Dear Others, As my boyfriend Bruce Campbell once said so famously:  All right, you primitive screwheads, listen up.  I do not care how well-intentioned you might be, or how good you are at pretending you read this page:  If you come here by way of a Google search on a word, any word, plus the phrases “Remember my personal information” and “Notify me of follow-up comments,” I will delete your comment the instant I find it.  If you post it while I’m asleep, I will delete it the instant I wake up.  If you post it while I happen to be online, well, just watch my smoke.  This includes you, Mr. or Ms. University of Connecticut, Storrs-Mansfield campus. I have your IP address, I have your server name, I have a whopping great brace of nerve, and I have plenty of time on my hands.  Your efforts are for naught here.

Cheez Whiz.  In the time I spent writing that, I could have been making barley sugar cookies.  I hate it when I have to use cookie time to clean the house. 

Truth be told, I’m in something of an overstimulated state right now.  Most of it is due to happiness, excitement and the promise of change, but I’d be lying if I said that no tears had been shed.  There were tears, and plenty of ‘em, this weekend, and I’m not entirely sure that they’re behind me yet.  There’s also, to be frank, some laziness in the mix.  The next three months are going to be busy, busier than the past five months have been, and as a result my engines seem to have ground to a complete halt, as if I were a hibernating bear.  If I weren’t going to Maryland Sheep and Wool with Momerina this weekend, I could easily see myself sitting around my living room, watching the fourth season of Alias on dvd with Lloyd all weekend long, with only occasional breaks for food prepared for us by other people.  ("How morally opposed are you to pizza again?") It’s a weird sensation, this combination of racing brain and torpid work ethic, and I’ll be glad when these extremes stop feeling so, erm, extreme, when they move toward a convergence point that will enable me to get some damn work done.

Until I get to that point, though, I’m going to be a scoundrel, and resort to cheap, easy methods of entertainment.

Yes, it’s cookie porn, but it’s really excellent cookie porn.  (I am fully aware that by adopting this terminology, I’m inviting the attention of degenerate googlers, but considering that on any given day I get hits from searches on “ballerina shoes spanking” and “do the hairs on the back of your neck stand up during orgasm” [is that the editorial “your,” or me specifically?], to say nothing of the infamous “humiliating games with duct tape,” I figure that things can’t get much more degenerative around here.)

Ahem.  Sorry.

Ever since the magnificent Bee sent me a copy of the hilarious and inspiring A Nice Cup of Tea and a Sit Down (from the blog of the same name!), I’ve never been without at least one type of cookie/biscuit (waves to the Commonwealth readers) on hand to dunk in my tea.  From time to time I’ll buy a box of Petit Ecolier or Choco Leibniz biscuits from the Italian deli where I shop almost every day, but for the most part I’m still baking my own.  My cookie of choice has been the French honey wafers from Maida Heatter’s Brand New Book of Great Cookies, which are terrific made with orange blossom honey and even better made with tupelo honey, but I bet will be outstanding when made with the Tasmanian leatherwood honey that is once again available in my neighborhood.  I’ve also had a constant supply of Maida’s Cornmeal Shortbread Fingers from the same book, partly because they’re so good when dunked into tea, but also because you get to pipe them through a pastry bag, which, in my opinion, is about as much fun as you can have while still standing up. 

I could probably live happily on both of these all spring, or would have, if I’d hadn’t spent a weekend at Momerina’s reading her copy of King Arthur Flour Whole Grain Baking, which filled me with a blinding desire to buy my own copy immediately, and then make every single recipe in the book.  Eventually I *will* make everything, but I keep finding myself getting stuck on the Salted Cashew Crunch cookies, which might be as close to my own perfect cookie as anything I’ve found.  I love them so much that I have not even succumbed to the temptation to bake a batch, temper some chocolate and then coat the bottoms, to see if the chocolate enhances the sweet/salt idiom of these particular cookies.  A little chocolate might make a good thing even better, or it might be overkill, or worse yet, acceptable but unnecessary.  My natural tendency to fiddle is not tweaked by these cookies.  They really are close to perfect on their own.

The recipe is not at all complicated, but you do need some equipment.  The cookies are made from rolled oats that have been ground in a food processor for 30 seconds.  If you don’t have a food processor, or a blender, you can use oat flour, but in that case I would definitely recommend that you weigh, not measure, the oat flour, so that you can be sure you’re getting exactly 7 ounces of oats.  (I have not tried leaving the oats whole; my sense is that it would produce a lacier cookie, one more prone to spreading and burning, but that’s just a guess on my part.  Maybe one of these days I’ll try it.) If you have two cookie sheets and can fit 15 cookies on a sheet without cramming them too closely together (about 2” between cookies should be fine), you can bake the whole batch in one pass through the oven; no waiting for cookie sheets to cool down, no trying to find space for additional cookie sheets *and* cooling racks.  It takes less than 10 minutes, including the grinding of oats and chopping of cashews, to put the dough together, which means that you really can go from no dessert to “ooo!  cookies!” in half an hour.  The recipe yields about 30 cookies, which sounds a bit small for a batch of cookies, but these little gems are rich, so a little goes a long way. 

We will not talk about the day I missed lunch, and ate half a dozen in one sitting.  No, we will not.  I do not make a habit of this, and certainly don’t encourage it in others. 

Salted Cashew Crunch Cookies (from King Arthur Flour Whole Grain Baking:  Delicious Recipes Using Nutritious Whole Grains [Countryman Press, 2006])
makes 30 cookies
(As always, the recipe is that of the good folks at King Arthur, paraphrased and annotated by me.)

Note: The original recipe specifies baking them until they’re “light golden brown.” The first time I did this, I got nervous, and ended up with cookies that were delicious, but slightly underbaked.  On the next batch, I baked them for 15 minutes, until the bottoms were slightly darker (not burnt, though).  By pushing the baking time a bit, I was able to get a deeper, more caramel flavor from them, reminiscent of salt caramels, which just might be my favorite sweetie of 2008. A cookie full of the things I love—oats, cashews, butter, sugar, vanilla and salt—baked to a salt caramel flavor palate:  what more could a nice cup of tea ask for?

Additional note: This is *not* the official travelogue I keep promising.  That one is on the way. Really.

Where does one begin?  If that one is me, one begins with fits, starts and hiccups.  Three times have I drafted an opening sentence; three times have I deleted it, muttering “no, no, no.” I returned home from California yesterday morning, bringing with me some brilliant things, all of which will be described in the lavish and overwritten style you have come to expect from PTMYB.  (I also brought home a little sunburn on my chest and a mild head cold, which are somewhat less brilliant, but I have applied Lush Dream Cream to the former and Theraflu to the latter, and am now just fine for going out and playing in the fresh air with Lloyd, who is off from work this week.) So I’ll start with a teaser and a confession.  Here’s the teaser:

This would be my adored and splendid hostess, Grace Davis, sliding down one of the neatest hidden gems of a city ever to be found, the Seward Street slides, a concrete slide situated in a lot between two buildings in the Diamond Heights/Castro area of San Francisco.  There is a story to tell about this slide, and about the other wonders my dear friends shared with me so generously, but it will take me some time to tell, particularly since I also came home with 207 photos to sort and catalogue and dream over.  So for now I will limit my observation to say that it was a clear joy and an unadulterated hoot to watch and listen to Grace as she rode down the slide on a piece of corrugate.  On her first trip down, she cried out “ohmygodohmygodit’sfastIT’SFAST!,” and we’ve found a hundred reasons to say it ever since that moment. 

Did I ride down the slide myself?  Nope, I didn’t.  Even as I know how berserk this sounds, I’ll confess:  I thought the contours of the slide were a bit narrow.  I am not narrow.  I was afraid that I would get stuck.  Grace thinks I need to get over it and just ride the slide already.  She’s right, of course.  I do need to get over it, and I will.

Now for the confession:  Whatever virtues I might have, patience is not one of them.  (That clicking sound you might be hearing now is the sound of a thousand foreheads being smote by a thousand friends and readers.  “Tonight’s contestant is Bakerina.  Her chosen subject:  That Which is Manifestly Obvious.") Every time I sit down, take a deep breath and get into the quiet writerly space, a noisy little gremlin pops into my head:  “Come on, come on, get to the good stuff!  Why are you writing about the taxi ride to the airport?  When do we get to the news?  You have news!  Say it!  Say it!  Sayitisayitsayitsayit SAY IT.” It’s obnoxious, that gremlin, but it’s right:  I do have news, and I don’t want to barrel breathlessly through a narrative that deserves full attention and care in an attempt to get to the good stuff.  If I’d wanted to do that, I would be a scriptwriter for the adult film industry.  (Cheez Whiz, that sounds like a setup for a joke.)

