Oat Pancakes with Spiced Orange Caramel Sauce: In Partnership with Falk USA

I grew up slowly and then all at once. A cicada soul, a heart that I kept in soil, in old husks. Jewel-toned eyes and an incessant buzzing. I was old and feeble, gravity left me awkward on 6 feet or two wings.

 A year ago I was buying my car in Colorado, six months ago I was chasing Milo in melted snow and getting my hair cut. Nothing ever felt like home, and I thought that boys were archipelagos, their sternums small islands to cradle my head and then crack when they woke up and stretched. I’ve moved more times for love than for opportunity, more times because of strangers than for myself. And each time, I would recreate a space, a home, a candle in the window to signal I’m waiting. And each time the wick got wet, the light went out, I stopped keeping my window open.

And when I went to drop a check in the mailbox, I got stung twice. And when I forgot to tell my brother, “Happy Birthday,” no one seemed to notice. He’s having a boy in December and I’m not sure if I’ll be around. If I’ll miss it, if I’ll even be in the same city, time zone, or country in time for it. He’ll name him Matthew. He won’t look like me or my sister or my dad.

But right now, I have to pack. Gone for two weeks, to New Orleans for work. Two bags and four suits. A boy to follow. Creating another home, however brief this one will be. In a flooded bayou, a Pittsburgh Marriot, or a Chicago terminal. And before it all hits at once, I made pancakes to relax and enjoy a moment at the table, staying warm in front of the stove. These were covered in caramel from a recipe my mother gave me, and topped with peaches. The orchard down the road is only a mile away and my mind doesn’t wander too much farther than that on mornings like these.

Oat Pancakes with Spiced Orange Caramel Sauce

Ingredients for Pancakes

• 1 egg, separated + 1 additional egg white
• 2 TB honey
• 3/4 cup buttermilk
• 1/3 cup whole milk
• 3 TB butter, melted
• 1 TB vanilla extract
• 1 cup AP flour
• ½ cup oat flour
• 1 TB cornstarch
• 1 TB baking powder
• ½ teaspoon kosher salt
• 1/3 cup white sugar
• 1 cup oats

Directions for Pancakes

1. In the bowl of a stand mixer, fitted with a paddle attachment, whip your egg whites on high until stiff peaks form. Set aside
2. Put yolk in a large measuring cup. Add honey, buttermilk, milk, butter, and vanilla and whisk with your egg yolk until fully homogenous. Mixture will be a pale, pale yellow
3. In a large mixing bowl, sift together flours, cornstarch, baking powder, salt, and sugar (do it twice if you want them even fluffier). Stir in oats with a fork to gently aerate the mixture without deflating
4. Using a wooden spoon, create a well in your dry mixture and slowly pour in the wet mixture, stirring as you do so. Do no over stir!
5. Finally, take a rubber spatula and fold in the egg whites you have set aside and gently stir until just incorporated
6. Put a tab of butter in a skillet or griddle on medium heat and all the butter to melt and the skillet to heat up
7. Using a half-cup measuring cup, scoop your batter into the middle of the pan. Do this one at a time, so you do not crowd your pan
8. This is a thick batter with oats, so the pancake will be rough on the edges and a little softer in the middle. Your pancake is read to flip when the edges begin to brown and bubbles dot the top of your pancake
9. Using a wide spatula, flip your pancake and cook for an additional minute or two—like salmon, this side will take less when flipped
10. Repeat with remaining batter, may have to re-butter your pan

Recipe for Spiced Orange Caramel Sauce (adapted from my duck fat caramel)

•  3 cup light brown sugar
• 1 ½ cup half and half
• 1 cup unsalted butter, cut into cubes
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
• 2 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1 tablespoon orange zest
• Squeeze of half an orange

Directions for Spiced Orange Caramel Sauce

1. In a premium saucepan (my favorite is, of course, my Falk saucepan), heat your sugar, half and half, and butter and allow for butter to melt without stirring more than once or twice to coat the sugar
2. Allow to simmer your mixture and bring to a gentle boil. It will begin to thicken and caramelize slowly and will take on a nutty smell, about 5-8 minutes (faster in a copper or cast iron pot)
3. Begin stirring and your caramel sauce will be thick, yet very pourable (if you are using a thermometer, it should be at around 235-240*F, but it is not necessary to use one for this recipe, as you want the caramel to be viscous)
4. Quickly stir in remaining ingredients and remove from heat
5. Allow to cool slightly before pouring over your pancakes
6. Can keep in an airtight container or jar for up to 2 weeks in your refrigerator

Assembly: Put your stack of pancakes on a plate. Chop a peach into roughly equal cubes and roll in 1 TB of sugar and 1 teaspoon of cinnamon. Top your pancakes with this peach mixture. Then, pour over your desired amount of caramel sauce. Serve immediately. 

