Lovey LouAnn’s Carrot Cake

*Fork pictured was not found on the street.*

On Saturday, I had, as my particular friend called it, a visceral reaction to the suburbs.

We had dropped Khristian’s daughter off at the movies with a friend and planned a drink and some food at the least offensive of the chain restaurants in Hunt Valley (which turned out to be California Pizza Kitchen).

Things started out fine, as they usually do, and we ordered drinks and food at the bar.

After these diversions were settled I was able to look around.

The customers next to us were unhappy with something and a perfectly nice manager came over and soothed them.

The incoming male bartender, clearly an annoyance to our outgoing female bartender, overpoured for a lone male customer and mentioned that he (the bartender) would prefer some Rumplemintz. It was clear that the male customer was not really interested in the extra booze, but it was delivered in such a way that refusal would have seemed odd, so the male customer pretended it was fine.

It wasn’t really fine. I could feel it. The gesture of the extra booze came off as the “everybody’s doing it” kind of knuckle-dragging peer pressure one experiences around the beer funnel at a backwoods party.

Then we heard the same bartender mention Rumplemintz again at the other end of the bar. Soon after we watched him stick his finger in the neck of a bottle of some kind of juice mixer to unclog it before adding it to a waiting tray of drinks which was then, presumably, delivered to an unsuspecting patron.

Right around this time I started to feel…off.

I am not sure the last time I have been in a “fast-casual” dine-in chain restaurant, but I do remember saying that I didn’t want to do it again, and as I watched the people at the bar eating and listened to the modest din of their conversation or watched them staring into space or at the NCAA women’s basketball on the TVs over the bar I started to feel worse.

We finished our pizza and kale salad and paid. With time to kill, we boarded the escalator and descended into the belly of the beast: Wegman’s.

Don’t get me wrong. I love Wegman’s. And the Hunt Valley Wegman’s is legendary.

But the second I walked into the store I knew it was a mistake. It was hot, and it smelled strongly of food and people at the same time, in equal measure. Whole families were doing the weekly shopping, which translated into hordes of people, all with a determined look on their face and little regard for the people around them. We headed to the back of the store and perused the gluten-free section for a bit, and then I started to realize that the rest of our lovely day, the day that started with a walk to the Waverly farmer’s market for asparagus, a Blacksauce Kitchen biscuit, and a bag of Michele’s Granola, was not going to end well for me.

Anxiety is visceral. It may originate from a few random firing synapses in your brain, but the second those electrical impulses begin, the physical sensations are unmistakable with sensory detail that is clear, odd, and particular.

I could taste the last bite of kale salad in the back of my throat, where my breath lodged and came in short, shallow gasps. I was hot, and my clothes started to squeeze me. My mouth dried out. My heart beat in my chest, and I could feel the pulse in my belly, the one that connects to the vagus nerve, the transmitter of butterflies and anxiety and fear in a straight shot to the base of the skull.

Thinking to maybe head off the inevitable, I left my particular friend holding our few groceries and went to the restroom. Sometimes the quietness of the bathroom gives me space to collect myself. It may seem impossible that a public bathroom could become a refuge, but sometimes it’s the only quiet, peaceful space to go to when anxiety fires up.

The bathroom was rank-smelling and unclean. Loud music piped through the store, the kind of saccharine pop music that sounds like Christian rock but isn’t and involves no real instruments, reverberated against the oddly terracotta walls here. The bathroom was no help. I couldn’t breathe through my nose. My mouth was completely devoid of moisture, foul-tasting and pebbled with tastebuds that felt every particulate-filled, unrelenting morsel of inhaled air.

I will spare you the details of the next 45 minutes or so except to say that I visited that bathroom once more, plus a Peet’s coffee and tea bathroom and the movie theater bathroom (three times) before the girls finished their movie. I had taken an anxiety pill, then another half, and then another half. It’s hard to know if the medication sticks when you can’t keep it down. We made it home, where I took another pill, spent some more time in my (mercifully quiet and clean) bathroom, put on thick jammies (for the shivering when it came), and got into bed.

It’s not like I am unfamiliar with the trappings of the suburbs.

I spent 13 years in the suburbs of Atlanta. Without knowing it, in those 13 years, I lost bits of myself. It was subtle at first. Weekend shopping and meal planning on Sundays. Casual acquaintances who never really knew me (or cared to, really). Weekends consumed at the softball field, my child the center of the universe.

I kept the house, bossed my husband (Dane, for those who are just joining in) around, swore he couldn’t live without me (even went on strike once, like a total douche), and fully developed the raging anxiety that first surfaced when I was young. Every moment was gogogo, working for the weekend, taking care of business. The joy of teaching I experienced in Seattle evaporated in Georgia under a domineering boss who spent faculty meetings yelling at us.

We bought a farm. We lost a baby. I quit my job and started a school. Dane lost his job. We lost the farm. Dane died.

Sicily and I fled the suburbs for Baltimore.

Forgive me.

The vacuous homogeneity, the forced joie de vivre, the conspicuous consumption, and lack of individuality of the suburbs nearly killed me.

The low-key unhappiness that no one will admit to. The women complaining constantly about their husbands, who continue to ask forgiveness, not permission, of their wives.

The soul-killing lack of creativity, a hole that women attempted to fill chock-a-block full with Mason jar crafts, Pinterest boards, and wine painting party girls’ nights out. The insistence on calling each other “girls” in the first place.

The apathy towards politics, or the overwhelming conservative nature of the politics they did participate in.

