How to make vegetable soup and interpret Greek Tragedy, at the same time.

Hallo, all one or two of you who still occasionally stray onto this site, hoping against all hope that I may have updated something, anything, and will leave a shout to you. Yes, it's October. Yes, I'm a terrible correspondent. And yes, I have been nagged into this. As with the last time I posted, it is certainly not for want of goings-on that I have been silent; though the reason this time is quite different: my excuses this time are a journal to write in and all too much time typing emails on the computer. These days, Ian is out of town, off banding birds on a spit of bog in Lake Erie, and most of the time we have only emails as a source of communication. It is rough, I know - I live a hard life.

Otherwise, I am mostly just relieved that school has started up again. Finally, I'm busy enough to feel I deserve my down time, and now that I have things to procrastinate, I get so much done. I've been reading The Mists of Avalon, by Marion Bradley, and it is a delightful book, all 1,008 pages of it, and it's sending me back to my roots: all the love of paganism that I dropped, and all the medieval fantasies that I moved away from, have come roaring back, and I am so much happier occupying this space in my mind. The more of my mind that is taken up by thinking about the Medieval era, the greater my joy appears to be. Maybe I should write a PhD about that. Hmm... Well, no matter what, I've been cheerfully reading Middle English texts, and memorizing Old English poetry (which is amazingly beautiful, I will not lie, and I just want to put it to music, if it will lend itself to such a task - its meter is stress based rather than syllable based). Other amazing poetry of the moment: Greek tragedy. Take this brief passage from Euripides' Heracles, from the chorus (lines 108-113, translated by William Arrowsmith):

Leaning on our staffs we come

to the vaulted halls and the old man's bed,

our song the dirge of the dying swan

ourselves mere words, ghosts that walk

in the visions of the night,

trembling with age,

trembling to help.

My dear sweet gods, that is lovely. And we got to read the Oresteia, and all three preserved Electras (one of which was the Libation Bearers by Aeschylus, and then the other two are by Euripides and Sophocles - I love these authors, so very much), and then you get to compare then and it's all just beautiful, how different the characters seem when you set them together with their other selves, Orestes the hesitant with Orestes the child with Orestes the matricidal machine. And there are all these beautiful story-arching themes, like the ideas of sleep, death, and waking in the Oresteia, or the animal imagery used to describe all the characters from Agamemnon to his wife Clytaemnestra to their children to his usurper, her lover Aegisthus. And then (oh, and then!) there's Oedipus Rex, which has one of the most heartbreaking endings I have ever read - a father, blinded, polluted beyond measure, holding out his hands to his children, who are also his sisters, and bidding them come and touch him, for he shares their pollution and the cannot see them otherwise. And then Creon obeying the final commands of his king as he forces the selfsame man, having traded his sight for his knowledge, to let go these hands and be exiled. Oedipus' last words in the play are, "Don't take my children from me!" He goes from being a proud and powerful king with everything to a defiled and polluted exile in the course of a very short play, and his character changes so dramatically - starting out calm and kingly, middling frantic and unwilling to acknowledge truth, and finishing humbled, knowing his fate, and yet wishing against all evidence that he could just hang on to what's left of those he loves. But he cannot. Ohh, it is so powerful.

In other news, beyond my little literary bubble, I've more or less stopped making interesting food now that I'm busy all the time (I have school, a tiny amount of work - not even 30 hours a month - a club to help run, a choir to sing in twice a week, and naturally a whole bunch of work to avoid, so I get to do things to procrastinate as well), but fortunately I've stopped wanting to eat interesting food, too. So my main dinner dishes are stews of some sort or scrambled eggs with onion and spinach. BUT! I've been baking my own bread, and it's tasty, and the food I eat tends to be good and cheap. So I'm actually happier, eating these things. Some recipes follow, with explanations and stuff!

Fifteen minute biscuits

Enough whole wheat flour

Fluffy amounts of baking powder

Bit of salt, to your liking

1. Stir these delightful things together, in reasonable-seeming proportions.

Hunk of cool room temperature butter (not necessarily too much - less than you think you'll need)

2. Knead this into the dry mix with your fingers, until it is completely incorporated. It should look like rice in sand. (Appetizing, I know.)

Cold water to make it stick, and absolutely not a drop more.

3. Add the water slowly, stirring as you do - make sure you don't oversaturate. Undersaturate, if anything. Seriously, I promise.

4. Quick as you can, make biscuit-sized balls out of the dough and stick it in an appropriately sized oven for ten minutes (actual oven: heat to 400 degrees F, toaster oven...sent to toast? I don't know what our toaster oven's doing, but it works, whatever it is).

5. Eat hot! That which you do not eat, store as soon as you can, to kep the moisture in. Super fluffy and delicious.

Kate's Bread!

About 2 cups shower-temperature water

1-3 teaspoons active dry yeast (instant works too)

1. Pour water into a large mixing bowl. Sprinkle yeast on top and allow to sit for a few minutes (no more than five).

1/3 to 1/2 cup canola oil

At least 1/3 cup brown sugar, more if you want a sweeter loaf

Salt!!! (no more than 1 teaspoon)

2. Add these things to the mixture, sugar first (stir a bit and let the yeast get going) and then oil.

5-7 cups whole wheat flour

3. Start with five. Stir it all together, and if it's a little rough or sticky, that's probably okay. You don't want it to be dry and stiff. The wetter (and not soupy) the better.

4. Dump the mixture out onto a floured counter, flour your hands, and knead. Adding flour as necessary (or if you don't want more flour but need to unstick your hands, get your hands wet), knead for ten minutes. This is important - during this time you're helping the flour's proteins develop so that your loaf can stay together, and also you're giving your bread a grain.

5. When you're done kneading, place ball of bread in a greased bowl and allow to rise for one hour (or until the ball has doubled in size).

6. After that hour, degas the ball, cut it in half, and shape it into loaves. I don't use pans, you're welcome to. These loaves are actually a little small for a conventional sized bread pan. Make sure that whatever surface you finally rest the shaped pre-loaves on is greased (either with more canola oil or, if you're not feeding vegan people like I am, butter).

7. Allow to rise for at least thirty minutes, or until they are about the size you want them to be.

8. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.

9. When it's preheated, pop them in, and allow them to bake for 35-40 minutes.

10. When they come out, all smelling delicious and stuff, don't forget to let them rest for a few minutes (probably about ten) under a cloth, and then remove them from the pan and bag them. It is important to preserve some moisture in these loaves, as it's easy to make these pretty dry. One thing you can do to wetten them up a bit is to substitute some milk for the water initially. But, I'm lactose intolerant and can't exactly afford soy milk, so. My bread is milk-free.

This bread makes EXCELLENT toast, and tastes nutty and sweet on its own. Bad for sandwiches - I would suggest milked bread for that kind of thing. Milk adds proteins and makes bread more elastic.

Cheese Rind Soup (better than it sounds, I promise) - serves four, or so

1 medium large onion

1. Chop the onion into the right size of pieces. Put in a pot on medium heat with enough canola oil. Saute.

3 decent-sized carrots

1 medium large potato

2 (ish) cloves garlic

1-2 teaspoons Herbes du Provence

2. While the onions sizzle, chop the potato and carrots into appropriately sized eating chunks. Then make garlic into your favorite spicing size (I cut mine up really fine) and add to the now clear onions. Allow to cook for about 30 seconds, stirring as you do, to make sure they don't burn. Then add the rest of your veggies and the herbes to provence.

2 liters of water (give or take - I might take a bit, actually), boiled

1-2 square inches'-worth of Romano or Parmesan cheese rind

3. Saute the veggies for a while, stirring. When the potatoes are more or less fully cooked, add the water to the mixture, so that it covers it and then adds about half the depth of the vegetables in water on top of that. Plop in the cheese rind after that.

1 head broccoli

1 14 oz can kidney (or other) beans (drained and washed; or, like I did, some random and large quantity of dried kidney beans which had been adequately soaked and boiled - to do this, soak for at least six hours, and boil for about an hour and a half)

4. While your soup is getting more and more fragrant and boiling away, cut up the broccoli into bits of a size you'd like to find in your spoon. I included some of the stem, but you don't have to if you don't want to (it's good!). Add to the boiling water. Add the kidney beans when you do.

Some frozen peas (optional)

Chard or other dark green thing (also optional), chopped as you want.

5. Boil until you're happy with the consistency of the potatoes. Mash them a bit, if you want. Then add your peas and chard and allow the peas to thaw and the chard to wither.

6. Serve this dish hot with some lovely bread. Add salt and pepper to taste, and as the soup is actually fairly light, you can add a small blob of butter to each bowl, just to deepen the flavor.

Alright, my lovelies, it's 12:32 AM here, and I'd like to read more of Mists of Avalon before I pass out. Happy cooking, and for gods' sakes, read some Greek tragedy!

Love,

Kate

Summertime

Please forgive my prolonged absence - it's not that I haven't had a million things to mention, but rather because I have. After school, Ian and I visited his grandmother in Victoria, which is a city so beautiful that I wish I could go back and never again set foot in Vancouver. Everything feels exceedingly British, and the whole city is surrounded by a coastline of beaches and black slate rock. We were there at the height of camas lily season, and so the meadows were carpeted in a vibrant blue-purple, which contrasted sharply, but perfectly, with the green of the leaves, the black of the rocks, and the orange-yellow-green of the lichen. Each day found us at a garden, a beach, a relative's, and by the end of it I was pumped so full of tea and Jeeves and Wooster that upon returning to Vancouver, I went through a mild withdrawal, sprinkled with 1930's era slang.