Dear friends, I am happy to announce that after a lot of discussion, trepidation, tears, laughter, questions, answers, travel and a liberal dose of crossed fingers, the geographic smackdown is over.  Bay Area wins.  Come August, I will officially matriculate at Santa Clara University School of Law.

Although I am thrilled with the decision, particularly since Lloyd and Momerina are thrilled right along with me, I hasten to add that this was not an easy decision to make.  It was not a battle among unequal opponents.  Northeastern is a terrific school in a terrific city with a singular law curriculum.  If you are contemplating a law education in an East Coast city, I can, and will, recommend Northeastern with enthusiasm.  I met some truly smart and funny and impressive people there, and yes, I regret that we will not be playing together in the fall.  Likewise, the decision not to attend Pitt Law doesn’t come easily, either.  If anything, that was one of the hardest decisions I’ve had to make in this whole process.  I received my undergraduate degree from Chatham College (now Chatham College for Women, the undergraduate school of Chatham University) in Pittsburgh.  I adored the city then, I adore it still, and I know that I will feel more than a little pang when I visit my dear friend Sharon (who was my roommate at Chatham) when I visit Pittsburgh later this spring.

By now you’ve probably guessed that I am well-embedded in the concentrated urban milieu, and you would be right.  You might also have guessed that the Bay Area and Silicon Valley are a far, far piece, both geographically and emotionally, from everything I have ever known.  You’d be right there, too.  You might think, further, that for me to pursue a strenuous education in a new place, I’d have to find the school in question to be pretty damn special—and there, dear friends, is your hat trick.  I’m not only East-Coast-born-and-bred, I’m citified to the core.  My family is from Philadelphia, a place embedded in my blood, bone and marrow.  Even when I was growing up in the Poconos, a good three hours’ drive from Philadelphia, I still felt that Philadelphia was my true place, and that all this small-town nonsense was getting in the way of finding my authentic self.  Neither Boston nor Pittsburgh are Philadelphia—I will assert until my dying day that East Coast cities are *not* interchangeable, and that they’re not all wishing they were New York City or Washington—but they do share enough of a common taproot that, with a little time and patience, one can find one’s feet and comfort zone pretty easily.  Santa Clara (and San Jose and Santa Cruz and Redwood City and the other towns I visited last weekend) are a far, far piece from my own visceral landscape.  (San Francisco, by virtue of its citified nature, comes closer, but the geography of the city is so unlike that of any city I have ever lived in or visited that it still counts for me as a completely new milieu.) The quality of light is unlike anything I have ever seen.  The geographical markers, the vegetation, the very air itself is different, and I went into instant sensory overload, disoriented and enchanted all at once.  It is spectacular, but it is not yet comfortable.  It will be, though.  I know it will.

Of course, brilliant weather and splendid food and lush vegetation and sunsets that break your heart open, while lovely, are not the stuff for which law firms look when you come to them with your spiffy new J.D. degree and your bar certification in hand.  You still need a decent education, and based on what I saw on Law Preview Day, Santa Clara provides much, much more than a decent education:  if the 3L students I met on Saturday are any indication, the education it provides is not decent, but magnificent.  If my fellow 1Ls are anything like the crowd that was in the moot Ethics Law class in which I participated, I’m going to have to work hard to keep up with my peers.  These people are *smart*.  Why, no, I’m not intimidated.  I’m challenged in a healthy manner.  Really.  (breathes into paper bag) Seriously, though, I was impressed, deeply, with the moot classes, the faculty lectures, the current students and the incoming students.  And yes, I did have a moment of worry ("These people are too smart for me!  I don’t belong here!"), but it turned almost instantly into something more exciting and, ultimately, powerful ("That was *cool*.  I want to learn how to think like that").  I haven’t had that “I want to do that, too” moment since my restaurant externship after culinary school, when I saw pastry cooks bake cakes, freeze semifreddos and do complex chocolate work simultaneously, exhibiting the coolheaded grace of dancers, or air traffic controllers.  As soon as I had that moment, felt that desire, I knew what my answer would be.

This is not to say that I felt any kind of finality, or certainty, at that moment.  There was still plenty of wheel-spinning.  ("What about not seeing Lloyd every weekend?  What about the distance from my family?  God, I miss Lloyd so much right now—what will this be like when we can’t see each other for six weeks at a time?  What about all the flying?  My god, I’m going to have to make peace with flying once and for all! [Those of you who’ve known me for a long time know that I’m not the most phlegmatic of flyers, and that “peace” and “flying” are often mutually exclusive where I’m concerned.  That shit stops right now, though.] What if I want to quit?  What if Lloyd wants me to quit?  What if I end up alienating everybody I know and love?  My god, my god.  Maybe a beer would help.") Poor Grace was a witness to a lot of this wheel-spinning; for this, if for no other reason, she deserves a Purple Heart for letting me live in her house for four days.  She held my hand, literally and metaphorically, she walked me through a lot of this anxiety, she hugged me tightly and put me on the plane and assured me that, whatever I decided, good things will follow.  I spent the next six hours reading and dozing and watching tv and turning over my thoughts as the plane zipped over our motley landscape, riding home from JFK in Tuesday morning rush hour traffic, navigating the cabdriver who took a wrong turn on Astoria Boulevard and damn near took us onto the Triborough and into the Bronx, and finally hurtling myself, missile-like, into Lloyd’s waiting embrace.  I held on like I would never let go.  He held on with me.  And then we sat down and made a plan.

There was once a time when we had thought that regardless of where I went to school, we could keep our home base in New York.  I would go away, I would come back, we would always have a home here.  We’re not blind, though.  We can see what’s happening in New York.  The economy is in the tank, the job opportunities available for us are largely terrible cubicle-farm jobs where the retention prospects are tenuous at best.  You can’t walk two blocks in this city anymore without running smack into construction on new buildings full of apartments we can’t afford.  The neighborhood in which we live has officially been discovered by real estate watchers.  Our neighborhood message board, and the coffee bar from which much of the discussion generates, is full of commentary from young New Yorkers who have tried for months, years even, to find an affordable apartment in Astoria from a landlord willing to rent to them.  All around us, we see signs of tightening, the best of New York being parsed for those who can pay extravagantly for it, the rest of us being squeezed out.  Eventually we will be forced to leave.  We’d just as soon go of our own free will, thanks.

So this is our immediate future.  I will scramble for loans and scholarships and any other means to pay for school.  (Thankfully, I will not have to scramble for work.  I have a part-time job waiting for me in San Jose.  A nifty prize awaits the first reader who can ascertain where I’ll be working.) I will cross my fingers and hope that on-campus housing comes through.  School starts August 11.  To get there, Lloyd and I will go on our long-discussed, long-desired cross-country road trip at last.  We will share the driving and eat road food and look for real homemade pie, much as I wanted to do after reading Pascale Le Draoulec’s American Pie four years ago.  He’ll get me settled in, he’ll fly back to New York, we’ll talk every day, we’ll fly to each other as often as time and money will allow...and then, once he is fully vested in his pension next spring, we will pursue transfer and/or new job opportunities, anything it takes to bring him to me.  It may be later rather than sooner, but Lloyd is coming to California, too.  Once I’m finished with school...well, there’s the bright shining question mark.  In general, where one goes to school determines where one will stay to practice, so the odds of living permanently in California are good...but they’re not a given.  We could end up in Seattle.  We could go back to Philadelphia, where Lloyd and I met as bookstore clerks on a day that feels like yesterday.  We could see the world.  We could go anywhere.

Where does one begin?

Dear friends,

I am working on the Complete and Utter Tale of Bakerina’s Really Big Adventure Out West, but it’s going to take me a while.  Hopefully I’ll get it finished before I fly home tomorrow night, but in the event that it has to wait until I’m back in New York, I can at least offer the following teasers:

1.  Everything I said on Friday morning about Grace’s being the hostess with the mostest?  To quote the late and much-missed Madeline Kahn, it’s twue, it’s twue!  She has been spoiling me utterly with magnificent food, she has driven me all over San Francisco twice in three days, and she has been a kickass conversationalist through it all.  If you have a problem and you need someone with a clear head and a wise heart to listen to you, Grace is so absolutely, positively your girl.  And she’s an awesome driver.