This post was created in partnership with Falk USA copper cookware. Since 1958, this brand has established itself as one of the most trusted names in the culinary world. With its timeless designs and its multi-use products, every kitchen can benefit from Falk--I know mine has. You can learn more about Falk USA by visiting their website, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. 

Duck Fat Caramels with Smoked Salt

I was an alchemist this week, I created gold from sugar and cream.  I left the pot boiling and filled the dogs' water bowl while it simmered in sticky excess of itself.  A wooden spoon sat sideways off a plate, dripping liquid sugar, hardening in stalactites of golden-browns.  

Candy making is a simple pleasure.  It brings joy; so I make it.  I whisk things into an emulsive state, I tuck them away in boxes and blankets of tissue paper.  I do it for the pleasure of family practice, to keep the heartbeat strong between my mother's craft and my hobbies.  I do it to feel her pulse on every countertop surface.  She showed me at Christmas how to temper chocolate and three months later I began a candy business.  She showed me at Christmas how to make caramel and I haven't stopped trying to perfect the recipe.  

I make candy to remember my past.  To remember my mother, to remember my high school friends who passed around bags of Werther's Originals in AP Chemistry.  The nostalgia I feel is simple, heartbreakingly simple.  

I make candy so I don't forget those feelings, those memories.  I can create magic through baking, I'm able to revive the dead.  Necromancy vis-à-vis the Maillard Reaction.  I created these caramels with this intention.  To layer all my old selves into one complicated morsel, to embrace those resurrected memories and wrap them in wax paper, tuck them away in a small and pretty box, and pull them out when I start forgetting where I came from.

Duck Fat Caramels with Smoked Salt

Savory and sweet caramels topped with a curious salt.  Makes 81 pieces. 

Directions:

1. Heavily grease a 9x9 brownie pan and line bottom with parchment (use a lot of room temperature butter here and cover all surfaced).  Set aside
2. In a 4 quart dutch oven, combine all ingredients except vanilla and salt
3. Heat on medium-high and allow to simmer until butter is melted.  Stir occasionally to incorporate ingredients.
4. Once butter is melted, bring to a boil on high heat. Boil for 5-7 minutes.
5. Lower heat to medium and simmer for 27-35 minutes.  Bubbles will appear tight and sticky.  Do not stir once reached this stage, but allow mixture to continue to caramelize.  It will become slightly fragrant, smelling fatty and slightly nutty.
6. Once temperature reaches 240-243 *F on a candy thermometer (or, if you're old-school and the caramel has reached the hard-ball stage), splash in vanilla and give a quick stir with a wooden spoon
7. Pour into prepared pan (be EXTRA careful) and allow to cool for at least 6 hours, until slightly hardened but pliable.  Invert onto a cutting board.  Sprinkle generously with smoked flaked salt
8. Using a ruler, mark and cut into inch pieces.  Cut using a sharp knife or bench knife.  
9. Wrap in wax or parchment paper.

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 cup white sugar
• 1 1/2 cup dark brown sugar, packed
• 1/3 cup butter, cut into small cubes
• 2/3 cup duck fat (pref. Rougie)
• 1 cup light corn syrup
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• Smoked sea salt

A New Project and A New Website

Two different people.  I used to be this kid who wore black, that wore my grades as a mark of honor, who would smoke a cigarette and hold in my cough until no one was looking.  I used to live in a world of dichotomies, I took one direction, judging those who took the other.  Bitter and self-centered, I hated everything that wasn't within arm's reach, anything I had to work for.  I was this lazy with all the best relationships I've ever held onto--from Nolan to my mother.   I was like this in law school, in California.  I left this person there, too.

In the last two months of living in Texas, living alone for the first time, I've grown into a new person.  Soft and muted blues, greens, greys--I don't hide behind a layer of black, a 4.0, or in a puff of smoke, indiscernible from the fog that hung over Pittsburgh most mornings.  I appreciate beauty and tones, floral and minimalism.  I respect the curated life, the plant you buy for decoration and how it differs from the one you buy for herbs.  I work with my hands now.  I feel a vernal change in my bones to produce, to craft, to create.  I have callouses that have softened over from when I would hold a pencil too long, back in the day when I held a pencil to write at all. My working hands are toiling again.  I'm creating candy bars, confectionaries, memories.  Someone's breakfast, someone's "cheat day".  