Shortly thereafter, I went to Boston to see my mother graduate, and spent some quality time with a city I knew for only two months, but will love my whole life. I also managed to pick up a brand-new copy of Julia Child's cookbook the same way Julie Powell did it - by commandeering it from my mother, who never used it. On the way home, I devoured the latest Penderwicks novel (by the illustrious Jeanne Birdsall) and still had flight time left to read, and so I started in on Mastering the Art of French Cooking. By the end of my connecting flight, I was about halfway through the quiches.

Between then and now, I haven't done much. I'm looking for work. I'm trying to keep busy. But I'm not very good at self-motivating when I'm feeling low, and I've spent a lot of time feeling low. Things have begun looking up, however: I'm hunting for work quite avidly, I'm about ready to start volunteering in the Linguistics lab at UBC, and next week I'm heading back to Fort Collins to visit all the dear people I have been missing these long months. There's nothing quite like coming back to the place you grew up, and there's also nothing quite like realizing you miss that place with the same kind of deep, entrenched longing that you once applied to wishing to be free of it. I spent ages feeling like I didn't quite fit there, wishing for a place I did fit into, wishing I could run way from myself, but I know now that you can't run away from who you are. The best you can do is run towards a way of discovering who you can be. I ran to Boulder, I ran to Boston, I ran to Vancouver, and still I feel like I have yet to find the place my heart is seeking, while at the same time all my heart really wants is to go back to Fort Collins and bask in the warmth of old friends and a never-changing town.

*sits in sad silence for a second*

Anyway. On a brighter note, I have two recipes for you: homemade from scratch quiche and pizza. Please note: all measurements are quite approximate. I don't measure things, and I know that I should just so I can write it down for you, but I'm lazy. Included are descriptions of what everything should look like.

Mushroom Quiche with Herbes du Provence

Crust:

3/4 c. pastry flour
1/2 t salt
5 T butter, more if you need it
Several T's ice-cold water

1. Stir together flour and salt
2. Cream 5 T cold butter into this mixture (or maybe a bit more) until it forms small (1/4 inch or less) balls of buttery, floury goodness.
3. Add by T's ice-cold water until the dough just holds together. Mush into a ball.
4. Place the ball on a floured linen towel (you don't want to use terrycloth, as the dough will stick to it and give you a hell of a time) and flatten with the palm of your hand until it forms a round disk about a half of an inch thick. Then using a rolling pin, flatten it further until it will amply cover the bottom and sides of a pie pan. It should look like the dough might flop off the sides. Then, place your rolling pin at the edge of the dough, and using the towel to help, roll the dough onto the rolling pin. When it's draped over the pin, place your thumb on it to prevent it from rolling away, and then remove the towel. Transfer the dough to a pie pan and gently work it so that it is molded to the shape of the pan. Turn up the edges and crimp. Put in freezer.
5. Heat oven to 400 degrees F.
6. When the oven is preheated, bake the crust for about 10 minutes, or until it is fully cooked but not burnt.
7. Lower the temperature to 375 degrees F.

Filling: (to be started and made while the crust is in the freezer and then in the oven)

1/2 an onion, or some shallots, finely minced
8 white mushrooms, or so, cut into quarters or eighths
1-2 T Cooking oil
1-2 T butter
1 t Herbes du Provence
Salt and pepper to taste
4 large eggs
50 g (4 T? Ish?) feta cheese

1. Saute onion on medium heat in cooking oil with spices until clear.
2. Add mushrooms and butter, making sure the butter melts completely and stirring so that the mushrooms get evenly coated in oil.
3. Cook until all is tender and juicy. Set aside.
4. In a bowl, beat eggs until they cry for their mothers. Add cheese and mix.
5. When the crust is ready, pour in the egg stuff, and then add the mushroom business on top.
6. Bake for half an hour or so, until the eggs are completely set and the crust is brown. Serve.


Okay. Pizza time!

Crust:

1 c. high-gluten flour
1/2 t salt
1/2 t instant yeast
2-3 T olive oil
1/4 c. water

1. Combine everything in that order, and stir together well.
2. Prehead oven to 100 degrees F.
3. On a well-floured countertop, knead for 5-10 minutes (do not skimp on this! Trust me!) until the dough is springy and your hands feel soft from all the olive oil and you are in love with the idea of silk.
4. Replace ball of dough in bowl, and then cover and put into oven, whether or not oven has achieved temperature.
5. Allow dough to rise 15-20 minutes.

Meanwhile....

Topping:

1 1/2 tomatoes ripe, lovely tomatoes, diced
1/4 onion, minced
Cooking oil as needed
Oregano, basil, and rosemary
1/4 c. Feta cheese brine, if you have it, or a pinch of salt, if you don't.

1. Saute onions over medium heat.
2. When the onions are clear and maybe a little browned, add tomatoes. Reduce heat to low, add spices and brine, and cover. Allow to simmer for a really long time (until I tell you to stop).

While that's cooking...

Return of the Crust!

6. Remove from oven and knead a little (maybe 30 seconds or less), just to wake it up again and get it going.
7. Allow to rest for 5 minutes. While you're doing this, check the topping on the stove. If the tomato skins are crinkly and the tomatoes are yielding and juicy, leave it uncovered. If not, give it a little more time, but keep checking it, and once it gets to that point, leave it uncovered.
8. When it's rested, it should be more malleable and pliant. Now you get to start stretching it! Let gravity do most of the work; hold an edge in a loose grasp with one hand, the other underneath for comfort, and rotate, allowing its weight to pull it into a larger circle. When it's about 6 inches wide, toss it spinning straight up into the air, and then catch it on two fists, held right next to each other. Launch and repeat. Do this until you're happy with the diameter and thickness of your crust. Set on an ungreased baking sheet and let it rest while you preheat the oven to 400 degrees F and deal with...

Son of Topping!

3. Check it out: is it more or less water? Boil it longer. Is it a pulp with a consistency a little closer to refried beans? You're pretty much good.
4. Apply liberally to your crust, but not on the edges. At this time, you can add cheese and anything else you want; if you used feta brine, feta works, and if you didn't, mozzarella sounds enviable. You can also add cheese after it's baked; that's what I did, and it was good. So no panic.
5. Bake for, I dunno, 10, 15 minutes, somewhere in there, until your crust is golden brown and you can't think of anything besides eating it. The crust is really, really lovely, so I hope you have enough of it and enjoy it.

Alright! Oh, and one last thing: a French bread recipe I've been using with great results. It's pretty simple, though it does require a night to rise and about 3 or 4 hours of attention the next day.

The night before you bake:

1 c. flour (I use high gluten, but all purpose would probably be just fine)
1/2 t salt
1/2 t instant yeast
2/3 c. lukewarm water (yes, that's a lot of water - the reason my bread has this much water in it is because I have a tiny mouth, and the flatter loaf is better for sandwiches. I think you can use a bit less water, but this is what I do).

1. Combine dry ingredients thoroughly in an airtight container (I use an old 750 mL yogurt tub)
2. Add water all at once, and stir vigorously to incorporate. You should be left with a worrisomely wet dough. Put on the lid, leave it in a warm corner, and go to bed.

In the morning, when you remember (it's nice for the dough to have at least 8 hours for the first rise, but more won't hurt it):

3. Dump dough onto liberally floured surface. It's a pain, but knead it a bit, folding it over and over again so that it takes up a bit of flour and you can work with it.
4. When it achieves that perfect silky consistency, form it into a baguette shape by performing the first step of kneading (pressing the dough down and forward), but instead of continuing, fold it in half lengthwise by and pinch that seam shut. Do this again twice and then roll it into a log to make the crack disappear. I usually cut this length in two, just so it keeps a bit longer.
5. Grease a baking sheet with canola oil and roll the dough in this. Allow it to rise for an hour or more.
6. When you remember, preheat the oven to 425 degrees F. Bake loaves for 20 minutes. Allow to cool slightly before you eat. These make excellent sandwiches.

Okay, my computer's battery is about to die. Good health to you and toodleoo!

Kate

Me misera. Seriously.

How do I begin? The blunt news is that I got a C- in Latin. Naturally, I am extremely depressed by this, and kind of want to go die in a hole. Perhaps worse than this is the fact that I got only a C+ in Phonetics, which is a major part of what I want to do my graduate work in, and what they do in the lab that I'll be volunteering in this summer. Like, I'll be directed by my ex-professor kind of lab work.

Then again, this is the same professor I play Dungeons and Dragons with, so. Maybe it'll work out. I'm not looking forward to seeing them again, though, with them knowing the grade and attaching it to my face. Maybe they'll deem me unfit to work with them. That would probably break my heart.

However, to mend it, Ian is coming home today! I'm going to meet him at the airport this evening, and then I'll be happy. Lately, however, I've been somewhere between miserable and depressed - my life lacks direction, I'm not doing anything with my time, I'm a good-for-nothing, that kind of lament. Maybe I should get a job. Ugh. I kind of can't wait for classes to start again - they give me something to think about, and something to avoid when I want to procrastinate. I think I'm more stressed without structure than with it. Sad, but true. Since the end of school, and the move, and all that, I've been staying abed until noon every day, and then getting up. I hate it. But I can't find any reason to get up in the morning. All I'm going to do is go read a book and maybe play the piano if I'm the only one home. Every now and again I go out and do something worthwhile, but that hasn't happened in long enough that I feel ridiculously behind.