2.  If you have ever been to San Francisco, then you understand why it’s so important to have an awesome driver showing you around—or to be an awesome driver yourself.  I have lived in hilly places (hi, Pittsburgh!) and I have visited mountain towns at staggering elevations (hello, Estes Park!), but I have never, ever, ever in my life seen anything like the hills in San Francisco.  I will confess that the first time Grace drove us down a hill in Pacific Heights, I instinctively put out my hands in a way that caused her to say “honey, are you all right with this?” Even though I knew that there was more road on the other side of the tipping point, I just couldn’t see it, and half expected us to shoot off the road into empty air.  I got over that quickly, though, and can now ride down steep winding roads with the best of them—but I’m still glad Grace is doing the driving. 

3.  I have been reading Jo Spanglemonkey‘s blog for such a long time that even though she and I have exchanged email and commented on each other’s blogs as well as on our beloved Scrine, I still view her with the openmouthed, wide-eyed awe that even the most hard-bitten New Yorkers use when they see David Bowie at the art supply store.  I really, really hope that I didn’t have that expression fixed on my face when Jo and Grace and I all went out for fish tacos at lunch.  Luckily for me, Jo is every bit as warm and whipsmart and funny in person as she is en blog.  And her hair is fantastic.

4.  As I’ve mentioned here before, ‘mouse is one of my oldest friends on the internet (in a years-of-acquaintanceship sense, not in a chronological-age sense).  He has been a font of wisdom, a champion, a cheerleader and the kind of friend that makes me think that I must have done something good in my past life to deserve having him in this one—like, say, saving a busload full of nuns and orphans from careening off a cliff.  Dear friends, I got to meet this kind and excellent man on Saturday.  The only reason I am not bubbling over with fulsome, enthusiastic praise for his overall excellent self is that I hardly know where to begin.

5.  Enough suspense.  I know what the $64 question is:  Now that you’ve been to both Northeastern and Santa Clara, have you made a decision? I would dearly love to say that I have, but the fact is that I was blown away by both of them in equal measure.  They both have a terrific curriculum, an awe-inspiring faculty and an impressive, engaging student body.  I have a scholarship waiting for me at Northeastern and a job waiting for me at Santa Clara.  I’m going to have to pick one of them—or say no to both and either go to Pitt or hope that Cardozo gives me an admission offer soon.  Lloyd and I are going to have to make some decisions.  I will be home on Tuesday morning, and as soon as I’m done embracing Lloyd hard enough to crack a rib, we’re going to do just that.

Proper travelogue will follow, hopefully sooner rather than later. 

With any luck, this will pass, and I will settle down enough to write something pleasant to read.  Until then, dear ones.

Lloyd has suggested that all of this sleepy bad attitude is a natural result of pondering the uncertain future.  He has also suggested that feeling lazy and sheepish is not doing me any favors.  When I told him “I have no idea what I’m going to do with my week,” he answered simply, “why not just live peacefully for a few days?” He did not drive a fork into my head, baked-potato-like, the way I richly deserved.  He really is a keeper.

That said, even though I am currently as chatty, thoughtful and interesting as an aspidistra these days, I realize that it’s bad form to have news to share and not actually share it.  In other words, yes, dear friends, the school saga continues.  In addition to Santa Clara (a/k/a Bay Area) and Northeastern (a/k/a Beantown), I have also been accepted to Pitt Law, adding Pittsburgh to the geographic smackdown.  New York City is in there, too, because Cardozo (the law school of Yeshiva University) has waitlisted me, and will keep me on the waitlist until August 25 or until I tell them to take me off of it.  I have not yet heard from Brooklyn Law, but I knew from the beginning that it would be a long shot.  Colorado said no.

Holy moly, now I’m really tired.  But hell, there are worse things in life than being tired.  I may be worn out and overwhelmed, but I’m definitely not bored or depressed or feeling assaulted by a terrible job situation.  I’m headed to the land of sun-kissed, thirsty lotus-eaters.  I’ll be staying with Grace—woohoooooo!  I’m staying with Grace!  I’ll have at least a day, maybe two, in San Francisco.  I have a day of meeting more Future Lawyers of America, and, if all goes well there, I might just have a job interview, too.  I’m on the verge of a Grand Weekend Out, and until then, I still have my share of neat stuff to appreciate at home, like, say, this little piece of public art, which Bunni and I found while walking down York Avenue on a particularly horrid, sleety, freezing February day.  I went back yesterday, wondering if it would still be there, and odds my bodkins, it was.  It’s a mock cemetery made from tongue depressors, located on the corner of York Avenue and 67th Street, in the heart of the neighborhood where you can find Rockefeller University, Weill Cornell Medical College and Memorial Sloan-Kettering Hospital.  It’s good to see that the Future Doctors of America have maintained their sense of mordant dark humor—and have managed to keep up with current events on top of it.  Hmmmm.  Maybe what I need is to feel more exhausted, not less.

Thankfully, I am not alone.  I am lucky enough to have Bunni and Julie in my life.  Not only do they understand my rantiness on this issue—Bunni’s neighborhood has no fewer than four new luxury buildings going up within two blocks of her apartment, while Julie’s neighborhood has been rechristened SpaHa by builders and brokers hot to gentrify—but they also know that the best tonic for this sort of existential dread is to be in each other’s company.  If we happen to be having a really nice meal while in each other’s company, so much the better.  And if we can have that nice meal in a small sweet neighborhood space, the kind where the owners are more concerned with providing really good food than with establishing a see-and-be-seen vibe, and where we can feel, even temporarily, the sense of place and belonging that brought us to New York in the first place, then existential dread doesn’t stand a chance.

“Allright, my little turtledoves,” Bunni wrote to me and Julie one night.  Of course we listened, closely.  Of course she knew we would say yes.

Bunni’s proposal was that we go to dinner at Panorama, just opened in her neighborhood—or, rather, reopened.  I had been to Panorama before when it was Panorama Cafe, located in a swell two-floor, iron-terraced corner building on Second Avenue and East 85th Street.  I had eaten some decent salads, some truly good omelettes and some regrettable bread.  I’d never ordered wine on any of these visits; as far as I was concerned, Panorama was a brunch restaurant, or the place you went when you wanted a big salad and an iced tea.  You might not eat fancily, but odds were good you would eat decently.  When I learned that Panorama had lost its lease, I felt that old familiar sinking in my heart:  another low-key neighborhood fixture bites the dust.  When Bunni told me that Panorama was not closing, but rather moving to the space that M. Rohrs’ House of Fine Teas and Coffees vacated when they moved to their new space on East 86th Street, I was glad to hear that Panorama had a home, but baffled by the thought of it moving into Rohrs’ old space.  I knew the old Rohrs’ well.  The space was tiny, cramped and a fraction of the space in Panorama’s old location.  How in the world were they going to do it?

I am pleased to say that they did it, and they did it well.  Admittedly, a meal at the new Panorama is more expensive than at the old Panorama, but not extortionately so; depending on whether you want a full three-course meal with wine or a small plate or two, you can eat for $50 per person, or for $20, or more or less or points between.  The bread is much better now, and served with olive oil pressed from olives grown on the owners’ farm.  The new wine list is small but impressive:  I had a Rodney Strong pinot noir with my appetizer and a malbec with my entree, as well as a taste of the viognier Julie had with her meal, and was so delighted with everything I tried that I’m all set to come back and try the wine flights once Panorama rolls them out.  The space is beautiful, with exposed brick walls and warm lighting, surprisingly airy and wide-open.  It is not the tiny, packed-to-the-rafters space that Rohrs’ occupied.

Of course, all of this would be a moot point if I didn’t love the food. 

Bunni’s scampi in garlic sauce. Much passing around of plate at table.  Yummy noises ensued.

Julie’s calamari.  More passing around of plate, more yummy noises.

My salad, a lovely thing made from mixed greens, orange and grapefruit sections, toasted almonds and strawberry vinaigrette.  I am only a little ashamed to admit that I ate a sizable portion of this salad without utensils, although I stopped short of licking the plate clean.  Mmmm, vinaigrette.

For entrees, we opted for pasta, and plenty of it.  Julie was intrigued by the lobster ravioli on the menu, but was also intrigued by the cardinale sauce (white wine, tomatoes, garlic, shrimp and cherry tomatoes) that was featured on one of the other pasta dishes.  She asked the waitress if the kitchen would be willing to dress the ravioli with the cardinale sauce, and happiness!, they did:

Bunni, no fool she, ordered the paglia y fieno (green and white pasta, peas and prosciutto), which I’m definitely ordering on the next visit:

I meanwhile, did something I haven’t done since I was a little kid.  Although I’ve made meat sauces for pasta at home, I almost never order them in restaurants, but for some reason, something about a big bowl of spaghetti dressed with meat and mushrooms and tomatoes called out to me that night.