I appreciate a good cup of coffee above most things, and that's something that hasn't changed between the old and the new life I have.  That is why I went to Press Coffee with a simple idea:  I want to sell candy.  A simple stand, a couple dollars a bar, for an hour or two to get my name out there and have some fun doing it.  Press was, to me, the perfect venue.  From its wonderfully curated decor to its light-dappled cafe tables, Press understands appreciating the small, everyday victories of the perfect cup of coffee, the first bite of a crisp pastry, finding the just-right leather chair to sit in and enjoy the morning for what it is:  an opportunity to create, relax, not take life too hard or seriously.   I would have never thought of the generosity that would come of Natalie offering to give me liberty on stocking them as often as I could produce them.  

I am dropping off my second order this morning.  Twenty-seven bars of Matcha, Cookies and Cream, and Peanut Butter.  They're delicate and snap when you break them.  They're wrapped in the same designs I used for Nolan's Valentine's Day present, florals for spring*.  They're one of the simple pleasures we allow ourselves to spend money on, and maybe one of my customers will share his with someone he loves today.  I hope, whoever buys one, they'll recognize the attention each bar got from me.  From cutting the wrappers to measuring the foil, to getting the perfect process of tempering and cooling, each bar was made from my hands, hands that once held pencils too tightly, cigarettes too loosely, and another boy's hand too recklessly. 

If you're located in the San Antonio-area, stop by Press Coffee at 606 W French Place 78212, and maybe I'll see you there, too! (Usually for only, like, five minutes in the morning before work, though).

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What my work desk usually looks like

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Matcha is probably my personal favorite.  Beau and I are hockin' these like it's 2012

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(they're not $2, btw)

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*groundbreaking

And finally, a special thanks to Samuel Nuñez  for creating such an amazing logo, that inspired so much of my work this last month--from the candy bars to actually making this website a thing.  Go check him out, too!

Avoiding the Red Cliche

Most things come easily to me, things you wouldn't expect from a boy with no discernible talent.  Things like baseball, calculus, forgiveness never came easy to me, but love did.  Love in the carnal sense, love in the fictional sense.  Love in the sense of letting go, love in the sense of finding yourself.  Love in the sense of that ever-present gnaw at the pit of your stomach that registers in the mind as I am responsible for someone else's happiness. Love has come easily to me since birth.  I love my mother in an almost manic sense, an almost Oedipal obsession with my desire to make her smile.  In kindergarten, I kissed a girl named Alex's hand when she reached out to grab a colored pencil, I thought I was gentlemanly and adult of me.  Years of expansive love bloomed in me as I began to daydream of boyfriends and how exotic the word fiancé sounded, with it's accented e and promise of a future with someone else.  With each boyfriend, there was a breakup, and with each breakup, there was some promise of next time, next time, next time.  I found Nolan during one of those next times.  During my return to Italy, when we were both a little bruised, both a little cut up and the vinegar kisses of a stranger felt like when soap gets in a hangnail.  But, underneath all of that, once we stripped down and opened up, there was love.

It was raw and passionate, it left me heady in the perfumed 10x8 dorm room where the heat was on and a blizzard blew through Pittsburgh one night in January.

It was lazy, falling asleep with a bucket of chicken during XLV.

It was chaotic in the sense of never having an ending, never knowing the dates of anything important, throwing shoes and his grandmother's dishes when I got too angry and forgot to say, "I'm sorry."

But I was never sorry, never sorry for loving someone so ferociously and tender.  I'd lick the wounds I had created and then blame the rust-taste in my wolf mouth on his laziness, his determination to let our love fade away.  It was raw and passionate, it was lazy and chaotic.  And somehow love became this little succulent, never needing watered, collecting dust on the windowsill, timid in its approach to life.  Our love had a geophyte approach to sustainability, fatty and tuberous, holding onto any love that existed when life got barren and dry. When it got hard to come by, when it couldn't be found in the moonlight nor with a dowsing rod, broken off from a backyard apple tree when the Santa Anas made us unbearable to one another.