Not to mention that today it's pouring rain, and I should clear a space in the yard for a garden, but I don't really want to go outside. And I feel ugly, and have no presentable clothes, and gah. I just feel like a spoiled doily. I'm quite sick of it.

And last week, my darling cat Fred died. He had lymphoma, and everything was wrong, and so he went away. I miss him. I want to fly home to Boston to hug my mom.

Okay. Brighter notes. We moved! It's exciting! Our new house is cute and awesome and drafty. Our new neighborhood is perfect - if there's anywhere in Vancouver that I'd actually consider settling down in and staying, it would be this area. It's full of beautiful old houses and big trees and people put up swings everywhere and we're right near some grocery stores and parks... I'm quite pleased with it. Granted, I have the smallest most closet-like room in the house, but since I've been here (all of a week and a half) I've been ameliorating that. It's a lot nicer now. And I've come to like how small and cozy it is. We adjust.

I think that's it, really. I'll try to keep you posted. Until then, here's a recipe for vegan cake, because that's what I had for breakfast.

Vegan Cake (adapted from "the best cake recipe ever that just happens to be vegan")

Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.

Mix:
1 1/4 c. flour (I used cake flour, you can use all-purpose, though)
1 c. sugar
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 t salt
1/3 c. unsweetened cocoa powder

Add:
3/4 c. hot, strong coffee
1/4 c. almond or soy milk
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp apple cider or white vinegar
1/4 c. vegetable oil

Stir until batter looks like edible satin and has no lumps (note: cake flour will leave funny lumps unless you watch out for this!). Pour into 8 by 8 baking pan (which you can grease or not, depending on how you plan to eat the cake - I didn't, because we were just going to serve it out of the pan). Bake for about 20 or 25 minutes, and then test it - if the toothpick or chopstick comes out clean, you're done.

If you want a good icing for this, don't ask me. I'm not good at icing. I would actually recommend some homemade whipped cream, which is 1 pint of cream, 1 Tsp sugar, and then sprinkles of ground cinnamon, cloves, and nutmeg. Whip these together in your mixer until you deem it fit to eat. It takes the vegan-ness out of the cake, but it's good. Really, really good.

And on that note, I think it's time for cake and tea.

Love,
Kate

Vale, care me

Ian has been gone now for six hours. Out of a possible 12 days. And I miss him already. My roommate is listening to bad music, loudly, and I'm avoiding my syntax. I wish she would just leave so that I could play the piano in peace. Secretly I need to make bread, but I can't bring myself to get up and walk into the kitchen, where she would see that I'm wearing my iPod to escape her noise and would invariably try to make light conversation, which I don't really want to do right now. I just want to stir some ingredients together and then forget about them until the morning. And then read short stories by Gabriel Garcia Marquez until I fall asleep. And not touch my syntax. I can't bring myself to go near that crap. Even though the final is tomorrow. It's just so distant and unreal and I don't want to deal with it.

On a brighter note, I have 48 credits from transfers, and 27 from this year, so that means I only need 3 more terms to graduate. So I could conceivably do a term this summer, then graduate next spring. I can't decide if this is a good idea or if it's extremely flawed and stupid. More thought to come.

I wish I could post something for you about food, but I haven't been cooking anything more interesting than macaroni and cheese. Note to anyone reading this: do not pair soy products with dairy products. There's no reason to. If you want creamy macaroni and cheese, use real milk. I promise. Other than that, I've been eating baby carrots and sliced celery with peanut butter and raisins. It feels better than eating bread or cookies while studying. I'm being good.

Okay, I think the kitchen is empty. Dishes, then bread. Maybe.

Kate

Cake and Cats

Yesterday was Ian's birthday, and though it remains to be seen whether or not it was perfect, as I went home around 10 or so and two hours can make a world of difference with this kind of thing. It started off well, though - I was at a Dungeons and Dragons campaign with the linguistics people (which was super amusing - I fit with those people, despite being dramatically younger than most of them. This is the joy of being practically 20; you're enough of an adult that people still treat you as one, but you're still young enough that you can get away with being kinda silly and play baby dragons) and didn't get back until 2, and then at 7:30 I got up, groggy, and spent three hours listening to Jeremiah and Ian go on about white crown sparrows and ruby crowned kinglets and warblers and this variety and that, and the sun took its sweet time heating up the air, and so everyone was a little more than chilly. By eleven, we were hungry and exhausted and strange-feeling, but we staggered over to Jeremiah's for a party, where there was delicious food, and where we were given a large cabinet that will be perfect in the kitchen, for free, thank you very much. By the time we got home, everyone was happy, and it was only 2 in the afternoon.

Naturally, I made Ian a cake. Chocolate. What other kind is there? I used a recipe from David Lebovitz, who is a pastry chef living in Paris and a genius. Certified, I'm sure. This was easily one of most delicious cakes ever, and it was also very, very easy. So easy that I'm thinking of making another half batch sometime, just cause. Unfortunately, the icing was all my doing - and I've never made icing before - and so it was kinda odd. Like, I made it too runny at first, and it blooped everywhere, and I had to scrape it off and add more powdered sugar. But it still turned out well, and got very good reviews from everyone who ate it. Sadly, I have no pictures, though I wish I did. I garnished it with some fresh mint leaves, and the vanilla icing wound up flecked with cake, because I'm talented like that.

And true to my gift-giving abilities, I literally bought Ian's present less than an hour before handing it to him. But that was okay, because it consisted of two amazing books: To Say Nothing of the Dog, by Connie Willis, and Thief of Time, by Terry Pratchett. If you haven't, you must read these books. If you have, you know why I say this. He and his family and I went for Japanese, which I'd never had before. Something about the taste of wasabi and soy sauce stuck with me most of the evening, and reminded me of the sharp tinniness of blood. That said, it was quite good.

Sometime this evening, after his final, I'll check back in with him and maybe eat some cake. For now, though, I'm trying to get through some studying, but I'm constantly distracted, first by the fine weather, then by food blogs, and then by the news that my cat Fred, who has been having some digestive problems for the past three weeks, has lymphoma and is going to die, probably before I get to see him. Somehow, knowing that, the function of the anterior belly of the digastric is significantly less meaningful to me.

Anyway, I've posted the recipe, yoinked from David Lebovitz, below. Make it and feel better about the world.

Kate

Devil's Food Cake

For the cake:
9 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
1½ cups cake flour (not self-rising)
½ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
¼ teaspoon baking powder
4 ounces (1 stick) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1½ cups granulated sugar
2 large eggs, at room temperature
½ cup strong coffee (or water)
½ cup whole or low-fat milk

For the ganache frosting:
10 ounces bittersweet or semisweet chocolate, coarsely chopped
½ cup water (or cream)
¾ cup (1½ sticks) unsalted butter

1. Adjust the oven rack to the center of the oven and preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

2. Butter two 9″ x 2″ cake pans and line the bottoms with circles of parchment paper.

3. To make the cake layers, sift together the cocoa powder, cake flour, salt, baking soda, and baking powder in a bowl.

4. In the bowl of a standing electric mixer, or by hand, beat together the butter and sugar about 5 minutes until smooth and creamy. Add the eggs one at a time until fully incorporated. (If using a standing electric mixer, stop the mixer as necessary to scrape down the sides to be sure everything is getting mixed in.)

5. Mix together the coffee and milk. Stir half of the dry ingredients into the butter mixture, the add the coffee and milk. Finally stir in the other half of the dry ingredients.

6. Divide the batter into the two prepared cake pans and bake for 25 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Cool completely before frosting.

7. To make the frosting, melt the chopped chocolate with the water (or cream) in a heatproof bowl set over a pan of barely simmering water, stirring occasionally until melted. Remove the bowl from the pan of water.

8. Cut the butter into small pieces and whisk them into the chocolate until completely melted and the ganache is smooth. Cool until spreadable, which may take about 1 hour at room temperature.

To frost the cake:

Run a knife around the inside of each of the cakes which will help release them from the pans. Tilt one cake out of the pan, remove the parchment paper from the bottom and invert it back onto a cake plate. Spread a good-sized layer of icing over the top. Top with the second cake layer and spread the top and sides with the remaining icing as decoratively as you want.

Storage: Cake is best the day it is made, although it’s fine the next day. Store at room temperature under a cake dome. Just be sure to keep cake out of the sun in the meantime.

The Thwarted Loaf

Isn't that a beautiful loaf of bread? It's curvy, and the braiding was just so, and it rose well and browned evenly, and just looks so good. But, like the vibrant trumpets of morning glory, or the innocuous daffodil-like narcissus, a couple bites could probably maim a horse. I know I'm scarred for life. This is easily the most disgusting loaf of bread I have made yet.

