I haven't been all that busy on here. I have a few planned posts, but I am very good at distracting myself. Between my January adventures, FAFSA & taxes, and the aforementioned procrastination, it has been ages since I have posted many recipes. That is, save for my lengthy aside to croissants. (Note: the croissants need slightly more butter than I have in that recipe, probably a half stick more, which helps them to flake properly.) So, before writing this or that on green cities, musing on my vision of work and home, discussing why I am so into reading Cory Doctorow's Little Brother, or a sideways gripe about last.fm becoming a paid service, I have these recipes to provide you.
~~~
Cherry Almond Bread
*This is presently in the oven, was a bit rushed, and may not be what I want in the end. We shall see.
Starter
1 cup warm water
1 cup whole wheat flour
2 Tbsp dry yeast
Blend together in a large mixing bowl. Allow to rest for 45 minutes.
Dough
1 cup water
2 cups whole wheat flour
3 Tbsp brown sugar
2 Tbsp butter, soft
1 tsp salt
1/2 cup dried cherries
1/3 cup sliced almonds
Stir in the water, then sprinkle some of the flour over the dough (about 1/2 cup), followed by butter and the brown sugar, and then the salt. Stir together. Add cherries and almonds (which I actually kneaded in later when I decided to add them), and mix up a little more. Gradually add flour and stir together until you make a soft dough. Sprinkle the counter generously with flour, turn out, and knead until even. Return to the bowl, pat with water, cover, and allow to rest until doubled in size--about an hour.
Preheat oven to 350 F and place baking sheets in the oven. Turn out the dough and knead slightly, noting the texture and stickiness so as to not add too much flour, and divide in two. Shape each loaf (I made baguettes), pull out the sheets, quickly grease the sheets and sprinkle with flour, then place the loaves onto the sheets and allow to proof until doubled--twenty to thirty minutes. Bake for 30-45 minutes, turning if necessary to bake evenly. I have been spraying my loaves as they bake with water to make a slightly sturdier crust, which also raises the baking time. Pull out and set on a cooling rack.
...
Black Pepper Cheddar Bread
Starter
1 & 1/2 cup warm water
1 cup whole wheat flour
2 Tbsp dry yeast
Blend together and allow to rest for 45 minutes.
Prepare
3/4 cup cheddar, cubed
1/2 Tbsp black pepper
~If you can use fresh ground black pepper, you can drop this to 1 tsp (1/3 Tbsp).
Mix a little so that pepper sticks to the cheddar.
Dough
2 cups whole wheat flour
1/2 tsp salt
1 egg yolk
~Keep the white for eggwash.
Drop the egg yolk into the starter, then generously sprinkle with flour, add salt, cover with more but not all of the flour, and stir. Add more flour as needed before stirring in the cheddar. Turn out onto floured counter and knead somewhat, but try to avoid crushing the cheese. Allow to rest until doubled in size--one hour. Turn out and divide into two pieces, shape the dough into boules/rounds and allow to proof for 30-45 minutes. When the loaves have doubled, use the egg white--optionally mixed with a little honey, oil, or water--to coat the loaves. You can brush on or use a paper towel to dab on. Bake at 400 F for 25-35 minutes.
...
"Cowboy Cookies," or Chocolate Chip Cookies with Pecans & Coconut
This recipe was lifted out of a Southern Living or something of the sort, but it also showed up in The Best American Recipes for 2008 book--though that may not be the exact title. You can make these with pecans, but I am more likely to have walnuts around than pecans, which are much cheaper anyway so that is what I have used thus far to make them. I will post the original recipe here with small notes of my own modification.
Ingredients
Cooking Spray
2 cups white flour
~or 2 cups whole wheat pastry flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking powder
8 oz/2 sticks unsalted butter, softened
3/4 cup white sugar
3/4 cup brown sugar
~or drop the white sugar for 1 & 1/2 cups brown sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 & 1/2 cup thick oats
6 oz semisweet chocolate chips or chunks
3 oz pecan halves
~or walnuts
1/2 cup shredded coconut
Preheat oven to 350 F and spray baking sheets. You can line with parchment paper, but I haven't needed to. Blend together flour, soda, salt, and baking powder into a medium bowl.
In an electric mixer--though I have done this by hand if you soften the butter enough--beat the butter and sugar(s) together until creamy--about 3 minutes. Reduce speed and add eggs and vanilla.
Reduce speed to low and gradually add the flour, mixing until just incorporated. Add oats, chocolate, pecans, and coconut; blending until just combined.
Spoon dough out onto the greased cookie sheets, spacing them by three inches.
Bake until edges are brown--11-13 minutes--and remove to allow to cool on a wire rack. (They're good for *at least* three days.)
Makes 5 dozen (though I make mine larger and get 3-4 dozen).
Enjoy!
PS. I may have posted this recipe once already.
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
Digital Politics, Policing, and Privacy
Recent Reading
China's Cyber Warriors,
Cyberwar and Cyberspace Treaties (via Beyond the Beyond),
The Advance Persistent Threat Attack (via Beyond the Beyond),
China China China hack hack hack china china (via Beyond the Beyond),
Google vs. China Round 3 (via FastCompany),
Meanwhile, somewhere at the Chinese soft-power retaliation board (via Beyond the Beyond),
Digital Doomsday from the New Scientist,
and Clinton's speech from the Newseum (BBC & CNN).
Brief Timeline
Google works with Chinese government, part of which involves The Great Firewall and other means of censoring access to the Chinese people.
From time to time, cyber-attacks on businesses and other governments (India, Tibet-in-exile, etc.) are localized to Chinese sources but little can be done except for encouraging "internal policing" by the Chinese.
Google and diplomats to China using Gmail or other services experience malicious hacking that is likely coming out of China.
China's proficiency with digital censorship, monitoring, and hacking--not to mention its internal politics--leads some to hold the Chinese government itself responsible for at least some of the digital malice toward governments and businesses beyond its borders.
Subsequently, Secretary Clinton has made a number of specific comments on internet policing, censorship, and hacking; recently remarking on the aspiration of many that a distinctly liberalizing technology like the internet would have opened up China's sociopolitical barriers overtime, as aspiration that has come to naught.
China continues to hold that the Google vs. China affair is a business matter and not a political matter, ignoring claims of violation into other businesses and governments.
~~~
Okay. Deep breath...
I cannot stop thinking about all of the developing news, rhetoric, and politics that have resulted from the attacks on Google. The above, I attempted to make pretty neutral, but I cannot help but take up a certain opinion. Before that, it is important to note something particular about cyberwarfare, whatever the scale.
Bruce Sterling assesses that there are twelve "entities" capable of powerful, society crippling cyberattacks--ten nation-states (including the U.S. and China) and two businesses (Microsoft and Google). In essence, though, high-impact attacks on databases, records, and security information are not particularly expensive. And in the Advanced Persistent Threat Attack, the author notes that the primary requirement for successful infiltration and information theft is patience. That is because any intruder finds access through the weakest defense and, because it is so easy to move information quickly, many access points can be tried simultaneously; any one of which then breaks down the first wall.
To confront this, Secretary Clinton--among others--argue for some sort of international cyber-policing and treaties to protect against cross-boundary attacks. Given that these attacks require a small group of specialists working under loose authority, sometimes only barely associated with one another, this old paradigm of security (determine threat, establish protectorate, respond to dangers, maintain) doesn't make the grade.