The sheer size and number of SUVs and the callous, blatant disregard for fellow humans who are not in the inner circle, as evidenced by the lush green lawns and huge bags of garbage.

The subtle once-over every time you walk in someone’s door.

The endless evenings and weekends driving to activities or playdates or else keeping up the lawn, the house, the charade.

Forgive me.

It’s small wonder that in terms of volume and sheer violence, most heinous crimes are perpetrated not in rural areas or in the darkest parts of the urban jungle but just outside the beltway. School shootings happen in the suburbs, most often carried out by deeply unhappy people with startlingly easy access to guns.

But I digress.

I didn’t realize how miserable I was being the person I was never meant to be until I didn’t have to be that person anymore.

I shared these thoughts with Sicily the following day. We were walking across a parking lot, and when I told her my thoughts, her chin quivered and she lowered her sunglasses to cover her eyes.

“Do you regret it?” she asked me. “Being a softball mom?”

I stopped in the parking lot and looked her full in the face. I reassured her that she is the joy of my life. She made me understand the unfathomable depths of love and has given me the most blissful moments I have yet experienced in this incarnation. I am who I am today because she was born – she has made me a better person.

In truth, as much as my flight from the suburbs was about excavating the person I buried for so many years, it was also about being someone my kid could look up to. To show her that even from the shadow place of grief and through years of feeling unworthy, there is a way to come back. That it’s a sad and hard and joyous and exhausting and frustrating and hilarious and angry-making journey filled with ten tons of bullshit but also an equal measure of tears and laughter and the full range of emotion.

That feeling the full range of emotion – the crevasse of the depths and the universal height of joy – is the necessary thing. It’s the thing I couldn’t feel for 13 years. It’s the thing that came surging through me as we wandered the chaos of a strip mall in suburban Hunt Valley on a Saturday, only this time it came like a coiled snake, snapping out of a clay pot.

I want my beautiful daughter to know that it doesn’t have to be so for her. She can be who she is, just as she is. The Wiccans express it thus: “An it harm none, do as thou wilt.” And so I say now to both myself and my daughter.

As my anxiety receded, I felt like eating. Usually, I don’t eat for the rest of the day after an anxiety attack, and today was no different, but my cravings are always specific – sweet, comforting things, usually in the form of cake. I am possibly cake’s biggest fan.

In light of the burgeoning spring that has begun to sprung outside my bedroom window, and to honor my heart walking around outside of my body as we both continue to move towards who we are, I present to you this lovely, easy, unfussy carrot cake. I made carrot cake for Sicily’s first birthday. She ate it with a fork, no sticky fingers for her, and I knew, even in the middle of the suburbs, that she and I would somehow get to be just fine.

LouAnn’s Carrot Cake

Sicily, a.k.a Muffin Girl and Lovey LouAnn, maybe would have chosen a different cake for her first birthday, were she given a choice. I made this to try to reconcile her steady diet of organic, handmade meals and snacks with my deep love of sweet, sweet birthday cake. This recipe is a mash-up of several different recipes I have made over the years, with tweaked spices and a new technique that is shamelessly stolen from Cook’s Illustrated. After making cake in this way, I may never return to the round.

(serves 10)

Ingredients

Cake

2 cups gluten-free all-purpose flour (regular AP works here, too)

1 cup lightly packed dark brown sugar

2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon nutmeg

1/4 teaspoon ground cloves

3 large eggs

3/4 cup vegetable oil

1/2 cup well-mashed banana (about two bananas)

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

2 2/3 cups shredded carrot (about 3 large carrots – this measurement needn’t be exact)

Frosting and decoration

12 ounces cream cheese, softened

1 stick butter, softened

Optional: 1/4 cup buttermilk powder

2 teaspoons lemon

3 cups powdered sugar

Optional: milk, as needed

2 cups pecans, toasted, cooled, and chopped

Method

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line a 13″ x 18″ rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper (allow overhang at the ends) and set aside.

In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, brown sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves.

In a larger bowl, use the same whisk to combine eggs, oil, bananas, and vanilla. Whisk thoroughly until egg and oil are completely incorporated.

Add flour mixture to egg mixture and stir until combined (note: if you are using regular AP flour, do not overmix). The batter will seem fairly thick, closer to brownies than cake.

Fold carrots into the batter.

Pour batter into prepared pan. Use an offset spatula to even the surface and make sure it is level.

Bake for 15-20 minutes or until the top is dry. You can use a cake tester or toothpick to test also; no crumbs should stick to either.

Cool in pan for five minutes, then carefully life with the edges of the parchment paper and transfer to a wire rack to cool completely before frosting.

To make the frosting, place cream cheese, butter, and buttermilk powder (if using) in a large bowl. Using a hand mixer, beat until smooth. Add lemon juice and powdered sugar (sift if you are particular; I am not), one cup at a time, beating well between additions. If your frosting is too thick, add a teaspoon of milk at a time, beating well, until it achieves a smooth, spreadable consistency.

To assemble, use a sharp knife to cut the cake into four pieces: one big cut across the longest part of the cake and one on the shorter side (you will end up with four rectangles that are about 6″ x 8″ each).

I use a rotating cake stand to frost, but since this is a round cake that is not entirely necessary. Frost and fill, allowing plenty for the top. If some crumbs show through on the sides, that’s okay.

When the cake is frosting, press handfuls of pecans into all four sides until covered. Pro tip: DO NOT DO THIS OVER THE SINK (don’t ask how I know). What happens is you waste a ton of pecans, which are very expensive. Complete this by holding the cake in one hand over the same rimmed baking sheet it was cooked in, using the other hand to press a handful of pecans into the sides at a time. Whatever is leftover can be used in another application.