Okay, people. I need a bread recipe that DOESN'T fuck up at the slightest touch of my fingers. I need something that does NOT use whole wheat flour (because you can't buy decent whole wheat flour around here; it's just impossible) and doesn't taste like paste, and doesn't come out always being a little less than what I know bread can be. I miss my mom's bread, so nutty and rich and pretty and crumbly. I miss the soft, earthy smell of whole wheat flour back home, where some genius actually knows how to grind whole wheat flour until there aren't any bits left in it, and it's just as fine and beautiful as white flour. It gives it this dark color, and a very full taste. Why, for the love of the gods, WHY can't they do that here?! Gods. Maybe the thing that makes me grumpiest is that I haven't had a really decent piece of homemade toast since Christmas, which is just flat too long to go without that, especially when one routinely makes bread. It's enough to make me want to explode or something. -sigh-

On the bright side, that bike Chelsea and I fixed up last night works like a charm. Riding a bike is about as close to flying as you can get without anyone really questioning what you're doing, though someday I'd like to make them wonder. I didn't go far, just around my neighborhood, but I couldn't stop smiling, and I can already feel my legs being less wibbly and pathetic. I've finally gotten moving again, and it feels incredible.

However, the next weekend and week are going to be just as busy as last weekend, if not more so. Tonight, Ian and I will finally (after three weeks of postponement) be dining with his lovely aunt and her two kids (who are 13 and 19). Tomorrow morning, I may be going to the banding station with Ian, which entails getting up at 5 in the morning and hauling our sorry asses out to a farm about two hours' drive off, and then getting back seven or eight hours later after much bird-related excitement. Then I'm baking a cake (with luck, I'll have a chance) and going to a Dungeons and Dragons session with some of the nerds in the Linguistics department, including my phonetics professor and TA. Sunday is Ian's birthday, and I still haven't found or made him anything and I feel guilty, so I must squeeze that in sometime in the next day or so. Monday and Tuesday will be eaten up for studying for my Wednesday and Thursday exams, and then Thursday afternoon, I paint, and Thursday evening, I pack. Friday we move. And somewhere in there, we have to clean up the new house and pack up a kitchen and and try not to die. Oh my dear sweet gods. So I don't think I'll get to breathe for another week. And then Ian will be gone from the 20th until the 2nd of May, and so naturally I'm going to miss him more than Lincoln misses his top hats.

Oh, and did I mention that my cat is trying to die? My cat is trying to die. He hasn't eaten more than could be shoved down his throat in a few weeks, and just...is giving up. So naturally I'm pretty damned upset about that, and I'm thinking of spontaneously flying back to Boston to see my mum and my cat. I miss them. A lot. So I may be doing that after my finals.

And that's my life. If I collapse and/or implode sometime in the next couple weeks, you'll know why.

Kate

Plans! part III

Phase 2...3? of the Grand Plans has been initiated! This evening, my roommate who volunteers at the Bike Co-op and I went to work fixing up my New Zealand roommate's bike, and managed to find her helmet, which was resting peacefully right under our noses.

Nothing much was really wrong with her bike, except that the bike chain is stretched a bit and of all the gears that technically exist on the bike, only three of them are actually hooked up to anything. There isn't much we can do with those things without tools, though, so we left them - they're not a big problem. In pumping up the tires, we both learned about a different kind of air lock and how to get around it, which was really neat (I know it doesn't sound it, but wait for the punchline). And of course, when I found the helmet and put it on in a fit of excitement, it had some water in it, which dribbled down my back in an unpleasant, hilarious fashion.

The punchline is this: working with my hands is invigorating. I enjoy reading, and learning, but I prefer doing. I think that's one of the reasons I don't use recipes too often - I like taking direction from experience, rather than from hearsay. I love picking up a new instrument, because it's like I have to reinvent how I think about sound, and teach my hands how to do something completely different than they're used to - a harp is much different from a guitar, is different from a piano is different from a clarinet. Whenever I get urges to do something, it's not often that I really want to just go run around - it's that I want to go solve an intricate puzzle of something I've never laid a finger on before. I pick up a pen to write when there's nothing in my head, a brush to paint when there's no canvas (and no artistic ability, but that's all the time); I sit at the piano when all I want to play is everything, all at once, and I can't articulate it any more than I can articulate the meaning of life. I don't think I just bake to eat; rather I bake to bake, to roll dough between my hands and laugh as it stretches and refines under my firm touch. So somehow, I have to find a way to spend my days doing things with my hands. Solving puzzles I've never laid a finger on before.

Kate

Plans! part II

So! Guess WHAT?!

I have a standing desk!!!

Guess what else?

It was free. And I didn't have to cart it anywhere, or anything. All it took was a little ingenuity, and a lot of being fed up with waiting and spending money.

When I arrived in Vancouver, the place I would be living was already furnished, and, as one of my housemates told me later, it had been furnished quite cheaply. The dresser and bookcase (which is quite a glorification of terminology) had been free off the side of the road, and the bed had been hers in a previous life. I have always disliked the furniture; it's ugly, defective, whatever. But you know? I've lived with it this long and it hasn't killed me, nor do I imagine that it will in the coming year. Free just does that to things, you know?

So I kept thinking about getting a new dresser or two, and devising elaborate ways of constructing a standing desk. Night after night, I'd fall asleep thinking about this, a trait which I believe I inherited from my father, the obsession about home improvement as a method of happiness and relaxation. I'd go to IKEA and get a really cheap bookcase, only like $25, and use that and a piece of plywood from Home Depot and a dresser propped up on a cheap wastebasket, or a pile of phone books...where would I find the phone books? How on earth was I going to do this?

In the meantime, I kept sitting at tables, my knees cramping, my legs screaming, fidgeting and hating my slouching and yet being powerless to do anything until that magical date, the 22nd, when we'd move out and everything would, miraculously, change. Then, the other night, I was talking with my ex-and-future-housemate Rebekah, who has gone to New Zealand for a year, and I told her of my plans. She informed me that there were about four or five phone books in the cleaning closet upstairs. My mind went crazy - one of my problems, solved! All I needed to do now was find a suitable piece of furniture and then I was good to go.

The next day, I spent the first half of the afternoon running errands (did you know that the word errands comes directly from the Latin, and means wandering? Anyway), including thrifting for furniture and sampling paint colors. I found no furniture, and far too many paint samples, and went home slightly defeated. Bustled around the house a while, ate. And then I remembered the phone books. And hated the idea of spending money with a fresh loathing that trounced all desire to see the inside of that thrift store again. I grabbed two of the phone books from the closet, and marched downstairs, slammed them, stacked, before my dresser, and stood on them. They were curiously squishy beneath my feet. Pleasantly so. Before I could think twice I'd grabbed my computer and moved it to the top of the dresser, and opened it. Wouldenchanowit, it worked. It's a good height, comfortable, and it's free. Maybe I'll paint the dresser blue to make it more presentable - I have plans. As usual. But for now, it will do quite nicely.

And I still can't get over how awesome it feels to stand while working. My feet hurt a little, but I don't feel drained. I feel like I have control over my posture. Now we'll have to see if I can study like this...

Kate

Plans!

I'm moving in about a week and a half to my new abode, and I'm so excited that I've been planning all the marvelous things I'm going to do when I get there. Today, I feel extremely energetic and want, want, want to go realize some of these plans:

- I want to paint my room yellow, like the background on this blog. Perhaps a little paler, but not much.
- I want to construct a standing desk so that I don't have to do all my work either slouching on my bed or slouching at the table in the living room, barking my shins on the table legs as I fidget and wiggle, because I have a terrible time sitting still - my knees don't like it (wtf, I'm 19, seriously), and I do feel better when I'm standing. So. Standing desk it is. So that means that I'm going to go to a thrift store (like this one) and buy some chests of drawers, or a bookcase or two, or something, and build one for myself. I don't even have a desk at the moment, so it should be an improvement.
- I want to start a veggie garden and spend my free time mucking about in sweet smelling dirt and weeds and tomatoes. Nothing makes me feel happier than covering myself with dirt (again, wtf, I'm 19, seriously).
- I want to ride a biiiiicycle! Biiiiicycle! But I have no helmet, so I need to go acquire one.
- I do want to fix my hair. It's tragic and poorly colored. I'm thinking of making it a normal color so that I can start over. But I might pay someone to fix it for me, so that I never bleach again. Bleach = amazingly vibrant colors, amazingly damaged hair. Though I may also just cover it up with some darker natural color, which will fade to a strange and ugly brownish purple. We'll see. Anyone have a suggestion? I'm completely open to them! (Also, that picture makes me giggle. Like nobody's business. And that purple unicorn is Steve. He is a dear, sweet bookmark. Also gay. You have a problem with that?)
- On top of all this, it would be really lovely to have a job, too. I'd like that. But no word back yet about the lab work. Hmph. We'll see what happens.

Okay. Methinks I should finish my tea and get on with my day. I wonder what I'll be doing?

Kate

Last of the Latin...for this term

I took my Latin final today. Thank the gods. I think. It's out of my hands now, for better or worse. I managed everything, and remember what I think is the Latin word for pigeon (though on closer inspection I was wrong - we translated columba, ae as 'dove' rather than pigeon, and I was woefully confused by this xkcd and thought that peristeron, onis would work. Whoops. I'm debating emailing my professor to show her the woeful mistake I've made, because it's actually quite funny. Ah well). So overall: I passed. I think. We'll see.