Not surprisingly, by the end of all this, even without cleaning our plates, even with having enough to take home, we had to forgo dessert, which was a shame because I do like to leave room for tirami su.  I’m not complaining, though.  The three of us came to dinner with minds full of trouble and hearts full of worry, and there will be plenty more of that to come.  For three hours, anyway, we were in a warm, well-lit room, enjoying each other’s company, eating and drinking wonderful things made for us by people more concerned with their food and their atmosphere than with courting celebrities, feeling the sense of place and belonging that is all too elusive for us in our own city these days.  That’s my kind of Friday night.

Panorama
303 East 85th Street (between 2nd and 1st Aves.)
New York, NY 10028

Edit: Bunni has informed me that Panorama is now serving weekend brunch and a sandwich menu.  Woohoo!

Dear friends, it is not only Deep Thoughts of the Future keeping me away from this space.  There is still plenty of that, of course, but there is also a new spring ritual in my life, the phenomenon known as Deadline Knitting.  Last March found me cranking out cotton dishcloths against the clock so that I might present them to Julie at her bridal shower.  This March finds me still cranking out cottony goodness, brought to me by the swell gals at Mason-Dixon Knitting, for another richly-deserving recipient.  Although the party in question is not until next week (and that’s all I’ll say here, lest she be reading), I have only a two-day window to finish everything.  To say that I’m getting a little obsessive about all the knitting is to understate the case, truly.

In addition to knitting and deep thinking, there will be traveling, too.  On Saturday I will be taking a day trip to Boston to attend Northeastern’s open house for admitted students, leaving New York at 3 in the morning - really—and arriving in Boston around 7:30, which should give me time for a nice breakfast and the tallest coffee known to man before I go meet some Future Lawyers of America, tour the campus, hobnob with the faculty at the Museum of Fine Arts, and then catch a late-afternoon train back to New York.  At about the moment I finally recover from traveling to Penn Station in the middle of the night, specifically, on April 17, I will be flying to San Jose so that I can attend Law Preview Day at Santa Clara on the 19th.  For that trip, though, I’ll be sticking around for the weekend and taking the redeye back to New York on Monday.  Just writing that makes me tired.  But happy.  But still tired.  I’ve never been able to sleep on airplanes, but this trip might be the one that teaches me to do it.

I will be back, though, as soon as I can.  After all, Owen wants to talk about eggs and Juno wants to talk about fruit crisps.  Who could stay away in the face of such promising conversation? 

Before I share the recipe for this little cupcake here—because I know I’ll be poked with pointy sticks if I attempt to post a picture and then skedaddle without including a recipe—I do want to thank everyone who either commented here, sent email or called in response to the “Bay Area v. Beantown geographic smackdown” post.  I heard from a lot of you, and I am touched to know that so many of you care, and wish both me and Lloyd well in the coming months and years, when we’ll need as much luck and intelligence on our side as we can muster.  I am refraining from commenting further right now—although Bog knows that won’t last long —simply because for all that this is an exhilarating process, it is a stressful and exhausting one, too.  I won’t enumerate on all of the factors we need to consider for our future; the most important one, of course, is to stick by each other as long as we live*, but there are other factors, too, factors that both require Lloyd to stay in New York for at least another year, and also require us to contemplate our post-New York future—because, as I predicted on this very page nearly 4 1/2 years ago, our time in New York is running out, and we’d like to get a head start before the rug is pulled from under us.  In short, Lloyd and I are not going into anything with blinders on.  We’re trying to make the smartest decision that can be made, even if that decision does not look smart in the short term.  For that reason, I am holding off on any more discussion until I’m ready for it.  Thank you all, in advance, for your patience and understanding.

Yes, yes, so noted, blahdeblahdeblah.  Cupcakes, please?

Absolutely.  Today’s bit of Sunday Thursday afternoon cake love was inspired by bunni, who made beautiful little cakes using the Magnolia Bakery vanilla cupcake recipe and her bunny cakelet tins.  From the minute she called to tell me about them, I’ve had cupcakes on the brain—but not the cupcakes that are ubiquitous in New York (and, to hear my dear friend Sharon tell it, are making an inroad into the same nifty neighborhood in Pittsburgh where, once upon a time, I wanted to open my bread bakery).  I recognize that from an aesthetic viewpoint, a steep tower of icing atop a cupcake might look sexy, but the result is always the same:  after two bites, my head rings, my teeth hurt and my stomach feels like a canvas bag with a medicine ball in it.  As much as I hate to admit any fealty toward packaged food, I’m afraid that my idea of the ur-cupcake stems from the Tastykake chocolate cupcakes I loved as a kid:  a small, intensely-flavored cake, a thin ribbon of icing across the top.  If you are familiar with fairy cakes, those are pretty much where my cupcake tastes lie.

Once I knew that cupcakes were in my future, it was a short skip to determining the flavor.  Ever since I acquired my copy of one of my favorite cookbooks, English Food by the late Jane Grigson, I have been enchanted with her recipe for Parsnip Cake, which she describes in her recipe headnote thusly:

In recent years, American carrot cake—sometimes, and I am not sure why, called passion cake—has become popular in Britain.  A friend from San Diego sent me her recipe, and I thought it might be good made with parsnips instead of carrots.  And it was, in fact it was even better.  That is my excuse for including it in a book of English food.

I am of the opinion that, as Robert Heinlein said of little girls and butterflies, Jane Grigson needs no excuses.  About the cake, she is bang-on.  I made two changes to her recipe.  One was to bake the cake in muffin cups, rather than layers; the other was to substitute half the plain flour with whole-wheat pastry flour, inspired by my new copy of King Arthur Flour Whole-Grain Baking, which I bought on Monday after spending Easter weekend reading Momerina’s copy.  There are other changes I’ve thought of making:  adding raisins, adding pineapple, replacing the traditional cream-cheese icing with with seven-minute coconut icing—but really, I would just be gilding the lily here, and I know it.  I tried one of these with a cup of tea at 11 a.m., and it was just right as is, the perfect thing to bake—and to eat—while contemplating one’s stressful and uncertain future. 

Parsnip Cupcakes
inspired by Jane Grigson’s parsnip cake in English Food (Ebury Press, 1992)
makes 18 medium-sized cupcakes

Note:  Because Jane Grigson gives both metric and imperial weight measurements, that’s what I’m using here.  Normally I try to include volume as well, but this morning I just weighed everything right into the mixing bowl.  If you’d like volume measurements, let me know, and I’ll edit accordingly.

For the cupcakes:
375g (12 oz.) peeled, grated parsnip (peel and grate first, then weigh)
125g (4 oz.) chopped hazelnuts or walnuts (again, chop first, then weigh—I used hazelnuts)
400g (13 oz.) caster or golden granulated sugar (if you have regular granulated white sugar, that’s fine)
125g (4 oz.) all-purpose or plain flour
125g (4 oz.) whole wheat pastry flour (or use 250g all-purpose flour if you don’t have whole wheat pastry flour)
2 teaspoons baking powder
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon (Because this is an English recipe, I used Ceylon cinnamon, which is the predominant cinnamon used in British baking.  After I added it, I remembered that the original recipe source was American, and what we Americans consider cinnamon is the stronger, more pungent cassia.  Really, though, you can’t go wrong here, no matter what you use.)
1 teaspoon salt
250ml (8 fl. oz.) oil (Jane Grigson recommends either sunflower or a 50-50 sunflower/walnut or hazelnut oil mix.  I used peanut oil, which is my default oil of choice, but if you can’t have peanuts, canola, safflower or even plain vegetable oil will work just fine)
4 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract (Jane Grigson suggests either the vanilla extract or the seeds from a vanilla pod; I think that the pod vanilla flavor might be lost in this cake, but in all fairness, I haven’t tried it yet.)

Preheat oven to 400F/185C/Gas Mark 6.  Set a rack in the center of the oven.  Line a 12-cup muffin mold with paper liners or spray with nonstick spray.

Mix parsnips and nuts together by hand and set aside.

In a stand mixer or food processor, combine the sugar, flours, baking powder, cinnamon and salt.  Add the oil and beat just until combined.  Add the eggs, one at a time, and beat until just combined.  (You can also do this in a regular bowl with a hand mixer.  If you beat this by hand, make sure that the oil and eggs are very well combined.) Add the parsnips and nuts, stir to blend.  Add the vanilla.  Be sure that the parsnips and batter are all evenly distributed.

