Cleansing Cucumbers

I needed something healthy and invigorating. 

I'd recently stuffed myself to the brim, eating my way through a weekend in Portland. On Saturday I lunched on Bijou's salad Nicoise, perfectly and minimally dressed though the herbs lacked fragrance and I longed for a few capers. Dinner began with the flaky biscuits piled high in the bread basket at Mother's Bistro, continued with Mother's roasted beet and blood orange salad and ended with her crab cakes. The decor impressed though the service did not, and the food, though slightly flawed, was rich and flavorful. I would return for the biscuits alone. Sunday started with Morning Star's eggs benedict, necessary after the night's libations. 

Back in Seattle, I came home to quietude, flipped through my cookbooks and went on a sunny stroll through Cal Anderson park, running into several neighbors on the way. We chatted on park benches until the shadows crept over us, relegating the sun to slender stripes on the grass and gravel. Still mildly hung over, faintly tired, I craved something light and cleansing. Cucumbers.

I played with David Tanis' Vietnamese cucumber salad, trying out a bias cut on my vegetables, adding rice vinegar and extra ginger, reducing the sugar. The results were flavorful and just short of fiery. I preferred all of my improvisations except for the bias cut. Simply sliced cucumbers make a more manageable mouthful. I garnished the salad with thinly sliced sweet onions and, though pretty, they were more delicious when tossed and marinated with the rest of the salad. I suggest taste over aesthetics on this one. 

After salad came sleep. A new week. A date with a new boy, even. I laughed at myself as I shared camera-phone images of my recent concoctions, lovingly pointing out ingredients like a grandparent naming children in a wallet photo. "I want that," the boy said as he pointed at the cucumber salad with his chopsticks, his gorgeous gray eyes lighting up. I smiled, remembering how the sweet crunch contrasted with the tangy, slightly salty dressing, the bite of onions and peppers. Suffice it to say, I hope to make it again soon. 

Vietnamese Cucumber Salad

Adapted from "A Platter of Figs and other Recipes" by David Tanis

4 large cucumbers

salt and pepper

vietnamese (nuoc mamma) or thai (nam pla) fish sauce

rice vinegar
2-inch piece of ginger, peeled and cut into fine julienne

palm sugar

3 serranos or jalapenos

2-3 limes

mint sprigs

basil sprigs

thinly sliced sweet onion

Peel cucumbers, cut them lengthwise in half and slice into half-moons. Place in a large bowl, add salt and pepper to taste, a dash each of fish sauce and vinegar, the ginger and a tablespoon of palm sugar. Toss well and let sit for at least 5 minutes.

David suggests finely chopping the chiles and adding them to taste by the spoonful, but I prefer them thinly sliced and added with a bold liberality. Add the onions, douse with freshly-squeezed lime juice and toss again. Cover and refrigerate till serving.

Just before serving, add a fistful of mint and basil leaves, roughly chopped or perhaps stacked, rolled and sliced into a pretty chiffonade. Taste and adjust the seasoning, adding more lime juice, fish sauce or salt as necessary. Though I halved this and enjoyed it as a hefty meal for one, Tanis serves it as a side to wild salmon. 

Caketastic Birthday Blowout

Being an Aquarius and born in the ghastly year of 1985, I recently turned 25.

I didn’t really have a big birthday blowout, or anything as crazy as the word suggests. I did put on a pretty party dress and have a few friends over, though. I even received a singing telegram, compliments of my father, along with two noise complaints from neighbors. And I baked a cake.

A friend who bakes for a hobby and has made a few wedding cakes lent me her professional cake pans. I’d been planning on doing a big 3-tiered beast but when I saw the 6”, 10” and 14” square pans and realized I’d have to bake 2 layers of each if I didn’t want a squat-looking dessert, I decided to nix the bottom layer. It alone was supposed to serve 50 people! I may not be the most practical girl, but even I knew that would be entirely unnecessary.

Since I couldn’t decide between red velvet cake and traditional yellow birthday cake, I set about making both. I scoured cake recipes in my cookbooks and online and inevitably chose the ones with the most butter and eggs, deeming them “authentic.” My alarm set for 6 am on my birthday formally observed (since my real birthday was on a workday), I woke up and removed 2 whole packages of butter and 10 eggs from my fridge to bring to room temperature and went back to sleep. Don’t think I’d forgotten the half-pound of cream cheese or the pint each of buttermilk and heavy cream. I let them warm up and gave them some loving later on in my leisurely day.

Hours passed pleasurably as I oscillated between mess making and cleaning. When the cloud of sugar settled, I’d stained my white seat covers with red food coloring, spattered creamed butter on the walls and dirtied every bowl I owned. A birthday baking success!

