Mother's Day: An Orange-Ginger Cake

Some years we sat at the boondocks of my mother’s mind, waiting for her to show the slightest attention. Some years, we were all she had. We played the part of anchors, support, canes, crutches, and the wheelbarrows of her life.  It was backbreaking work and we’d ask for raises in our allowances. Then stopped asking and took the bills from her purse. In spite of the night shifts, double shifts, graveyard shifts. Even when my father bought a portable radio on a credit card to sit in his car for 8 hours on Saturdays, working as a security guard to pay for his kids’ three cars. Some years were like that, but not always.

We’d sit in the boondocks of her mind, at the periphery of conscious effort and wait for her to say, “Good job,” on my sister’s schoolwork, my poems, my brother’s career. When it didn’t come, we wouldn’t ask. She was busy, she was tired, she was mad no one put away the dishes and did she have to do everything around here?

She was every manifestation of Shiva and every epithet of Hera. As much an orphan as she was a mother. As much a Madonna as she was child. How hard she worked until her fingers bruised and calloused. Her kisses were tender when she’d check our foreheads for fevers. She fell asleep more than once waiting for the birthday cake to finish in the oven. One year we ate at the mall food court when I turned nine.

I left home when I was seventeen. When I moved to California and I hated the first house I had with my boyfriend, I called my mother and cried on the way home from school. She said I was too much to handle now, that all I ever did was bitch and moan. I hung up and didn’t call her back for two months.

But things change, I grew up. I forgave but the dust motes of resentment still hit the sunlight sometime. I never let it settle for long. This is the first year I’m celebrating Mother’s Day with her in six years, the first time in six years I can hand her a card and hug her tight. She makes the coffee every morning and leaves me post-it notes of how she’ll miss me when she goes to work. She took me in when that same boy in California kicked me out. She took me in even after all the time passed in wasted silence. She was a tough mom, an angry mom, a sad mom. But she’s also the only other person I know who has had to reinvent themselves more than they can count. And now she sits, crocheting in her reclining chair, being the anchor to some slowly dissolving memory I have of how it was, and just how good I had it.

Happy Mother’s Day.   

Ginger-Orange Layer Cake

This cake celebrates spring and the harsh, bitter, and sweet of any relationship. Three layers, swathed in buttercream and sprinkles, with layers of a quick orange marmalade in between. Makes a three-layer cake, 6 inches in diameter

Ingredients for the Quick Orange Marmalade

• 1 large orange, washed
• ½ cup sugar
• 1 TB grated fresh ginger
• 2 TB water

Directions for Quick Orange Marmalade

1. Cut the top and bottom of the orange and then cut into 8 sections
2. In a food processor, pulse whole orange until it is finely pureed and no large chunks are visible
3. In a saucepan, add all ingredients and simmer for 15 minutes or until marmalade begins to congeal
4. Take off heat and allow to cool
5. Note: this is a quick jam just for this recipe with no proper canning technique involved

Ingredients for Cake

• 3 ½ cup AP flour
• 1 ½ teaspoon salt
• 3 teaspoon baking powder
• 2 cup sugar
• ¼ cup honey
• ½ cup shortening
• 1/3 cup butter, softened
• 1 ¼ cup milk
• 2 tablespoon vanilla extract
• 1 tablespoon white vinegar
• 4 eggs
• 1 tablespoon grated fresh ginger
• 2 tablespoon orange zest

Directions for Cake

1. Preheat oven to 350*F and prepare pans with butter and parchment paper
2. In a medium bowl, sift together flour, salt, and baking powder and set aside
3. In a measuring cup, whisk to combine milk, vanilla, and vinegar and set aside
4. In the bowl of a stand mixer, add honey, sugar, and fats. With the paddle attachment, beat until mixture is pale and fluffy
5. Add one egg at a time, do not add subsequent egg until first is fully incorporated
6. With mixer on low, alternate between adding the flour and the milk mixture until batter is formed
7. Stir in ginger and orange zest
8. Pour into prepare pans (or pan, if you have to reuse) and bake each layer for 40-45 minutes until a knife comes out clean
9. Allow to cool completely before assembling
10. Note: While baking, use this buttercream recipe and add 1 teaspoon of ground ginger if you so desire