Sterling argues that it is a matter of limitations of civil society and the lack of a global society where such an agency can function properly. This may be true, but the type of strategy itself evades policing. These small groups of "cyber-warriors" may be in the employ of governments or businesses or individually operative, the latter of which I find ultimately unlikely, unless the goal is to demonstrate utility for a sponsor. Whatever the method, they are professionals at dodging the usual tracing and identity markers and--as Digital Doomsday in the New Scientist points out--digital information storage is not meant to stick around. Sure, given a hacker's slovenly kept apartment, even a reformatted harddrive can relinquish some of its secrets; but in the case of real geographical distance, establishing hard evidence on the liquid tides of data is nigh impossible. Besides that, it makes remarkable sense for powerful entities to take advantage of hackers for surveillance on rivals; particularly if any infringement can be easily cleared away behind political hurdles and red tape.
Their is a certain weightiness to the discussion when considering personal privacy, but more inevitably gets pushed down on citizens and consumers by the dictates of the perpetrating and defensive entities. Clinton is giving distinct voice to the rhetoric of the digital politics ahead; that is, the game is changing and she is articulating the position of the United States--and the liberal West more broadly--for the path ahead. In case this doesn't sound like a big deal, consider the following: Facebook and Twitter were used thoroughly by organizers of Iranian protests following the election; the Haiti Relief via text messaging has raised over $25 million, in ten dollar increments; and in 2007, Estonia's society was essentially shutdown by flooding government, media, bank, and other websites with hits and malware. Quality, accessible communication services are both one of the greatest tools for building and managing social voice, as well as one of the least understood pressure points of the modern world. How governments and businesses plan to maintain functioning will determine the ways in which we can have a voice in cyberspace. What I mean is that there is an significant personal impact from these matters, it just isn't where you first might look for it.
I am not exactly coming around to any sort of conclusion except that this discussion matters, and it matters significantly. Google may be one of the first businesses to really flex its political muscle in geopolitics now that it has been pushed to do so. That, by no means, ignores the weight of corporate interests in domestic politics and the pushing around of small and poor countries to get lax environmental or safety standards to save a couple of bucks. What I mean is that Google has been put into a spot where it might act in a distinctly political way, making demands and arranging itself strategically the way nation-states generally do. In addition, China is coming into its own in a very different, very volatile way. The current century will be marked by a number of novel characteristics, but China's economic and political role will be the most obvious distinction from the century before. Meanwhile, Western governments are scrambling for the best way to respond to decentralized but highly empowered entities; these include both the nascent wave of cyber-warfare as well as the attacks of more obvious terrorist cells.
This is not the voice of a paranoiac, but one response to this drastic reorganization of global power and the subsequent change is rules is a lot of over-reactive gesticulation and floundering. In reality, no one has to fight for a place here, governments and citizens alike are in a position of recognition of new equilibria, of new balances where before there were inequalities. What does that look like? Well, it means more actively raising living standards as a means of considerate foreign aid and defensive politics; call it reparations for colonial actions or call it aid or debt relief, it doesn't matter because it can cut off violence and discontent more deftly than bombs and sanctions. It also means adapting to the politicization of businesses globally, which need not be a death-knell for workers' rights if corporations are identified as businesses rather than political persons. This, given the recent Supreme Court ruling on corporate spending on campaigns, is an uphill but extraordinarily important battle. (Fair And Clean Election Reform is one key to opening the door forward here, but it is not the only one.) Finally, it means a new economics not built on bubbles growing, bursting, and picking up the pieces that others let drop all around us. On this, I am less learned, but just want to point out that now more than ever we need a maturation of economic politics and theory; and by that I mean a calming of growth and a more considerate approach to building wealth. Wealth, that is, in its widest sense. In the end, real, living wealth needs to be the goal.
China's Cyber Warriors,
Cyberwar and Cyberspace Treaties (via Beyond the Beyond),
The Advance Persistent Threat Attack (via Beyond the Beyond),
China China China hack hack hack china china (via Beyond the Beyond),
Google vs. China Round 3 (via FastCompany),
Meanwhile, somewhere at the Chinese soft-power retaliation board (via Beyond the Beyond),
Digital Doomsday from the New Scientist,
and Clinton's speech from the Newseum (BBC & CNN).
Brief Timeline
Google works with Chinese government, part of which involves The Great Firewall and other means of censoring access to the Chinese people.
From time to time, cyber-attacks on businesses and other governments (India, Tibet-in-exile, etc.) are localized to Chinese sources but little can be done except for encouraging "internal policing" by the Chinese.
Google and diplomats to China using Gmail or other services experience malicious hacking that is likely coming out of China.
China's proficiency with digital censorship, monitoring, and hacking--not to mention its internal politics--leads some to hold the Chinese government itself responsible for at least some of the digital malice toward governments and businesses beyond its borders.
Subsequently, Secretary Clinton has made a number of specific comments on internet policing, censorship, and hacking; recently remarking on the aspiration of many that a distinctly liberalizing technology like the internet would have opened up China's sociopolitical barriers overtime, as aspiration that has come to naught.
China continues to hold that the Google vs. China affair is a business matter and not a political matter, ignoring claims of violation into other businesses and governments.
~~~
Okay. Deep breath...
I cannot stop thinking about all of the developing news, rhetoric, and politics that have resulted from the attacks on Google. The above, I attempted to make pretty neutral, but I cannot help but take up a certain opinion. Before that, it is important to note something particular about cyberwarfare, whatever the scale.
Bruce Sterling assesses that there are twelve "entities" capable of powerful, society crippling cyberattacks--ten nation-states (including the U.S. and China) and two businesses (Microsoft and Google). In essence, though, high-impact attacks on databases, records, and security information are not particularly expensive. And in the Advanced Persistent Threat Attack, the author notes that the primary requirement for successful infiltration and information theft is patience. That is because any intruder finds access through the weakest defense and, because it is so easy to move information quickly, many access points can be tried simultaneously; any one of which then breaks down the first wall.
To confront this, Secretary Clinton--among others--argue for some sort of international cyber-policing and treaties to protect against cross-boundary attacks. Given that these attacks require a small group of specialists working under loose authority, sometimes only barely associated with one another, this old paradigm of security (determine threat, establish protectorate, respond to dangers, maintain) doesn't make the grade.
Sterling argues that it is a matter of limitations of civil society and the lack of a global society where such an agency can function properly. This may be true, but the type of strategy itself evades policing. These small groups of "cyber-warriors" may be in the employ of governments or businesses or individually operative, the latter of which I find ultimately unlikely, unless the goal is to demonstrate utility for a sponsor. Whatever the method, they are professionals at dodging the usual tracing and identity markers and--as Digital Doomsday in the New Scientist points out--digital information storage is not meant to stick around. Sure, given a hacker's slovenly kept apartment, even a reformatted harddrive can relinquish some of its secrets; but in the case of real geographical distance, establishing hard evidence on the liquid tides of data is nigh impossible. Besides that, it makes remarkable sense for powerful entities to take advantage of hackers for surveillance on rivals; particularly if any infringement can be easily cleared away behind political hurdles and red tape.
Their is a certain weightiness to the discussion when considering personal privacy, but more inevitably gets pushed down on citizens and consumers by the dictates of the perpetrating and defensive entities. Clinton is giving distinct voice to the rhetoric of the digital politics ahead; that is, the game is changing and she is articulating the position of the United States--and the liberal West more broadly--for the path ahead. In case this doesn't sound like a big deal, consider the following: Facebook and Twitter were used thoroughly by organizers of Iranian protests following the election; the Haiti Relief via text messaging has raised over $25 million, in ten dollar increments; and in 2007, Estonia's society was essentially shutdown by flooding government, media, bank, and other websites with hits and malware. Quality, accessible communication services are both one of the greatest tools for building and managing social voice, as well as one of the least understood pressure points of the modern world. How governments and businesses plan to maintain functioning will determine the ways in which we can have a voice in cyberspace. What I mean is that there is an significant personal impact from these matters, it just isn't where you first might look for it.
