Remembering Rome: Fruitcake Biscotti

This week marks five years since I rode a carousel of gilded horses somewhere in the middle of Rome. I had too much wine and the piazza was celebrating Christmas early. There were witches on strings sold for seven Euro and small keychains where the gold was peeling off. They were one Euro. I bought five for everyone in my family. Good enough. They’d appreciate the sentiment. A week later, I found all five in the trash. All the gold scratched off with fingernails and spare change.

The lights of the carousel swirled manically in my memory and we weren’t even going that fast. We all seemed so much happier than I think we really were. I think it was raining then. I think I had forgotten my coat at the bar we went to later. I think we bought roses from a beggar and gave them to a nun cleaning when we got back to the dormitory (it was attached to a monastery). I think that memory sticks with me now because I felt both so vertiginous seated on the carousel and so grounded to the holiday season. I felt like I was home in a country where I had to carry my student visa to get into any of my classes.

But it has been five years. Two of those years I didn’t celebrate Christmas. I haven’t done much of anything since I’ve come out to California. But I think about that day, that night, that moment I felt so connected to a world where I still had to nod eagerly and point to order a pastry. Not too much eye contact, ask a stranger for directions.

I still feel like a foreigner sometimes, like a fraud. There’s a personal dissonance for me when I see strands of lights wrapped around palm trees. I feel like I’m betrayal some primal Appalachian roots being in the West during the holidays. It rains in California more than it snows. So I try to make the best of it, to recreate the moments when I felt most festive. When it felt wholesome and good and I felt worthy to enjoy Christmas. I’ve felt like a necromancer, resurrecting all those memories back to the surface, those feelings of nostalgia, of carousel rides and white Christmases. This week I made hot chocolate the way my mother does—full of cream and chocolate chips melted in the microwave. I made the sugar cookies my brother likes for a potluck at work. And with the help of West Elm, I made fruitcake biscotti for that night in Rome. And while the memories keep fading away, while they aren’t as bright in my mind as they used to be, I keep trying.

Fruitcake Biscotti, makes 12-16

Ingredients:

1/2 cup flavorless oil
2 whole eggs, plus one yolk
1/2 teaspoon almond extract
1/2 tablespoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon molasses
1 cup white sugar
3 1/2 cup flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
2 tablespoons dried cranberries
2 tablespoon dried oranges, diced
2 tablespoon candied ginger, diced
2 tablespoon heavy cream

Directions:

Preheat oven to 325. Prepare two baking sheets with parchment paper
In a measuring cup, measure out and whisk together oil, eggs, extracts, and molasses and set aside
In a mixing bowl, sift together sugar, flour and baking powder
Create a well in the middle of the dry ingredients and slowly pour wet mixture into well, mixing with a wooden spoon until it begins to come together
Dump out onto a floured work surface and sprinkle dried fruit on top of dough. Work dough by hand, kneading five or six times until it has come together
With a sharp knife, cut dough in half and shape each piece into an 8-inch log that is about 1 inch high. Place on parchment-lined baking sheet. Coat each log with a small amount of cream.
Bake logs for 30 minutes, and take out of the oven. Using a serrated knife, slice both logs into ½-inch segments
Lay all slices evenly onto baking sheet with one cut side up. Reduce oven to 300 and bake on each side for 6 minutes, until crisp
Allow to cool before serving.
Buon appetito!

Brett Braley-Palko 5/3/15 Brett Braley-Palko 5/3/15

A five year reflection.

I've become the boy with the Weimaraner eyes, I've surrounded myself in fog and ice. I used to think I was tough and happy, loved in every language that existed. I used to think the hunting rifles wouldn't sound. I used to think it was God laughing when it rained too hard and the thunder rolled into my small valley town in the Laurel Highlands. I used to think a lot of things, but now I'm a boy that sits in coffee shops at the periphery of downtown. There are a lot of people that bump my table, sometimes the coffee spills on the saucer plate.

I've become the boy with the peach pit soul. Surrounded by a fleshy pretext that I'm anything if not bruised. The peach pit looks vestigial, ancient. It has the bloody aura of tendon and tissue around it. You hold it in your hand and throw it against a tree, trying to crack its ugly skin. You leave it for fifty years until a new soul grows, verdant this time. Something you'd tell your mama about.

I've become the boy with the spyglass touch, extending out ad finitum. Brassy and cold, I look for any kind of celestial connection. I find none. Its all a novelty, everything we see is out of reach somehow. All of it colossal smoke rings from some ancient carved pipe.

I'm a dust mote in the morning and by night I'm a matchstick.

I'm a ring of salt to keep the hell out, I'm the water stain on your coffee table when you forgot to use a coaster.

I'm a promissor, a confessor, a coyote. Each breath I took these last five years have become dandelions left on the step of some child dove's grave.

Five.

Five years since I met Nolan. Five years since I went to Florida with my parents and kissed them on the cheek at the foot of the ocean, the edge of the world. Five years since I started a fire out of nail polish remover and vodka for the Fourth of July. Five years since I dated a model. Five years since I worked at a gas station, so I could save up and run away to Italy for all the wrong reasons.

Five years of connection, five years of solitude. It created the boy in front of you. The one who eats alone at diners with free refills on coffee, who orders a water and a piece of pie for dinner. Who makes plans and then ignores the phone calls. I needed this solitude, I regret not having more of it. I make breakfast alone for myself, I lick the spoon when I'm alone by myself.

I made biscotti this week and had a tea party for myself. I thought about all the people I used to be and how I have vertigo thinking of all the lies I've told. I sat at my table and snapped the biscotti between my fingers. I crumbled them up because I wanted to be alone. Absolutely alone, if only for one more week.

Almond Biscotti

Directions

Preheat oven to 375. Prepare two baking sheets with parchment paper
In a measuring cup, measure out and whisk together oil, eggs, and extracts, set aside
In a mixing bowl, sift together sugar, flour and baking powder, create a well in the middle of the dry ingredients and pour wet mixture into well.
Mix with a wooden spoon until comes together
Dump out onto a floured work surface (pref marble) and knead five or six times by hand, until fully incorporated. If cracks a little, add a scant tablespoon of cream (or oil) to moisten at a time
Flatten dough out a little, sprinkle almonds in and fold over a couple times to incorporate
With a sharp knife, half dough
On parchment-lined sheets, mold dough into two logs that are about 8-10 inches long and about 3/4 inch high
Bake for 30 minutes, and take out of the oven. Using a serrated knife, cut on a diagonal slices of the log that are about 1/2 inch thick
Lay all slices onto baking sheet with one cut side up. Reduce oven to 325 and bake for 10 minutes. Flip and repeat, until crisp.
Allow to cool before serving and can be made three days in advance, if sealed in container

Ingredients

1/2 cup flavorless oil (vegetable)
2 whole eggs, plus one yolk
1 1/2 teaspoon almond extract
1/2 tablespoon anise extract
1 cup white sugar
3 1/2 cup flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
2 tablespoon heavy cream, optional
2/3 cup slivered almonds