In other news, I'm in the news. Not for any bad reason, just...Okay. Story time! After that dreadful exam, I tottered off to Starbucks, acquired some lovely chai as I said I would with that gift card, just to celebrate, and on the way home called Ian to organize a picnic. It was just one of those days, perfectly sunny, absolutely stunning, but not so hot out that you're sweltering in the shade. There were birds in droves - mostly ducks, of about four varieties, apparently - and the flowers were out, all that. Absolutely gorgeous. So we wandered around for a while, and then coming around a corner, I saw the most spectacularly perfect cherry tree I'd ever seen. Perfect for climbing and encrusted with soft puffy flowers. Of course we had to climb it. So we did. Then we were inundated by all these men with cameras and stuff - asking us to hold our pose, et cetera. One man cam over on a bicycle and took literally a hundred pictures of us for some paper in Richmond. There was a man with a news camera on his shoulder who we mistakenly and quite accidentally attracted the attention of. I just found it and watched it - no direct link, I'm sorry. Edit: actually, there is! But it appears that we were accidentally interrupting some backwards-flying hummingbird's return to Vancouver. Ian will be sad to hear this, as he is an avid birder. But yeah, that was my fifteen seconds of amusing fame today. Veritably odd.

Otherwise, I'm currently experimenting again with banana bread - trying to make actual bread this time, rather than biscotti. I'll tell you what happens when I'm done kneading it and rising it and whatnot. Also at some point I need to clean my room. I know, I'm just a ball of interesting this evening, right? But it's that slump after that final that's getting me, plus I'm kinda hungry. So I'm going to go knead things, and leave you to search out that video if you want.

Edited a couple hours after posting:
So, the banana bread. It's not bad, but it's not great. My problem is not enough banana, of course! As a note to you, dear reader: if you ask whether it's enough banana, the answer is NO and you need to add more quam primum, or immediately if you're not feeling the Latin. So I've recorded what I did, and then what I'd do differently in parentheses.

Banana bread

Mix:
2/3 c whole wheat flour
2/3 c white flour
1.5 t instant yeast
1 pinch of salt

Mash together:
1 (2!!! At least!! One which is thoroughly dead, one which is on its last legs, and maybe another just 'cause you can never have enough banana in this)
1/2 t cinnamon
1/2 c brown sugar (go wild. Use more. Say, between 3/4 and 1 c)
(1 t vanilla extract)
Some milk, to get it wet (water works too - I used soy creamer)

Combine both amalgamations in the big bowl with the flour. Stir, and add water/milk accordingly, until it's a bit crumbly, but all bits incorporate. Knead for ten to fifteen minutes (really, the longer you knead it the better it will be. I promise), adding flour as needed, and then let it rise for a good hour. Knead again for a bit (don't add flour! I always forget this and my loaves don't turn out as they should), just long enough to get it shaped. Put it in a greased bread pan and preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. When that finishes, bake it for about 35 minutes, maybe 40. Extract. Eat with too much salted butter if it's less than ideal. That's what I'm doing.

Kate

Kiva!

Okay. I know that only about three people read this (hi Sarah! Hey Jules! Illowillowbillowpillow! And of course, hi Mom. Okay, I guess that's four, whatever) but still, this is important!

I was reading KinokoFry, one of my favorite webcomics, in an attempt to get away from the travailles of Latin for a while. She's good at reminding me that I'm not the only person in the world, and that there's a whole bunch of people out there whose money problems do not center around whether they should pay $75 to fix their stupid hair. She has a lot of series of comics, one that is just silly, one that is about her life and silly, and then two that are more serious: one about ways we can be more sustainable, and one called "The Donation Project."

Inspired by her message, I gave this morning: I donated $25 to a group of women who make sombrero hats and sell them to keep their kids in school and their families in food. I feel kind of giddy, and very happy. And I know I'll get it back sometime, though I don't really care if I do - Kiva, in case you don't know, is a lending business, where people ask for loans and then a lot of other people give a fraction of that and it all adds up.

So now I feel a lot better about life. Though I still need to fight Virgil to the death, that bitch of a good poet, and at some point today I'm going to get my ass out of Vancouver and head to my grandparents' house to see my dad. Aaaugh so busy aaaugh.

Kate

Buried

Interesting fact: in the language centers of the brain, the part that deals with a lexicon is quite pliant, and most people can learn new words even in their old age. Syntax, however, and the rules of that grammar (or the phonology) are quite solid, and so it's very difficult to really internalize a new syntax once you're older, just as it's quite difficult to make sounds that you've not grown up producing (which is why people have accents). So, someone who knows a language like English, where word order is quite crucial to understanding the meaning in the sentence, might be rather thrown by a language where all the syntactic information is tied up in affixes and word order is not an issue. Don't believe me? Well, I didn't either for a while.

The reason I bring this up is because I'm trying to translate a few selections from the Aeneid, desperately trying to study for the final (which happens on Monday at 8:30 in the morning, on my dear sweet gods) and though I know I have only a few hours to study, I can't, somehow, get any of this to click in my brain. Virgil, obviously, is a highly poetic man, which means that trying to deduce a good English sentence from his agglomeration of inflective words is extremely difficult if your syntax doesn't quite know how to let go if its preconceived notions.

Another interesting problem (or is it just interesting tidbit? Let's call it a res and get over it) with Latin is that the language has an incredibly small lexicon - about 500 pieces that contain individual meaning, and then enough for two thick books when you record everything we have from all Latin, ever, which, if you compare it to English, a language with shelves upon shelves worth of words, is a pittance. So each words has to do a great deal of work if anyone wants to say anything. So the dictionary entry for the innocent word constituo, constituere might say something like this: "v put, set, place; constitute, appoint; decree, decide, determine; fix, establish; range; build; establish; agree (upon); manage; dispose; intend; settle" (Pocket Oxford). A word like res can mean literally anything that someone needs it to mean, so you're never quite sure if you've got it right, but the chances are that no one who was reading that was ever quite sure either, even back when it was new. It means thing, but people hate it when you translate it like that, so you're expected to substitute a noun for it. And know which noun to use. Which, strangely, sometimes, you don't.

Then again, I know that inflective languages aren't that hard if you know what each ending means. In fact, I can see how one might think it quite liberating, to be learning something as free-sounding as a language with no rigid word order. But there's a lovely problem: Latin likes to reuse suffixes that mean completely different things in different contexts, and their prefixes have about as many meanings each as res. So you might look at a word you don't know, and see that it ends with -a, and you think, "Oh, wonderful! I have found the subject! It is feminine nominative singular! Quelle joie!" and you go about your business, only to discover ten heartbroken minutes later that it's really a neuter nominative/accusative plural, or a feminine ablative singular, and now your translation might make more sense, but you have to change everything. Not a pretty case, people.

Okay. That's my tale of woe and misery, and me misera, I must go back to studying.

Kate

Latin update!

So guess what? You know that ridiculous passage I posted yesterday? Well, today we had the recitation, so everyone was declaiming for the class. Most people gave kind of flat performances, or said um a lot, or whatever. I went straight through with emotion and without saying um once. I tied for first with another girl - who did a good job - and then she beat me out on the tie breaking trivia round. So I came in second, but I got a $10 Starbucks giftcard! W00t! Now I can go to that place 100% more often than I currently do!

In other news, it's beautiful here today, with bold, golden sunlight, ecstatic, fluffy cherry trees, and a tragic abundance of syntax homework, which is easy. Too easy. One more day of classes, and then the weekend is full of family - my dad's coming to visit from Colorado for a couple days! - and and end-of-school party and Latin (my final is at 8:30 in the morning on Monday. Oh my dear sweet gods, someone just throw a javelin at me. In the eye, if'n ye'd be so kind). I'm kind of desperately horrified about the whole prospect of that. But! Today we signed the lease for that beautiful little Victorian house! We get the keys next week! HOORAY!

Okay. I'm going to finish my homework and get my ass outside. It's too gorgeous for all this indoors nonsense.

Kate

The Shameful Loaf

I know it's the third time I've posted today, but I have a confession to make and it can't wait. My mother will be ashamed of me, and all of you will try to console me and tell me that it's not that bad, but you know it is. Please don't judge me. And I know it's not that bad - I mean, I buy other processed things, like sugar and flour and honey. But this is different.

I bought a loaf of whole wheat bread.

-sigh-

I know. So bad. Perhaps the worst part about it is that it's soooo goooood and I just want to eat it allllll. RIGHT NOW. With butter or without. It's delicious.

As a small consolation, it only has six ingredients, all of which I possess and might attempt to turn into a loaf sometime in the future - whole wheat flour, water, salt, yeast, honey, and blackstrap molasses. It's made by local people, all organic, and not overly packaged. But somehow, I can't get over the guilt. Somehow, I don't know if I can forgive myself. Somehow, I don't know how to justify $3.79 for a loaf of bread (on sale), even if that bread is fantastically good. Bread has to be made with love and patience and soul in order to be good, and it's odd to me to eat bread made with love that doesn't know me - with a love that is for the bread and the bread alone. This is probably my mother's fault. A few years ago, when I was 13? 14? she started baking bread on a regular basis, no bread machine, no nothing, because it was "good for her Karma." She won all these lovely awards at fairs, and has never looked back since. Naturally, when I moved to Canada I took her recipe with me, and I used to try to reproduce the wonders that she could at least once every week or two, with minimal success. My loaves were always flat and sad and completely lacking in that nutty flavor, the soft crumb, the oven spring. So I've just about given up, finding myself at the end of my bread-tether, unable to make the thing that I really love eating, and unable to justify buying the successful loaves that come from others' kitchens. It is a conundrum. But, well, these are things to experiment with. I'll keep trying. And keep posting.

