Small Updates and a Recipe

May 17, 2015 Brett

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.

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

Heat the oven to 400° F. Butter an 8-inch square baking pan and line the bottom with parchment paper.
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.)
In a bowl, whisk together the flour and baking powder.
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.
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.
I highly recommend eating this with a topping made of freshly-whipped cream, a small amount of almond butter, and a pinch of cinnamon

Mama

May 10, 2015 Brett

I used to chew my mother's hair to fall asleep. I was in love with it, the texture soft and the smell of her sweat perfumed the pillow. I used to be obsessed with my mother, and then went three years without talking to her. She was every metaphor you could think of and so much more. She was blood over cast iron bones. She was olive-skinned and tanned with baby oil. She never wrinkled, she cries at the thought of mousetraps and says life is unfair sometimes. She takes long pauses and tries to get me off the phone. She says I love you in her own way, in small ways. She's bought me a housewarming present for all the apartments I've rented to get away from her. She forgot my eight birthday once. She had a migraine. I called her selfish. She had tumors removed from her neck that Spring.

My mother's name is Nancy and she is my soulmate. I love her more than anything in the world. I'm obsessed with her, with the idea of her. I have her broad bones and lack of people skills. I have her distrust for good ever coming around, surprised that life can be fortunate once in a while. She has arthritis in her collarbone, she worked as a janitor once. She finds symbolism in every bird that stops for a rest on the windowsill. She never took us to church growing up. She never says her own mother's name, she never talks about her own mother. It's a small, secret word that's only spoken once a year. The tetragrammaton by the high priestess Nancy, spoken once when we threw flower petals on her grave.

My mother is not a good woman; but she's not a bad woman either. She lives her life in the two-story farm house the best way she knows how. She's had a tough life, a life with not a lot to offer. Born in Indiana, a runaway at 15. She worked odd jobs, was held up at a video store once. Lit her nails on fire once. Lit her hair on fire once. Had three children. Wore jean shorts to her wedding. She doesn't like music much, she says it gives her a headache. She can sing real sweetly under her breath when she's getting ready. I first heard her say fuck when I was six.

My mother is the best woman I know. My mother still holds my hand when we cross the street. My mother held me for eight minutes before I moved to California and kept repeating in my chest, "Don't go don't go, don't go.". When I left for Italy, she said she didn't care if I ever came home. Her brother died in Afghanistan three weeks after I landed in Europe and I was the first person she called. I slept on a pew that night, the only quiet room in the convent I was staying at. I fell asleep with the phone in my hand, my mother didn't hang up.

My mother is an orphan now. My mother has me and eleven cats. My mother has a permanent tan and laugh lines where you can see life wasn't all that bad for her. My mother raised me the best way she knew how: "be honest, don't hurt anyone, and don't fuck it up". My mother told the truth and lied to us when she had to. Like how she was married to someone before my father. Like how she held me back when I could have skipped third grade. Like how she tells my brother she loves her children equally. Like how she says she's happy.

I found my mother crying once out by the grapevines that strangle themselves on our chickenwire fence. I hated seeing her that weak and I told her it made me sick. I was nineteen and I don't forgive myself. I walked inside and drove away. I left her crying in the backyard. She had seen a baby bird fall to its death and got upset by it. My mother, the patron saint of loss. Her son, too selfish to ever let her be vulnerable, even for two seconds, when she was alone and surrounded by dandelions and skipping stones at the creek bed.

I call my mother every day now. She took some time off from working to enjoy summer and the last surviving dog from my childhood. She take her coffee with cream and wants to paint the kitchen a soft yellow. Before we hang up, I ask her if she loves me. She always answers the same, "You're the only good thing I've done in my life. Of course I love you."

A five year reflection.

May 3, 2015 Brett

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

Le matin perdue

April 28, 2015 Brett

I've been waking up earlier than I've had to. Hours earlier, days earlier. I anticipate rain when I wake up, my body sticky against the sheets. I keep my eyes half-closed, turning slowly when I need to move. I don't want to wake Milo, sleep is precious to him and he's grown since I fell asleep last.

The hardest thing to do is wake up sometimes, to know my body is no less mine than when I went to sleep. That I still sleep on the right side of the bed, even though no one is there to share the left with me. A tree branch hit my window last night and it was the most intimate sound in the world, steady beats, rhythmic to my own pulse. I am. I am. I am.

I got lost this morning and I sleep in a queen-sized bed. I tucked myself so deep into the quilt, I dreamt I would never be able to find my way out. I dreamt a lot of things last night--cardinals on my mother's shoulder, dogs that howl at the moon, a primal magnetism that tidal waves and scarab beetles still follow. I dreamt of hairy knuckles and loose-fitting shirts. I dreamed of sand and could feel the grit in my teeth. I dreamt of a lot of things last night, I got lost in the morning.

So I put on my glasses and stretched my arms. I poured some coffee and made some scones. I opened one window for Milo to smell the air. I sat by myself for hours and stacked cookbooks all around me. I lost myself this morning, but found myself in Seattle, deep in the pages of Renee Erickson's A Boat, A Whale, and a Walrus.