Assembly: Use squares of parchment paper under the first layer of the cake to help with a clean finish on the icing. Lay one cake layer down, add your marmalade, then the second cake layer, more marmalade, then final cake layer. Refrigerate 15 minutes. Take out of the fridge and add a crumb coat, return to fridge for 30 minutes. Remove and add final layer of buttercream, using a large angled spatula knife and a bench scraper for those fine edges.  Finally, you can decorate as I did, with sprinkles by basically putting some in your hand and gently pressing into the cake. Repeat until fully covered. Removed parchment squares. Enjoy!

Back Home.

In three days I packed up my life in San Antonio and moved back in with Nolan in California.  The West Coast has some magnetic pull on me, the way water always run down to the deepest crack in the tile.  The way the black mould builds around it, the deep doubts that went into my decision to ever leave my home in San Diego.  

In three days, we tore down the home I had built for myself, broke book shelves into splinters.  Unhooked pictures I had hung to hide holes I had punched into the wall.  I lost a set of keys and found them in an old shoe.  I tucked my passport in a folder with pictures of my mother.  Things I valued made their way into suit cases, things I could replace found their way into trash bags that were advertised to hold 40 gallons of dead grass, debris, springtime detritus.  Everything I owned could fit in my Nissan and we stopped by coffeeshops to say goodbye to the friends I had made.  We promised to be different in our return, I'm holding onto that promise.

I am iron-fisted and yellow-bellied.  I didn't want to make it on my own anymore.  I didn't want to have my pride in the way of a life shared with someone.  The bravest thing to do is to love someone, the hardest thing I've ever done was drop Nolan off at the airport and wave goodbye, smiling.  In three days, I quit my job and left the Hill Country I tried so hard to romanticize.  I'll miss the white-walled sanctuary of a creative space to call my own.  I'll miss the train that screamed its presence like a mockingbird.  I'll miss the way the asphalt smelled in the post-rain break in the humidity.  I'll miss a lot of things, but I'm a different person now.

I'm older now.  Six months can do that to a person.  

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We left when we wanted to and hit El Paso by dusk.  We chased elements along the way.  We hit fog in some mountain range that I couldn't tell you the name of.  Everything I had and loved was in that car, I didn't want to lose it all to the fog and my lack of depth perception.  In the gossamer veil that covered the mountaintops.  Deadly, smokey.  Miscarried clouds that threatened me, I woke up Nolan from his nap and had him drive through it.  He was confident, comfortable.  I know I can't do some things on my own, and that solidified why I made the decision to go back.  His calming presence, his reliability.  His ability to save me when I'm white-knuckled and shaggy-breathed.

We chased the rain, too.  Big puddles.  Giant puddles.  We hit them on the way to his sister's house.  We saw Las Cruces in the distance and passed signs that advertised authentic Native American goods.  We saw Las Cruces in the distance, we took an exit that advertised a new Wendy's opening.

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The two days' drive out to California was punctuated like that.  Element diverting.  Pointing to distant towns, they had words like Halcyon and Sunshine in their names.  They promised things, artifacts of the manifest destiny that led the founders on their journey.  They had probably never felt a sun so hot.  It all felt like hell sooner or later and a lot less like paradise.  And up close in those small roadside towns, we saw boarded up windows, dogs on chains, billboards to buy 2,000 acres of land for $13,000.  We stopped at a gas station where the coffee pot had been on so long the remaining brew was scorched and sticking to the pot.  We stopped at another where the bathroom was to the side of the building and didn't have any soap.  We got some spiced gum drops, the kind our grandmothers used to eat, and some cold ginger ale and left soon after in a dust cloud.  We continued on out west and never shook anyone's hand along the way.