Kate

Latin for your Amusement, and Split-Things Curry

I have to memorize a passage for Latin by noon tomorrow. I haven't really started. I figured I'd bore you all and tell you about it! This is Apollo's plea to Daphne as she runs from him, attempting to avoid rape.

et "quid, si comantur?" ait. videt igne micantes
sideribus similes oculos, videt oscula, quae non
est vidisse satis; laudat digitosque manusque
bracchiaque et nudos media plus parte lacertos
si qua latent, meliora putat. fugit ocior aura
illa levi neque ad haec revocantis verba resistit
"nympha, recor, Penei, mane! non insequor hostis;
nympha mane! sic agna lupum, six cerba leonem,
sic aquilam penna fugiunt trepidante columbae,
hostes quaeque suos: amor est mihi causa sequendi!"

It means, "and, 'what, if it were arranged?' he said. He sees the fire in her eyes shining like stars, sees her mouth, which is not enough just to see; he praises her fingers and hands and arms, naked halfway up her upper arm. Were they covered, he would think it better. She flees faster than a breeze, and does not stop for his repeated words: "Nymph, I pray you, Peneian one, wait! I don't chase as an enemy! Nymph, wait! Like the lamb flees from the wolf, like deer from a lion, as the dove flees the eagle on trembling wings, those are enemies: love is my reason for following!"

Additionally, I made a delicious curry for dinner tonight. I cheated, I will admit - I've never known how to make a good curry sauce, and so I threw my hands up and bought a small jar of Thai Kitchen yellow curry paste. Worth it? Yes. If you don't want to do this, which I understand, the good news is that I'm pretty sure this dish would be delicious even if you left it out. Sounds strange? I'll try it sometime and post about it, but this is so good I'm not even hesitant to say that I'm going to be eating this a lot more often.

One Pot Split Things Curry
serves either one small person four times, or two large people one time.

1 chicken leg, skin and bones and all (no, don't do this. Use something without bones. Trust me.)
1 smallish lemon
1 c. dried lentils or split peas - I used yellow split peas, I think
1 c. wild rice mix
1 T curry paste
1 clove garlic (though more never hurts), chopped into small pieces
1 bay leaf
Salt to taste

1. Fill your kettle and get it started on boiling (enough for probably 8 or 10 cups of tea; I think that's about a litre, but it could be more. I don't know).
2. Saute the chicken leg with canola oil and the juice of half the lemon in a large pot on the stove for a while, until it's browned a bit, burnt a bit, and smells good. When you're thrilled about it, and the water is ready, add the garlic and saute. Before the garlic burns, add the rice and legumes, swish all these around together for a moment or two, and add the water.
3. Add the tablespoon of curry paste and the bay leaf, and give everything a good stir.
4. Let the entire confection simmer on the stove until you're sure you can't wait anymore and it's gloppy and delicious-looking. I let mine do its thing for probably an hour and some.
5. Serve with a generous squeeze of lemon, and salt if you're into that, though it doesn't need it. (It really doesn't. I'm a horrible salt fiend, and I didn't need extra salt.)

Kate

Edited later:
Were I to make this again, I would use a boneless chicken breast instead of the whole chicken leg. This is because, tasty though it is, it is disconcerting to find non-meat pieces of chicken in your stew. While it doesn't bother me all that much, it's still less than ideal.

High Fat Hot Chocolate

High fat hot wha?! I know. But think about it: butter tastes a lot better than margarine, bacon can doom a vegetarian much more easily than pork, and low fat cheese is a meaningless blight. But high fat cocoa? They make that?

Yes they do. And you need some. Now.

This is one of those beautiful moments where I'm shopping at Whole Foods, and something catches my eye, and I only notice afterwards that it's also flagged with a little yellow 'Sale!' sticker. I was going through the bulk section, scrounging up cheap grains (I bought some mixed rice and yellow split peas, though they might be lentils - I don't know, they were 29 cents for 100 g, so I didn't ask too many questions. They'll go well in the curry I'm planning for tonight no matter what they are, I hope), and out of the corner of my eye I saw the deepest, richest, most ineffably beautiful shade of brown I ever saw outside of a garden. I am not prone to liking brown, but this was the color of purple that has blistered and autumned and rotted into a divinely distilled richness. Naturally, I was intrigued. What could this be? Surely not a flour.

No, it was no flour. It was labeled "High fat cocoa". I opened the lid. A smell like the inside of a box of chocolate truffles wafted up in a billow of decadence, grabbed me by my tweed lapels and yodeled opera in my ears. I closed the lid. The clutch vanished. Was that even real? Curious, I raised the lid again, and once more the scent had taken ahold of my jacket and sang something in unintelligibly vibratoed Italian. I knew I had found the finest of all sins, and it was there for the taking.

I bought too much. No, that's a lie. I bought too little, but it cost me enough to think I might have overdone it. In scooping it out of its bin, a little powder stuck to my fingers, and until I got home and washed, my hands smelled like love. I made some hot chocolate out of it: 1 large tablespoon of cocoa, 2 tablespoons of light brown sugar, and boiling water to taste (16 oz for this amount is what I use). You can add milk, it wouldn't go amiss. But you don't need to. You could add cinnamon, that would be delicious. But you don't need to. All you really need to do is savor every sip of this, because it is truly delectable.

Kate

Adagietto and Banana Bread

Among other things, right now, I'm listening to this beautiful movement from Mahler's 5th symphony, the adagietto. I can't quite get over just how haunting it is. It's quite something to listen to it as played by a symphony, but equally enchanting, somehow, played by a four-piece band consisting of a cello, violin, upright bass, and accordion. I promise. If you don't believe me, listen to it here as played by Amarcord Wien, or here as played by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.

Along a similar vein, have you seen Jane Eyre? Okay. You have to. Because it's amazing. It sticks perfectly to the book, and the costuming is awesome and the music is to die for...it's by the composer who wrote for the 2005 Pride and Prejudice and Atonement, Dario Marionelli. My gods...just go watch it. Ian and I saw it, on essentially our first date-style date. I took him, of course. He really liked it. Then again, this man also read Pride and Prejudice with glee, so, I think he's a special case.

I'm considering making banana bread, something I should have all the right ingredients for, but I don't seem to, according to all the recipes I find. Should I try something random, at the risk of doing something awful? Or should I keep looking, on the off chance that what I do find will work? I need to bake something. Whatever I do bake. There's a rhythm that I seem to be missing in life right now, like I don't have anything just to do, like sitting in a garden, or reading a book. So I guess I'm going to try baking something. See what happens. Hm.

--bakes banana bread--

Okay, these are AMAZING. Holy CRAP. I didn't expect that.

Banana Biscotti

1. Preheat oven to 350 F.

2. Combine in a bowl, in this order, using a whisk that looks like a Medieval torture implement (this part is important and I'll leave it up to your discretion to find one):
2 bananas, one frozen and awful looking, the other temptingly ripe
4 or 5 T butter, meltishly soft.
Maybe 1/4 c. soy creamer, though I'm sure regular cream would work
1/2 t cinnamon
1 large egg
Maybe 2/3 c. light brown sugar
Maybe 1 c. whole wheat flour, maybe a little more, I'm not sure.
1 T baking powder (though it could have taken more, methinks)

3. Pour into greased glass baking dish

4. Bake for 1:15 minutes, though I think it could have taken a bit more time.

5. Slice, and then bake the slices at 350 for another 15 minutes or so.

Tada! Banana biscotti! Very, very tasty.

Kate

Regreetings, my fellow Ovidians et al!

It's been a while. My excuse is school, and major hella epic stress. Roommates and homework and finding a place to live next year and papers and depression and aaugh. Suffice to say that last night, the two girls I'll be living with next year went and checked out a place we saw last week, just to confirm that we were interested (it's some basement in a decent area, with old ladies living upstairs) and they said I couldn't have the piano there. Because this threw such a wrench in the whole decision business, one of the two of them got so stressed out she started crying, and then they told me about the piano situation and I started crying, and it was just bad. I had anxiety nightmares all night long, when I wasn't lying awake worrying about things like weeping angels and daleks and suchlike (we were watching the new series of Dr Who last night - Stephen Moffet is an awesome writer, creepy as all get out). We had another house viewing lined up for this morning, and I felt amazingly non-functional. But we went anyway. On the way, I was looking at the area - King Edward Avenue, which I've always liked - and just hoping and wishing that the place we were going to see would fit with the general splendor of the place. The picture had apparently made it look dumpy on the outside, and there were no interior pictures to look at, so we had no idea what we were really getting into.

Yes, the outside was dumpy. BUT. The interior was Victorian. Just...perfect. Higher ceilings on the ground level, full unfinished basement, upstairs were two smallish rooms with sloping ceilings, the kitchen was ugly but hey what's new, the whole place had hardwood floors which had an inlaid border oh my gods and it was just. So. Gorgeous. I ran around that house like a crazy person, in absolute raptures about everything, laughing, smiling, exclaiming. Christine is like, "Kate, tone it down a little!" I tried. I promise I tried. It was just really hard, that place was so lovely. And there's a quaint little backyard where we can have a garden (Chelsea and I are both so stoked about this; she just walked into the room and said, "Vegetable garden!!" We so exited, I tell you), and I can keep my piano, and it's superhellaepic cheap and oh, I want this house. We all do, I think. So. Stoked.

Now all we have to do is get it. Kinda scary. But. We'll see what happens. We're gonna be on our toes until this whole housing thing is worked out, and if it can be worked out by Monday that would be incredible. By which I mean unbelievable and fantastic. We'd all breathe a sigh of relief and then have a dance party.

