NEW ORLEANS.

I spent last week in New Orleans, just miles from a flood zone. I work for a company that has annual meetings, I worked 14 hour days to prove my worth. Notetaking, business cards, and a lanyard with my name and title printed on it. But all I could do was dream of food. I've become a hungry soul and I spend my time mapping out the fastest routes between happy hour and the main course. 

I worked until Thursday, then found a boy waiting for me at a coffee shop a block away. We napped and ate oysters for three days. One day, we spent three hours finding the perfect place to eat; one night we wasted a hundred dollars at the casino in eight minutes. I've never been good at gambling, I take too long to make decisions. 

My time in New Orleans is a tally of numbers, receipts, coupons I found online to save a dollar. Fourteen cab rides, eight glasses of a cold and cheap Pinot Grigio at the hotel bar. Eleven macarons and two scoops of almond gelato. Seven hours of sleep in a warm, warm bed and a two hour nap when I couldn't adjust to the humidity. Eighteen tarot cards I picked from a woman's deck. She told me I would be happy and never settle down. That the months of October and April are important to me. That the number 95 will change my life in some unknown way.

It's been a week since we left New Orleans and I'm not sure if I'll go back soon. But I enjoyed walking with no agenda and no pretense and no reason to hurry. I enjoyed going to bed full and sleepy and smiling. I enjoyed the traces of powdered sugar that seemed to settle in every wrinkle of my black shirts. I may not go back anytime soon, but I'm glad I stayed a few days after my conference, where I was tired of showing my worth.

Where I ate.

Lüke - Great happy hour and oysters. Didn't realize how good this place was, as I took it for granted being across from my hotel

Morning Call - As A Brown Table mentioned, this place is a nice alternative to Café du Monde and you won't feel so rushed

Café du Monde - Like I said, not worth the hype, as sad as I am to say :(

Mariza - Honestly? Probably my favorite meal. Perhaps I was craving some comfort Italian, but they really delivered on service and quality

Mr B's Bistro - One of my work dinners was here. Everyone had a great time with the BBQ shrimp

Red's Chinese - For some reason, I always crave Chinese when I'm on vacation and this was a great local place to chill for a bit

Commander's Palace - This was one of those places I felt we HAD to go to and I'm a sucker for a multi-course meal. 

Willie Mae's - It really was the best fried chicken I had in town

Ost Kaka - An Orange and Vanilla Swedish Cheesecake

I found old postcards that were never written in, places I used to think were magic. My mother took me to Las Vegas when I was 14; we sat by the pool and saw the Hoover Dam. A postcard in Rome, nothing special—tattered and dog-eared. It had a photo of an old Pope on the corner, his face creased and the cheap ink smudged. A million places, memories. I thought I would scrapbook, I thought I would mail them to people I love. I just let them wrinkle in an old box under my bed. I forget where all I’ve been and the memories I’ve held onto. They’re nothing special—tattered and dog-eared from revisiting them so often before bed.

I’ve been away for two weeks now, traveling got the best of me. I’m working on projects, I’m changing how I work. I bought a plate in New Orleans and a keychain in the airport for my mother. A magnet for the fridge, a baseball cap for my father. I’ve eaten nothing but cereal for two days straight, too lazy and tired and nervous to have much else. I keep thinking back to before I left, the last dish I made in my parents’ house. I found the recipe in an old tattered book, a church cookbook with its pages tattered and dog-eared, too. It’s a Swedish cheesecake, a Scandinavian dessert, an ost kaka is the term they use, but mine is scented and aromatic with orange and vanilla. A custard, a curd, a warmth I haven’t felt when I travel so much—the Freon air conditioner leaves my eyes dry and my hands reaching for something to cover up with.

Orange and Vanilla Ost Kaka

This recipe is divine. Light and so surprisingly refreshing. This dessert requires a casserole dish with a 6-cup capacity and you will be using a bain-marie, which can be a little tricky but worth it for a delicate custard dish like this.