The car rides were silent sometimes, we held hands sometimes.  Milo came along, too.  We took turns holding him, we took turns napping.  We took turns paying for gas or food or the odd scratch-off to break up the monotony of one road and a thousand miles ahead of us.  We didn't eat well those few days, we slept even less.  We never talked about the future, because the future was right in front of us on the I-10, merged with us onto the I-8.  And when I could taste salt in my mouth, I didn't know if it was from tears, sweat, or my imagination running wild at the thought of the ocean.  

The desert can play tricks on you sometimes like that, but I beat the coyote at his own game.  I left Texas, left the desert, left the southwest altogether.  You can find me in San Diego now, at coffeeshops and Chinese restaurants, having the life I was supposed to when I moved into this house for the first time a year ago.

Homemade Ginger Ale and Spiced Orange Peel Candies

Inspired by our road trip snack choices, a refreshing ginger ale and spiced orange peels.  Pair with a scratch-off and you're all set for your next road trip.

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For the Ginger Ale

Ingredients: 

• 1 piece ginger, 6-8 inches by 2-4 inches (hard t gauge, but the more you put in, the more gingery it will taste), peeled* and cut into small rounds a quarter-inch thick
• 3 1/2 cups water
• 2 cups sugar
• Pinch of salt
• Squeeze of orange slice
• 1 liter tonic water (pref. Schweppes) 

Directions:

1. In a medium saucepan, combine water and sugar.  Over medium-high heat stir until sugar is dissolved. 
2. Add ginger slices and bring mixture to a boil
3. Reduce heat to medium-low and simmer for 5-7 minutes.  Watch so sugar does not caramelize.
4. Turn heat off.  Mixture should be syrupy and fragrant.  Add a pinch of salt squirt of orange juice.
5. Put lid on saucepan and allow to steep for 30 minutes to 1 hour
6. To assemble drink:  
   1. For an individual drink:  Pour ginger syrup in a glass about a quarter way full, top with tonic water, then with ice
   2. For a whole bottle:  Use a decanter (for immediate use) or a hermetic bottle for later use (recommend within half an hour).  Add all of the syrup and top with tonic water slowly with a funnel. Chill in refrigerator. Enjoy with the spiced orange peels.

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Spiced Orange Peels

Ingredients:

• Peel of one orange, cut into strips
• 2 cups water
• 2 cups sugar
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon ginger powder
• 1/4 teaspoon chili powder
• 1/8 teaspoon cumin
• pinch of black pepper

Directions:

1. In a pot of boiling water, simmer orange peel strips for 15 minutes.  Drain water and rinse with cold water.  Rinse again. Set aside.
2. In a medium saucepan, combine water and sugar and heat on medium-high until sugar is dissolved and begins to boil (watch again carefully for caramelization).
3. Lower heat to medium-low and add peels and simmer for 15-20 minutes until tender and gummy.
4. Put on a baking sheet with a paper towel underneath to drain some of excess syrup off.
5. While peels drain, mix remaining ingredients on a shallow plate with a fork.  Lay down parchment paper.
6. Dip peels in sugar mixture with fork or fingers and dip on both sides.  Lay on parchment paper to dry 8-12 hours or until dried.

Small Updates and a Recipe

I moved back to California this week and it has been an exhausting time.  I chased the sunlight and forgot what timezone I was in.  I denied myself sleep and sat in silence, listening to Nolan sing to the radio under his breath.  We talked a lot about nothing.  We took Milo with us.  I'll speak more about this all in time, because, between packing, concerts, and Los Angeles this week, time is something I'm lacking right now.  

I realized it's been a week or two since I posted a recipe and I wanted to get the last of the recipes of my life in San Antonio out.  To start new, to start fresh.  I have two recipes lined up for next week that I am excited to try, both inspired by dates I've taken with Nolan since my return to California.  A celebration, a commemoration, and apology.

