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:
- Preheat oven to 400* and line a baking sheet with a silicon mat or parchment paper
- On a work surface, pour out a cup of sugar and your almonds, mix with hands to evenly distribute almonds
- 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)
- Rub remaining sugar and cherries on top of the pastry
- Take one side of your pastry and fold to the middle. Do with remaining side
- Fold one half on top of the other
- Cut into one-inch slices
- Place and press slices onto baking sheet
- Bake for 8 minutes or until edges are golden, turn over and bake an additional six minutes
- Allow to cool and keep in an airtight container for up to three days (though the high butter content means these dry out quickly!)