I am not exactly coming around to any sort of conclusion except that this discussion matters, and it matters significantly. Google may be one of the first businesses to really flex its political muscle in geopolitics now that it has been pushed to do so. That, by no means, ignores the weight of corporate interests in domestic politics and the pushing around of small and poor countries to get lax environmental or safety standards to save a couple of bucks. What I mean is that Google has been put into a spot where it might act in a distinctly political way, making demands and arranging itself strategically the way nation-states generally do. In addition, China is coming into its own in a very different, very volatile way. The current century will be marked by a number of novel characteristics, but China's economic and political role will be the most obvious distinction from the century before. Meanwhile, Western governments are scrambling for the best way to respond to decentralized but highly empowered entities; these include both the nascent wave of cyber-warfare as well as the attacks of more obvious terrorist cells.
This is not the voice of a paranoiac, but one response to this drastic reorganization of global power and the subsequent change is rules is a lot of over-reactive gesticulation and floundering. In reality, no one has to fight for a place here, governments and citizens alike are in a position of recognition of new equilibria, of new balances where before there were inequalities. What does that look like? Well, it means more actively raising living standards as a means of considerate foreign aid and defensive politics; call it reparations for colonial actions or call it aid or debt relief, it doesn't matter because it can cut off violence and discontent more deftly than bombs and sanctions. It also means adapting to the politicization of businesses globally, which need not be a death-knell for workers' rights if corporations are identified as businesses rather than political persons. This, given the recent Supreme Court ruling on corporate spending on campaigns, is an uphill but extraordinarily important battle. (Fair And Clean Election Reform is one key to opening the door forward here, but it is not the only one.) Finally, it means a new economics not built on bubbles growing, bursting, and picking up the pieces that others let drop all around us. On this, I am less learned, but just want to point out that now more than ever we need a maturation of economic politics and theory; and by that I mean a calming of growth and a more considerate approach to building wealth. Wealth, that is, in its widest sense. In the end, real, living wealth needs to be the goal.
Sunday, January 24, 2010
Croissants!
Holy cow! I can make them! Whoa!
In high school, when I was first trying to get into cooking for myself--baking wasn't as central as it has since become--I became interested in making croissants. For some reason, I got into it even after reading the directions, greatly underestimating the commitment and travails involved in preparing the dough, folding in butter, rolling out, cutting and shaping properly; not to mention the rather intense amounts of butter that go into them. (I am pretty sure that commercially made croissants use oils, hydrogenated and otherwise, as well as post-baking preserving techniques to end up with buttery-tasting but not exactly greasy results. Real croissants, as in those of a French style, use strictly butter because the French love their butter so.) All in all, that attempt took me about eight hours of regular but not full-dedicated work for small, pretty hard, and rather measly croissants. They were poorly folded--which I partly blame on the recipe I used--so that butter cooked out of them and into the oven and I underused or did not treat the yeast properly or under proofed them making them less than ideal in appearance.
After watching It's Complicated, in which Meryl Streep and Steve Martin make "spur of th moment" chocolate croissants, I felt inspired to give what had been my biggest frustration again. I checked two different recipes (Budapest Croissants from Wolfgang Puck and Bernard Clayton's French Croissants) and then gave them--predominantly Puck's recipe--a twist of my own by using honey, less butter, and whole wheat pastry flour. In the end, I also played with some of the refrigeration times and roll-outs, which I may continue to do. I used fillings that are absurdly easy to make or improvise. One, of course, was chocolate and the other was a walnuts and brown sugar blend. This recipe is riddled with notes because, if anything, I feel that baking croissants has illuminated how much I have learned about reading recipes, making my own, and interpreting the moods and stages of the ingredients and dough and the like.
Before getting into the recipe itself, I have this to say about succeeding with this recipe. First, don't expect great results if you are doing this by yourself for the first time. It is a time consuming and frustrating recipe and as I said before, the first time I made croissants, it took about one third of the day. This recipe I have gotten down to about a three and a half to five hours period of time; it is an investment and don't doubt it. In addition, I expect this recipe to fail me once or twice as I play more with it, but take it as play, not as work and you can have fun doing it. On my second batch yesterday, after finally rolling out and cutting the dough, I paused the book on CD I was listening to, took a breath, enjoyed the house's silence, and enjoyed the peace of mind and quietude of a particular place at a particular time, doing something I love. It was wonderful and I am absurdly thankful for it. And finally, more practically, use a pastry cloth if you're going to bother to make croissants; they are pretty cheap and make it so much easier.
Enjoy!
~~~
Whole Wheat Croissants (with optional filling)
From 23 January 2010
1/2 cup warm water
1 Tablespoon dry yeast
Blend together thoroughly with a whisk or fork in a bowl, make sure there is enough space for the yeast to bubble. This won't get too active because it does not have any sugars in it, but it will kick in when mixed with the rest. Set aside.
1 pound of whole wheat pastry flour (optionally mix in white all purpose flour)
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 c honey, warm
Optionally, warm a large mixing bowl but running hot water in it and swirling it, then quickly drying it with a clean towel before use. Mix flour and salt in the large bowl, then stir in honey, mixing slightly. An electric mixer may be used.
1 cup milk
1/4 cup cream
or, use 1 & 1/4 cup whole milk
Blend together and warm in the microwave or in a pan. Do not overheat, just warm to the touch.
"Dig" a well in the flour and pour in milk and cover with a layer of flour, then add dissolved yeast and stir together with a wooden spoon or electric mixer until even. It will be wetter than you might expect (it is wetter than I expected), more like a batter than a dough. Place in the fridge and allow to cool 45 minutes; if your fridge has any odors, cover it with plastic wrap to avoid flavor contamination.
8 oz or 1 cup or 2 sticks (they are all the same) of butter
Warm butter above room temperature slightly. You can choose to mix the butter together into one pat of butter, or cut into small chucks, or long slivers (I will try the long slivers next time) in preparation. When the dough has cooled, roll out the pastry cloth (or use a clean counter, but the dough is much more likely to stick) and sprinkle generously--and yes, I mean generously--with flour. (I usually use white because it allows more flexibility since white flour absorbs less water than wheat and, therefore, has that little bit more flexibility for error.) Pour out the dough, scraping out the edges of the bowl and set aside the bowl. sprinkle the top with flour as well as your rolling pin, and roll out, forming a rough four-leaf clover, or at least a rectangle, it doesn't matter that much. Place the prepared butter in the center and fold the "leaves" or corners over it entirely; then, loosely wrap the cloth around the dough "parcel" and refrigerate. If you have a large resealable container, place it in there, or otherwise cover, but this is not necessary. Allow to refrigerate another 45 minutes, which cools the butter to the temperature of the butter and dough to make rolling, folding, and turning easier.
Here is "turning," though it probably has other names. This process builds the layers of pastry and disperses the butter evenly, but not uniformly the way it is in breads with oils baked in. After the wrapped dough parcel has cooled--some recipes call for as long as six hours in the fridge, but I do not think that that is strictly necessary--pull out and unwrap gently. Using plenty of flour to avoid breaking the dough's surface, roll out the dough to about 16x9 inches; exact measures are less important than making the dough pretty thin to ensure good folding. Fold the long edge one-third of the way over, then fold the bottom third over that, as you might a letter; then turn the dough and fold the short edge, now about 3 inches wide, over similarly to make another small parcel of dough. If you are feeling tricky and the dough is particularly cool, you can try to repeat this process again; if you do, check the edges for enough flour to avoid sticking and breaking the dough. Wrap up the parcel again and refrigerate for another 30-45 minutes, then repeat the folding. You should make at least five rounds of folding, but you can repeat more to make slightly yeastier and increasingly flaky croissants.