Since I left for Texas, we fell in love again--hard and fast, when the bones were most brittle.  An apologetic love where conversations often ended in "How did it get like this?"  We are finding our way back to the frenzied love of when I was 19, and slowly those sour wounds heal when they're exposed to air.  I wanted to celebrate this love for Valentine's Day and forget all the other four years and the bullshit we put one another through. I wanted to celebrate this love in boxes, small tins of love that overpowered Nolan for Valentine's Day.  I wanted to remind him what home could feel like.  I wanted to remind him what love could feel like, because our house in San Diego was big by San Diego standards, and it could creak too loud when you're lonely.  I made him dinner, cakes and bread, and shipped it to him to have for Valentine's Day with a movie, so it felt like a date tonight.

I love you.

“He shall never know I love him: and that, not because he's handsome, but because he's more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made out of, his and mine are the same.”

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Roasted Beet Pasta

Ingredients:

• 2 large-sized beets
• 3 whole eggs + 1 egg yolk
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 tablespoon salt
• 1 teaspoon lemon zest (optional)
• 6+ cups flour

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 450
2. While oven is preheating, peel beets and wrap in foil, place on baking tray.  When oven is ready, roast for 40 minutes.
3. Remove from oven and allow to cool for a few minutes, unwrapping so steam can release
4. Cut into large chunks.
5. In a large food processor (6 cups or more), throw in beets, eggs and yolk, olive oil, and salt (and optional zest).  Puree until smooth
6. In a stand mixer, combine puree and three cups of flour using the paddle attachment.  When dough begins to form, switch to dough hook and continue to mix, adding in last three cups of flour, one at a time, until a proper dough forms
7. Remove from bowl onto a floured work surface (i prefer marble for pasta-making) and knead for 7 minutes or until is elastic
8. Keeping dough floured, cut into eighths and lay plastic wrap on sections you are not going to use.
9. Use your pasta machine's directions for thick noodles, and dry.
10. Enjoy with a vinaigrette and parmesan!

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Bacon Salt

Ingredients:

• 5-6 strips of bacon
• 1/2 cup sea salt (preferably a larger crystal)
• 1 tablespoon brown sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon black pepper

Directions:

1. Fry bacon on a skillet until extra-crispy
2. Put on a plate lined with paper towels and allow to cool, blotting excess grease
3. In a food processor, combine all ingredients and pulse until combined.  Do not over-pulse, as it can result in fats in bacon to liquify.
4. Enjoy over popcorn, with potatoes, or be creative!

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Handcrafted Candy Bars

There is no real recipe for a basic candy bar.  I used some of my mother's recipes, which use more specialized chocolate and techniques, but the instructions I have below can be practiced even with chocolate chips. From here, you can personalize them and make them your own, even including honeys, spices, herbs, salts, and even homemade nut butters!  But, I would start here for an intro into confectionery.

Before you begin, use a ratio of 3 oz per candy bar, so you have some room for leeway with sticking to the bowl, the mold, and your spatula.  From here, you can cut and halve, mix chocolates together and multiply easily.  I particularly like mixing white chocolate and a milkier, lighter chocolate.  When you have decided how you would like to flavor your chocolate, measure out how much you will need.  Then, take away about 30% of that amount and set aside (this will be your "seed chocolate", a step for this pseudo-tempering.  It is necessary so your chocolate doesn't turn grey when cooled).

Prepare any mold you may be using.  I always use a light olive oil cooking spray and then wipe off the excess with a paper towel.

In a microwave-safe bowl, combine your remaining chocolates and microwave on HIGH for 20 seconds.  Take out and stir.  Put back in for another 20 seconds and repeat this process until all chocolate is silky smooth and easy to stir.

Add remaining chocolate and continue to stir.  The heat from the melted chocolate should melt remaining chocolate.

Add any add-ins and pour into mold and smooth out with a rubber spatula.  Allow to cool for at least half an hour in the fridge before unmolding.  Package however you want (I went a little far with homemade packaging I designed and printed on special paper, but basic foil will do). Store in a cool place, or the fridge.

Other recipes used: For the cake (marzipan inspiration here)/  For the hot chocolate mix /  For the marshmallows / For the bread.