Divide the batter between the cups.  (I used a 1/4-cup Zeroll cookie scoop, which gave me 18 total.) Bake on the center rack for 28-30 minutes, rotating the pan halfway through the bake.  When they are done, the surface will look moist, but they will be firm to the touch, and a toothpick plunged into the center of the cake will emerge clean.) Let rest for a few minutes before decanting the cakes to a cooling rack.  If you have batter left over (there should be enough for six more cakes), let the pan cool down, then line and bake off the rest of the batter.  Let cool completely.

For the icing:

250g (8 oz.) cream cheese (Jane Grigson specifies full-fat, but I used reduced fat [Neufchatel], which worked nicely.  Fat-free, though, I wouldn’t do.)
125g-175g (4-6 oz.) softened unsalted butter (I used the smaller amount)
4 tablespoons confectioners sugar, sifted (This makes a not-too-sweet icing, which I love; if you like a sweeter icing, add more)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract or lemon juice

This is a doddle.  Cream the cheese and butter together, add sugar, add vanilla or lemon juice, stir until smooth, well-blended and fluffy.  Ice your cupcakes all at once, or just put them in an airtight container and ice as needed.  Keep the icing in the fridge.  Let it come to room temperature and stir before you spread it.

*Astute readers among you might recognize this line from ”Song of the Open Road” (stanza 17) by Walt Whitman, which my dear friend Sharon—the same dear friend Sharon who told me about the arrival of hepster cupcakes in Pittsburgh—read at our wedding.  It still resonates with us.

In the great “Bay Area v. Boston” geographic smackdown, I do not intend to fight fair.—‘mouse

So noted, sir…

1.  Tuition, room/board, expenses.

Bay Area and Beantown charge approximately the same tuition and on-campus room/board.  Living expenses are also approximately the same.  Draw.

2.  Financial aid.

Beantown has awarded me a scholarship that will cover approximately 22% of my tuition costs over three years.  Bay Area has sent me paperwork to apply for a scholarship that will cover about 15% of my tuition costs over three years—assuming that I am one of the lucky scholarship recipients in the first place. Advantage:  Beantown.

3.  Job opportunities.

Bay Area does not allow first-year students to work.  [Edit: ‘mouse, who is a Bay Area alum, has questioned this.  I am reinvestigating.  It’s possible that first-year students are merely discouraged from working, in accordance with the American Bar Association recommendations.] However, Bay Area’s campus is close to the office of an attorney who has suggested that there might be work available for me in the area.  Beantown has a co-op program embedded in its curriculum:  students attend classes for 11 weeks, then work for the co-op for 11 weeks.  Depending on where the co-op places the student, pay ranges from fairly low (for public service work such as with the public defender’s or district attorney’s offices) to almost livable (for big corporate Satan-on-a-retainer firms).  Draw.

4.  Accessibility to off-campus amenities.

Bay Area has a public transit system, but so far it is an unknown quantity; the school literature says only that it’s *possible* to attend school for three years without requiring a car.  Beantown has the T.  Draw, with possible advantage to Beantown.

5.  Weather.

Okay, on this there’s no contest.  Advantage:  Bay Area.

6.  Food.

Both Bay Area and Beantown have abundance of swell places to eat.  Grocery situation uncertain without further study.  Rumors abound of swell roadside produce stands in Bay Area.  Draw, with possible advantage to Bay Area.

7.  Exercise.

Bay Area and Beantown both have huge, sexalicious fitness centers and swimming pools, all free for enrolled students.  Draw.

8.  Curricula, clinics, special programs.

This is where the choice can really make a body’s head hurt.  Bay Area has a community law center, an institute for redress and recovery for the victims of torture and other human rights abuses, the Northern California Innocence Project and several clinics and programs on sustainability.  Beantown has clinical courses on criminal advocacy, domestic violence and public health; a program on civil rights and restorative justice, and a project that sends students into Beantown-area public schools to teach constitutional literacy to high school students.  I am only scratching the surface of what both schools offer.  Draw, dammit, a complete and utter draw.

9.  Going home.

Going to Beantown will allow me to come home and see Lloyd at least once or twice a month.  Coming home from Bay Area will be considerably more expensive and difficult.  On the other hand, one could argue that being 3,300 miles away from home will force me to focus on my coursework, with no distraction.  Advantage:  Beantown, but since I have no idea whether I’ll be too embedded in first-year boot camp to enjoy any time at home, this might be a draw, too.

10.  Future practice, a/k/a Where do you want to be when you grow up?

I have been advised that the place where you pursue your education generally determines where you build your career (or did I get that backwards?) If I go to Beantown, the odds are good that I will work in Beantown or points nearby—or possibly as far south as Washington.  If I go to Bay Area, it would not be a stretch to consider one day living and working in San Francisco.  Draw, draw, draw.

But wait, there’s a wild card! I have yet to hear from two schools in New York City, one in Pittsburgh and one in Boulder.  If any one of those schools offers me a superior financial aid package, all of the previous considerations are hereby rendered null and void.

Edit: Yes, there are open-house days for admitted students at both schools.  Yes, I plan on attending both, which should either cement a decision or just make the whole damn decision that much more difficult to make.

It was about this time last year that I was a woman of few words.  Once again I am a woman of few words, albeit for much different, much better reasons.

I had thought that the adventure started once I finished my applications and sent off my fees.  That only goes to show what I know.  Now the adventure starts, namely, how in the world am I going to pay for this?  (There are options, of course, but I dare not disclose them for fear of hexing them.  There are also four other schools from which to hear; out of the same fear of hexing, I am being cagey about them.)

Of course, I have the rest of the spring and summer to figure out how I’m going to pay for this.  Today I can read and reread these letters, and be thankful that the word “regret” does not occur in either of them.  I can’t think of a better way to spend the day than that.

On Friday it was a loaf of bread—or, rather, eight loaves of bread—and an opportunity to spend the day doing something I loved.  Today it is a moral dilemma, and possibly an exercise in decadence.  Of course, it was a moral dilemma, and possibly an exercise in decadence, long before this weekend.  It was only this weekend that my conscience finally caught up to reality.  I realize fully that my conscience is a little slow on the uptake.

The plan had been simple:  Make a batch of pain brié as I’d been taught to make it in culinary school.  Tell an amusing story about how, back in school, I had beaten that damn dough for half an hour and it had never, ever smoothed out.  Discover that the first batch I’d made in ten years was spoiled by an overproofed sponge and a surfeit of flour (I had forgotten that my instructors who had written our bread curriculum had built 10% additional flour into the base recipes, and I had forgotten to leave it out).  Make another batch, then decide to make a control batch with a lower-protein flour, to see if I could achieve a smoother dough.  Spend a day in the kitchen, rediscovering how malty and clean is the scent of flour and water being mixed together; how satisfying is the whole shaping process, turning par-shaped loaves into bâtards, feeling air bubbles pop under gentle pressure, how thrilling it is to draw a razor blade against the top of an oven-bound loaf and get it right on the first whoosh.  Bake the breads.  Pull them out of the oven.  Love the way the hot crust crackles in the cool air.  Note ruefully that the bottoms are burned thanks to one of the oven racks being placed too closely to the bottom of the oven.  Let it cool.  Let it rest.  Taste it.  Discover, sadly, that the loaves made with bread flour taste like nothing, while the loaves made with all-purpose flour taste only marginally better than nothing.  They’re definitely not reflective of the work I put into them.  Still, there’s nothing shabby about having a freezer full of sandwich-suitable bread, and a story to tell about it.  Vow to try again with an overnight-risen dough.  Tell the story, all of it.

Now, I realize I’m talking about all of this as if it has occurred in a vacuum.  It has not.  Long before I decided to embark on this little baking adventure, the price of flour was increasing, and I knew this.  I confess now—and I’m embarrassed to confess this—that I didn’t pay too much attention to root causes.  Ever since oil prices began to climb, I took it for granted that eventually these increases would result in higher prices for food.  When the price of milk began to climb, I knew that it was due to a combination of increased fuel costs and increased feed costs:  as more corn is being used to produce ethanol, less of it is available for animal feed.  I started seeing a news story here, an email from my flour company of choice there, an occasional news report in between:  the price of flour is going up.  I didn’t pay too much attention.  I would be still be buying all the flour I needed; I’d just be paying more for it.  It’s all about the fuel.  Nothing to see here.