1 egg white
About 1 tspn of honey
Refrigerate one final time, start the oven at 400 F, place baking sheets in the oven, mix the egg white and honey for an egg wash, then roll out the dough as you have done before. Fold the top side down, then the bottom up as you have done, then roll out to the left and right. You may want to cut the dough in half to give yourself more space, and half the dough will fill most baking sheets with a dozen small croissants, so it works out pretty well to do so. Cut the dough in triangles, either by a zigzag or by cutting rectangles and halving them with a diagonal cut. These can be of various widths, but four inches on the triangular base makes a good size croissant. Take one triangle, optionally fill the base to midway up the triangle with a filling, and roll from the base to the tip tightly. Bend the ends around to make the crescent shape and set aside. About a dozen fit on baking sheet. Pull out one of the hot baking sheets and grease--try using the butter wrapper and run it over them, but they will sizzle, so be careful. Place the croissants on the hot, greased baking sheet, allowing space for them to proof. Spread egg wash over the croissants using a cooking brush or a paper towel. Allow to proof briefly, 5-10 minutes, before baking for about fifteen at 400 F. Remove them when they are golden brown and lightly crisp. Slide to cooling racks and allow to cool slightly before serving because the butter makes them very hot.
You can also freeze the dough in an airtight container. Feel free to lengthen refrigeration times for more "authentic" croissants. I plan on making up some fruit fillings, but chocolate is a great fall back anytime. I'll take pictures of the next batch, I promise.
In high school, when I was first trying to get into cooking for myself--baking wasn't as central as it has since become--I became interested in making croissants. For some reason, I got into it even after reading the directions, greatly underestimating the commitment and travails involved in preparing the dough, folding in butter, rolling out, cutting and shaping properly; not to mention the rather intense amounts of butter that go into them. (I am pretty sure that commercially made croissants use oils, hydrogenated and otherwise, as well as post-baking preserving techniques to end up with buttery-tasting but not exactly greasy results. Real croissants, as in those of a French style, use strictly butter because the French love their butter so.) All in all, that attempt took me about eight hours of regular but not full-dedicated work for small, pretty hard, and rather measly croissants. They were poorly folded--which I partly blame on the recipe I used--so that butter cooked out of them and into the oven and I underused or did not treat the yeast properly or under proofed them making them less than ideal in appearance.
After watching It's Complicated, in which Meryl Streep and Steve Martin make "spur of th moment" chocolate croissants, I felt inspired to give what had been my biggest frustration again. I checked two different recipes (Budapest Croissants from Wolfgang Puck and Bernard Clayton's French Croissants) and then gave them--predominantly Puck's recipe--a twist of my own by using honey, less butter, and whole wheat pastry flour. In the end, I also played with some of the refrigeration times and roll-outs, which I may continue to do. I used fillings that are absurdly easy to make or improvise. One, of course, was chocolate and the other was a walnuts and brown sugar blend. This recipe is riddled with notes because, if anything, I feel that baking croissants has illuminated how much I have learned about reading recipes, making my own, and interpreting the moods and stages of the ingredients and dough and the like.
Before getting into the recipe itself, I have this to say about succeeding with this recipe. First, don't expect great results if you are doing this by yourself for the first time. It is a time consuming and frustrating recipe and as I said before, the first time I made croissants, it took about one third of the day. This recipe I have gotten down to about a three and a half to five hours period of time; it is an investment and don't doubt it. In addition, I expect this recipe to fail me once or twice as I play more with it, but take it as play, not as work and you can have fun doing it. On my second batch yesterday, after finally rolling out and cutting the dough, I paused the book on CD I was listening to, took a breath, enjoyed the house's silence, and enjoyed the peace of mind and quietude of a particular place at a particular time, doing something I love. It was wonderful and I am absurdly thankful for it. And finally, more practically, use a pastry cloth if you're going to bother to make croissants; they are pretty cheap and make it so much easier.
Enjoy!
~~~
Whole Wheat Croissants (with optional filling)
From 23 January 2010
1/2 cup warm water
1 Tablespoon dry yeast
Blend together thoroughly with a whisk or fork in a bowl, make sure there is enough space for the yeast to bubble. This won't get too active because it does not have any sugars in it, but it will kick in when mixed with the rest. Set aside.
1 pound of whole wheat pastry flour (optionally mix in white all purpose flour)
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 c honey, warm
Optionally, warm a large mixing bowl but running hot water in it and swirling it, then quickly drying it with a clean towel before use. Mix flour and salt in the large bowl, then stir in honey, mixing slightly. An electric mixer may be used.
1 cup milk
1/4 cup cream
or, use 1 & 1/4 cup whole milk
Blend together and warm in the microwave or in a pan. Do not overheat, just warm to the touch.
"Dig" a well in the flour and pour in milk and cover with a layer of flour, then add dissolved yeast and stir together with a wooden spoon or electric mixer until even. It will be wetter than you might expect (it is wetter than I expected), more like a batter than a dough. Place in the fridge and allow to cool 45 minutes; if your fridge has any odors, cover it with plastic wrap to avoid flavor contamination.
8 oz or 1 cup or 2 sticks (they are all the same) of butter
Warm butter above room temperature slightly. You can choose to mix the butter together into one pat of butter, or cut into small chucks, or long slivers (I will try the long slivers next time) in preparation. When the dough has cooled, roll out the pastry cloth (or use a clean counter, but the dough is much more likely to stick) and sprinkle generously--and yes, I mean generously--with flour. (I usually use white because it allows more flexibility since white flour absorbs less water than wheat and, therefore, has that little bit more flexibility for error.) Pour out the dough, scraping out the edges of the bowl and set aside the bowl. sprinkle the top with flour as well as your rolling pin, and roll out, forming a rough four-leaf clover, or at least a rectangle, it doesn't matter that much. Place the prepared butter in the center and fold the "leaves" or corners over it entirely; then, loosely wrap the cloth around the dough "parcel" and refrigerate. If you have a large resealable container, place it in there, or otherwise cover, but this is not necessary. Allow to refrigerate another 45 minutes, which cools the butter to the temperature of the butter and dough to make rolling, folding, and turning easier.
Here is "turning," though it probably has other names. This process builds the layers of pastry and disperses the butter evenly, but not uniformly the way it is in breads with oils baked in. After the wrapped dough parcel has cooled--some recipes call for as long as six hours in the fridge, but I do not think that that is strictly necessary--pull out and unwrap gently. Using plenty of flour to avoid breaking the dough's surface, roll out the dough to about 16x9 inches; exact measures are less important than making the dough pretty thin to ensure good folding. Fold the long edge one-third of the way over, then fold the bottom third over that, as you might a letter; then turn the dough and fold the short edge, now about 3 inches wide, over similarly to make another small parcel of dough. If you are feeling tricky and the dough is particularly cool, you can try to repeat this process again; if you do, check the edges for enough flour to avoid sticking and breaking the dough. Wrap up the parcel again and refrigerate for another 30-45 minutes, then repeat the folding. You should make at least five rounds of folding, but you can repeat more to make slightly yeastier and increasingly flaky croissants.