Try not to eat it all, but remind yourself that since there are carrots in there it’s practically a vegetable.

Recipe Notes

You can substitute applesauce OR drained crushed pineapple for banana in the same amounts.
Buttermilk powder is not strictly necessary, but it’s nice to have around and lasts forever. Find it in the baking aisle near the canned and powdered milk.
You could also add currants to the batter…if you were a MONSTER.

Striding Into The World: Grilled Asparagus With Sweet Fire Pickle Gribiche

*Flying the friendly skies. TL:DR – check out the recipe video all the way at the bottom of this post.*

It is my thing, I suppose, that I find silver cutlery in Baltimore. I have found ridiculous amounts of silverware in this city, for no apparent reason. I have asked around, and it’s fairly uncommon to find dining utensils that aren’t plastic lying about, and yet here I am with a drawer full of spoons, forks, and knives, some monogrammed, some heavy and high quality, and some the type of utensils you bring when you brown bag your lunch and don’t really care if someone in the office steals your fork.

A day before we left Amsterdam to return to the States, I realized that I had not found a fork or spoon or knife while visiting and started keeping my eyes out. Mind, in Baltimore, I don’t really have to look. They just appear. But I thought it might be swell to have a Dutch fork or some such.

No such luck. The closest I got was a neon green plastic spork resting, forlorn, in the middle of the bike lane.

But on my first trip out of the house on Sunday back home in Baltimore, on a jet-lagged walk up the street for late lunch, I looked down and found a fork.

If I were the sort of person who believed in signs (spoiler alert: I am, at least a little bit), I would be wondering what the hell it means that I have only in my entire life found silverware in Baltimore, and lots of it.

That the cutlery comes without me even looking.

That no one else I know has found silverware on the street.

That when I am thinking unrelated thoughts, like whether or not I should start cooking for people or if maybe I should move to Amsterdam, a fork or spoon pops up in my path in my city.

Or maybe it’s just how I walk through the world. In Baltimore, for better or for worse, I keep my head down or fixed on a point a few feet in front of me. It makes sense that my gaze would sweep up whatever is in my path.

In Amsterdam, I rarely looked down. Not only was the city itself beautiful when you look around (unlike Baltimore, if I am being honest, which I always try to be) but it was also challenging to not get run over by a bicycle. There is no room for a downcast gaze.

But it’s more than that, I think, this notion of how a body walks through the world. My particular friend and I have had recent conflict about taking up space. He feels, rightly so, that there are many, many pushy assholes (my words but his meaning) walking about, and he does not want to be numbered among their ranks. He feels especially keenly the white maleness of himself and would rather disappear or defer than add to the pain and suffering that those of his ilk (white males) have inflicted upon pretty much everyone in the world.

I hear this. It’s one of the reasons I love him.

But then there is this: everyone has a right to space in this world. There is a way to claim your own space without infringing on the rights and space of others. Hiding our light under a bushel makes the world just a little bit darker. Not claiming our own space doesn’t make it any easier for others to claim their own. Indeed, if we can just step into the light of our own selves it somehow makes it easier to help others find their own. How? I don’t know. By example? By knowing what it feels like to feel fully your own self, without making excuses and feeling completely worthy of whatever comes your way and thus showing by your very existence the limitless possibility of this one life that we can remember?

Something along those lines.

Maybe finding cutlery on the street has nothing to do with that, though. Maybe I look down in Baltimore because this is where I am grounded; knowing that ample forks, knives, and spoons are waiting in the street maybe makes it easier for me to look up and around in the rest of the world. Maybe these eating utensils represent the basic needs that this city meets for me: food and shelter, a home base.

In a way, this is a comfort and a burden. Baltimore is a heavy weight. I love so much about this city while at the same time really hating so much as well. It’s dirty and oppressive to people of color and women. It is hospitable to artists as long as they know their place, and just two miles from where I live the life expectancy is a full 12 years less. The distance between the haves and the don’t-even-dream-of-havings gets even greater weekly as housing becomes unaffordable and the city’s schools and infrastructure begin to crumble. Many describe the city as “gritty” or “scrappy,” but it is, at times, painfully desperate.

This city is also the Orioles and Old Bay and Edgar Allen Poe and 1919 and my good friend Luke and my oldest friend Kerry. It’s a place where a thousand non-profits are working every day to make life better. It’s where Sicily and I came when Marietta and the memory of Dane was so painful that we needed comfort and friends and a break somewhere that was not demanding.

Really, though, how do we claim space on this planet? It seems our footprints are larger than our shadows, but even as much as I try to convince my particular friend to stride out into the world it’s a daily struggle for me to feel like anything more than an insignificant speck (which truly, that’s all we really are – dust, less than a blip in geologic time). Maybe the forks and the spoons and the knives are just the way I try to make meaning, much the same as anyone who does anything with any regularity. Maybe your 40-hour-a-week career is my street-flattened spoon.

Regardless of the manner in which we step into ourselves (and the world) fully, the one thing that I would like to import back to Baltimore from our recent trip to Amsterdam is the multi-course meal. In the U.S., we tend to equate multiple courses with special occasions and required suit jackets, but it seems in Europe that is just how meals go (my child spent a year in France and can verify that even weekday breakfast has courses). When we met Khristian’s friends Carla and Axel for dinner, they served us three courses:

Grilled vegetables with burrata, tomatoes, and sardines
Seared salmon
Penne with grilled beef

All accompanied by wines to match and finished with a rich chocolate brownie.