It’s not all about the fuel.  Thanks to this article in Sunday’s New York Times, I know just how wrong I was.  Fuel pricing is a factor, of course.  So is the diversion of land from wheat crops to corn crops to feed the growing market for biofuels.  So is the weak dollar.  So is the drought in Australia, which has proven devastating for Australian wheat crops, and which has sent the buyers of Australian wheat to look to the U.S. for exports.  So is the growing global demand for wheat-based foods like bread and noodles, even—especially—in countries where they have not historically been staples.  All of these factors have made wheat a dear commodity, growing dearer by the day, and have plunged the U.S. grain reserve to its lowest level since 1947.

I went to bed on Sunday, contemplating all of this.  On Monday morning, I walked past the bakery around the corner on my way to the laundromat and found this article, laminated, hanging in the front window.  It was then that I realized just how dire the situation has become.  We now have 30-year-old and 50-year-old bakeries in the city, pleading with their customers to remain patient, and to understand that nobody is getting rich off that extra 40 cents being charged for bread.  We have decades-old businesses, well established in the community, facing closure because they can’t continue to absorb these increases indefinitely, and there does not seem to be any end in sight.

Dear friends, I am confounded.  I do not know whether I am part of the problem or part of the solution.  Is it better to keep buying flour, to continue patronizing a company whose product I really like, to help keep them afloat through the rough waters of a grain shortage?  Or should I realize that I am part of that insistent global demand for wheat and wheat products, and modify my flour purchases accordingly?  Do home bakers use enough flour to even register as a blip on the radar of world commodity markets?  Is this all, in fact, an exercise in decadence?

Good morning.  Happy Friday.

Lest you think I have finally lost all sense of time now that I don’t sit in a cubicle anymore, I promise that I know it’s Friday morning, and not Sunday afternoon.  I’d like to say there’s some bright and clever story behind the Sunday afternoon cake love series, but the truth is pretty prosaic.  I’d had the idea last Sunday to write a big ol’post about cake, and include three recipes, one for the Roland Mesnier applesauce cake, one for the pistachio-nougat torte I made for Julie’s birthday party the previous week, and one for the famous Elizabeth David flourless chocolate cake that inspired so much conversation around here.  Alas, I’d had this brilliant idea at about the same time I’d had the idea to start experimenting with the pain brié that I hadn’t made since culinary school.  Two hours later, I had only got as far as the applesauce cake; the pain brié starter was overfermented, the resulting dough was overfloured and sharp-smelling, and I was filled with the vague sense of guilty self-loathing that always comes with not planning well.  (Confidential to e:  Yes, I seem to remember promising something about no more self-loathing.  Hey, these things take time.  You can’t just jump into ‘em.) That was the moment where I decided that Sunday afternoon cake love would make a super three-part series.

I know I’m breaking at least one heart by not posting the pistachio nougat torte recipe this morning, but in my infinite genius, I forgot to take a picture of the one I’d made for Julie’s party.  (In my defense, I had also made a pair of Trianons for the same party; by the time I finished the finishing on the torte, I was a little addled, to say nothing of sticky and cream-covered.  This was not nearly as attractive as it sounds.  Give it up, already, you perverts.) Fortunately, it’s easy to put together and will keep in the freezer (although the original recipe doesn’t specifically recommend this).  The only thing keeping me from making it right now is an insufficient supply of pistachios, but a quick trip to the Greek supermarket around the corner will fix that sharpish.  In the meantime, I do have the fixings for the Elizabeth David cake.  I made the one in the photograph on Tuesday afternoon.  Lloyd and I finally killed it last night.  It took everything in me not to make one for breakfast, but even I have my limits. 

Elizabeth David’s Gâteau au chocolat et aux amandes (from French Provincial Cooking by Elizabeth David; also found in More Home Cooking by Laurie Colwin)
makes one 8” cake

Note: As is the standard operating procedure around here, the recipe is Mrs. David’s, but her instructions are rewritten in my own words.  I have also changed the methodology a bit, most ly by adding some of the sugar to the egg whites during the beating process.

4 ounces (115g) bittersweet chocolate (I used Green & Black Dark, which contains 85% cocoa solids; this gives a slightly bitter, very intense chocolate flavor.  If you’re not wild about bitterness in a chocolate cake, you can use a less-dark chocolate, although I think semisweet makes this cake a little too sweet.  Unsweetened chocolate is, to my taste, much too bitter for this cake.)

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 tablespoon espresso or other strong coffee (I used 1/4 teaspoon of espresso powder from King Arthur Flour dissolved in a tablespoon of water—this is strong stuff.  If you have access to a decent instant espresso, like Medaglia D’Oro or Cafe Bustelo, you can up the ratio of coffee to water a bit.)

1 tablespoon brandy

3 ounces (85g or 6 tablespoons) unsalted butter

3.75 ounces (106g or 1/2 cup) granulated sugar (After you have weighed/measured the sugar, measure out one tablespoon.  This will be added to the egg whites; the rest will be added to the chocolate mixture.)

1/4 teaspoon kosher salt (not in the original recipe, but I think it boosts the flavor nicely)

2 5/8 ounces (75g or 1/2 cup) ground almonds

3 large eggs, separated

Set a rack in the center of the oven and preheat the oven to 300F/135C/Gas Mark 2.  Butter an 8-inch springform or loose-bottomed cake pan (which is what I used).

Melt the chocolate, vanilla, coffee and brandy together in a double boiler.  If you have a heavy saucepan, you can heat it right in the pan as long as you keep the heat low.  Stir everything together gently.  The liquids may cause the chocolate to seize up a bit.  This is nothing to worry about; it will all smooth out once you blend everything together.  Add the butter, sugar, salt and ground almonds.  Stir together until the butter is melted.  Remove the pan from the heat.

In a medium bowl, beat the egg yolks until they are lightened in color ("lemon-colored," in Laurie Colwin’s words).  It’s fine to do this by hand with a small whisk.  Add the beaten yolks to the chocolate mixture.

Using either a hand mixer or a stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, beat the egg whites.  Begin by beating them slowly while simultaneously adding, slowly, the tablespoon of sugar you held back from the rest.  Once the sugar has been added, turn the motor to high and beat the egg whites until they just hold stiff peaks.  Take a spoonful of the egg whites and stir them into the chocolate mixture to lighten it a bit.  Fold in the rest of the egg whites gently.

Turn the batter into the prepared pan.  Bake the cake for 45 minutes.  When it is done, it will be slightly risen (but will sink back down upon cooling) and dry to the touch, but a cake tester will not emerge cleanly.  Cool on a rack; remove the side of the pan once the cake is thoroughly cooled.

Once again, to nobody’s surprise or shock, I digress.  While cataloguing some of my little-used cookbooks before packing them for storage, I found the binders that served as my textbooks in culinary school.  Paging through them brought it all back to me:  walking to school from the 86th Street IRT stop during a surrealistically hot summer; walking through the door of the pastry kitchen and feeling the temperature drop 40 degrees; hours and hours of chopping chocolate and boiling sugar and whapping pounds of butter around in Hobart mixers; studying our finished desserts and breads as we learned to evaluate them critically; tasting, tasting, tasting; packing everything up and either taking it home or sharing it with the school staff and the mechanics at the garage next door; and scrubbing down every surface in the kitchen with sanitizing solution (1 tablespoon chlorine bleach to 1 gallon water), longing to be done with the day’s work as the chlorine smell settled on our hair and skin.  I lived, ate and breathed all this stuff, spent all of my waking life consumed by poached pears and nougatine and three different formulae for ganache—and then I graduated into a soft job market, learned that the company for which Lloyd worked was on the verge of collapse, knew that there was no way I could support us both on a pastry monkey’s salary, and returned, cap in hand, to packaging.  Even as I shifted my focus away from pastry and toward bread, even as I researched and drafted and redrafted a business plan, I never opened my school textbooks again—until yesterday, that is.

In short, I’m in a mood not only to revisit, but also to share, which is why I have a sponge for pain brié working in the kitchen even as we speak.  Pain brié is a rustic French bread, made from a relatively stiff dough that is not only kneaded but beaten with a heavy rolling pin for 10 minutes to develop the gluten.  I’m sorry to say that my only memory of this bread is that the dough refused to smooth out when my team made it.  I ended up beating it so vigorously that I was nearly jumping up and down with the effort.  (A chorus or two of “Unbelievable” by EMF would have been not only appropriate, but also welcome.) I’m keen to try it again, to see not only how the recipe works but also if any of the additional baking trucs I’ve learned over the past decade can help make the bread even better.  And so I shall.