1 egg white
About 1 tspn of honey
Refrigerate one final time, start the oven at 400 F, place baking sheets in the oven, mix the egg white and honey for an egg wash, then roll out the dough as you have done before. Fold the top side down, then the bottom up as you have done, then roll out to the left and right. You may want to cut the dough in half to give yourself more space, and half the dough will fill most baking sheets with a dozen small croissants, so it works out pretty well to do so. Cut the dough in triangles, either by a zigzag or by cutting rectangles and halving them with a diagonal cut. These can be of various widths, but four inches on the triangular base makes a good size croissant. Take one triangle, optionally fill the base to midway up the triangle with a filling, and roll from the base to the tip tightly. Bend the ends around to make the crescent shape and set aside. About a dozen fit on baking sheet. Pull out one of the hot baking sheets and grease--try using the butter wrapper and run it over them, but they will sizzle, so be careful. Place the croissants on the hot, greased baking sheet, allowing space for them to proof. Spread egg wash over the croissants using a cooking brush or a paper towel. Allow to proof briefly, 5-10 minutes, before baking for about fifteen at 400 F. Remove them when they are golden brown and lightly crisp. Slide to cooling racks and allow to cool slightly before serving because the butter makes them very hot.
You can also freeze the dough in an airtight container. Feel free to lengthen refrigeration times for more "authentic" croissants. I plan on making up some fruit fillings, but chocolate is a great fall back anytime. I'll take pictures of the next batch, I promise.
Friday, January 22, 2010
Language from Ben & "Redes"
Here is a link to my friend Ben's recent update. His comments articulate some of my own thoughts about language, but succeed better than I have managed before in clarity and concision. Brazil was a markedly creative time for me as well, which inspired writing and autobiographical fiction that I had fallen out of the habit of writing. Even now, my fiction tends more toward the fantastic than the realistic and lacks the cut that autobiographical work usually contains. I wanted to post a story I wrote there, from the time we spent living on an Landless People's Movement/MST community, Palmyres II (the spelling of which eludes me at the moment).
As always, reposted with love to Ben.
Note: The word "rede" refers, usually, to hammocks, but it is also similar to "net" or "network" and is used for "internet" sometimes.
---
Redes
18 April 2008
I woke without knowing it, the thin sheet spun and twined around me like a thick, patiently breathing python. Air had gathered stiffly in the room, rough and heavy with the death of the fan. As I spun in my waking the great boa constricted and I could not breathe, and I thought desperately of slowly broken ribs and asthma. I coughed and felt it on the inside of my arm, a hot gust and small splash of spittle crashing into my skin. My eyes opened to the unwelcome ambient light from the main room, spilling over the incomplete (never-complete?) wall and seeping around the edge of the door-less doorframe.
I gasped before unwinding the sheet from around my arms and between my legs. From somewhere inside the mosquito net came a buzz and I swatted at emptiness. The net was structured by a rectangle and the edge had small frills like a doily or child’s dress; small tears further punctuated the small holes. It felt like a cheap imitation of a four-post bed, like a toy for children and not something to save a day’s work or teetering lives. As I shifted, kicking slightly along the edge of the bed, my skin ran along the net making it sing faintly.
Sitting up only aggravated my lack of fortitude. My head ran wild for a lasting moment, then the stirred humidity circled about to collide with my face in a sad mimic of a breeze, and the sheet fell like iron on my lap and legs. With one hand I yanked off the sheet and threw it to the foot of the bed, with the other I pulled at the tucked edges of the mosquito net. Across the room my host-sister, one year older than me, stirred but fell back to sleep. Somewhere on the other side of the wall a cow bemoaned its generous lot. Outside the net and my bed, I walked in the dark, with a mild daze, for the kitchen door. When I stepped into the hammock with my host-brother, two years younger than me, it began to swing and he woke to murmur at me.
“Como? Quem é?”
“Eu, só eu. Banheiro, banheiro.” And he rolled over and fell back asleep. In the next hammock my host-brother’s uncle (it seemed inappropriate to claim him as my host-uncle when I couldn’t remember his name) snorted and snuffed in air in between snores with the inharmonious sounds of unrelieved congestion. The day before he had sneezed and I ached with a sympathy sneeze, while he just shuffled his nose around, sneezed four more times, then five more times, then once, and then three times again, without ever acting to seriously change the situation in his nostrils. I almost threw tissues at him. The whole affair smacked of the absurd: the creation of something large and daunting, of a joke or taunt, out of something small and petty. I hated the possibility of insisting on one custom as superior to another, though in this case it seemed the locals had the wrong idea entirely. I had said nothing and thought for a moment that his snores were just the continuation of the frustratingly unending battle with his sinuses.
Light flooded out into the dirt-floored kitchen, the tough little survivor kitten scurried to the dark behind the door, and cast itself onto the table against the house wall. When I reached for the flashlight I knocked it over and it cackled with laughter as it jumped and danced on the floor. Inside someone snorted and outside a sow trumpeted its own dream-heavy response. I swept my hand down and picked up the light, somewhere noticing the long, eight-legged shadow cast on the floor. I forced myself to forget it, or whatever the mind does when it insists on the impossible.
On the other side of the little gate that kept out the sow and piglets, and some of the other nighttime concerns, I clicked on the flashlight, stepped over the trail of always-wet mud, and strolled to the outhouse. Despite its regular and real functionality, I was unable to move past the whole notion of the outhouse; it is temporary and small, smells of human waste, likely grows terrible microbes and pathogens, and is something for construction fields and arena rock shows, not for a home. It was never too difficult to make use of the facilities, but the notion that this is how things work here went far beyond my comprehension. In some way, the idea of a Port-a-John as a house necessity just made me laugh and gag slightly.
Afterward, I rinsed my hands from the plastic faucet outside and stood for a moment, looking out at the community and thought for the time of where I was. All of this had been made in the course of a decade; a whole community had grown from next to nothing into a school and real stores and real houses. It had, in fact, made homes. The language lacks a difference in the two words, but I know the difference and I think my brothers and sisters would understand it, too.
Tomorrow I would leave, having only briefly crash-landed here and now all-too ready to leave again. We moved with an external determination through this landscape, through this world of people we had only known in documentaries and books about global poverty. In many ways these families were poor; they were being deprived of many basic social services, there water was dangerous at times, treatable and avoidable diseases were major problems, and I couldn’t forget the public urination for long. In other ways, it was easy to see wealth, the wealth of families and of the community, the interest in making something rich in opportunities and choices, the faltering and uneven passions for making a new place in the world. They were pioneers politically, socially, and ecologically; though it had been decades since “wilderness” grew here.
The televisions flashing telenovelas had blinked off hours before. Somewhere near the main road a bar played music, though most of the dancers and patrons had gone to bed. The music was fast and maddening, like a fever or a seizure, but had the sharp inspiration of movement, the mutual goal of moving others and being moved. Somewhere a rooster crowed and one returned its call; so it was past three in the morning. (We quickly learned the joke of the picturesque call of the rooster at dawn. Roosters call out competitively, and here it seemed they started at around three o’clock and continued until mid-afternoon.) Some houselights shone light into the soft, velvet blue night; perhaps my friends were sleeping with the lights on. A faint, old scent of stewed chicken hovered in the breeze, and then smothered by a moist and uncomfortable earthy aroma. The stars were spotty from high, wispy clouds and a thin, partial ring of refracted moonlight slowly formed and faded.