Even though this seems extravagant for an everyday meal, the preparations were all very simple and delicious. We reclined over dinner, drinks, and good conversation for several hours. Perhaps this was something of an occasion, as Khristian had not seen these friends since 2004, but meals were like this wherever we went: long and multi-coursed.

In this spirit, and to humor those of you who are really craving spring, I offer this as an easy first course to add to a plain old weekday meal: Grilled Asparagus With Sweet Fire Pickle Gribiche.

Gribiche is traditionally a creamy French dressing/sauce made in the same manner as mayonnaise except with cooked egg yolks instead of raw. It keeps popping up for spring vegetables because it’s a delicious way to dress anything that comes out of the oven or off the grill. I think it’s probably one of the few things that can improve the already-perfect asparagus. I have made it here with sweet fire pickles; you can substitute a more traditional cornichon is that’s your jam. Other herbs traditionally used here can include chervil and tarragon. I have kept it simple with just flat-leaf parsley.

You don’t even need to use a fork for this; it’s perfectly acceptable even in polite company to pick up asparagus with your fingers. If you need one, though, I have several.

Grilled Asparagus With Sweet Fire Pickle Gribiche

(serves 4)

Ingredients

2 – 4 tablespoons chopped Sweet Fire pickles (see Recipe Notes)
⅓ cup grapeseed oil
2 tablespoons white wine vinegar
1 tablespoon chopped drained capers
1 tablespoon whole grain mustard
Kosher salt, freshly ground pepper
3 hard-boiled eggs, chopped
2 tablespoons chopped parsley

1 pound asparagus (preferably grilled, but roasted works, too)

Method

It could not be easier to make gribiche: combine all ingredients in a bowl and stir well. The end. Spoon over grilled asparagus (or anything else, really).

To make eating easier, you can cut your grilled asparagus into 1″ bites and mix the gribiche in, but you will need a fork.

Recipe Notes

Sweet Fire pickles come from Georgia, as far as I am concerned. They are cucumbers pickled with sugar and jalapeños and they are pretty much the best thing ever. I got my last jar at Huck’s General Store in Blue Ridge, GA, but they seem to be online as well.
Traditionally this recipe uses cornichons, which are not at all sweet. I like the balance of sweet, sour, and spicy in this, but you could use cornichons instead. If you don’t have those, chop up some dill pickles and you’re all set.
Gribiche keeps in the ‘fridge for a couple days. Bring to room temp before serving. Good on roasted veg, chicken, duck, and meaty fish.

A Recipe Video – Just For You

Making Dinner: Enchilada Version

I teach my first yin yoga class at Yoga Tree in Hampden tonight (at 8:15; come join me), and tonight the theme is time. In her book To the Lighthouse, Virginia Woolf writes the following:

“Let the wind blow. Let the poppy seed itself and the carnation mate with the cabbage. Let the swallow build in the drawing room and the thistle thrust aside the tiles and the butterfly sun itself on the faded chintz of the armchairs. Let the broken glass and the china lie out on the lawn and be tangled over with grass and wild berries.”

No matter where we come from, what race we are, how much money we have, or what our political beliefs are, there is a singular universal truth that unites us: time passes.

As The Child nears the end of her high school experience, I am realizing more the precious and fleeting nature of time. It is hard to move through the world without letting things pass you by; we are so busy assigning stories to what happens to us and thinking about what happened before and what might happen next that we forget the thing that is happening now. Now. Now. Now.

Each second as it passes is gone forever, a kind of tick of history, tangled over with grass and wild berries.

The chance of us missing everything, good and bad, rises exponentially in proportion to our inability to quiet the mind, slow down, and just be where we are when we are there.

Spoiler alert: You are here, so you might as well be present.

The practice of existing in the moment that is happening occurs most often for me on the yoga mat, but it also happens out in nature and in my kitchen. In the kitchen, the difference between Missing It and Being There is most pronounced in the distinction between two seemingly similar concepts: I love to cook, but I hate making dinner.

There is a HUGE difference; making dinner is about getting something done to move quickly onto the next. Cooking, for me, is about creating and exploring and experiencing and being exactly where I am in each moment.

When I make enchiladas for dinner, I open up a can of refried beans, open up a can of artificially red enchilada sauce, open up a bag of pre-shredded cheese, and open up a bag of dry tortillas. The whole thing takes about 30 minutes, from opening cans to sitting down to eat, and it costs less than five bucks to feed four people. They taste good, they are fast, and they get the job done, efficiently and cheaply.

But I finally got sick of doing it that way. Even though I know I can always come back to this when my family is flapping their gaping maws at me, clamoring for dinner and starting to root through the cabinets for the chips and cookies that will fill them up and ultimately leave them “not hungry” when food hits the table, I wanted to see what I could do when I felt like cooking.

This is what I can do, and the difference is astonishing. Homemade beans, homemade enchilada sauce, and homemade corn tortillas. I stopped short of homemade cheese, although I have done that and don’t doubt that would be a delicious (and fairly easy addition). It’s hard to know which part about this I like more; I don’t love beans (and they are no fan of me), but I didn’t have the usual…reaction to this dish. And the enchilada sauce is complex and subtle and comes at you with layers of flavor and just a little tiny bit of spice.

There is something about making this simple, humble dish that takes literally most of the day to prepare that forces you to slow down. Even the flavors reveal themselves slowly, unfurling over the tongue like a flag.