After my cooked layers cooled, I frosted the yellow cake with a satiny chocolate frosting, easily made in the blender. The recipe that follows was actually my favorite discovery of the day.

I torted (divided each of my two layers in half) and frosted my red velvet tier with an airy cream cheese frosting. The whole cake was refrigerated with a crumb layer, then given a final frost a few hours later.

I piped melted chocolate onto parchment paper and then firmed it up in the fridge before transferring it to my cake. Atop the pristinely pale cream cheese screamed the words “Fuck Yeah 25.”

I declined to try my hand at prettily piped borders and instead tossed on some coconut, creating a fun effect that reminded me of Top Pot’s feather boa donuts. Lacy and The D, who showed up early with take-out Ezell’s fried chicken, helped my haphazardly throw some sprinkles on the side edges. Lacy made me the sweetest card - dedicated to 10 years of best-friend status, a gorgeous secretary pen necklace, and The D installed a dimmer in my kitchen, providing the perfect atmosphere for my birthday-candle-blowing-and-wish-making moment!

By the time Jamie and Niel of Seattle Singing Telegrams were wildly performing The Beatles' “Birthday” (which transitioned awesomely into “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds”), I was ready to cut my fucking cake, yo! Jamie and Neil passed, but I don't blame 'em. I’m sure they get offered a lot of cake. It's a job hazard.

Savoring a sample of each layer, I nestled into my couch with a White Russian cocktail and watched The Big Lebowski with my remaining friends.

The birthday girl abides.

Chocolate Satin Frosting
Adapted from The Joy of Cooking

By Irma Rombauer, Marion Rombauer-Becker and Ethan Becker

6 ounces unsweetened or bittersweet chocolate, broken into small pieces

1 cup heavy cream : )

1 ½ cups sugar

6 tablespoons (¾ stick) unsalted butter, cut into small pieces

1 teaspoon vanilla (or booze!)

In a small saucepan, bring cream to a boil. Remove from heat and add chocolate without stirring. Cover and set aside for exactly 10 minutes. Scrape into a food processor or blender and add the remaining ingredients. A drizzle of rum or strong coffee would be welcome additions at this stage, too. Process until perfectly smooth. Set aside until thickened to desired spreading consistency. This keeps in the fridge for one week. But if you're me, you'll find yourself pulling out the Tupperware two weeks later and spooning it up while you watch Thumbsucker and World's Greatest Dad back to back on a Friday night.

Sunday Coffee

I have measured out my life with coffee spoons.

~T.S. Eliot                                        

Every Sunday that we weren't hung over, Bugs and I went to Stumptown for coffee. He didn't have to be at work, a respected wine shop in SoDo, until 11 so I would doze, listening to him shower and then watching him roll up the sleeves of a wrinkled button-up shirt. Around the time he selected a jaunty cap from the hat hooks in our bedroom, I would spring out of bed and hurriedly pull on jeans and tie back my messy hair. Leaving our apartment to round the block to P-Town (as the sign proclaimed from our point of view), he'd ask me if I had my keys. I did.

We took turns buying each other nonfat lattes, the best in town. I added raw sugar to mine; he never did. I always finished mine; he rarely did. He'd sip, but sometimes I think he just liked to hold the cup on his way to work, even though it was surely cold by then. 

Sometimes I'd feel whimsical and order a raspberry latte with a raspberry donut hole. 

Sometimes I brought my laptop or a novel I was engrossed in, but usually we read the New York Times together. Sometimes, if I was caught up writing or reading, I'd linger at our table after he left for work, watching people come in and out until I felt antsy and knew it was time to return home. But usually I'd walk with him to the bus stop or down the hill to the freeway, kiss him good-bye and then turn around and march back up the hill, looking forward to my little solitary Sunday.

Little, yes. The world seemed much smaller only a few short months ago. Is that what repetition does? Calm and comfort us as we slip into stagnation, letting our views of the world shrink? 

The last time I saw Bugs, five months ago, I was wearing latex gloves. Having agreed to help me clean the apartment formerly known as ours, he dutifully moved the fridge and oven so I could scrub away the splattered grease of over five hundred dinners. We sprayed and wiped up the sad, furniture-void spaces and said good-bye. There were no kisses and he left his keys behind. 

I haven't seen him since then but I'm going to today. For Sunday morning coffee before he goes to work.

The venue has changed. We're meeting at the Top Pot near my new apartment, where I've become addicted to the spicy chai. Today I think I'll get something new and chocolate covered and a cup of drip for dunking. I've been working my way through Top Pot's repertoire of donuts and so far the apple fritter, blueberry bulls-eye and chocolate-covered old fashioned are my favorites. It's good to mix things up sometimes. Though there's comfort, of course, in revisiting the old standards, those maple bars and rainbow-sprinkled pleasures of the past. 

