Blackberry Peach Prumble

Holy shit, I baked again. I know, I’m truly as shocked and confused as you, knowing the infrequent and haphazard nature of this behavior.

I was hit by a rebellious streak today, frustrated that:

• fruit has become a corked grenade in my life, something that must be eaten with caution because my body has given up on regulating sugars as I would wish
• the days are observably shorter and the calendar has stubbornly abandoned its summer months
• i’m bone-weary and needing a nesting weekend

So, I baked.

deliciousness

And I ate.

And it was good… except that one bite of improperly mixed-in salt.

How has spontaneity revealed itself in your world lately?

smoothie in a coffee cup

The Entitled One, the Ego, the Victim, the Health Nut and the Sloth are currently in a bar fight of epic proportion over this whole diabetes diagnosis. Those on the side of silver linings are pointing out the deliciousness of veggie smoothies flavored with a pinch of fruit. Those weighted down by resentment and a five-year-old’s pouty fear of deprivation are focused on the seductive allure of loaves of bread and shit-loads of chocolate.

Guess which side is currently winning, notwithstanding the above photo of my banana-cucumber-peanut butter concoction?

cherry almond cobbler, with a few bites missing

Anyone who’s been around these parts for a while can attest that I’m not exactly a foodie, much less any sort of chef. I really like kitchen utensils and I love to eat but ovens intimidate me and I still have no idea why the Dutch are so frequently involved in their usage. That being said, I found myself compelled to bake something a few nights ago.

I went cherry picking last weekend, got a wee bit overzealous in my hunt for the perfect specimen and ended up with a gazillion fresh cherries in my house. This, I quickly discovered, became tantamount to torture because, since my diagnosis, I can no longer plop down on a couch and happily consume pounds of fruit in one sitting. I knew I had to do something, and fast.

By happenstance, I recently discovered a new blog Honey + Jam and, lo-and-behold, Hannah decided to post a recipe for Cherry Almond Crumble this week.

How’s that for karma or coincidence or… just dumb luck?

I GOT INSPIRED!

I also got kind of confused. If you take a look at Hannah’s recipe she mentions light brown sugar and dark brown sugar. I haven’t a clue what the difference is between the two so decided it couldn’t possibly matter that much. Also, the inclusion of almond extract in the ingredients list intimidated me a bit – what, exactly, is that and where the hell would one find it? Trader Joe’s does not carry it. So I concluded it couldn’t be that important. Also, I only had a partial stick of butter in the fridge. Maybe if I melted it really slowly and lovingly, I could stretch out its strength? I was even gonna skip the corn starch because, once again, the aisles of Trader Joe’s did not produce that particular item. Imagine my utter shock at discovering I actually had a tin of it on the top kitchen cabinet shelf – the one that requires I climb my drawers and balance precariously on my slippery tiled counter to reach. Yippee! I still don’t understand what corn starch is or what it does BUT I OWN IT.

So I gathered my hodge-podge ingredients and began to assemble my masterpiece at 11 p.m. on a Tuesday. Chaos ensued. And then, vindication.

THE DISH IS EDIBLE!

It’s actually entirely yummy.

A few concluding notes:

1. Cherry Almond Crumble probably tastes even better if you include all the listed ingredients.
2. A cherry pitter thingamajig might come in handy. I did all the pitting by hand and ended up looking like I’d massacred my cat.

What’s your latest kitchen feat or fiasco?

Make. What was the last thing you made? What materials did you use? Is there something you want to make, but you need to clear some time for it? (via Gretchen Rubin @gretchenrubin)

I’m actually not going to focus on the last thing I made; while sometimes considered a feat in my wee world, making my bed does not (I think) capture the essence of this prompt.

I’m not going to focus on my latest culinary adventure. My experiments in the kitchen have become more ambitious this year, but they haven’t taken me by surprise.

I’m not going to focus on my jewelry designs. I started NotedDesign on Etsy in the first quarter of 2010 and it has definitely been a rewarding and very eye-opening experience but it is still in its infancy.

I’m not going to focus on half-started sewing projects and photography portfolios and script proposals that sit in drawers. None of them have been made yet.

Instead, I’ll tell you about the painting that now hangs in my office.

A few months back, I decided to redecorate my office with my own art work rather than resorting to the stock of movie paraphernalia readily available at work. I easily selected a few of my favorite photos from Tibet to adorn two of the four walls. I snuck in some delicious hand-made cards from women in El Salvador to frame and hang on the third wall. But the forth wall, the wall at which I stare all day long, had me stumped. A mirror had hung on it previously, which I’d found to be the most heinous thing possible. Who on earth wants to stare at themselves ALL DAY LONG?