When you feel like cooking, skip the cans and make these. The recipe makes enough sauce and beans for two 8″ x 8″ baking dishes, so make one and eat it, and make one and freeze it. I made homemade tortillas, too, but the recipe I used is proprietary to the person I got it from and I am not at liberty to share it in public. It’s hard to go wrong with a Rick Bayless corn tortilla recipe, but you can also just buy some if you like. You don’t need a tortilla, press, though, and there is definitely something meditative about making tortillas. Why not give it a try?

Bean and Cheese Enchiladas

Start with the beans. They take four hours to cook, so you have plenty of time to make the sauce while they are becoming their beany delicious selves. Better yet, make sauce and beans one day, let them rest, then cook the tortillas and assemble on the day you want to eat.

Ingredients

Refried beans

2 cups pinto beans

Olive oil (for frying, about two tablespoons)

One large onion, large diced

5 – 10 cloves of garlic (I used on the 10-clove side of things)

1 teaspoon onion powder

Salt to taste

Enchilada sauce

4 dried ancho chilis

4 dried guajillo chilis

4 cloves of garlic, unpeeled

10 cherry tomatoes, or two medium-sized plum tomatoes, roughly chopped

One medium onion, roughly chopped

1-2 cups chicken or vegetable stock, warmed

1 teaspoon cumin

1 teaspoon marjoram

Olive oil

1 tablespoon maple syrup (or honey or agave)

Method

Make the beans: Rinse and pick through the pinto beans, discarding rocks or discolored beans. Cover with water in a large pot and bring to a hard boil. Boil for 20 minutes, then drain, add more water, bring to a boil, and boil for another 20 minutes (this helps reduce the chances of gastrointestinal issues, IYKWIM). Reduce the heat and cover. Cook beans for four hours.

As you near the end of the bean cooking time, heat olive oil in a large frying pan over medium heat. Add onions and cook, stirring occasionally, until they begin to caramelize (about 15 minutes). Add whole garlic cloves and continue to cook, stirring, until onions are deeply brown, very soft, and garlic is also soft.

Drain beans (reserve a cup of bean liquid) and add to onions and garlic. Sprinkle beans with onion powder and salt and cook, stirring, for about 15 minutes. Use a potatoes masher to mash the beans, onion, and garlic into a texture you like. If the beans seem dry, add bean liquid and continue to cook. Taste, season with salt as necessary, then set aside. These can be refrigerated overnight or frozen for later use.

Make the enchilada sauce: Toast the dried chilies and garlic in a dry cast iron pan or on a flattop grill. You are looking for them to soften, puff up, and begin to char (not too much or your sauce will be bitter; see Recipe Notes).

Place toasted ancho and guajillo peppers in a bowl and cover with hot water. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and set aside for at least an hour (or two or three).

Once your garlic skin begins to char and soften, peel the skin and let garlic cool.

Place garlic, tomatoes, and chopped onion in a heavy saucepan over medium heat. Cover with stock and bring to a boil. Cook at low heat until tomatoes, onions, and garlic soften.

Retrieve your chilis from their now-dark soaking chili water and remove the stems. Place chilis in a blender and use a slotted spoon to add the garlic/tomato/onion from the stock. Add cumin and marjoram. Allow these to rest and cool briefly while you reduce the stock with the chili soaking water.

Add chili water to the stock in the saucepan and heat. Bring to a rolling boil and reduce heat. Cook at a low boil until the sauce is slightly reduced. This step is not necessary but will concentrate the flavors even more.

Add some of this reduction to the vegetables in the blender and blend. Continue to blend and add chili water until you get the consistency you would like, and then blend until smooth. You may not use all of the chili water/stock.

Final, and most important step: Heat two tablespoons of olive oil in a large frying pan, and carefully pour the blended enchilada sauce into the pan. This will splatter, so have a splatter guard (or some aloe) ready. Cook the sauce at a pretty good boil for about five minutes. You can add chili water/stock as needed to maintain the consistency you like. Remove from heat and stir in maple syrup.

Let come to room temperature before using. I like to cool it overnight to allow the flavors to really come together.

Assembly: Place a solid heaping tablespoon of refried beans onto a tortilla, then roll and place in a greased 8″x8″ glass baking dish (or a rectangular one if you like). Really wedge those babies in, and continue until you have used all your tortillas or are satisfied that you have enough to feed your people. Pour about a cup and a half of enchilada sauce (or more if you like them juicy – I do) evenly over the tortillas, and top with shredded cheese of your choice (totally inauthentic, but I am a Colby-jack fan. Sue me. It’s delicious.).

Cover with aluminum foil and bake in a 350 degree oven for 15 minutes. Remove foil and bake until cheese is brown and bubbly. Serve with sour cream and extra hot sauce if you like.

Recipe Notes

Enchilada sauce can turn out bitter for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is over-toasting the chilis. If this happens to you, you can remedy it by adding a bit more sweetener or even adding 1 teaspoon of baking soda. I recommend adding sweetness, not baking soda.
To freeze a pan of enchiladas, assemble all the way up to baking, then wrap tightly. When you are ready to cook them, defrost and then cook as usual.

Hustle And Stack: Vanilla Ice Cream With Tamarind Caramel And Spicy Peanut Crumble

I am not a rise-and-grind, hustle-and-stack kind of girl.

While I recognize the value in this philosophy for some folks, it just doesn’t feel good for me. It feels frantic and crazy-making and doesn’t leave any space inside it for enjoying the fruits of your labor.

It’s a grind. A slog. An ongoing rush to get something more than what you have.