But for now, enjoy the last thing I baked in my little studio kitchen--Dorie Greenspan's Custardy Apple Squares, sliced with a pocket knife my uncle got in the army.  Even when apples remind me of home, they don't remind me of the home I came from.  They remind me of Pennsylvania, teenage dreams of France, and not the white-walled silence of that small apartment in San Antonio that I loved so much.

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Dorie Greenspan's Custardy Apple Squares (via Food52)

Ingredients

• 3 medium apples (juicy, sweet)
• 1/2 cup flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 2 eggs
• 1/3 cup granulated sugar
• Pinch of fine sea salt
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 6 tablespoons whole milk
• 2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted and cooled (but still liquid)

Directions

1. Heat the oven to 400° F. Butter an 8-inch square baking pan and line the bottom with parchment paper. 
2. Peel the apples. If you have a mandoline, slice the apples thinly, turning when you reach the core. (The slices should be thin but not transparent.) If you don't have a mandoline, simply core and slice as thinly as you manage. (Don't worry about the slices being impossibly precise or thin.)
3. In a bowl, whisk together the flour and baking powder.
4. In a large bowl, whisk together the eggs, sugar, and salt for a couple of minutes, or until the sugar dissolves and the eggs become pale. Whisk in the vanilla, then the milk and the melted butter. Add the flour and whisk until smooth. With a spatula, gently fold in the apples until each slice is coated. Scrape the batter into the pan and roughly even out the top.
5. Bake the cake for 40 to 50 minutes or until golden and uniformly puffed. A skewer in the middle will come out clean. Transfer to a rack to cool, then slice and dust with the optional confectioners' sugar.
6. I highly recommend eating this with a topping made of freshly-whipped cream, a small amount of almond butter, and a pinch of cinnamon 

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I wash the dishes with the windows open, it makes life feel tangible, crisp.  I don't take it for granted anymore, the beauty of air, of movement, of the lunar pull that brings the tides in.  Wind.  Rain.  The seasons.  The emotions of our world and how we've learned to cope with the dissonance between waking up to fog and puddles and going to bed with sunburns.  I don't take it for granted anymore, being able to breathe.

I was suffocating in my old life.  I was asphyxiated with my responsibilities, with a life I wasn't sure was mine at all.  I lost sight of the small details.  I worried more about the fabric than the thread.  I worried more about the patchwork existence I had made for myself than the way it all seemed to fray when I would try to sleep at night.  Unravel until I had to hold a hand to my dog's chest and feel his heartbeat.  Feel my own.  Convince myself it was all a nightmare, that I wasn't $90,000 in debt.  That it was all worth it.  That I wanted to be in California.  That I was lucky.  That I wasn't a failure.  That it was all worth it.

There used to be moths that flew at the window and made small thumps at night.  There used to be coyotes that laughed at the moon and ate stars in their hollows.  Nothing could keep me awake more than knowing I wasn't the person I wanted to be.  I used to press my fingernails into the palms of my hands and try to convince myself it was stigmata.  The moths that rose in my stomach I used to mistake for butterflies.  The coyotes in the darkness weren't laughing at the moon, but at me.  For thinking I could ever be happy if I didn't know myself first.

I used to think the word lilac was pretty and I liked how it ended in a C.  I thought about this when I was pouring some day-old coffee that I was going to microwave until it could burn my aching tongue.  I remember that morning.  It was the morning I decided to leave.  To leave the home I created.  I wasn't happy, I wasn't breathing.  I was checking my pulse at three in the morning, trying to race the minute hand, trying to keep my dog's breathing as gentle as my own. I thought about all the pretty words I would be sharing alone, convinced myself it was worth it to leave again.  Pack up, move away.  Debt and regret wouldn't follow, only this manifest destiny of creativity that I would forge ahead with.