I wanted something that would be soothing, that would remind me to breathe, that would bring a smile to my face.

I dreamed of images that would invoke a sense of calm. I quickly concluded that I wanted to capture nature. I thought to find a photograph in which I could escape.

Water.

There are so many mass market images of beaches. I didn’t want that.

I’ve visited or lived on the edge of stunning beaches throughout the world – Brazil, Greece, Turkey, Hawaii, Italy, France, Indonesia… yet I couldn’t find the image I had in mind. It doesn’t help, of course, that most of my photos are still imprisoned on negative strips in unmarked boxes at the back of closet shelves.

Then, finally, I found something. Trolling the internet one day, I stumbled across a photo that created the peace I wanted to evoke. Unfortunately, it also cost FOUR THOUSAND DOLLARS in the size I needed for the wall.

I was defeated.

And then, I was hit by LIGHTENING.

I decided to paint a version of the scene myself.

I haven’t painted anything since highschool. The days of getting lost in the beauty of oils and winning awards to list on college applications is long behind me.

Suspiciously, however, I’ve had unopened tubes of acrylic paint in my craft drawer and prepped canvases stacked in my closet for ten years.

Isn’t it strange how one’s body and mind can work so efficiently on a subconscious level to provide the tools one’s heart truly yearns to grasp?

So, a few weekends ago, I painted a painting. I made a piece of art. With acrylic paint and cheap brushes and a 10-year-old canvas.

"diving in" - a little crooked on the beige wall

It now hangs IN PUBLIC. I stare at it five days a week.

And I SMILE.

The next thing I want to make is a book. I intend to begin an outline over the Christmas holiday. Hopefully I’ll be talking about that in 2011.

What have you made?

pile of pumpkins

It’s the first day of November and autumn is fully upon us. Halloween is over, though the trail of candy wrappers may linger. The pumpkins have been discarded. The sweaters have been pulled out. I invested in a new pair of boots. I even made a pumpkin pie. Sorta.

I try to avoid dairy as much as possible – that whole lactose aversion thing plus honest-to-goodness allergies. But pumpkin pie, for me, is integral to this season and the impending holidays. When I was in Trader Joe’s on Saturday, I walked by the pyramid of canned pumpkin pie filling and pumpkin pie spices.

I FELT INSPIRED.

I’ve never made a pie before in my life, but that did not stop me from tossing a can of the pumpkin filling into my basket. A jar of the pumpkin pie spices followed the same trajectory. Then, I realized I had no idea what came next. Luckily, the can had a recipe on it and the Trader Joe’s folks kindly made a sign that mentioned they sold pie crust. I went on a hunt for the crust while contemplating how to get around the necessary ingredients listed on the back of the can.

Ingredient #1: Heavy Cream… Heavy cream is dairy.

Ingredient #2: Milk… Milk is dairy.

DILEMMA.

Lo and behold, I had a EUREKA MOMENT!!

Heavy cream is kinda like cream cheese… Cream cheese is kinda like Tofutti imitation non-dairy cream cheese… What if I just mixed the pumpkin pie filling with some Tofutti. Wouldn’t that make a pie?

I purchased my four ingredients – canned pumpkin pie filling, pumpkin pie spices, frozen pie crust and Tofutti.

I arrived home WITH AN AGENDA.

I turned on the stove, set out my ingredients and… realized I DID NOT OWN A PIE COOKING PAN, or whatever they’re called – pie tin? pie plate? pie glass circular thingamajig?

My Martha Stewart baking moment came to a screeching HALT.

I spent an anxious Saturday night, waiting for Halloween day to arrive so I could… purchase a pie baking container!

I dashed out to Target first thing on Sunday morning, tried to avoid the hoards of zombie shoppers as much as possible and acquired my first glass pie  - OH MY GOD, DOES ANYONE KNOW IF THIS THING HAS A PROPER NAME?!? – thing.

And I made a pie. I was a little nervous about whether Tofutti can actually be heated or not, since I’m not exactly sure what it is, but my oven did not explode. It was very easy to stir the canned pumpkin filling and the container of Tofutti together. I may have put too much pumpkin pie spice in the bowl because the teaspoon would not fit into the jar so I had to dump the spice onto the spoon and – WHOOPS! I ignored the recipe’s call for eggs, since I didn’t know what eggs do in a recipe and maybe the Tofutti was already doing that. I also ignored the call for sugar because my sugar is on a very high shelf which would require pulling out the step ladder and that just seemed like unnecessary exertion.

I let the pie bake for 50 minutes. It looked very pretty. Then I let it cool. You’d never know it wasn’t exactly like the pumpkin pie your grandma made.

I even ate a slice.