Ingredients:

• 4 eggs
• 1 cup white sugar
• ½ cup brown sugar
• 1 teaspoon almond extract
• 1 vanilla pod, split with seeds scraped and removed
• 1 orange – reserve all zest and ½ the juice
• 3 cup small curd cottage cheese (not low-fat)
• ¾ cup AP flou

Directions:

1. Butter your baking or casserole dish and preheat oven to 425*F
2. Boil about 6 cups of water in a kettle
3. Beat eggs in a large bowl with a whisk until yolks are broken
4. Slowly add sugars in a steady stream
5. Add your almond extract and your vanilla
6. Stir in your orange juice and zest
7. Add your cottage cheese and beat quickly to mix into your egg and sugar mixture
8. Finally, gently fold in flour
9. Pour into your prepared casserole dish
10. Put casserole into a rectangular baking dish, pour boiling water into the baking dish until ¾ of the way up the sides of the casserole dish (called a bain-marie)
11. Bake for about 40 minutes, until top is golden and middle is firm with just the slightest wiggle
12. Gently remove pans from oven and remove casserole from bain-marie
13. Allow to cool before servin

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. 

Goat Cheese Platter with Homemade Flatbread Crackers: In Partnership with Vermont Creamery

I used to think ordering wine at a restaurant could define me, until I was caught underage drinking at 19. I ate cornichons at the Chateau Marmont one summer and wondered if this was a beginning or an erasure of my upbringing. Who was I to be anyone but myself—how dare I? Go to law school, drive a Nissan, knock down a spider’s web that covered the porch of our rental. I wanted so badly to be someone else; I thought I was for three long years in California.

And now I am back home and the memory of who I was remains foggy in memory. But that’s what happens when you live in fiction. I hardly eat out anymore; instead, I make small snacks and graze throughout the day. My mother likes to make casseroles. I ate three nectarines because I was lazy one morning. I wasn’t myself then and now I’m too much of myself now, I get exhausted. So I don’t bake, try to keep the oven off. I make small meals and take nothing for granted.

I made one such meal this week—local pickles, local olives, homemade crackers, and fresh and delicate goat cheese. A meal I would have spent $30 on when I was trying to create memories in California and a meal I will gladly allow to reify my Appalachian existence today. 

Goat Cheese Platter with Homemade Flatbread Crackers

Makes four large flatbread crackers that can be broken up into portions. Adapted from here.

Ingredients for crackers:

• 2 cup flour
• 1 tablespoon rosemary or thyme, or a mixture of both (fresh and diced)
• Pinch of salt and pepper
• 1 ½ TB honey
• 3 TB flavorless oil
• ½-3/4 cup ice wate

Directions:

1. In a food processor, pulse together flour, herbs, salt, pepper, honey and oil until well combined
2. With the motor running, add your water slowly until a ball begins to form
3. Dump dough out onto a floured work surface and knead a few times with floured hands to shape into a disc
4. Quarter the disc with a sharp knife and shape these quarters into discs
5. Wrap each in plastic wrap and allow to rest in the fridge for an hour
6. While dough is resting, preheat oven to 450*F and prepare two baking sheets with parchment paper
7. When dough is done resting, remove one disc and, with a floured rolling pin and a marble board (if you have it), roll disc as thinly as you can get it. We’re talking millimeters here
8. Gently transfer dough to your parchment paper and sprinkle with a little more salt and pepper
9. Repeat with a second disc
10. Bake these two first. You will most likely have to use two racks.
11. Bake on one side for 4 minutes then remove from oven. Flip crackers so the uncooked side is exposed and replace in oven on opposite racks for an even cooking. Bake for 3-5 minutes on this side (these are so thin and with the shifting oven temperatures one disc may bake faster than the other—check on them at the 3 minute mark, as they will burn quickly)
12. Remove from oven, allow to cool on your work surface
13. Repeat with remaining two discs
14. When all are cooled, break up to whatever size you’d like to enjoy with your platte

Assembling your platter: This is the fun part. Grab your most favorite goat cheese (mine is, of course Vermont Creamery’s) and top with a generous helping of honey or comb honey—the more flavor the better. Sprinkle a little fresh black pepper over this. Next, enjoy your cheese and crackers with various small bites. I did spicy habanero pickles, an assortment of kalamata and green garlic olives, and fresh red grapes. I would also recommend a robust or smoky cheddar, an apple butter or jam, or make it interesting with cubed watermelon and a drizzle of balsamic and blackberry juice reduction.

