eyes. He slept well the first night, curled up on the pillow beside me, his small breaths swaying the threadbare pillowcases just gently enough to know he was dreaming. He sat by my side for hours while I worked, stepped on my booked and wrinkled their pages when he got bored. His favorite time was our morning walk, when the sun hadn’t hit its shadowless apex.

He sat at my feet while I was baking. So small, but never in the way. He spent his first three months as a stray, I think he got used to dodging people’s footsteps. Batter would fall from my spatula and he would dutifully clean up my mess. My little helper, my copilot. The dog I took back to Pennsylvania with me when my world had fallen apart.

And for four days I did nothing but bake and do dishes. Tested recipes, threw away the leftovers that had gone stale. I went through a carton of eggs and two bags of sugar. I forgot to set a timer and burned a dozen cookies. I forgot to turn the water off when my mother called to say she missed me. I’m not used to living alone; it takes practice and the wet kitchen floorboards reminded me of that. And the day I left North Carolina, I stopped by my brother’s house for the first time in my life. I dropped off a cake I’d made and hugged his wife. We talked for ten minutes and I left when I could. We don’t see each other much, and maybe the time apart has been a good thing.

Almond Plum Loaf

One last glance at summer's stone fruit before Fall sets in.

Ingredients

• 1 cup AP flour
• ½ fine almond meal 
• 2 TB cornstarch
• ½ teaspoon baking powder
• ¼ cup heavy cream
• Zest and juice of 1 lemon
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• ½ unsalted butter, softened + 2 TB for topping
• ¾ cup sugar
• 3 eggs + 1 yolk
• 2 plumed, pitted and halve

Direction

1. Prepare an 8 or 9-inch loaf pan with butter and parchment paper
2. Preheat oven to 350*F
3. In a medium-sized bowl, sift together flour, almond meal, cornstarch,  and baking powder, set aside
4. In a small measuring cup, whisk your cream, zest, juice, and vanilla
5. In a large bowl (or a stand mixer, but it’s honestly easier to do by hand), cream together your ½ cup butter and sugar with a wooden spoon until well-mixed and light
6. Add eggs and yolk, one at a time, until each one is fully incorporated. The mixture will appear curdled, but will set once you add your remaining ingredients
7. Alternate between wet and dry ingredients, stirring slowly and constantly, until a batter forms. It will be velvety and a pale, pale almond color with a yellowish tinge
8. Pour into your prepared loaf pan
9. Lightly press your plums, cut side up, into the top of the batter
10. Sprinkle top with brown sugar and dot with remaining butter
11. Bake for 42-50 minutes, checking at the 40-minute mark for any browning
12. Cake will be done when a toothpick comes out clean and edges pull away from side of pan
13. Allow to cool and remove from pan.
14. Eat within a day or tw

Lemon-Almond Cake with Toasted Coconut

I drove for the first time all week on Friday. Stopped at the gas station, bought a pack of Camels. More out of habit than craving. More to mindlessly let the cherry eat up the filter until the tips of my fingers were burnt a gentle blush of pink. The window rolled down when it was raining and the hair on my knuckle matted, I thought of nothing else that morning. I kept my windows down and my sunglasses off, my ears rattling with the whistle of the valley air. I go 80 on the turns and 65 on the back roads. I stopped once to see a fox lying dead on the side of the road. Orange as a hyacinth, its coat matted in enameled blood and the kind of thistles my cousin calls “pricklers”.

Small black feet that used to dance on uneven creek rock. I knew this fox. And while I don’t think orange has ever been a color for royalty, he was beautiful in a way I was not.

I swerved thinking of something my mother had said that morning, distracted by my own Prodigal anger at her. How casually she’s forgotten so much about me. How she whispers certain words in grocery stores. How she leaves out the best parts of a story if it’s at her expense. People have a way of forgetting and I remember a lot more moving back than I thought I would.

I drove for the first time all week, saw a fox on the side of the road, bought a pack of cigarettes and sat outside for a while. Thought about where I want to live, and how I consolidate those dreams when I am still paying off two degrees and a year of law school I never pulled the trigger to just get it over with and finish.  I went inside and baked a cake when it was 90 degrees in the kitchen. I ran out of containers, so I keep my almond meal in an old Maxwell House coffee canister for right now. I used some sun-warmed lemons and made it simple. Because, above all else, I can’t forget that’s the reason I moved back home. Because people have a way of forgetting.