Breakfast for a New Year

Determined to do something right, I started 2010 with clean sheets and freshly baked cinnamon rolls.

Actually, I inaugurated the new year running down a hill in the rain to catch the last glimpse of fireworks, drunk and disheveled, hauling a man in my wake and accidentally abandoning a fleet of friends.

I hosted a party and proceeded to be the wrecked hostess, forcing ramekins of rum-raisin bread pudding and cupfuls of truffle popcorn into guests' hands. Manically alternated between bossy and silly, stubborn and ridiculous. I was so fuckered-up I remember, as I kicked everyone out of my apartment at 11:45 (except for one party angel who had passed out on my bed), being astonished that no glasses were broken. Of course, the next day I broke a glass on my head. Some motha left a drinking glass full of red wine on top of my fridge (not a wine glass, mind you, despite the fact that there were actually clean ones). When will boys learn that shorties don't look up? I was bent down, rooting around in my crisper when it fell and broke on my head, shooting red wine and blue glass all over my kitchen! Very painful, but I learned my head is quite resilient.

The next day, cradling my bumped cranium and cleaning my apartment, I emptied out a half bottle of totally decent Mountain Dome sparkling wine and forsook my uneaten bread pudding. I suddenly and desperately missed my Queen B in California! She would have helped me be "on the ball" as we like to say, to be a better, tidier, more pulled-together hostess. Slightly mopey and missing my team mate, I gave her a call and we decided that a reunion was in order. So she bought tickets to Seattle for a 10-day stay in March!

Queen B, you already made my year.

So did the cinnamon rolls. I did all my prep work on New Year's Eve so I could enjoy a freshly baked bun slathered in cream cheese frosting for my first breakfast of 2010. I saved my remaining rolls and baked them up the following day, sharing them with a few girlfriends. Pulling apart the hot rolls, drinking spiked coffee, the conversation twisted from the sweet to the obscene and back again, wrapping tightly around our interwoven lives like dough spiraled around sugar and cinnamon. I love my friends and I love sharing meals with them. Here's to more of both in the new year!

Cinnamon Buns

Adapted from Piper Davis and Ellen Jackson's The Grand Central Baking Book (The main change was removing currants and adding marzipan):

Sponge

2 ½ cups tepid water (about 80 degrees)

2 teaspoons active dry yeast

3 tablespoons molasses

½ cup whole wheat flour

½ cup eight-grain cereal with cracked—not rolled—grain

2 cups unbleached white flour

Final Dough

2 ½ to 3 cups unbleached white or bread flour

¼ cup (½ stick) unsalted butter, melted and slightly cooled

1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon salt

Filling

½ cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature

¾ cup granulated sugar

¾ cup packed brown sugar

1 tablespoon ground cinnamon

¼ cup marzipan paste (optional)

To make the sponge, combine ingredients in a bowl with high sides and whisk or beat until smooth. Cover tightly with plastic wrap at let sit at room temperature for 2 hours or in the refrigerator for about 12 hours. It should bubbly and a bit stringy when you stir it.

Combine the fermented sponge with the flour, butter and salt in a fowl. Use a stand mixer with dough hook attachment if you have it. I like to knead by hand while listening to music.

When the dough is a shiny, smooth cohesive mass, turn into a bowl lightly brushed with butter. Cover with plastic wrap and let rise until doubled in size. If you have time, chill the dough for an hour. It will be stiffer and easier to form into rolls.

Combine your filling ingredients, reserving 1/3 cup to sprinkle on top of the rolls. If you’re addition the optional marzipan, a fork and some muscle are required to mix it into the sugar. Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface. Use a combination of gentle stretching and light rolling to shape into a 20”x12” rectangle. Spread 6 tablespoons butter over the entire rectangle of dough and top with the filling. I flexible rubber spatula would probably work well for spreading butter, but I decided to forgo tools and make a mess with my hands. This works fine, too.

Roll the dough tightly to create a log 20-24 inches long and 2-3 inches in diameter. Cut the rolls using a serrated knife. Gently tuck the tail under the center and goose to creat a conical shape. Arrange the rolls in 9”x13” pan, greased with your remaining 2 tablespoons butter. Cover the pan with plastic wrap and let them rise for 30-60 minutes in a warm spot (atop the preheating oven is ideal) or refrigerate overnight and let them rise in the morning. When the rolls have swelled, top with the remaining cinnamon and sugar and bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes, rotating the pan halfway through.

Enjoy with coffee and good company.