Okay. Well. Back to homework. No food writing today; I've not gone to the grocery for way too long, and so I don't really have anything to eat besides risotto and pancakes. Not bad, but perhaps not the most noteworthy of things.

Love and houses,
Kate

Food Dreams, part 1

It is the equinox, and so naturally my mind has entirely shifted focus from winter and school and is preparing for a life of eating dinner in the sun in my backyard, growing tomatoes, and not wearing pants.* And, naturally, just to match such things, my food ideas have moved from winter into summer. So I give you Summer Food Dreams, Part 1: pasta.

I envision a linguini, doused in a clear sauce and topped with slow-roasted tomatoes and fresh mozzarella cheese. The sauce is a reduction of butter, olive oil, lemon juice, white wine, and water, spiced with rosemary, oregano, and thyme. The recipe for the roasted tomatoes can be found here. Om nom nom.

Anyway. Sounds delicious to me. Add a salad on the side, made from snap peas and red lettuce with a balsamic vinaigrette including garlic and olive oil, and a little salt and pepper.

Sounds so good. I'll make that when the tomatoes are cheaper.

Kate

*Dresses, people. Seriously. Head. Out of gutter. Now.

New Tastes

Reevaluating how I feel about myself causes me to reevaluate the food I eat. Garbage in, garbage out, kind of style. Lately I haven't been eating anything good. Virtuous, but not good. Let me start by telling you that I'm a terrible cook. You should know that. Second, I have a bad habit of going to the grocery and not exactly knowing what I want when I get there, and then mistakenly buying all this food that I really don't want to eat, because it's cheap and healthy. I can't be the only one with this problem; I can't eat rice noodles, because they're empty calories, and I feel bad eating pasta with tomato sauce, because it's just so...college. Oatmeal is right out for dinner. Nor can I eat white rice, or potatoes...well, you understand. In paying attention to my health and pocket book, I have totally forsaken good taste. No idea what to do.

So. My plan is thus. I shall use up all the crap in my cupboard, and when we move at the beginning of May, I'll have a database of good food built up. From here on out, I shall experiment with better recipes, and learn how to spice things properly and make decent food.

Kate

Posters and Plasticine

Today, I am five. Just for the day, you understand. This means that I am required to do all the dorky things I found myself doing today - like making a plasticine tongue in my Phonetics class, and making a glittery poster for Latin. Perhaps the best part is the fact that I did both these activities with classmates, and I get to keep them! I plan to show my parents and they have to gawk like they used to and squeal embarrassingly and tell me that I'm so good at this.

Though I'm not gonna lie, my Pyramus and Thisbe poster doesn't look half bad. And my tongue was pretty.

This all started back in January, on the first day of Latin class. Our class meets in a room in the Education building, and last semester one of the other classes that met in the same room was a class for the future teachers of our children. There were posters on the wall written in that immaculate hand, featuring the Traits of a Good Teacher in large, friendly letters. They had a poster with a tree on it, and a page that was just a list of Traits, and then they had one that was a giant peace sign - or would have been, had they not gotten it confused with the Mercedes-Benz logo. When we told our professor about this, she was overjoyed. Just thrilled. She declared that we, too, had to make posters, just to show off how awesome we were. They were going to include glitter and red paint (because everyone dies in the Metamorphoses, especially people like Pyramus and Thisbe, who stab themselves on the same sword) and Latin, and we had to put on our names and ages. This idea percolated for a good two months or so before we set a date and then executed the whole affair, and yes, executed is the only term appropriate for such a thing. My professor's looks the best: she has a frog with a mustache and red eyes to signify P&T's nasty parents, and a pipe cleaner tree bathed in red and blue and green paint ("It's the greenery!" were her words), and it includes a unicorn. Because no poster is complete without a unicorn. Also cut-out pictures of celebrities to play the roles of P&T, just because it's better that way. We have one fine arts student in the class, and he made a poster that actually looked nice. I'll see the finished product on Monday; I didn't stick around longer than I needed to finish my masterpiece. I'll post pictures. I promise.

And that was how I spent my Friday afternoon. This evening? I'm going to write a paper. Because I know how to have a good time. I mean, it's about Middle English! And Middle French! And orthography! It also...helps?...that Ian is out of town. He's gone off to watch herring spawn on the Island with a few friends.

With regards to cooking...hm. So much! A few days ago, I made garlic broth with a poached egg and spinach in it. It sounds really good, but for one, I made the broth too weak; for another, I am not a wobbly runny egg person, I like my eggs cooked all the way through, or fried, and poached eggs don't do that; and the spinach is kind of a mysterious floating thing when put in soup. Tasty, but mysterious and floaty. Fortunately, I had that lovely loaf of bread to chase it down.

Last night, I cut up two slices of thick happy bacon (bacon that isn't tortured in life is expensive) into small bacon pieces, baked them, and then used some of the grease to bake potato chunks and onion together with salt, pepper, paprika, and garlic powder. When they were done (which is pretty quick, since you bake them at 425 or 450 degrees), I steamed some spinach in a bowl in the microwave and added the potatoes and bacon on top. It was actually quite nice. Later that evening, I was lonely and so I made scones. When I was in the middle of baking them, Ian called, and I promised him some, and so I ate a few when they were fresh and stored the rest until I saw him today, upon which I promptly forgot all about the scones until he was already in the car and long gone. So now I need to make him scones to redeem myself. I ate all of them. Alone.

Well, it's now 7:43 here, and I should probably go get started on that paper. Or at least drink some tea. Should I sleep tonight? Hm. We'll find out.

Kate

Spring Rain

For the entirety of my life, I have adored the rain. It's so emotive. So crisp and sprightly, or mournful, or angry. Rain has a personality all its own. Of course, because I grew up in a town that gets three hundred days of sunlight out of the year, every year, I was never well-acquainted with rain as a child - and so naturally, I have always loved it to bits. Whenever it would rain, I would be outside (with my mother yelling about pneumonia) playing in its warm wetness, getting soaked to the bone and muddy and wallowing in the unadulterated joy that is a good bout of rain.

Naturally, I was excited about being in British Columbia for school, right on the coast. It would rain so much more - how perfect! Could I imagine a better scenario? Not really. The abundance of green, the wetness, the comparative warmth in winter and cool in summer...I couldn't wait to get here.

Well, I've been here since September. It rains inordinately. And up until today, I could not bring myself to be joyful about the rain. Happy, yes. Apathetic, usually. Downright disenchanted, once or twice. But today I realized what it is that makes rain special.

The smell.

Now you're like, "Well, duh, Kate. Jeez. Really? How long did it take you to notice that? Haven't you just been marinating in that for the past seven months?" You would think that, wouldn't you? But I haven't. The smell that means rain and rings so strongly in my heart with glee is not a product of the water falling out of the sky; rather, it is a chemical emitted by deciduous leaves. And around here, during fall and winter, despite the fact that there are manifold plants that retain their green casing all year round, the deciduous among us are only in leaf from March to October. Today was the first day that I could smell the rain. And so now, I want to sink my hands into the black soil and bury my toes in a garden, soak up sunlight through my face and arms and back and breathe nothing but spring rain, from here until June.

Kate

PS: Think the Greeks and Romans were the only ones concerned about meter in their works? English is actually a heavily meter driven language. Here, let me show you: take the phrase soak up sunlight through my face and arms and back and breathe nothing but spring rain, from here until June, and say it. It starts out iambic: a stressed/unstressed pattern of word pairs (in English, stress is shown with a slightly raised pitch, volume and a greater length, whereas in Latin, stress is shown with length, at least in poetry), followed by a series of dactyls (long-short-short). Thus, it's sort of like: S U S U S U S U S U S U S S U U S U U S U U S (X). The change in meter will probably lend more emphasis to the phrase nothing but spring rain, from here until June. And you can't insert a longer month for June because that breaks the meter. Interesting, no? ...I thought not. Aww. And I try so hard to be cool...

Experiments in hardcore baking

I got up an hour later than I wanted to this morning, after dreaming about one of my old high school friends talking about this girl he wanted to date, despite the fact that she had really bad politics and half the time thought she was an elf. Not worth sleeping in to learn that from my subconscious, but I didn't bother to get up until 7:40 or so.

It was a good thing I got up. I had to proof my bread, get some homework done, and say sayonara to a roommate of mine who is going to Australia for two weeks. So now, the bread is doing its second rise, the roommate has flown the coop, and naturally I'm doing this instead of my homework. I'll get around to it, I promise.

The bread is different than usual. At about...11:30? last night, I decided I wanted to make a nice chewy tender bread to go with the soup I plan to make for dinner. So I looked up recipes, and though I'm sure something is out there, I got frustrated and wanted to bake, not be on the computer, so I stopped and just threw some things in a Pyrex container with a lid - the better to seal it up and let it rise overnight. Approximately, I used:

1 c. all-purpose flour*
1/4 t instant yeast
1/2 t salt
1 t honey

To this I added enough warm water to make it sticky and wet, but not soupy. Stirred everything together. Put it away and went to bed. This morning, after letting it do its thing for about 8 hours, I kneaded it a little - I think I did so too long; for one, the dough was super puffy when I started kneading, and so I pushed out a lot of bubbles, and for another, it is quite saturated with water, so the dough is very slack - and then set it aside. I'll preheat the oven in about twenty minutes, put the bread in at 9, and then we'll see what happens. The loaf is gonna be pretty small - I love experimenting, but I hate wasting things.