Sugar Cube Bones and Earl Grey Caramels

I think there is sugar in my bone marrow, because I’m only sweet when I’m broken.  I think it’s something in me that’s not whole until it’s all wrong.  And it’s all wrong due to my perspective, my honest attempt at dissolving it all.  Sugar cubes in a horse’s mouth, small satisfactions to calm a beast down. Are there two polarities to God?  Creation and destruction?  The catalyst and the dissolution?  Bookends of the Testaments and the circle of life.  Are they two separate or one in the same.  Does Ouroboros live a little more closely to our heart than we thought?  I ask myself these questions as I lay in bed and try to fall asleep.  I did my nightly routine of reading with my head propped up by two pillows, my face washed with cold water and Cetaphil, a face cream prescribed by my doctor, and a half-hearted prayer between barely-parted lips.  In the end, it doesn’t matter much.  In the end, I still wake up the next day and drive to work in a leased car and avoid people’s eyes until coffee and small talk to wake my tired mind.

Why am I so tired? Seems to be a common response when I look in the mirror.  My mother’s skin which I’ve inherited never seem to give me the tired look I want and when I say I’m exhausted, people think I’m lying.  No energy to walk the dogs, no energy to apply to new jobs.  No energy for sex or dishes, laundry or reading.  Some days I’m prone to moping, some days aren’t mine at all and I feel guilty if I try to reclaim them as my own.

But I know how necessary my emotions are and I resent the cyclical nature of the beast when I’m tired and can’t talk, but if I keep silent, I’m all the more tired.  Everything in me churns when I’m upset and I’m prone to making scenes at Wal-Mart if the moment calls for it.  The last week, I’ve had to remind myself and others that I am a human being, speaking those exact words into a phone and into my boyfriend’s face.  I think the only human thing about me when I get this tired is that I still have emotions, can raise my voice to declare them, speak them into existence and then to validate my feelings.  I cherish those moments of clarity.  It scares me all the same.

I used to sit at the precipice of decisions and so cavalierly go towards the path of least resistance.  I'm realizing the mistake in that, in not voicing my opinion, my life, my passions into the universe.  Even if it echoed ad infinitum, even if it beat with the same intensity as my heart after sex, even if it was a duck-call and barked once into the silent creek, at least I would know I said my fears out loud.  For the first time, so it would be easier to do it again and again. Instead I can complain for five days about something that could have been done a week ago and time isn't even comprehensible to me when I get like that.   But I'd rather just distract myself and give myself a pacifier before bed.

And that's what these caramels are.  They're a way to distract me in the mundanity of stirring the mixture for minute and minute.  They're a way to satisfy every aching tooth I have.  They're a way to get compliments at work and from Nolan, whom I've been demanding of lately.  They're a way to see science unfold before me and know that the whole world is catalyst and inhibitor.  And I should learn to love it and seek relics of that unkind truth.

Enjoy, they're my own.  A synesthesiatic blending of spotting blends of tea my mother sent me and remembering an old caramel recipe she sent me when she first started at the candy store.  I added some layers of flavor and mellowed out the butter.  But it's a distraction all the same.  A science lesson and a kiss-and-make-up type of gift.  A bit of myself in every bite.

Earl Grey and Bergamot Caramels (with dark chocolate and sea salt)

Chewy and melty, these caramels are a treat for breakfast, dessert, or as an "I'm-nervous-so-I'm-eating" kind of snack.  I suggest wrapping them individually in parchment paper, so they can be transported and portion-controlled. I gave a couple alternatives for toppings in the parentheticals.

Ingredients:

• 3/4 cup heavy whipping cream
• 2 tablespoons loose tea leaves (about 5 tea bags, less if you don't want the flavor as strong)
• 1 cup white sugar
• 1/2 cup brown sugar, packed
• 1 stick butter, cut into pieces
• 1/2 half 'n half
• 1/2 cup light corn syrup

Directions

1. Prepare a 9x9 pan with parchment paper and make sure all sides are well-buttered
2. In a small saucepan, heat cream and tea leaves on a simmer for about five minutes until color is golden and leaves clump together
3. Strain infused cream into a four-quart saucepan (it is okay to have some leaves in the cream, it'll only add to the flavor); alternatively, take tea leaves out and transport cream into a bigger pan
4. Mix remaining ingredients into saucepan and heat on medium-high.  As it heats up, it will bubble and get sticky.  Keep stirring during this period until it begins to boil.  Do not stir for another fifteen minutes or so and let it remain in a controlled boil.  The consistency will change throughout the process.
5. When the temperature gets to 242 degrees Fahrenheit, remove from heat and pour directly into prepared pan (You can top with flaked sea salt here)
6. Cool at room temperature for a couple hours until completely set and can press finger into tops and do not burn yourself
7. (Here, you can then pour some melted dark chocolate over top and some sea salt and allow to cool before cutting)
8. Cut into desired pieces, wrap in parchment paper.