It. Wasn’t. Bad.

More importantly, I’ve lived to tell the tale.

Let me repeat that so we can all pause in awe…

I cooked for the second time in two weeks.

There is no hyperbole to match my astonishment at this new behavior. I feel like Jane Goodall. Except, I’m also the chimp under observation. And chimps’ use of tools to obtain food probably requires more finesse than mine.

What happened, you ask? Here’s the tale, step by step…

1. I suddenly remembered that I had eggs in the frig. I’m happy with breakfast at any time of day so my flagging spirits were lifted at this recollection.
2. Then, my brain started connecting dots, as it is occasionally wont to do.
3. I had some sort of mystery, flavored rice in the same cupboard as the soup; I’d tackled my fear of cooking rice only a few short weeks ago and had a new-found confidence that those little long grains would not be the death of me after all.
4. Also, I had some freezer burn-defying chicken tenders that could be plunked into the toaster oven to broil.
5. I decided to combined everything into a piece de resistance.

I made chicken fried rice.

All in the pan

Without the fried part.

Or any other part that goes into making chicken fried rice except the rice, the chicken and the eggs.

Okay, fine. Basically, I just mixed up more than one ingredient in a pan. ON THE STOVE.

The result was even more ugly than my first cooking venture this month. And, to be honest, not nearly as yummy.

In fact, the eggs were kinda mushy. I kept forgetting they were in the rice mixture. Every time I bit into something squishy, I had a momentary gross-out until my brain picked up the dots and reminded me I’d put scrambled eggs into a pile of colorful rice.

Close-ups aren't flattering, are they?

I’m now thinking the FRIED part of chicken fried rice is kinda important.

But it was edible. And when you’re tired and hungry, that’s all that really matters, isn’t it?

the recipe book

I’ve kept this recipe book for 22 years, but I’ve never used it.

Until yesterday.

I have no idea why I was suddenly struck with the impulse to open it up and make my favorite Brazilian dessert.

Partly, I think it was because I have a book club meeting this afternoon and needed to bring a dish. I don’t normally make anything; I rely on Trader Joe’s to see me through the potluck experience while others in the group out-do themselves with culinary masterpieces. I’m getting a little irritated with my own status-quo, however. I no longer get any pleasure from the “non-cook” moniker. In fact, I secretly resent it now. Also, after not eating chocolate for three years, I’m letting it court me again. Then there’s the little issue of not having read the book we’re supposed to discuss today. Is it wrong to try to distract everyone from that tidbit of news with a coma-inducing sweet?

Or did I do it because I’m feeling nostalgic about my care-free, travel-heavy, debt-free youth?

I have been making an attempt to act on my impulsive, fleeting thoughts. Perhaps that is why I opened up the book – the idea entered my head. Could it really be as simple as that?

Regardless, I DID pull out the receitas and found the recipe I wanted:

YUM!

BRIGADEIRO. Little balls of sin.

(does ANYONE still not get the correlation between chocolate and sex?)

The recipe is written in Portuguese because that was the only language I was speaking by the end of my stay in Brazil. My handwriting reflects the exaggerated bubble print many teen girls adopted in the ’80s. The cooking instructions fail to mention the temperature at which everything should be cooked or the best way to create the finished product. The quantity of each ingredient is vague because my Brazilian mom didn’t measure anything.

Of course, you already know this is going to be a disaster, right?

the recipe

This is my translation of the recipe:

BRIGADEIRO

Ingredients: 3 soup spoons of chocolate powder, 2 soup spoons of butter, 1 can condensed milk.

Instructions: Put everything in a pan and mix it with a wooden spoon until you can see the bottom of the pan. Let cool. Roll it and pass it in granulated chocolate.

Um… Okay…

I have a pan. I have a wooden spoon. I have all the ingredients.

Except I think I put only two spoonfuls of chocolate powder in the pan instead of three, but I made them heaping because I wasn’t sure whether they were supposed to be measured or not and I’m not sure my soup spoons are the same size as the ones we used in that Brazilian kitchen 22 years ago.

I mix constantly but I can see the bottom of the pan from the very beginning so I have no idea when I’m supposed to stop stirring. I put it on medium heat because, well, it’s medium. I know I’m going to have to roll the stuff into little balls after it cools and I know what the finished product is supposed to look like but the chocolate liquid starts to boil and OH MY GOD CAN CHOCOLATE BURN?

I make a completely uneducated guess as to when to stop. I take the pot off the stove, even though the recipe doesn’t say that, because I’m thinking there’s a better chance it will cool that way and the recipe says to let it cool.

I wait half an hour.