In the meantime, let me say that there is nothing more beautiful than the first light of morning, when the sun has finally burned through the haze of grey clouds that had held it back. There's just about two minutes of absolute glory, while sunlight drapes itself in golden swathes all over the mosses and vibrant green grasses in our backyard. Later, when it's gotten settled, it just looks unfathomably cheerful, but for that first few minutes, it is unreal.

-an hour passes-

My bread is AWESOME. Pictures later. School now.

Me misera! Mondays + midterms = meh.

Roman poets, just like Middle English poets, were absolutely mad about alliteration. My professor described it as "Roman crack". Everyone from Catullus to Ovid used this stuff, and had a ball.

Tangentally, did you know that because there was no set spelling for English words during the Middle English period, you can see where a written text comes from? For example, Chaucer writes in a more French-like style, using French-style syntax and words, as well as considerably less slang, and so his work is much easier for us to comprehend than, say, Gawain and the Green Knight, which is a contemporary work (more or less) to when Chaucer was writing, but it looks completely different, and the Middle English is much harder to read. So, though we don't know who wrote that poem, we do know where they were writing - if I recall correctly, the dialect was somewhere in Chestershire, which is quite a ways away from London (where a more Chaucerian form of English was spoken).

-sigh-

It's kind of a bad sign when the Medieval period is somewhere you go to take refuge from your stress. I spent all of yesterday studying for my Latin midterm (the latter half of Pyramus and Thisbe, and Amores 1.1, 1.3 and 1.9) - nine hours, even with the time change and eating - and still I think I might have done less than optimally. Oh well. Walking through the Classics department on the way to my Historical Linguistics class, all I could think was that maybe I should just be a Medievalist.

What with all this stress and stuff, all I want is comforting food. Nothing outlandish. We're talking eggs, potatoes, and bacon kind of comfort. Fortunately, the French are experts at making such things. Not with those ingredients specifically, but French food is probably the most comforting food I can think of - in a lot of cases - and Italian food is a short second, though it's more a happiness food than otherwise. Something about oregano is just so sprightly. Anyway. I'm currently looking at recipes - what to do for dinner?

-several hours elapse-

Yeah. So dinner was easy - while I was writing, Ian invited me to have quiche chez il, so. Hooray!

Kate

Semolina Bread - Is it the perfect loaf?

Well, is it? I don't think I can quite say, but I know it's damn near close. Ian said it was the best bread he'd had, in passing, and in a lot of ways I'm inclined to believe him. This is a wonderful bread - it takes on savory and sweet with equal and undivided acceptance, and is pretty much the best thing in the world covered in butter or honey or both. Not to mention that it's bright yellow, which makes everything better. I want walls the color of the inside of this bread. And it's springy like nobody's business - you cannot get this bread down. Moist and springy. Just perfect.

This after I made it last night, and experienced the tragic failed hope of promised, but undelivered, oven spring, upon which my countenance took a decided turn toward the depressed. Two loaves destroyed in one day. Two. I felt like such a failure. I had followed the recipe to the T, and just like all the other things I've made in my oven, the loaf barely sprung at all, despite its reputation as an extraordinarily oven-springy bread. So I went to bed depressed.

Well, in the morning I had two slices of the bread, one with butter, the other with honey. Oh my dear sweet gods. I have not had a more perfect bread. It is nutty and flavorful and squishy and bouncy and lively...it's like eating a little piece of Robin Goodfellow. Probably his ear. I dunno. So Good. Here is the link to the recipe:

http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/4213/semolina-sandwich-loaf

The only situation in which you should not make this bread is if you do not like nice things. BAKE! NOW!!

Kate

High Tea

I am currently taking a truly divine tea up here in a country that has yet to fully separate itself from the queen. The first true sunlight of the day falls magna cum dignitata on the decrepit shed in our mangy backyard, and to mimic its profusions, there is butter in the corners of my mouth. Outside, someone is appreciating these first few pants of spring the same way my father used to - behind a lawnmower, making a godawful noise that sends the scent of fresh-cut grass wafting around my teacup. I'm punctuating the racket with Tchaikovsky - March, Song of the Lark. It's beautiful.

Quite firmly, I believe that tea should be taken every day at four. I hit a slump around then, and without a half a pot of tea (which for me is quite an abundance) and a nice piece of toast, I go quite listless and insipid and become a perfectly unpleasant character to interact with. Tea at four is perhaps the only thing that keeps me going until then - it's a little something to look forward to. And of course I get to plan magnificent cakes and cookies for it. Which I should bake the night before, so that they're there when I'm too busy slumping to make them fresh. For there are few things in life finer than a good pick-me-up of the Queen's Favorite.

Thus, I'm eating the bread I made this morning (more on that shortly) with copious swathes of butter (the only way to take butter is in swathes - this is a fact of existence, not a matter of opinion) and pure, raw honey, along with some cheddar and of course tea with milk and sugar. The bread did not turn out as planned - it's rather more like a tasteless brick than like some delicious concoction of yeasty goodness. I blame my technique - I have no Dutch oven, which is what this recipe calls for, which I believe keeps the top of the bread moist so that it continues to rise while it steams. Mine sort of got halfway up the available space in the loaf pan and then stopped, hardened. And now, this is where I really don't understand what's going on - you'd think that despite all this, bread that has had 18 hours to ferment would at least taste good, if not being perfectly crumbed. Well, it doesn't. It's bland. And has this odd little reflection of sourness in the back, but nothing particularly interesting. So, what this leads me to conclude is that the flour I'm using is crap. Utter and complete crap. I guess that what I really don't understand is that back in the States, my mother bought plenty of whole wheat flour that did not have bits in it. All the grain was fully ground, and left nothing up to the imagination. It was often a grey-tinted tan, rather than being the reddish-tinted tan that flour here is. And the problem with that is that the flour I have been using lacks the nutty flavor and delicacy of touch that my mother's bread has. I've been trying to recreate her bread, following the recipe to the letter, and it consistently comes out the wrong color and too flat. I dunno. Maybe I'm just really bad at baking. Whatever is the matter, I intend to make a better bread soon. Maybe tonight. But for now, I must throw myself into the perpetuity of devoirs. A pox upon homework! -grumble-

Kate

6:45

It is currently 7:03 in the morning. I haven't been out of bed this early since...hm. Spring 2010. High school me laughs at college me, I know it - I'm so lazy. Most mornings I get up at the latest possible time and stagger out the door to school, and I'm late for my 11 am because I was too tired to be bothered to get up before 9:45. In high school, I was out of the door by seven. But today, high school me is too envious to laugh as I sit here, bleary-eyed and multi-sweatered, watching the sun come up through thick rainclouds and listening to the finches and crows singing. Not only am I out of bed, but I also have finished dealing with my bread, which now has to rise for another two hours and then bake for 45 minutes or so. I'm trying out Jim Lahey's No-Knead Bread, not because I don't like kneading things, but because apparently it's really good. Unfortunately, I haven't got the right equipment to make it properly - you need a Dutch oven, something which I was unwilling to cart across a country when I moved here and oh by the way costs about as much as my textbooks - and so I added a bit of canola oil to the proceedings and I'm going to bake it in a loaf pan. My hope is that it will be softer than usual, have a less crunchy crust, and be good for toast. If it turns out, I'll post the recipe. If not, I'll cry. In a hole. And then entomb myself with all the baked things that I ever have ruined. It will be mostly burnt cookies.

In other news, you know what's delicious? Frittatas. If you're unfamiliar, it's sort of like a baked omelette without the folding part. Usually, such things are made by heating up the oven at the same time as you're starting the preliminaries on the stove, and then using that to finish the eggs, so that they don't brown on the bottom. The only problem with this is that you have to turn on the oven, using all that energy just to zap a few eggs for five minutes. Sometimes I can't bring myself to see the value in such things. Fortunately, you can make a frittata on the stove, no problem. All you need is a lid.

Red Onion and Chevre* Frittata, stovetop style! (makes one tasty lunch serving)

Saute onion over medium high heat in olive oil, until clear. Beat two eggs together in a bowl and add to the pan, making sure they spread out all over the place. Turn down the heat to medium low. Add crumbles of chevre and spices (Herbes du Providence would be really good, but I don't own any of that, so I used basil and garlic powder), and then cover the pan with some kind of lid. Let it do its thing for a while, checking periodically to see if the eggs are done. Eat as soon as they are.

Though, to be honest, frittatas are really not worth blogging about. They're so straightforward I feel awkward mentioning them, let alone writing down a recipe for them. It feels presumptuous, like I think that no one in Interwebia knows how to cook eggs. I mean, seriously. I'm insulting your intelligence. But they fill me with such joy - this odd simultaneous happiness and homesickness. My emergency backup mother taught me how to make a frittata, at the same time that she taught me what one was in the first place. One of my closest friends, who is mistress of cooking things, used to make frittata almost every day, and she was the one who taught me how to like goat cheese despite its strong taste and chalky texture. So this lunch was kind of a way of going home to them, out of this cold and wet piece of seaside suburbia, back to somewhere that I know is currently cold, but sunny, and where every breath you breathe is so clear it's like you've never tasted air before.

-sigh- I'll go back someday.

Kate

*Chevre = a maleable, crumbly goat cheese.