Lemon-Almond Cake with Toasted Coconut

Ingredients for Cake:

• 2 cup AP flour
• 2/3 cup almond meal (fine, my preferred is Bob’s Red Meal)
• 1 ¼ teaspoon baking soda
• pinch of salt
• 1 ½ cup white sugar
• 1 cup crème fraiche (can substitute sour cream or ricotta here as well)
• ½ cup olive oil
• 1 TB vanilla extract
• 2 teaspoon almond extract
• Juice from one lemon
• Zest from two lemons
• 4 tablespoons butter, extremely softened
• 2 eggs + 1 yolk, room temperature
• 1 TB white vinega

Ingredients for buttercream:

• ½ cup vegetable shortening, softened
• 2 tb butter, softened
• ½ TB vanilla extract
• 1 ½ cup confectioner’s sugar
• 3 TB whole mil

Directions for Cake:

1. Preheat oven to 350*F
2. Prepare an 8-inch springform pan with butter and parchment paper
3. Into the bowl or your stand mixer (or, if you prefer, you can do this by hand), sift together flour, almond meal, baking soda, and salt. Repeat twice more (this step isn’t necessarily, but I really believe in getting the almond meal as light and aerated as possible here)
4. In a separate measuring cup, vigorously whisk together crème fraiche, oil, extracts, lemon, butter, eggs, and vinegar. It will be clumpy even when fully mixed
5. Create a well in your dry ingredients with a wooden spoon and, while slowly mixing by hand, pour in your wet ingredients in a lumpy, gentle stream
6. Now, with the paddle attachment, beat batter on medium-high for about 20-30 seconds until thin and pale yellow ribbons form
7. Pour batter into your prepared pan
8. Bake for 45-55 minutes or until top is golden brown and edges are separating from the side of the pan
9. Allow to cool completely before adding buttercream and coconu

Directions for buttercream:

1. Vigorously whisk fats, extract, and confectioner’s sugar together until you have a dry paste
2. Add as much milk and whisk until it is thin, but not runny
3. Set aside. This will be a very small amount to just do a crumb coat on the cake for the coconut to stick t

Ingredients and Directions for coconut:

In a large, dry skillet, heat on medium for about a minute to get warm. Add 1 ½ - 2 cups of sweetened, finely cut coconut to the pan and continuously stir (allowing to sit for a few seconds between stirs to warm up) until nutty and beginning to brown on the edges. Remove from heat and dump into a bowl to cool

To Assemble

Place cake on plate and, using an angled spatula or butter knife, cover cake in buttercream. This will be a thin, thin layer and will resemble a crumb coat or “naked cake”. Now, grab a handful of coconut and lightly press into the cake. Repeat until fully covered. Grate a little more lemon zest over cake and maybe a little confectioner’s sugar because why not. Eat immediately. Ideal with hot coffee and can keep for up to three days (maybe even four or five if you are careful and it is airtight)

Strawberry Almond Cake

I still pan for gold in other’s stream of conscious. I still make an effort to read between the punctuation of others, too. Words hang on my tongue, sometimes they crawl out like silverfish. Sometimes they escape, fast and poisonous. They hang in the air, dragonflies stuck in amber. You’ll turn them over in the palm of your hand a million years from now.  

I’m almost coltish when it comes to apologies; but I hardly ever think I’m wrong. I stumble, knock-kneed at the outskirts of empathy. I wait my turn, then play the victim. It’s worked this way for a few years now, but I’m giving up the plan these days. I’m saying sorry more, I’m hurting others less frequently. I take my time now and think of the electrons that must be passing between us when words come in asthmatic pulses. How finite the electricity is, but how it won’t run out anytime soon.

I’m more grown up now than I thought I would be in the two months since I’ve been back home. I still have a teddy bear on a chair by my closet. I still have a thousand love notes left in me. I still have an old receipt from a turnpike when I thought I’d run away tucked in my wallet. I still keep track of the cigarettes I hide in my glove compartment when I think quitting is for losers. I’ve forgotten to water the flowers by my bed again, but I’m too busy drinking my fourth cup of coffee to notice.

Strawberry Almond Cake

Yields one 6-inch cake, can top with creme fraiche or whipped cream.

Ingredients:

• 3 large eggs, separated
• 1 cup almond meal, as fine as you can get it (I used Bob’s Red Mill)
• ¾ cup AP flour
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• ½ teaspoon almond extract
• 1 ¼ cup white sugar
• 1 tablespoon orange juice
• ¼ cup strawberry jam
• ½ cup whole milk
• 3 large strawberries, hulled and chopped

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350*F and prepare a 6” cake pan with parchment paper and butter
2. In a bowl, sift together almond meal and flour. Set aside
3. Using a stand mixer, fitted with a whisk attachment, whip egg whites until stiff peaks form, set aside
4. Switch out the whisk attachment and replace with the paddle attachment. On medium-high, mix yolks with sugar, vanilla and almond extract. Beat until light and fluffy (ribbons will not form properly, as the sugar ratio is too high)
5. Turn mixer speed to medium-low and add juice, jam, and milk. Continue mixing until well-incorporated
6. Add flour mixture, a half cup at a time, until all flour is mixed into batter
7. Turn mixer off and, using a rubber spatula, spoon in a small amount of beaten whites into the batter. This will lighten the batter. When first spoonful of egg whites are incorporated, mix in remainder, folding gently so as not to deflate
8. Pour in strawberries. Fold twice to mix in
9. Pour into prepared pan and bake for 30-35 minutes, but begin checking at the 25 minute mark for browning. Tent foil over cake if too much browning occurs
10. Cake will be done when a toothpick comes out clean (the meringue component of this may cause middle to not set as timely as the outer part, be congnizant of this). Berries may cause pockets and dents in cake when cooking, but it will be gorgeous nonetheless
11. Allow to cool completely before taking out of pan and top with crème fraiche and a small amount of honey or suga