I stick a spoon in the mixture to retrieve enough to roll into a ball and WOW IT’S STICKY. I realize the bottom of the pan is still hot. I stick it in the refrigerator. It then occurs to me that condensation might form which would make it MORE liquidy rather than less so. I pull it back out of the frig and stick it back on the counter.

I wait another hour.

I try to make a ball again from the mixture. I ignore the fact the it is the same consistency that it was an hour previously. I refuse to be defeated by the fact that the stuff seems to prefer to remain on my fingers than form a ball. I begin dumping blobs of it into a bowl of chocolate sprinkles.

Blobs are similar to balls, right? (do not even THINK about making a correlation between that question and how long it’s been since I’ve had sex!)

I use up FOUR BOTTLES of chocolate sprinkles in a vain attempt to give the substance some structure.

I end up with monstrosities.

shabby brigadeiro

And I suddenly remember the hostess of this month’s book club only eats a macrobiotic diet.

I eat one of my brigadeiros in despair.

Revelation! Ugly is GOOD.

Excuse me as I slip blissfully into sugar shock…

By Sally Mann

Cupcakes make me want to go find a hula hoop, put my hair in pigtails, and not worry about calorie counts or bank accounts. They make me want to try cooking again. They make me think everyone should really do the Zoom arm trick more often.

Yes, I’ve anthropomorphized cupcakes. But I am not the only one!

I recently, with the help of KCRW’s Good Food, stumbled across artist and writer Jessie Oleson. She makes her living by channeling the power of cupcakes.

By Jessie Oleson

I had no idea that she was just the tip of the iceberg. There are a crazy number of websites dedicated solely to the idolatry of cupcakes. Cupcakes serve as muses for painters, sculptors, designers… the list goes on. I couldn’t resist spotlighting a few creations I find most pleasurable.

Cupcake Belt Buckle: Just in case you didn’t already have enough cupcake keeping your jeans tight around your waist.

Available at everafterstore.com

Cupcake End Table: Perfect for your first mod apartment, or a very cool dentist’s office.

By Jellio

Cupcake Cat Toy: Okay, it’s not actually a cat toy, but you better believe that if I brought a knit cupcake into my house, it would become one.

By Brenda aka Loomlady

Cupcake Couture: Bet you thought this one was about you, but no. Even cupcakes deserve their finery. Just imagine, however, what kind of spluge effect I might accidentally create if using these wrappers. Sorta makes me want to find out.

By Cupcakesavvy.com.au

Cupcake with Mice: For no other reason than I think this art work is rad and I hope the children’s story it illustrates gets published.

By Paola Jofre

Clearly, people invest a lot of time, energy and emotion in their relationship with cupcakes. I am not quite ready for this kind of commitment. I may crack, and go purchase a muffin tin in which to bake another batch, but that is it.

In other words, you will not see my feet looking like this:

Art by Amanda Cancilla. Foot by Cupcake Butt / Flickr

At least, not anytime soon. Nice pedicure, though.

My Cupcake

Clearly I will never get a job at Sprinkles. I used Betty Crocker’s lemon cake mix, Betty Crocker’s pre-made vanilla icing and Betty Crocker nonpariels. I followed the directions. I even remembered to turn off the mixer before pulling it from the bowl.

But Betty forgot to emphasize that batter behaves like The Blob as it cooks. She failed to mention that paper cupcake holders do not retain their form if placed on a cookie sheet instead of in a muffin tin. She neglected to insist that people like me only be allowed in the kitchen with supervision.

My cupcakes baked into pancakes.

Cupcake in Profile

What does one do with 24 very tasty, but deformed, lemon cupcakes covered in thick icing and generously decorated with nonpariels – particularly since, once I’d done my sprinkle-shaking, my enthusiasm for the entire venture morphed into mild shame at the visual outcome?

I couldn’t let these poor step-children suffer the ridicule of my co-workers, knowing their complete lack of aesthetic appeal. I couldn’t keep them in the house, knowing they might all disappear within the generous space of three meals. I couldn’t relegate them to the dumpster, knowing I’d only be enabling the local raccoons’ sugar addictions. So, instead, I hid them under tin foil and gave them to my next door neighbors of 2 years, whose names I do not know.

Lo and behold, my neighbors loved my dear, misshapen cupcakes. Now, they think I’m the best neighbor, ever. They’ve even made a point of seeking me out with offers to eat more of my cupcakes whenever I choose to make them again.

This whole experience has taught me a few things. First, 24 cupcakes translates into a LOT of cupcakes. Also, there’s some truth to that old adage about finding pleasure in the simple things, and joy in the kitchen. Lastly, people are surprisingly jovial after you unexpectedly feed them dessert.

Now, if only I could remember my neighbors’ names…