Pancakes, or The Song Remains the Same, and also slightly different.

It's been all food around here, and by that I mean we've gone to the farmer's market twice in two weeks, the first visits this season, and we are making hay while the sun shines. By this, I mean we are buying tomatoes and peaches like there's no tomorrow. Which leads me to this weekend.

This weekend, the first holiday weekend of the semester, and thus the first of the 'devoutly to be wish'd' elements of academic life, I said I would accomplish the following:

1. review all poems. By this, I meant that I would read through all the poems I've written this year (something like 90 poems) plus poems I wrote in April of the past two years, to see if there was a manuscript hanging out amongst them.
2. review Ephemerist, which is the current title of my current manuscript, the one that had some success this summer, placing as a finalist and semifinalist in small press competitions. Which either means it's coming together pretty nicely or it is an abysmal failure, you be the judge.
3. clean/organize. This means wresting order, or more order, from the gaping abyss that is my life. Or something.
4. see the Dixie Chicks.
5. see a movie with my daughter.
6. see other movies.
7. see my auntie.
8. bake homemade pop tarts
9. bake turnovers
10. bake a ricotta cake
11. make scallion pancakes.

I mentioned the last four items to my husband the historian, who is a devout supporter of my writing life, and who would fight to, well, probably not the death, because that's ridiculous, but would fight with great vigor to protect my writing time.

"I'm going to work on my new manuscript," I said, decisively. This met with general acclaim, vows of support, hypothesizing as to the best manuscript work strategies, &c &c. 

"And I also want to bake homemade pop tarts, and make blueberry turnovers, and a ricotta cake, and scallion pancakes," I said, decisively.

"That's not going to happen," he said, which--predictably--brought out the don't tell me I can't! in me. Which is a powerful resident in my soul. It might actually be my soul, the don't tell me I can't! I don't know. How can you tell the dancer from the dance, you know?

Anyway: since I am the boss of myself and my baking AND of my writing, I got up on Sunday morning and whipped up two pastry doughs--the pop tart dough and the turnover dough. I made the pop tarts last night. 

All I have to say is !!! #!!!

A photo posted by Lisa Bickmore (@megastore) on Sep 4, 2016 at 7:29pm PDT

I would have made scallion pancakes for dinner last night, but I didn't read the recipe carefully enough, and there was a lot of resting time for that dough. That dough is apparently a finicky diva of a dough. So scallion pancakes had to wait for today.

It's a recipe that makes big claims for itself, but I'm going to tell you this: I'm not going to say they're wrong. You have to make the dough, then let it rest. Then you divide the dough, roll out each piece, put some oil on it, put a bunch of chopped scallions on that, then roll it up, then roll the roll (you'll have to read the detailed instructions here, it's kind of a project), then let those little roll-after-rolls rest some more. Then you roll them out one more time and bake them on a griddle until they are toasty and smell like the best thing ever.

In real life, I made the dough, then went to work out. Then I came home and divided/rolled/rolled again. While they roll-upon-rolls were resting, I made the ricotta cake and put it in the oven. (Do make this. It is superb.)

I heated up the griddle, rolled the pancakes-in-waiting into five inch circles and put them on to cool, turning them regularly so they didn't scorch. I cut up three tomatoes and made the dipping sauce for the pancakes out of white vinegar, soy sauce, chili oil, a pinch of sugar and a pinch of dried crushed red chiles.

While all this was happening, I had just enough time for the errant thought: what if these are, contra the Bon Appetit article, in fact not the best thing in the world but rather an abysmal failure? But I am here to tell you, America: those scallion pancakes lived up to their advance billing and were outstanding:

Scallion pancakes: your better savory pancake option. Recipe here: http://www.bonappetit.com/recipe/scallion-pancakes-2

A photo posted by Lisa Bickmore (@megastore) on Sep 5, 2016 at 9:19pm PDT

In conclusion, I would like to say that I accomplished many things on the agenda, including some substantial writing and Dixie Chicks-ing, and movie going, and auntie-visiting, but I also accomplished all of my baking goals save one. What I mean is, 'twas a consummation devoutly to be wish'd.