My dad, in his day, and all of the days I had with him, was a hustle-and-stack OG. He was diagnosed with cancer in 2001 and given six months to live. I quit my job and flew back East from Seattle so he could get to know his infant granddaughter in whatever time he had left. Although he positively doted on her (for the next six years), he was often too busy to do more than come up from his basement office and say hi. He traveled for his work constantly and worked through multiple bouts of chemo and radiation and many courses of experimental treatments.

In a moment of frustration, I asked him once what amount of money it would take for him to stop working long enough to come out of the basement and enjoy his family before he died. He had no answer – it was literally the hustle he liked, I think, more than the progress towards any goal.

Part of this compulsion to grind stems from fear. Fear of not having enough, being enough, or deserving enough.

But then I read this quote from Osho:

“Don’t move the way fear makes you move. Move the way love makes you move. Move the way joy makes you move.”

Yes. THIS.

Fear is oxymoronic in that it can alternately hold us back and compel us forward. Fear is the trigger that serves our flight, fight, or freeze instincts, the ones buried so deeply in our brains that we don’t even recognize that this compulsive need for hustling and stacking is just a modern-day version of fleeing from a saber tooth tiger.

The other side of this compulsion is that we never truly get to experience whatever it is we say we are seeking to experience if we are constantly hustling. There is no ease, no balance. No repose. No rest.

Of course, this ease and repose can masquerade as lazy, and the whole world will jump to tell you that time spent slowly is time wasted.

As all three regular readers of this blog can attest, I disagree with the whole world in this regard. I don’t think you can really know what it means to feel something without slowing down to feel it. You might think that “hustle and stack” has little, if anything, to do with feeling, but think back to a time when you won something. That rush of adrenaline; that quick flush of victory. For some people, it’s positively ADDICTIVE.

Today in my yin yoga class with Jessie Kates, she talked about the idea that having goals and plans in this life are good, but sometimes we get so distracted by them that we forget to slow down to take detours to do things that give us joy just because. Maybe the detours don’t make us money, or they don’t increase our social media reach, or otherwise elevate us to the lofty, random standards that others set. But WOW.

Joy? The possibility of joy? The potential to do something just because it feels good for your soul?

YES. THAT.

That I would rise-and-grind for.

I will also rise-and-grind for:

an early morning camping trip
a road trip
my birthday
Sicily’s birthday
Khristian’s birthday
most people’s birthdays, if I am honest
complicated cooking projects
a long walk in the woods
a heart-opening yoga class

I am done rising-and-grinding for the sake of itself, and I am certainly not making the hustling and the stacking a priority. I sound like your grandmother, adding “the” in front of “hustling” and “stacking” (as I often do with The Facebook, except that’s what it used to be called, but I digress), but know that it’s a writing device and is not accidental and since I know the rules I can break them so there.

I like the idea of a leisurely morning on my balcony with coffee and three trees’ worth of birds twittering and flitting. I like listening to little kids walking to the park across the street and watching dogs with their zingy little bodies flinging themselves around with sheer delight at being outside because they can. This is not time wasted. This is time spent rooted in the essence of respect and awe, and wouldn’t that be a lovely thing to do?

We can actually construct a life that has built into it more time for joy and awe and respect and wonder and zingy-body flinging, so long as we are willing to shuffle off the mortal coil of Stuff and Striving. I suppose it’s a bit of striving to make this happen, too, but in the very best way – the shedding part of striving, where you shed the illusion that you have to Do and Be and Go in order to be considered Successful.

(and true and weird thing that just happened: as my brain wanted to type “Successful,” my fingers typed “Suzannah.” STRANGE.)

The best parts of this will come together with less effort than one might think necessary. Just like this ice cream. Khristian and I are cooking our way through Madhur Jaffrey’s Vegetarian India, and as we finished up one meal and began to plan the other, these flavors came to me. Sweet. Sour. Spicy. Salty. The balance of flavor was not instantaneous, but that’s just the way things go, mostly, in ice cream as in life.

Take a detour with me here, and then tell me the best detour you ever took in the comments.

New feature here, for your edification, this was on the blog two years ago today: Galentine’s Day: Coffeecake and Connection

Vanilla Ice Cream With Tamarind Caramel And Spicy Peanut Crumble

Ingredients

Ice Cream

4 cups of dairy (see Recipe Notes)

1 vanilla bean, scraped (or 1 teaspoon vanilla extract)

1/2 cup sugar

4 egg yolks

pinch salt

Tamarind Caramel

1 cup sugar

1/4 cup water

1/2 cup heavy cream

2 or 3 teaspoons of tamarind concentrate (see Recipe Notes)

Peanut Crumble (from Madhur Jaffrey’s Vegetarian Indian)

1/2 cup unsalted roasted peanuts

1/3 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon cayenne pepper

Method

Make the ice cream: Place dairy and vanilla bean (or extract) in a heavy saucepan over medium heat and heat until small bubbles appear around the sides (do not boil).

While the dairy is heating, place egg yolks, sugar, and salt in a large mixing bowl and whisk to combine.

When dairy is ready, remove from heat and begin to slowly add to eggs, whisking constantly. I cannot emphasize enough the words “slowly add” and “whisking constantly.” If you add quickly and don’t whisk, you will make sweetened scrambled eggs. Pour a few drops of dairy at a time to begin, gradually working your way to a thin, constant stream of dairy, whisked into the eggs.