When my youngest host-sister had learned of my departure—now only a few hours away—she expressed distress. I shared her sadness, but then I flashed with a secret smile that my brief stay had rippled into her life. I am a traveler here, a visitor and often a guest, and my time is perforated with goodbyes. Perhaps it was a little cruel, to come and go so quickly, with only the time to make my existence known, and then smiling that at least that had happened. Sitting up in my netted bed, I felt the clear extensions of feeling, of knowledge, of life between her bed and mine, like a vine or vein trading a thin, ethereal fluid between us. And then I felt for further extensions; to my older sister and my brother, rocking slightly in his hammock, to my friends I had only made months ago in other houses in the community, and they had their own channels to their families. The wind shuddered in from between the roof and the wall and I thought of home, of my adopted one here with the sisters in two other cities, of my father working in small towns nearby. Briefly, with the knowledge that all things turn that way, I thought of my real home and how they were pulled here too in some way, pulled here by me and by the people I know here, though a phone call is an email is hardly clear evidence of that, just a hint, like a dream or a collision in the night.
As always, reposted with love to Ben.
Note: The word "rede" refers, usually, to hammocks, but it is also similar to "net" or "network" and is used for "internet" sometimes.
---
Redes
18 April 2008
I woke without knowing it, the thin sheet spun and twined around me like a thick, patiently breathing python. Air had gathered stiffly in the room, rough and heavy with the death of the fan. As I spun in my waking the great boa constricted and I could not breathe, and I thought desperately of slowly broken ribs and asthma. I coughed and felt it on the inside of my arm, a hot gust and small splash of spittle crashing into my skin. My eyes opened to the unwelcome ambient light from the main room, spilling over the incomplete (never-complete?) wall and seeping around the edge of the door-less doorframe.
I gasped before unwinding the sheet from around my arms and between my legs. From somewhere inside the mosquito net came a buzz and I swatted at emptiness. The net was structured by a rectangle and the edge had small frills like a doily or child’s dress; small tears further punctuated the small holes. It felt like a cheap imitation of a four-post bed, like a toy for children and not something to save a day’s work or teetering lives. As I shifted, kicking slightly along the edge of the bed, my skin ran along the net making it sing faintly.
Sitting up only aggravated my lack of fortitude. My head ran wild for a lasting moment, then the stirred humidity circled about to collide with my face in a sad mimic of a breeze, and the sheet fell like iron on my lap and legs. With one hand I yanked off the sheet and threw it to the foot of the bed, with the other I pulled at the tucked edges of the mosquito net. Across the room my host-sister, one year older than me, stirred but fell back to sleep. Somewhere on the other side of the wall a cow bemoaned its generous lot. Outside the net and my bed, I walked in the dark, with a mild daze, for the kitchen door. When I stepped into the hammock with my host-brother, two years younger than me, it began to swing and he woke to murmur at me.
“Como? Quem é?”
“Eu, só eu. Banheiro, banheiro.” And he rolled over and fell back asleep. In the next hammock my host-brother’s uncle (it seemed inappropriate to claim him as my host-uncle when I couldn’t remember his name) snorted and snuffed in air in between snores with the inharmonious sounds of unrelieved congestion. The day before he had sneezed and I ached with a sympathy sneeze, while he just shuffled his nose around, sneezed four more times, then five more times, then once, and then three times again, without ever acting to seriously change the situation in his nostrils. I almost threw tissues at him. The whole affair smacked of the absurd: the creation of something large and daunting, of a joke or taunt, out of something small and petty. I hated the possibility of insisting on one custom as superior to another, though in this case it seemed the locals had the wrong idea entirely. I had said nothing and thought for a moment that his snores were just the continuation of the frustratingly unending battle with his sinuses.
Light flooded out into the dirt-floored kitchen, the tough little survivor kitten scurried to the dark behind the door, and cast itself onto the table against the house wall. When I reached for the flashlight I knocked it over and it cackled with laughter as it jumped and danced on the floor. Inside someone snorted and outside a sow trumpeted its own dream-heavy response. I swept my hand down and picked up the light, somewhere noticing the long, eight-legged shadow cast on the floor. I forced myself to forget it, or whatever the mind does when it insists on the impossible.
On the other side of the little gate that kept out the sow and piglets, and some of the other nighttime concerns, I clicked on the flashlight, stepped over the trail of always-wet mud, and strolled to the outhouse. Despite its regular and real functionality, I was unable to move past the whole notion of the outhouse; it is temporary and small, smells of human waste, likely grows terrible microbes and pathogens, and is something for construction fields and arena rock shows, not for a home. It was never too difficult to make use of the facilities, but the notion that this is how things work here went far beyond my comprehension. In some way, the idea of a Port-a-John as a house necessity just made me laugh and gag slightly.
Afterward, I rinsed my hands from the plastic faucet outside and stood for a moment, looking out at the community and thought for the time of where I was. All of this had been made in the course of a decade; a whole community had grown from next to nothing into a school and real stores and real houses. It had, in fact, made homes. The language lacks a difference in the two words, but I know the difference and I think my brothers and sisters would understand it, too.
Tomorrow I would leave, having only briefly crash-landed here and now all-too ready to leave again. We moved with an external determination through this landscape, through this world of people we had only known in documentaries and books about global poverty. In many ways these families were poor; they were being deprived of many basic social services, there water was dangerous at times, treatable and avoidable diseases were major problems, and I couldn’t forget the public urination for long. In other ways, it was easy to see wealth, the wealth of families and of the community, the interest in making something rich in opportunities and choices, the faltering and uneven passions for making a new place in the world. They were pioneers politically, socially, and ecologically; though it had been decades since “wilderness” grew here.
The televisions flashing telenovelas had blinked off hours before. Somewhere near the main road a bar played music, though most of the dancers and patrons had gone to bed. The music was fast and maddening, like a fever or a seizure, but had the sharp inspiration of movement, the mutual goal of moving others and being moved. Somewhere a rooster crowed and one returned its call; so it was past three in the morning. (We quickly learned the joke of the picturesque call of the rooster at dawn. Roosters call out competitively, and here it seemed they started at around three o’clock and continued until mid-afternoon.) Some houselights shone light into the soft, velvet blue night; perhaps my friends were sleeping with the lights on. A faint, old scent of stewed chicken hovered in the breeze, and then smothered by a moist and uncomfortable earthy aroma. The stars were spotty from high, wispy clouds and a thin, partial ring of refracted moonlight slowly formed and faded.
When my youngest host-sister had learned of my departure—now only a few hours away—she expressed distress. I shared her sadness, but then I flashed with a secret smile that my brief stay had rippled into her life. I am a traveler here, a visitor and often a guest, and my time is perforated with goodbyes. Perhaps it was a little cruel, to come and go so quickly, with only the time to make my existence known, and then smiling that at least that had happened. Sitting up in my netted bed, I felt the clear extensions of feeling, of knowledge, of life between her bed and mine, like a vine or vein trading a thin, ethereal fluid between us. And then I felt for further extensions; to my older sister and my brother, rocking slightly in his hammock, to my friends I had only made months ago in other houses in the community, and they had their own channels to their families. The wind shuddered in from between the roof and the wall and I thought of home, of my adopted one here with the sisters in two other cities, of my father working in small towns nearby. Briefly, with the knowledge that all things turn that way, I thought of my real home and how they were pulled here too in some way, pulled here by me and by the people I know here, though a phone call is an email is hardly clear evidence of that, just a hint, like a dream or a collision in the night.
Thursday, January 14, 2010
Tumblr
So, I created a Tumblr account. All posts on this blog will end up there, but this blog will remain for the more prosaic types of posts. What Tumblr allows/supports/does is allow me to link/post/reblog various other forms of media (music, photos, quotes, etc.) and doing so quickly and easily from my iTouch if I so choose. I have attempted to synthesize my Google Reader with Blogger, but it hasn't been what I expected and now I intend to put both that and this, as well as other tidbits on the Tumblr.