Feats of derring do and sprinkles. And icing.

A few days ago, I was at the grocery store buying this and that and also this:

I totally admit that I was seduced by this picture, just as I will totally admit that I am a sucker for an actual Pop Tart, as long as it is a fruit flavor. I prefer, I admit, the kind of Pop Tart that has multicolored sprinkles, although in the case of the cherry Pop Tart, the red sprinkles on pink icing will do.

Where was I.

Right: Pop Tarts, homemade. 

While I'm admitting things, I'll also admit that I was feeling a little blue at the end of the day today. I had gathered my wits to finish a report and to make headway on another report, and yet--and yet, my son is still moving across America and there is nothing, not one thing, that is going to change that fact. It's a good thing, I'm proud of him and excited for him, but I will miss him. In the hour before the dark, that's what I was feeling blue about. 

I thought to myself, I'm going to Target, balm of any wound. Except, I thought, not really. No, I thought, I'm going to make something. I'm going to make those Pop Tarts.

Of course, to do that, I had to find the magazine wheresoever I had lain it. This involved roaming from room to room, and thinking about my personal failings and feeling bluer, mostly because there were no lights on, and where was that GD magazine? 

So I turned on some lights, and found the magazine, and opened it to the Pop Tart page. It was a very simple recipe. A pretty basic pastry, with egg and a little milk, so also with more richness. Plenty of butter. Blueberry jam as a filling. A very simple icing. Sprinkles. I set to work.

The recipe said it would make six pastries. And though the only people living in this house are me, the historian, and for a very abbreviated time, my son, and Bruiser, I thought, Six is not enough. And doubled the recipe.

Here is some of the butter...

...cut in tiny cubes, per my butter pastry technique...

...on top of the flour and salt, waiting to be cut in...

which, in my method, is more like rubbing in.

here's a pretty good looking pastry. possibly I didn't
get the butter as incorporated as it should have been--
there was a fair amount of melting as it baked--but still,
I think this is a handsome, good looking pastry.

baking like bosses in my oven my oven my oven!

vanilla icing, my men and my women, and the best

sprinkles, which are sprinkles of many colors, just like

the Biblical coat.

Will these pastries stave off loss? No, they will not. But they did stave off a pointless trip to Target, and they are delicious. And that, pretty much, is what pastries are for.

Ten things to do when you have finished the grading.

1. Lie down. You really should. You deserve it. Lie down and finish your novel, or if you are not reading a novel, start one.

2. Review your agenda. In my case, the agenda is entitled, The Get the House in Order Project, and it was wildly ambitious. Some of the stuff on that agenda--that stuff can be done later. Maybe in a few weeks. Resume your lie-down.

3. Okay, fine, get up. Think about dinner. Make soup and make blueberry scones because there are (a) blueberries in the refrigerator and (b) no reasons necessary to make scones if they are delicious and you want to. (check out the butter technique in that recipe--it is legit.)

4. Read some more. Take a short nap.

5. Watch tons and tons and tons of basketball. Revel in both the sloppy and the elegant play of the post-season, especially when you have no horse in the race, no dog in that fight, no team that you particularly care to root for. Learn other teams' players' names. Root for a team that is almost certain to lose to either (a) the Spurs or (b) Miami, depending on which part of the tournament you're prognosticating.

6. Read the nice comments students sent you. Remind yourself that you only had to wrangle with just one student, and even there, the wrangle was civil and is now resolved. Forget about the time when you woke up thinking about said student. Just let that go.

7. Sort through your winter clothes and put them away. Remind yourself how many freaking sweaters you have, not to mention skirts. Make vows about shopping, vows that will no doubt be fruitless but which feel salutary whilst putting the sweaters, not to mention skirts, away for the season.