Once combined, place the saucepan back on the stove with a fine-mesh strainer on top of it. Strain the milk and egg mixture back into the saucepan and cook over medium-low heat, whisking constantly, for about ten minutes (or until the mixture begins to thicken). Eventually, the mixture will thinly coat the back of a spoon, and you will know it’s done.

Place the fine-mesh strainer over another bowl, and strain dairy mixture into the bowl. Place plastic wrap on the surface of the dairy mixture and place in ‘fridge to cool completely. This can be done a couple of days ahead of time if you prefer.

Make the caramel: While the dairy is chillin’, make your caramel. Caramel is not hard but requires patience and a tiny bit of finesse. Combine sugar and water in a high-sided heavy saucepan over medium heat and swirl gently to mix (don’t use a spoon; pick up the saucepan and swirl it around).

You can leave the sugar/water mix briefly to combine the heavy cream and tamarind extract in a separate bowl. The tamarind extract immediately makes the cream thicken. This is totally fine. Do not panic. Set aside.

Take a look at your sugar/water mixture. You are looking to see if the sugar is completely dissolved and the mixture is bubbling. The bubbling will cause sugar deposits to climb up the side of the pan; use a pastry brush dipped in water to encourage those crystals to rejoin the liquid, but do not stir in.

Once your sugar mixture turns a light golden yellow, remove from heat and whisk in the cream and tamarind concentrate mixture. The sugar will bubble up (hence the high sides of the saucepan), so work quickly to incorporate the cream mixture. Stir and cook over medium-low heat until the mixture begins to thicken enough to coat the back of a spoon. Place in a jar or other container and let cool to at least room temperature. Set aside.

Make the crumble: Combine all ingredients in a food processor or blender and pulse until you have medium-fine crumbs. Set aside.

Put it all together: You will process the ice cream according to your manufacturer’s instructions. I pour my custard in and process for about 15 minutes, then add the peanut crumble for five minutes (until totally incorporated) and then the completely cool tamarind caramel. I like there to be chewy streaks of caramel throughout, a little tartness to cut the sweet.

Recipe Notes

A word on dairy: I generally use 50% heavy cream and 50% whole milk in my ice creams, but you can use whatever is on hand. The more cream, the creamier (which makes sense). You can also be vegan AF if you like, but I have not tested this with plant milks (the ice cream or the caramel). Both might be very delicious with coconut milk.
I ordered my tamarind concentrate from the interwebs; it’s also referred to as tamarind paste, and I used the brand Madhur Jaffrey recommended.

The Year Of Why The Hell Not: Fresh Paneer

The Chinese zodiac calendar says that, in addition to being the fifth anniversary of the death of my first husband, February 16, 2018 marks the beginning of the Year of the Dog.

I believe the Chinese, as they have been doing this for a long time, but for me, I say January 1, 2018 marks the first day of the Year Of Why The Hell Not?.

Apparently, this is what’s happening, almost without any effort.

Next week I am going back to (yoga) school with a yin yoga training immersion, and eight weeks after that my particular friend and I are going to Amsterdam for a week.

Because why the hell not?

I used to institute “yes” days for my kid when she was little; these were days when I would say yes to everything she asked, no matter what. I never told her what I was doing, but those days were some of the most relaxed I have ever experienced as a parent. It’s nice to not be the Bad Cop, the Responsible One, the Sayer of Nos.

In the past couple days, I have felt a similar impulse rising, only this time it is pointed directly at me.

I am terrible at saying “yes” to things for myself. It feels selfish, and I can’t enjoy whatever it is, even if it’s as small as buying coffee out. Part of it is my pathological inability to spend money in a manner I deem “frivolous.” Part of it is believing that I am somehow not worth spending the time, money, and effort on. Part of it is just that stupid habit of saying no to myself.

This year is going to be different.

On January 1st I started tossing around the idea of a trip to Hawaii with Cousin Jennifer in Washington State. She was planning on going by herself, but when she mentioned her trip on The Facebook, I thought to myself, “Why the hell not?”

And a couple of days later when the deadline for an immersive yin yoga teacher training popped up RIGHT DOWN THE STREET FROM MY HOUSE, I could not think of one compelling reason to say no. So I signed up.

And this morning, because I saved a couple hundred bucks on each plane ticket, and tickets were available the week of my birthday, and my particular friend’s spring break also falls on that week, I snatched up two tickets to Amsterdam.

Because WHY THE HELL NOT?

I am 46. I will be 47 on March 14th (also known as the Best Day Of The Year). I don’t give a rat’s ass about getting older, but the clock is ticking for me as it is for us all. Although I have been on a fair amount of road trips, visiting nearly all of the lower 48, plus Alaska, my overseas travel consists of one disastrous trip to Paris with my mother. I lived in Seattle for five years and never even went to Canada (and this was before passports were required), and although I have always wanted to see more of the world, I have always had (made?) a reason (an excuse?) to stay home.

It’s time to go.

My job is portable, my kid is old enough to watch herself and is craving some independence, and I am solvent enough to make some budget travel happen.

I don’t think we should save for our entire lives to go on one dream vacation (although I am starting to put money away for Fiji in 2021, the year my kid turns 21 and I turn 50. Get ready for extra gratuitous shots of our over-the-water bungalow). What happens if, like Dane five years ago, I find myself unceremoniously meeting a tree on a dark night? Or finding a lump? Or at the wrong end of a blocked artery…nuclear warhead…etc?

I think I have been waiting for something to shift so that I could magically do the things I want to do, or to spontaneously become some different person for whom these things come easily.

But guess what? That’s total bullshit.