Grapefruit Scones with White Chocolate Rosemary Ganache

Grapefruit Cream Scones with Rosemary White Chocolate Ganache (adapted from Renee Erickson's Boat Street Cream Scones; serves 12)

Ingredients for the Scones

4 cups flour
1/4 cup white sugar
1/3 cup brown sugar
2 tablespoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
2 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 tablespoon grapefruit zest
2 tablespoon grapefruit juice
1 tablespoon clover honey
2 1/4 cup heavy cream
raw sugar, for dusting
egg white, for wash

Ingredients for the Ganache (adapted from Molly Yeh here):

4 ounces white chocolate, roughly chopped
1 teaspoon rosemary, roughly chopped
1/4 cup heavy cream

Directions for the Scones:

Preheat oven to 400 and line a baking sheet with parchment paper
In a large bowl, sift flour, sugars, baking powder, and salt.
Add extract, zest, juice, and honey, stirring to combine with a large fork or wooden spoon
Create a well in center of flour mixture and slowly begin to pour in cream. While you are pouring, continuously stir until just combined. (Depending on altitude and climate, and age of flour, you may have to add more cream to combine)
Turn out onto floured work surface (preferably marble) and turn and pat dough until starts to take form
Cut into half, pat out two disks that are about 6 inches wide and one inch tall. Cut into 6 or 8 equal pieces, each, and transfer to prepared parchment-lined pan
Bake for 18-21 minutes, or until puffed and golden. Allow to cool before adding ganache.

Directions for the Ganache:

Place white chocolate and rosemary in heatproof bowl, set aside
In a saucepan, heat cream on medium until begins to bowl
Pour over chocolate and stir very quickly until combined and smooth
Pour atop scones. Enjoy!

A widow. A rose. A table. A cake.

April 24, 2015 Brett

God is a widow in a mantilla and I pass her every day at work. She sits at a bus stop and cross-stitches red roses on black cloth. Always looking down, always toiling. Hungry and waiting at the bus stop. I drink some coffee and forget about her for the day.

Roses, they mean things. I've only ever received roses twice. Once when my grandmother died, each grandchild got a red rose to throw on her grave. Once for Valentine's Day, when we had resolved to take some time apart, to see other people, perhaps to be our own people. Those were yellow. Roses, they speak things. The widow sews roses while she waits for the bus stop, deep red roses. Grave roses. She's telling a story, passing the dawn light between her needle and thread. Stitching years of aching years, manacled to her task. I forget about her every day.

I toil in my own way. I try to keep busy. I leave tasks until the last moment, when the flies dance on the trash, when I have to use a fork to spread jelly. I do this to have a task, to distract my mind, to tell myself that I will keep living as long as I stay busy. I think I'll be rewarded if I just keep moving. I think it's called Protestant work ethic. But, I just keep thinking how sharks and hummingbirdswill die if they ever stop moving. I wonder which one I am.

I like to work with my hands. Holding other people's, tenting them in some facsimile of devotion when I really need a favor. Throwing carrot stumps to Milo, hiding my face when I'm hungover and working twelve hours. I used to beat my brother at thumb wars and now I could go a year without ever thinking about him. I used to do a lot of things, but I built all the furniture in this tiny apartment of mine.

I built myself a table this week, I built it from old fence posts. I found them on a walk. I sanded them down and I thought about that old woman and her stitching, so I stained the wood as dark as her fabric, as dark as her drawn-on eyebrows, as dark as the mantilla she wears under the high Texas sun. I work on it when I need to focus, I'm not afraid to knick it or scratch it. I'm not afraid to hurt it like I am with the hearts of others. I crumbled old yellow roses on it, the last of that old Valentine's Day bouquet. I baked on it, too. An almond-cornmeal cake with rose buttercream frosting. And I knew I was cursed with the same old hex as that widow on my morning drive--we're too afraid to be alone, so we just keep staying busy.

Almond-Cornmeal Cake with Rose Buttercream Frosting

For the cake:

10 TB butter, room temperature
scant 1/4 cup greek yogurt
1 cup sugar
3 TB clover honey
3 whole eggs, large
1/2 cup buttermilk
2 ts vanilla extract
1/2 ts almond extract
1 1/2 cup almond meal
1/2 cup cornmeal
2 ts baking powder

For the frosting:

1/2 stick butter, room temperature
1 1/2 cup confectioner's sugar, sifted
2 ts rose water extract
about 2 TB heavy cream

For the cake: makes one 9-inch cake or two-tiered 5-inch cake

Preheat oven to 350 and grease desired pan, use parchment for bottom of pan
In a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, cream butter, yogurt, sugar, and honey together until light and whipped on medium-low.
Add each egg, one at a time, and allow to incorporate between each egg
Add buttermilk and extracts
In a separate bowl, measure out all dry ingredients and whisk until combined. No need to sift, as the meals are coarse and will not sift as beautifully as, say, confectioner's sugar.
Slowly and gradually add dry ingredients to stand mixer set on low, pausing in thirds to allow to incorporate.
Turn off mixer, use a rubber spatula to mix by hand to ensure mixer did not miss anything
Pour into pan, bake for 30-40 minutes. Allow to cool completely before turning out or decorating

For the frosting:

In a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, mix butter, sugar, and rose water on medium-high until combined. Mixture will be dry and crumbly.
Gradually add cream until desired consistency.