Buttermilk Honey Scones with Rose-Strawberry Jam

I’m finding more beauty in the crumbs, the coffee stains that ring a mug. I found an old textbook about gender and saw the pages, dog-eared and speckled in burns and blood, from a paper cut and ashes dusted aimlessly from my cigarette.

I used to read under grapevines and now I sleep twelve hours some days.

I used to speak Spanish in a timid accent and now I don’t speak it at all.

I used to bite my nails, but I stopped that a long time ago.

I read about 6 sisters who changed the world and I used to think I could, too. I told my mother I was never going to speak to her again, and now I watch the news with her, nursing coffees that grow cold and conversations that became keep memories of her mother alive and warm. She opened a box in a room she turned into a cat infirmary yesterday morning. Inside were thirty-seven napkins, hand-stitched and embroidered in yarn, lace, and scraps of satin.  How delicate they were; carefully folded and not very well made. They did the job and we moved on to other topics, like how my mother isn’t very good at tennis and I’m not very good at forgiving. If my brother was having a boy or a girl. How my mother loves the smell of rosewater and hates how many ants she found in the windowsill in the kitchen.

How many years its been since I last celebrated my birthday with her.

I live for those moments, those mornings. The innocence and the redemption. The fog hands dully until about nine in the morning. It burns off, I go to work. She sits with her cats, with Milo and her Labrador retriever. She watches crime documentaries and lights candles in the heat. She went shopping the other morning and brought home some roses. Strawberries were on sale and she had never seen honeycomb before. So I made her these scones as a thank you for taking me back in. So close to home, so different than who I was. I used to read under grapevines and they’re still there. Giving second chances and strangling the chicken wire fence that surrounds the house.

Buttermilk Honey Scones with Rose-Strawberry Jam

Ingredients for the Scones

• 2/3 cup buttermilk
• 1 egg
• 1 TB vanilla extract
• ¼ cup honey
• 3 cup flour
• ½ sugar
• 1 TB baking powder
• ½ TB cornstarch
• ½ ts salt
• 8 TB butter, cubed and cold
• 3 TB honeycomb, cut into cubes for topping

Directions for Scones

1. Preheat oven to 450*F and line a baking sheet with parchment paper
2. Whisk together buttermilk, egg, vanilla, and honey, set aside
3. Sift together all dry ingredients into a mixing bowl and transfer mixture into your food processor
4. Add butter, pulse to combine until fat is the size of peas
5. With motor running, add liquid through feeding tube
6. Turn dough onto a floured work surface and pat into a round
7. Cut into 8 triangles, and pat edges to be clean
8. Place on baking sheet and bake for 13-18 minutes or until puffed and golden brown
9. Top with honeycom

Ingredients for Rose-Strawberry Jam

• ½ pint of strawberries, hulled and halved
• 1 cup sugar
• Juice of 2 lemons
• 2 TB fruit pectin
• 2 TB rose water
• Zest of one lemo

Directions for Rose-Strawberry Jam

1. In a medium-sized saucepan, combine strawberries, sugar, and juice. Heat on medium.
2. Stir occasionally (I like to use a wooden spoon) so that the mixture does not burn, but you want enough heat that the juices bleed from the berries and the sugar and lemon juice condense slightly
3. Allow to boil for a good 2 or 3 minutes
4. Add your fruit pectin and stir vigorously for a few seconds to combine
5. Resume your boil for another minute
6. Take off heat, stir in zest and rose water
7. Jam will continue to thicken as it cools, when slightly warm to the touch, you can put in your jar. This recipe makes one pint of jam and is not a proper canning technique, but a quick jam recipe
8. Store in fridge, use often and plentifully