It’s really time to stop thinking about the person I want to be and just be that person.

Like, way overdue.

It’s always a process and a work in progress and a painful realization that some of the shit I have talked for years actually needs to be finally backed up. I can write about it all I want.

Not good enough.

So yin yoga immersion, Amsterdam, and Hawaii, here I come. Plus a possible road trip with one of my best friends in all of the world to Arthur Bryant’s in Missouri, just to have some barbeque. We’ll meet in Wheeling, West Virginia and make our way to Missourah.

Because, and say it with me, WHY THE HELL NOT?

If I am faced with the choice to do something that interests me, and I can’t think of a compelling reason not to, I am going to do it.

While The Year Of Why The Hell Not? was prompted by personal growth and travel, I think this also applies to relationships. My particular friend and I have been together for two+ years now, and we have been sharing the same house for three+ months.

This has not been easy.

This has been crazy-making, what with the kid combining and the routine combining and the deeper getting to know each other in, let’s face it, boring and annoying ways.

He said it’s like starting in the middle of a relationship, entering into something serious like this in our decrepitude (my word). In our previous relationships, it was like a slow coming together, but in this one we have plopped down smack in the domestic wasteland, mid-stride, where everyone is tired by nine, and it’s easier to just fall asleep in front of a movie than to engage or unravel things that have gotten tied up in knots of miscommunication and hurt feelings.

Seems like a good a time as any to re-engage. To make an effort. To try something new.

Because more than Why The Hell Not?, this is the person I have chosen. Not because I am so lonely I can’t take it or because I need a man to provide stability or I need a little lovin’. Pretty much all of those can be ameliorated by friends or Tinder.

Khristian is kind, funny, smart, and intelligent. He is an artist. He is a devoted father. He thinks I am swell, which is saying something because I know for a fact that is not always the case.

Doubleplus bonus: he smells really good to me, which may be TMI for a food blog, but hey. That’s how these things work. #YouLoveWhoYouLove #PheremonesAreAThing

In the accidental spirit of The Year Of Why The Hell not?, we have decided to cook our way through Madhur Jaffrey’s book Vegetarian India.

We don’t generally cook together – one of us cooks while the other one sits on the orange metal stool in the kitchen and provides moral support. I have a hard time talking to someone while I cook, so that’s no fun, and I have a hard time not bossing him when he cooks, so that’s not fun either. Getting Jaffrey’s cookbook is the equivalent of hiring a tutor to tell your kid what to do. This way, we just follow the directions and no one is in charge. We can relax and explore and learn things together.

I think relationships aren’t meant to be easy, both those we have with ourselves and those we have with others. As an unrecalcitrant introvert, they are especially hard for me at times. I continuously have to balance my desire for deep connection and my built-in instinct for solitude.

Cooking seems as good a guide as any to navigate this path, especially if my particular friend is walking with me.

We started cooking with three recipes: Stir-Fried Spinach, Andhara-Style; Spicy Paneer Slices; and Fresh Cilantro and Yogurt Chutney (plus jasmine rice).

We bought everything we needed at H-Mart on a brutally cold day, then stopped off to get frozen yogurt afterwards (as one does). While making our list of supplies, we decided to make our own cheese.

Paneer is very similar to fresh ricotta or queso fresco; it is simple with a mild, creamy taste that goes well with strong flavors. We initially planned to make saag paneer but had to table that when we could not find fenugreek leaves and decided to press it into squares and fry it in spices (well, Madhur Jaffrey told us to). From start to finish we had slices to fry in 30 minutes.

Fresh Paneer

Ingredients

8 cups whole milk (not UHT or skim milk)

1/4 cup lemon juice or apple cider vinegar

salt to taste

Special tools: cheesecloth or clean cotton towel, fine mesh strainer

Method of Production

Warm milk to just under 200 degrees in a large pot over medium heat, stirring occasionally. If you don’t happen to have a thermometer, look for milk that looks frothy but not boiling.

Remove from heat and stir in lemon juice. Cover and let sit for at least ten minutes. The milk will separate into curds (the cheese part) and whey (the yellow-ish leftover liquid).

Place cheesecloth or cotton towel over the strainer and scoop or pour curds into the cheesecloth. Working carefully (the mixture is still hot), wring out most but not all of the whey (or else you will get dusty crumbles). Open the cheesecloth and sprinkle cheese with salt to taste, stirring all the way through.

If, like us, you want to spice both sides of your paneer and fry it, rewrap the paneer in the cheesecloth and shape into a rectangle (or a circle, or any shape, really). You are aiming for a thickness of about 1/2″. Place paneer on a plate and put some weight on top (another plate on top with a book on it works well, but get creative with what you have). Press the cheese for up to an hour, then cut into slices and coat both sides with the spice of your choice before lightly coating with flour of your choice and frying in 1/4″ of hot oil for one minute on each side (or until lovely and golden).

Recipe Notes

We used a combination of chili, turmeric, and salt, but the options are unlimited.
Instead of frying, slather fresh paneer on toast and top with roasted kumquats like I did (note: there is a slightly more complicated ricotta recipe in this link. Choose your own adventure.).
If curds do not form, it’s an excellent chance that you have either used UHT pasteurized milk, or you have ignored my admonitions and attempted this with skim milk. Just say no.
Don’t throw out that whey. Give it to your chickens, make rice with it, use it to make bread (instead of using water), or put it in your smoothie. If you don’t want to do any of those things right now, freeze it for later.

On this day last year: Five Food Trends To Watch (spoiler alert: I was right!)

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