This new account maybe just one more thing to tend to, like a new, needy pet. On the other hand, I hope to create something a little more substantive and a little more articulate that just another gewgaw. Generally, I write here in a considerate and thought-out way; I want to present myself in that way when writing herein. With Tumblr, I can exhibit a bit more of that psychological bounciness and energy that I get when I bounce around between blogs, news articles, and the rest. If I make a trend of it, I tend to post future GoodReads reviews there--though the widgit works better here, as far as I can manage.
You will likely find just as many posts here as usual, but if you want a bit more than just long journal entries, try subscribing to the Tumblr feed.
This new account maybe just one more thing to tend to, like a new, needy pet. On the other hand, I hope to create something a little more substantive and a little more articulate that just another gewgaw. Generally, I write here in a considerate and thought-out way; I want to present myself in that way when writing herein. With Tumblr, I can exhibit a bit more of that psychological bounciness and energy that I get when I bounce around between blogs, news articles, and the rest. If I make a trend of it, I tend to post future GoodReads reviews there--though the widgit works better here, as far as I can manage.
You will likely find just as many posts here as usual, but if you want a bit more than just long journal entries, try subscribing to the Tumblr feed.
Review of Plenty (from GoodReads.com)
Note: Minor spoiler alert; some comments refer to events that some readers may not be interested in before hand. Such comments are brief and ought not to diminish the pleasure of reading the book if you so choose.
4 of 5 stars
Plenty: One Man, One Woman, and a Raucous Year of Eating Locally by Alisa Smith & J.B. MacKinnon
My expectations for Plenty were high and, having read a number of related books, I felt prepared to jump into it. What shook me, despite my familiarity with the subject, is the profoundly personal nature of Plenty. This humble record not only tells the story of seasonal food in British Columbia, it tells the story of the real struggle of its protagonists and co-narrators. In this way it diverges from my expectations in the most delightful of ways. I know the realities--some personally, other...more My expectations for Plenty were high and, having read a number of related books, I felt prepared to jump into it. What shook me, despite my familiarity with the subject, is the profoundly personal nature of Plenty. This humble record not only tells the story of seasonal food in British Columbia, it tells the story of the real struggle of its protagonists and co-narrators. In this way it diverges from my expectations in the most delightful of ways. I know the realities--some personally, others by hearsay--of seasonal eating: the struggle of early fruitless spring, the richness rhubarb's vegetable sweetness, the canning and freezing of late summer that lasts into the fall, the preparation of jams and other preserves, and so on. Alisa Smith and James B MacKinnon recounts these in their turn, slightly different due to their more northerly clime, but familiar all the same.
What stands out all the more are their private accounts of these tasks in the context of their lives. A dear family member passes away, another struggles through a relationship failure, the two deal with each other's painfully quiet feuds, and eventually enjoy the commencement of friends' weddings. In addition, they provide some suggestion and some clarity on their own insights as they go about the labors of their professions; from the indigenous people of the Salish Sea to the famine and climate crises in Malawi, the two manage to write eloquently and passionately of their own fortunes and shortcomings.
It is not uncommon for a good book to have its emotional effects on me, but in the most sincere way, Smith and MacKinnon bring the reader into their lives. Comparisons to Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver are expected, but what stands out is the richness of encountering the people of their landscape; the farmers, fishers, and friends are as honestly and successfully portrayed as either of the writers, for which I am immensely grateful. Unlike some seasonal eaters, I am not among the new wave of future farmers--though I know a few who are. What I find herein is hope on the scale of a modest urbanite, an earnest eater, someone who experiences the seasons with hands, stomach, and heart.
Though I heartily recommend this book to anyone interested, and thoroughly commend the writers, its prose wavers at times and its multi-centered focus can occasionally confuse rather than elucidate. In certain ways, such commentary is hardly a criticism as much as a recognition of the complexity of Smith and MacKinnon's task. Covering a personal culinary memoir, the frustrations of a maturing relationship, the history of modern agriculture, the food politics of British Columbia, and the hardships of people one encounters along the way is simply monstrous. It is, indeed, miraculous that these two intrepid souls succeed as well as they do. I cannot say that the task might be better done or appropriately lessened and still be what it ought to be, and so I add this critique with its own grain of "sinner's salt."
4 of 5 stars
Plenty: One Man, One Woman, and a Raucous Year of Eating Locally by Alisa Smith & J.B. MacKinnon
My expectations for Plenty were high and, having read a number of related books, I felt prepared to jump into it. What shook me, despite my familiarity with the subject, is the profoundly personal nature of Plenty. This humble record not only tells the story of seasonal food in British Columbia, it tells the story of the real struggle of its protagonists and co-narrators. In this way it diverges from my expectations in the most delightful of ways. I know the realities--some personally, other...more My expectations for Plenty were high and, having read a number of related books, I felt prepared to jump into it. What shook me, despite my familiarity with the subject, is the profoundly personal nature of Plenty. This humble record not only tells the story of seasonal food in British Columbia, it tells the story of the real struggle of its protagonists and co-narrators. In this way it diverges from my expectations in the most delightful of ways. I know the realities--some personally, others by hearsay--of seasonal eating: the struggle of early fruitless spring, the richness rhubarb's vegetable sweetness, the canning and freezing of late summer that lasts into the fall, the preparation of jams and other preserves, and so on. Alisa Smith and James B MacKinnon recounts these in their turn, slightly different due to their more northerly clime, but familiar all the same.
What stands out all the more are their private accounts of these tasks in the context of their lives. A dear family member passes away, another struggles through a relationship failure, the two deal with each other's painfully quiet feuds, and eventually enjoy the commencement of friends' weddings. In addition, they provide some suggestion and some clarity on their own insights as they go about the labors of their professions; from the indigenous people of the Salish Sea to the famine and climate crises in Malawi, the two manage to write eloquently and passionately of their own fortunes and shortcomings.
It is not uncommon for a good book to have its emotional effects on me, but in the most sincere way, Smith and MacKinnon bring the reader into their lives. Comparisons to Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver are expected, but what stands out is the richness of encountering the people of their landscape; the farmers, fishers, and friends are as honestly and successfully portrayed as either of the writers, for which I am immensely grateful. Unlike some seasonal eaters, I am not among the new wave of future farmers--though I know a few who are. What I find herein is hope on the scale of a modest urbanite, an earnest eater, someone who experiences the seasons with hands, stomach, and heart.
Though I heartily recommend this book to anyone interested, and thoroughly commend the writers, its prose wavers at times and its multi-centered focus can occasionally confuse rather than elucidate. In certain ways, such commentary is hardly a criticism as much as a recognition of the complexity of Smith and MacKinnon's task. Covering a personal culinary memoir, the frustrations of a maturing relationship, the history of modern agriculture, the food politics of British Columbia, and the hardships of people one encounters along the way is simply monstrous. It is, indeed, miraculous that these two intrepid souls succeed as well as they do. I cannot say that the task might be better done or appropriately lessened and still be what it ought to be, and so I add this critique with its own grain of "sinner's salt."
When In Spain: Report from Castellon, Valencia
A windstorm blows outside and I have already had to barricade a window that broke. Up until I heard it break, I had not touched it in the least. It acts as a painful reminder of the door that shattered on me in Brazil in my host-family's home. This, at least, was not my fault. It does say a little something about Spanish design, at least in Castellon. In the apartment, the floors are nearly all stone tiles, which look rather chic and clean. Except that they are terribly cold and continue to absorb any heat in the rooms themselves. I spent four years in Minnesota and have become wet with rain while camping (in Nebraska) with my brother and father; yet none of those times have been as cold as I am when I try to sleep in a sleeping bag underneath a sheet and three blankets. Valencianos (I am in the state of Valencia) can easily and simply make things look good, but seem to consider comfort a secondary or tertiary quality of a living space.