Since I have no bread to share just yet, I can at least share the cakes that have made their way through the PTMYB kitchens over the past few weeks, like this beauty right here:

Warm Applesauce Cake with Cranberry Syrup (from Roland Mesnier’s Basic to Beautiful Cakes by Roland Mesnier and Lauren Chattman, Simon & Schuster, 2007
makes 1 10-inch tube cake, serves 12

Those of you who know how tetchy I am about things like chemicals and box mixes and fake foods may be surprised to see me countenancing a recipe that calls for maraschino cherries, a frankly-weird food that I have not enjoyed since I was eight years old, when the bartender at the restaurant where my folks and I used to go for pizza would throw them into my Coke.  Normally when I find something like this in a recipe, I opt right away to substitute something more to my liking, like bottled sour cherries marinated in brandy, or dried cherries plumped in a little boiling water or tea.  This time, though, I decided to trust Chef Mesnier’s judgment and make the cake as he directed it, and I had to admit that not only did the maraschino cherries not ruin the cake, they added an interesting fillip to a moist, spicy, fragrant cake.  I might try it again with the aforementioned brandied cherries, just to see how they work, but I wouldn’t think twice about buying another bottle of maraschino cherries for this cake.  Only for this cake, though.

For the light syrup (to be used later in the cranberry syrup:

4 cups water
2 cups granulated sugar

Combine water and sugar in a medium saucepan, place over heat, stir to dissolve the sugar and heat to boiling.  Let cool to room temperature.  You will have more syrup than you need for this cake.  Leftover syrup can be sealed and stored at room temperature for up to two weeks; it’s great for poaching fruit or for adding to tea instead of regular granulated sugar.

For the cake:

1 cup plus 3 tablespoons all-purpose flour*
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
10 tablespoons (1 1/4 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
2 large eggs
1/2 cup applesauce
1/2 cup raisins
1/2 cup chopped pecans
1/2 cup canned crushed pineapple, drained
1 10-ounce jar whole maraschino cherries, drained, patted dry and stemmed

*Normally when I try a recipe for the first time, I measure and weigh the ingredients, and make a note of the weight for future reference.  This time, though, I let laziness get the better of me.  Very often, when recipes are converted from weight to volume measurements, you will see odd measurements (x cups plus or minus x teaspoons or tablespoons).  This happens particularly with recipes written by French chefs, who write their formulae to metric weights.  One of these days I’ll get my act together and plug the weight measurements in.

Set a rack to the center of the oven and preheat to 375F/170C/Gas Mark 5.  Grease and flour a 10-inch tube pan.

Sift the first five ingredients together into a medium bowl.

Using either a hand mixer or a stand mixer with the paddle attachment, cream the butter and sugar together until smooth, light and fluffy.  Beat in one of the eggs and half the applesauce.  Stir in half the dry ingredient mixture.  Beat in the remaining egg and applesauce, add the rest of the dry ingredients and stir gently but thoroughly to combine.  Stir in the raisins, pecans and pineapple.

Pour the batter into the tube pan and smooth the top.  Arrange the cherries on the surface of the cake and press them in gently, but do not embed them (the cake will rise around them, and they will sink below the surface).  Bake 35 to 40 minutes, or until a cake tester inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean.  Cool the cake in the pan on a wire rack.  Do not remove the cake from the pan.

For the cranberry syrup:

1 12-ounce bag fresh or frozen cranberries
4 1/2 cups water
1 1/2 cups + 2 tablespoons sugar
1/4 cup fresh lemon juice
2 cups Light Syrup

Combine the cranberries, 4 cups of the water and the sugar in a medium saucepan over high heat.  Bring to a boil, turn the heat down to medium high and cook for 10-15 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the berries are very soft and nearly all popped.

Strain the syrup into a large bowl.  Press on the solids with a spoon, forcing as much of the strained solids into the syrup as possible.  Add the remaining 1/2 cup water to the solids in the strainer and keep pressing on them.  When as much of the pulp that can go through the strainer has done so, return the solids remaining in the bottom of the strainer to the syrup.  (As you may have noted, the objective is not to produce a clear or smooth syrup, but a deeply-flavored one.  Chef Mesnier is a big fan of not wasting flavorful pulp.) Stir in the lemon juice and the light syrup.

Preheat the oven to 150F/60C/Gas Mark 1/2.

Place the cake pan (with the cake still inside it, natch) on a rimmed baking sheet.  Pour about 1/2 cup of the hot cranberry syrup over the cake and let it sink in.  (The effect you’re going for is akin to watering a houseplant, where you let the water sink into the soil before adding more.) Add about 1/2 cup syrup at a time, in 5-7 minute increments, until the cake is saturated.  Chef Mesnier doesn’t specify how much of the cranberry syrup you will need; I found that I had a lot left over.  If any syrup leaks from the cake onto the baking sheet, pour it back into the pan and reheat gently.

Remove the cake pan from the baking sheet and return it to the warm oven.  Keep the cake in the oven until serving time, up to four hours later.  When you are ready to serve it, just invert the cake onto a platter.  It should pop right out of the pan. (I’ll admit to some trepidation when Chef Mesnier assured that it would happen, but odds my bodkins, he’s right.) Slice and serve with sweetened whipped cream, if you so desire.

The situation is question is not an earth-shattering situation; in fact, it’s so low-key and almost inconsequential that one would be pardoned for wondering why I’ve thought about it, on and off, for close to 14 years.  Low-key as it is, though, it does touch on some significant issues with me, including education, enlightenment, competition, kindness, skill and standards of performance.  (Whew.) For me it serves as a point of reference in conversations I’ve had with teachers, bakers and visual artists.  And yes, it is a true story.

Oh, do not ask “what is it?” Let us go and make our visit.  (Sorry, Tom.)

Long, long ago—okay, 14 years ago—I was a newlywed, a brand-new resident of Beautiful Uptown Astoria and a brand-new employee of Big Ol’ Cosmetic Company, where I worked in the purchasing group, starting my long slow slide down the razorblade of consumer packaging.  At the time I didn’t even consider that I could bake for a living, and culinary school wasn’t even an option.  I had spent the better part of the previous six years in underpaying, unstable jobs, deeply in debt and petrified about making my rent, so at the time, just having a steady job and knowing that the bills would be paid was a dreamy luxury.  I was perfectly happy to be what the Bread Bakers Guild of America calls a “serious home baker,” and because that was the year I discovered the King Arthur Flour Bakers Catalogue, I was doing some serious home baking, sharing the results with my co-workers.

Back in the 90’s, Big Ol’ Cosmetic Company used to hold company picnics in the summertime.  We’d charter some vans and trundle up to some nice big park in Orange or Dutchess counties.  We played volleyball and soccer and other vigorous outdoorsy games, we’d roast meats, we’d have a bakeoff, a good time would be had by all.  When signup sheets for volleyball teams were passed around, I signed up.  Then disaster struck:  four days before the picnic, I sprained my knee in a dance class.  (Actually, my knee popped out of joint, then back into joint, in the space of 2 1/2 seconds, but since it wasn’t actually dislocated when the EMT’s showed up, the knee was officially sprained.  It hurt like a mother, though, and since I am now covered in a freezing-cold sweat at the memory of the pain, I think I’ll stop talking about it now.) I hobbled into work the next day and told the picnic coordinator that I’d be right out for volleyball.  “Well,” she said, “it’s not too late to sign up for the bakeoff.  Do you want to bake something?”

Heck, yes, I wanted to bake something, and moreover, I knew what I wanted to bake:  Elizabeth David’s flourless chocolate cake, the recipe for which I found in both Mrs. David’s French Provincial Cooking and Laurie Colwin’s More Home Cooking.  To say that I love this cake is such a weak, pallid statement for this kind of cake love. This cake is the pure essence of chocolate, with the barest whisper of almond flavor and scent.  It has just enough brandy and coffee to be interesting, but not so much as to be painful.  It takes 20 minutes to put together and less than an hour to bake.  It doesn’t require any complicated pastry skills; in fact, all it needs to look spectacular is a dusting of confectioners’ sugar.  Best of all, it’s the perfect choice for a bakeoff where people will be tasting a lot of desserts; it’s small, so it doesn’t require an advanced engineering degree to box up, stabilize and drive to a park, and because a little taste goes a long way, there would be more than enough for the judges and anyone else who could be convinced to Leave the Damn Diet at Home.