8. Catch up on the last few episodes of The Mindy Project. This can be done concurrently with nearly any item above, but is worth enjoying on its own. However, eating a scone while watching television will never go amiss.

9. Think about China. China China China!

10. Put off decisions about meetings and commitments. They are out there, calling to you in faint, distant voices. But they can wait. They can wait while you open the windows (figuratively--it's still a little chilly) of your summer life and let the wind chimes make a beautiful, apt music, a music that is spring and the end of grading and the taking in of a deep, expansive breath. Breathe it. Just--breathe.

The thing about pears.

Pears are tricky. They are beautiful in every single one of their varieties. They have an elegant, idiosyncratic shape. They smell divine.

...these pears are probably never going to get ripe.

 However, because pears do not ripen on the tree, it is never a sure thing that the pears you've purchased at the store will ripen up to their perfection.

Don't try to tell me this isn't true. Sometimes, a pear just never really ripens, and that's a fact. But I am here to tell you that there are remedies for this situation. In other words, you are not at the mercy of a recalcitrant pear. The pear is not the boss of you. That's because an underripe pear--a pear that will not give in--is perfect for baking.


Recently, I ran across to recipes that demonstrate this potential of the pear exactly. The first is a pear gratin. I ran across this recipe when I was trying to come up with a plan for a winter luncheon, aka my writing group.

This gratin is basically a bread pudding, but with pound cake for the bread, and interleaved with pears. This seems almost sinful, but it doesn't matter. You're not going to eat this every day--only on writing group day, or something similar.

I intended to buy a pound cake, but there were no pound cakes to be had at the store, so I made this one, which is very easy indeed. In fact, I went to the store, came home, made the pound cake, and assembled and baked the gratin all before noon, that's how easy it was. (You will notice when you read the recipe that the writer decorates her gratin, as she serves it, with red currants. Believe it or not, I had not a single red currant to my name. Also, I did not feel like grinding or chopping pistachios to garnish the gratin. So my gratin had a little barely sweetened mascarpone cheese whipped with a little half and half, along with some blueberries, and it was lovely, praiseworthy, and of good report.)

I wish I could convey to you how good this gratin is. So good. Ridiculous. Don't hesitate.

we ate this for breakfast.

The second recipe came in an e-mail I was deleting--one of those newsletters I subscribed to, then could only rarely be bothered to peruse. But as I was deleting it, I caught a fleeting glimpse of the words "Pear Breakfast Cake." Wait--what? I thought, and delved into the Deleted Items file to retrieve it. Because it's the historian's birthday today, and he deserved, therefore, a fancy breakfast.

Last night, I measured all the ingredients except for the milk and set them on the counter, so that I could stumble out of bed and do the mixing with hardly any thinking. This plan worked splendidly. By 8 a.m., the cake was out of the oven, the historian had opened his presents, and we each ate a piece.

Again: delicious. Pears melt, almost, as they bake, especially if there is some butter in proximity. And why wouldn't there be butter? There should always be butter.

Planning for the shopping for the baking.

The shopping list I composed last night when I was too elated from having finished grading to sleep:

And this is the actual haul:

And here is the first step in the dance we'll call "The Christmas Baking Rhumba":

The baking/candymaking plan (this is the plan of an optimist/overachieving baker who is high on finishing her grading):

1. caramels.
2. brittle: pecan, almond, and pumpkin seed
3. date pinwheels
4. sugar cookies
5. probably those little treasure cookies with a cherry or a gumdrop inside, because I heart them
6. almond bread
7. butterscotch crescent rolls (the dough starts with cooked butterscotch pudding and gets richer from there)
8. fruitcake!
9. two new things: cardamom-and-cinnamon infused honey, and boiled cider syrup, which sound exotic and time-consuming and perfect.
10. probably some other European-style baked goods from a Martha Stewart Living magazine that is sitting around, waiting to be baked from.

Too much?   I am not now, nor have I ever been, a minimalist. And I will be baking, candy-making, honey-infusing, and cider-reducing my head off until Christmas, and possibly beyond.