Other than that, my stay has been rather wonderful. Castellon (or Castelló in the Catalan) is about two hundred thousand people--really just a shade under Lincoln--with both a more or less pleasant beach and enjoyable hills. In the hills, great bushes of rosemary and thyme grow, as well as wild sage, though it does not really compare in quality. I am inspired to make herb soaps with it if I can harvest enough and smuggle it back in; in the meanwhile I might make a fresh herb focaccia. Even more surprising are untended orange groves from which one can pluck the tastiest wee citrus fruits I have ever had; occasional grapefruit and almond trees also dot the landscape. I have never lived somewhere where I might pluck oranges from the tree; to say the least, it is a delight.
This is the coldest part of the year and it ranges from a chilly mid-autumn Minnesota day, or maybe a late one in Lincoln. Yesterday was the warmest day I have experienced in months. It was, at its peak, likely in the mid-fifties which for me means a simple sweatshirt. The locals bundle up in layers with fancy scarves and plain to chic jackets. Dustin, Miss Lauren (aka, Dustin's Lauren, Lauren George, and eventually Lauren Phillips; not to be mistaken with Miss Lauren Fulner, aka My Lauren), and I on the other hand leave the apartment or climb the stairs to the roof to warm up. Apparently, it snows a couple times a century here, but I don't know if I believe it, except in the mountains which were picturesquely flecked with a light dusting.
Time spent with Dustin and Miss Lauren is time much valued. They are fine company and have treated my generously. I met Dustin's best Spanish friend, Tomás, who is a well-traveled, seventy-five year-old man who seems to be acquainted with every other person in Vallencia. He helps Dustin with his Spanish, recently using an analogy to "test" Dustin's skill. The trick, for Dustin anyway, is to say, "Si, si," every ten or twenty seconds; to be more authentic, he ought to say, "Valé," which means something like "Okay." They have very light schedules allowing them a good deal of leisure, which is just their style. The city provides public bikes given that you register and return them after their use for others at various bike racks, and buses get you where you mostly need to go, though walking is hardly a chore here.
Being here inevitably recalls Brazil and the reality of language immersion. I could, given some time, probably pick up Spanish pretty well. I may just do that. Simple sentences make sense and often a word or two provide an easy anchor to the meaning of a phrase. All the same, Spain feels much easier that Brazil ever did--save for the company and encouragement of my companions. Poverty feels like a rarity instead of commonplace, even though Spain is not one of the wealthier countries of Europe. In a way, the lifestyles tap into simplicity and calm in an enviable way. This is particularly true following the "lived-in" feeling (i.e. abundant clutter and that feeling of thorough use) of other places I have stayed in. Oddly, this city feels "lived-in;" that is, its tightness, the pedestrian boulevards and wide sidewalks, the light on the buildings even suggest a self-assuredness that wide roads and parking lots, chain stores and sprawl fail to entail.
I would love to be here in a certain way, a manner I cannot easily articulate. I envy Miss Lauren and Dustin for the place and am then dismayed at the struggle they are experiencing it. My envy, though, is not green or negative; rather, I see their position as one slightly more comfortable and flexible, in many ways much easier than what I recall from Brazil. All the same, this is a big first for Lauren, and a smaller one for Dustin who has always been markedly well-adapted to the stations in which he finds himself. I know the feeling of yearning for the familiar and the need to relax one's brain after the perpetual effort of translation. All the same, the... escape, perhaps... novelty as well... sense of exploration and change of pace, the ability to look back and to peer forward from that vantage that a foreign place allows has such richness, such exuberance that I cannot help but acknowledge that I miss it in my own way.
Rugs and comforters would help, though.
Other than that, my stay has been rather wonderful. Castellon (or Castelló in the Catalan) is about two hundred thousand people--really just a shade under Lincoln--with both a more or less pleasant beach and enjoyable hills. In the hills, great bushes of rosemary and thyme grow, as well as wild sage, though it does not really compare in quality. I am inspired to make herb soaps with it if I can harvest enough and smuggle it back in; in the meanwhile I might make a fresh herb focaccia. Even more surprising are untended orange groves from which one can pluck the tastiest wee citrus fruits I have ever had; occasional grapefruit and almond trees also dot the landscape. I have never lived somewhere where I might pluck oranges from the tree; to say the least, it is a delight.
This is the coldest part of the year and it ranges from a chilly mid-autumn Minnesota day, or maybe a late one in Lincoln. Yesterday was the warmest day I have experienced in months. It was, at its peak, likely in the mid-fifties which for me means a simple sweatshirt. The locals bundle up in layers with fancy scarves and plain to chic jackets. Dustin, Miss Lauren (aka, Dustin's Lauren, Lauren George, and eventually Lauren Phillips; not to be mistaken with Miss Lauren Fulner, aka My Lauren), and I on the other hand leave the apartment or climb the stairs to the roof to warm up. Apparently, it snows a couple times a century here, but I don't know if I believe it, except in the mountains which were picturesquely flecked with a light dusting.
Time spent with Dustin and Miss Lauren is time much valued. They are fine company and have treated my generously. I met Dustin's best Spanish friend, Tomás, who is a well-traveled, seventy-five year-old man who seems to be acquainted with every other person in Vallencia. He helps Dustin with his Spanish, recently using an analogy to "test" Dustin's skill. The trick, for Dustin anyway, is to say, "Si, si," every ten or twenty seconds; to be more authentic, he ought to say, "Valé," which means something like "Okay." They have very light schedules allowing them a good deal of leisure, which is just their style. The city provides public bikes given that you register and return them after their use for others at various bike racks, and buses get you where you mostly need to go, though walking is hardly a chore here.
Being here inevitably recalls Brazil and the reality of language immersion. I could, given some time, probably pick up Spanish pretty well. I may just do that. Simple sentences make sense and often a word or two provide an easy anchor to the meaning of a phrase. All the same, Spain feels much easier that Brazil ever did--save for the company and encouragement of my companions. Poverty feels like a rarity instead of commonplace, even though Spain is not one of the wealthier countries of Europe. In a way, the lifestyles tap into simplicity and calm in an enviable way. This is particularly true following the "lived-in" feeling (i.e. abundant clutter and that feeling of thorough use) of other places I have stayed in. Oddly, this city feels "lived-in;" that is, its tightness, the pedestrian boulevards and wide sidewalks, the light on the buildings even suggest a self-assuredness that wide roads and parking lots, chain stores and sprawl fail to entail.
I would love to be here in a certain way, a manner I cannot easily articulate. I envy Miss Lauren and Dustin for the place and am then dismayed at the struggle they are experiencing it. My envy, though, is not green or negative; rather, I see their position as one slightly more comfortable and flexible, in many ways much easier than what I recall from Brazil. All the same, this is a big first for Lauren, and a smaller one for Dustin who has always been markedly well-adapted to the stations in which he finds himself. I know the feeling of yearning for the familiar and the need to relax one's brain after the perpetual effort of translation. All the same, the... escape, perhaps... novelty as well... sense of exploration and change of pace, the ability to look back and to peer forward from that vantage that a foreign place allows has such richness, such exuberance that I cannot help but acknowledge that I miss it in my own way.
Rugs and comforters would help, though.
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