I thought about this when I packed the cardboard boxes, taped them at the bottom so they'd be secure.

I thought about this when I couldn't stop shaking, how cold it was the first night in my new apartment.

I thought about this when I put myself with a paring knife and had to wash the wound clean by myself.

I thought about this when it was dead silent in February and I had to use an inhaler to sleep.

I thought about all this when I was making this tart this week.  How envious I was of those people whose life marches on, one first in front of the other.  How mine has staggered, fallen, tripped on its own night gown.  Maybe because it's still sleeping, resting, waiting to shake and yawn when the coyotes are sleeping.  When the moths fall silent, dusty and dead.  When I finally realize not everything was promised to me and I could have worked at all the things that I left behind in big cardboard boxes.  

California was a perpetual summer, sleepy and groggy and never fully connected to all the other pieces of my life.  This tart is a testament to that time.  Basil and lemon, the aromatics of the hot season.  Close your eyes and it's carefree, open them and you're staring at that To-Do list that never seems to get done.

Lemon Tart with Basil Meringue

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For the Tart Shell

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 sticks butter
• 1/2 c sugar
• 1 ts vanilla 
• 1 3/4 flour
• 1/2 tablespoon lemon zest
• pinch of salt

Directions:

1. Combine all ingredients in a food processor, pulse until forms a mass and still a bit crumbly
2. Turn out onto a floured work surface and knead two or three times with hands, make sure to lightly flour top, so it does not stick or the butter melts on your hands
3. Pat into a 10-inch circle and wrap with plastic wrap
4. Refrigerate for half an hour
5. Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit
6. Take out of fridge and roll out to 10-inch tart length.  Form into pan and cut off excess dough
7. Weigh down dough with aluminum foil and baking beans, prick holes in dough with fork
8. Bake for 20 minutes
9. Remove foil and beans, bake for 12 more minutes
10. Remove and allow to cool.  Begin working on the curd

For the Lemon Curd filling

For the Lemon Curd, use this recipe from a previous post.  Adjust the sugar to be 1 1/2 cups and use the zest and juice of four lemons.  Pour into prepared tart pan and allow to cool to room temperature

For the Basil Meringue

Ingredients:

• 1/2 c sugar
• 1/2 c basil leaves
• 2 large egg whites, room temperature
• 1 ts cream of tartar
• 1 TB lemon juice

Directions:

1. In a food processor, pulse sugar and basil leaves until diced finely and basil leaves have released oils.  Mixture will look like a runny pesto. Set aside
2. In the bowl of a stand mixer, fitted with the whisk attachment, beat egg whites on medium until they begin to froth.  Add about 2 tb of the sugar and the cream of tartar.  
3. Set mixer to medium high after about three minutes and whisk about mixture has doubled in volume.  Continue to gradually add sugar.  Add lemon juice.
4. After two minutes, turn to high and let beat until thick and can stand up on the whisk.  
5. Using a rubber spatula, scoop basil mixture into egg mixture and gently fold until well incorporated

To assemble:  Pour lemon curd into prepared tart shell and then pour meringue onto the curd.  In a 350 degree oven, bake meringue and tart for an additional ten minutes to set and cook eggs.  Take out of oven, allow to rest before serving.   

Christmas Eve.

The anticipation used to kill me, trick me, tease me.  Christmas break would start on a day before Christmas Eve and last all the way through to January 3rd.  I would cry when I didn't get what I wanted, I would cry when I had to go back to school.  I would eat turkey and ham and lasagna and seven different types of fish with my family.  We would play cards, pretend to like each other.  It was tradition and now I realize how ephemeral it really was.  How days moved like molasses, and then quick like warmed syrup.  From a small flurry to a blizzard, we wrapped ourselves in fleece blankets and wondered how the cold got into our old, old house and made our bones feel just as old.