I try, I really try, not to engage in hubris, but even I had to admit, as I unpacked the cake and placed it on the bakeoff table, that I had done well. Sitting among the other desserts, the kitchen-sink cookies and the oatmeal bars (of which I ate an appalling amount) and the Toll House Cookie Pie, I knew that I had a winner on my hands.  My little cake looked not only as if it had just arrived from Paris, but also as if it had had a little nap on the plane, emerging refreshed and ready to play.  It was a good cake.  It could be a winning cake.

“Oh, look what you brought!,” said one of my coworkers, who I will call Nicole (not her real name).  Nicole was a marketing assistant, one of the sweetest women I knew; openhearted, soft-voiced and blond, she was rather like Georgette on the Mary Tyler Moore Show, only not at all ditzy, like Georgette was.  Even when she was having a terrible day, she radiated kindness.  And now we were here at the bakeoff table, I with my little Elizabeth David cake, she with an impressive-looking chiffon pie.  The chiffon filling was obviously the flavor now recognized as “cookies and cream”; the crust was made with crushed Oreos and the edge was studded with Oreos cut in half.  Because I have a soft spot for Oreos, I thought the pie looked great.  I hoped it tasted as good as it looked.

“Look at your cake!,” Nicole exclaimed again.  “Oh, that looks *so* good.  And you can smell the chocolate!  Ah, I’m embarrassed to be in the same bakeoff with you.  I’ve never even baked before.”

“Don’t you dare be embarrassed,” I answered.  “Your pie looks beautiful.  That *is* Oreo filling, right?”

“Sure is,” she said.  “Do you want to try some?”

She cut me a little sliver.  I took a taste.  Even before my brain registered the taste of Oreo, it registered something else, the unmistakable steely chemical taste that I recognized as Box Mix.  I have tasted it hundreds, if not thousands, of times:  in box-mix cakes made by friends’ mothers, in the chocolate muffins at the deli where I would occasionally get breakfast, in party cakes from supermarket bakeries.  It was not a flavor I was anticipating finding in a chiffon pie, but there it was.

“Soooo...” said Nicole, her eyes looking bright and expectant and a little worried.

Don’t be a jerk, said the little voice in my head.  She told you she’s not a baker.  She obviously respects your opinion.  A box mix is not a crime against humanity.  Do the right thing.

“It’s really good,” I answered.  “It’s beautiful.  It’s full of Oreos.  The crust is nice.  This is great, Nicole.”

“Oh,” she said, visibly relieved.  “I’m so glad you like it.  I was afraid I was going to screw it up.”

“You didn’t screw it up.  You did well.”

“Awww, thanks,” she said, and then moved closer to me, whispering conspiratorially.  “Believe it or not...it’s a box mix.”

Do not, said the voice in my head, under any circumstances, tell her that you knew it was a box mix.  Do not rain on her parade.

“Really?,” I said, trying as best as I could to sound surprised.  Fortunately, I was spared any subterfuge by the arrival of the three judges.

“Oo, chocolate,” said the first judge, one of the package engineer, a decent and friendly guy.  “My favorite.” I tried not to grin like an idiot as I cut him a slice—which was good, because his response was not what I expected.  “Whoa,” he said, recoiling a bit.  “There’s some booze in this cake, isn’t there?”

“Just a little,” I said.  There was a tablespoon of cognac in the whole cake.

“Oh, it tastes like there’s a LOT more than just a little in there,” he answered.  “Hoo boy.” I started to get nervous.  Could I have accidentally put more in there than I thought?  I could swear that I only put in the stipulated tablespoon.  I cut myself a tiny piece and thought about the flavors emerging against my palate.  Chocolate, lots of it, then coffee, then brandy, then that little hit of almond. Nothing fought against the chocolate, or against each other.  I hadn’t screwed up with the brandy.

The engineer moved on to Nicole, and to the Oreo chiffon pie.  The look on his face after the first bite of pie was that of a man in love.  “Nicole,” he said, “that is the single best dessert I have ever eaten, ever.”

To my credit, I did not let the incredulity show on my face, which was good, because it happened two more times, as the other two judges tasted the desserts, and then happened more times than I could count, as the rest of the picnickers lined up for tastes.  I heard a lot of variations of “I think there’s some alky-hol in that cake,” with maybe one or two compliments on the chocolate flavor.  The Oreo pie was devoured; compliments were rained on Nicole’s sweet, blushing head.  Of course she won the bakeoff.  It wasn’t even close.

Riding back to the city in the van, the remaining 2/3 of the cake sitting in my lap, I tasted another tiny piece.  There’s just not that much brandy in it.  It’s not that strong.  Is it just me?

That night I told Lloyd about the bakeoff.  “You’re kidding,” he said in a tone of voice that made me want to kiss him.  “They all loved the pie?”

“They all loved the pie.”

“And the pie wasn’t good?”

“The pie was vile.”

“Which I’m betting you didn’t say to the baker.”

“You’re right.  I told her that it was really good.”

“Just really good, or good for a mix?”

“Just...really...good.” As the words left my mouth, I knew how lame they sounded.  “I pretended to be surprised when she said it was a box mix.  It’s just...she was so nervous, and she looked so happy when I told her I liked it...”

“I know,” he said kindly.  “I know you wanted to do a nice thing, and you *did* do a nice thing.  The thing is...now she can make this pie for other people, and she can tell them that even the scratch baker in the office, the one who’s been baking since she was a kid, even *she* couldn’t tell that the pie was made from a mix.”

I had not considered this, of course.

“Now, look,” said Lloyd.  “You look like you’ve just been caught eating a puppy.  You were doing a nice thing for your friend.” He was right, of course, but I couldn’t unfurrow my brow, couldn’t stop knocking on my head and muttering stupid, stupid, stupid. I had done a nice thing for my friend.  I had also totally compromised my bakerly integrity in doing so.

Eventually I stopped plotzing over it all, and got back to the business of serious home baking.  Nicole brought the pie to the office Christmas party and told me that this had become her pie for family dinners and potlucks.  She was sweetly, shyly proud of this pie, and I felt churlish for being so grumpy after the picnic.  Not long after, we all spun off in different directions, as co-workers often do:  Nicole and the package engineer each took new jobs at different big ol’ cosmetic companies, I went to culinary school, and the bakeoff at the 1994 picnic was officially consigned to the mists of history.

Except, of course, it never really went away.  I think about that day, and about that conversation with Lloyd, at odd times.  I thought about them the first time I read The Taste of America, the book that kicks off with a chapter entitled “The Rape of the Palate.” I think about them whenever I watch Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares or Last Restaurant Standing, which often feature chefs being told, sometimes for the first time, that their food is not what it could be.  I think about them when I am watching something on Cartoon Network and am treated to ads for stuff like GoGurt.  At what point do we decide that oddly-flavored imitations of the real thing are better than the real thing?  Is it worth trying to convince people otherwise?  Is it even possible to convince people otherwise, or do we just end up being humorless martinets, alienating genuinely good people as a result?

It isn’t just food issues that make me think of that day, either.  Every time I talk to Bunni at the end of a bad day, every time she describes the struggle to have her students follow basic, clearly-delineated directions, I think about these students, and wonder how and why they seem so flummoxed.  I am not going to resort to the tired old cliche of the unique and precious snowflake—as far as I’m concerned, that’s a phrase that needs to die, and soon—but I do wonder how they got to this point, how they were able to matriculate into college without being able to communicate clearly.  Were they stuck with indifferent secondary school teachers?  Were they blessed with good dedicated teachers who didn’t hesitate to tell them when their work didn’t meet an acceptable standard, but were impeded from providing real direction—and an accurate grade—by angry parents and nervous administrators?  Did they have engaged teachers and no-nonsense parents, but for some reason the lessons just didn’t stick?  Did they have teachers who were so keen to see any sign of effort that they shied away from negative commentary, opting instead to accentuate the positive?  Or did they have teachers who blurred the line between constructive and destructive criticism, leaving them loath to learn how to think critically?

I have been accused of overthinking all this, yes.  Ultimately, as I said, it was just a bakeoff, a lark among colleagues, and not a sign of the triumph of ignorance over reason and enlightenment.  Nevertheless, it still makes me wonder whether I did the right thing on that day, or, really, if there is a right thing to do...and here, dear friends, is where I officially pose the question.  If it had been you, would you have ‘fessed up and admitted that you knew that you were eating box-mix Oreo chiffon pie, or would you have fibbed, and thus boosted the confidence of a genuinely nice person in the process?

Thanking you in advance for playing along.  Silly stories about food will be coming soon.