That's what I remember about Christmas and I used to envy how others described it as magical, mystical, something worth looking forward to.  All those years, it seemed like a chore and how greedy I was to ask for more, to count the dollar value or my gifts compared to my siblings'.  How sad it all seemed the next day, anticlimactic and messy.  I always wanted more, but I could never articulate what I wanted the most.  I think all I wanted was to feel loved, held, a part of a larger family than the small nucleus that was mom, dad, brother, sister.

Lately I've been feeling nostalgic and hungry, grateful and like I lost something and can't remember where I put it.  These feelings don't often hit me in such full force.  Going home last week to Pennsylvania (more on that later) brought something out of me that I didn't know was in me:  the power to create magic.  The ability to create peaceful, loving memories with my mother.  Instead of remaining bitter, remembering how a week before Christmas in 2010 I got tested for HIV and then threw a fit when I didn't get the new iPhone, I could laugh with my mom and hug my dad tight.  I was invited to spend the night at my sister's first place, I called my brother and congratulated him on his new house.  I was creating, making, forging, and shaping a future with my small nucleus to last longer than the one day a year we forced upon ourselves for tradition's sake.  And that's what Christmas is about, that is what my parents wanted all along.  And I want to return that favor to all of you.  Bake this cake, forge those memories, make someone smile and discover that all you needed was there all along.  It's one part Christmas and two parts mountain dessert, Appalachian baking.  A moon pie, a whoopee pie.  Whatever you call it, it's a survivalist attempt at decadence.  It's delicious and light, moist and dense.  A mile-high contradiction where you can splurge a little, if it helps you remember your care-and-calorie-free childhood a little easier.

I received a lot of presents this year -- marble and ceramics, wood and paper -- but the best gift I could receive was knowing that I'm loved by someone, and I can return that love to anyone who will let me.

Peppermint and Eggnog Whoopie Pie

Ingredients:

• 1 2/3 cup eggnog, divided
• 1 cup cold water
• 2/3 cup vegetable oil
• 2 cups sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt (mix it up with smoked salt)
• 1 teaspoon instant espresso mix
• 2 cups flour
• 2/3 cups cocoa powder
• 4 oz butter, softened
• 4 oz cream cheese, softened
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 cup confectioner's sugar
• 1 teaspoon gelatin, bloomed in cold water
• 2 candy canes

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees and prepare two 9" cake pans with butter and parchment paper
2. In a mixing bowl or measuring cup, whisk all wet ingredients (1 cup of the eggnog) together and set aside
3. Sift together soda, salt, espresso, flour, and cocoa in a large mixing bowl and create a well in the middle
4. Slowly begin combining wet and dry ingredients, mixing with a rubber spatula to scrape all sides
5. For an added level of smoothness, pour wet ingredients through a sieve and scrape sides with spatula into a clean mixing bowl
6. Divide batter between two cake pans
7. Bake for 35 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean
8. Allow to cool
9. While cake is cooling, prepare the icing.
10. In a small bowl, combine 1 teaspoon of gelatin with a tablespoon of cold water and set aside while gelatin blooms
11. In a large mixing bowl, use a mixer to combine butter, confectioner's sugar, cream cheese, until combined.  Whip in the remaining eggnog and vanilla.  Add a pinch of salt, if desired
12. When gelatin has stiffened, put in microwave for 15 seconds or until melted and whip into icing mixture
13. Allow to set for 15-20 minutes
14. When cake is completely cooled and icing is set with the gelatin, you can assemble the cake
15. Put one cake onto the plate, then scoop and smooth icing using a wet icing spatula or butter knife.  Of course, this can be messy, so don't stress too much
16. Top with remaining cake
17. Pulse candy canes in a food processor until a fine dust
18. Brush VERY lightly with water on cake to allow peppermint to stick
19. Pour peppermint crumbs onto cake to taste's desire
20. Enjoy with your family!

Merry Christmas, everyone!