If I could put time in a bottle…it would look like this.
My Superfriend, Bonnie, previously mentioned in a post that featured her incredible Toasted Cashew Hummus, has been making fun of me lately.
I hadn’t seen her in awhile, the result mostly of her traveling to two different countries in the space of two weeks (and staying there, and knocking heads together when necessary, and co-authoring a paper on a new method for treating – curing? diagnosing? I can’t remember – tuberculosis) while still organizing childcare for two of her three children and dealing with a broken water heater from another continent.
In the midst of all of this, she had (rather foolishly and perhaps to her deep regret) committed to cooking me my Second Annual Birthday Dinner, just one week after she returned to the States. When I stopped by the Sunday before the dinner and she asked me how I was, I spoke the truth.
“I’m tired, ” I said.
She looked at me in a way that could only be described as askance. And can you blame her, really?
I am a freelance writer who teaches yoga and cooks for people. The actual hours I work every week vary greatly, but they don’t come close to the 40 that many others routinely put in. I am also living a child-free existence until June 10th, which means that “homemaking” consists of making sure the dog hair doesn’t get any higher than the bottom of the couch and the toilets are cleaner than a truck stop’s.
But I have been exhausted these past three weeks, drained and sleeping poorly and feeling anxious and sweating pretty much every little thing that my brain can make up to sweat.
This is where a caveat about how I know how much harder everyone else has it, and I shouldn’t complain usually comes in. And make no mistake: this is not a complaint.
I feel incredibly lucky that this morning I got to walk to a coffee shop in Baltimore’s beautiful spring blossoming. And after that I got to sit on the floor of a bookstore and leaf through cookbooks for an hour. And after THAT I got to walk through a sunshower of cherry blossoms raining on the sidewalk on my way home to meet Khristian, where we ate breakfast together and I made bread.
So there is no complaint here.
But there is something important here.
Even if I don’t have a full-time job, I am still allowed to be tired. I am still allowed to feel, as has happened in the past three weeks with multiple projects, overscheduled and understaffed. I know what it’s like to work 80-hour weeks and be a parent, and certainly my fatigue now does not have the same feel to it as that.
Sometimes, though, I just get tired. Tired of meetings every day. Tired of being “on,” and tired of a schedule. People sometimes dismiss themselves and their feelings because other people have it so much worse than they do, and while I think that in the big picture that is the best way to operate, that can be taxing day-to-day. It’s okay to own your struggle, your fatigue, your frustration, your anxiety – even if others have more cause to feel those things.
And again, I have to put in a plug for not only Superfriend Bonnie but also the other people I know, parents or not, partnered parents or not, who are killing it everyday and are SO. FREAKING. TIRED. also. I don’t know how you do it.
Still.
I just want to be at home, puttering, and today is a day for that. Today was the first day in awhile that has been unscheduled and unclaimed from the moment that stupid bird woke me up with the sun at 6:04 a.m. until I lay my head back down on the pillow and my millennial neighbors pick up their ill-tuned guitars and start wailing.
The best way I know to stop time when this happens is to put something up, and preserved lemons seem like the way to go.
It’s a simple process that nevertheless takes 30 days to bear fruit (ha). And every day you visit your lemons and give them a little shake.
For the next 30 days, even if I am busy or tired or have too much to do or have to be less of my normal introverted self and more of the extrovert that some of my jobs require, I can look at my little pint jar of sunshine-y time and remember that day I sat on the back deck for just as long as I felt like.
What helps you stop time? What reminds you to slow down?
You have places to go, people to see, and lots of stuff to do.
That’s cool.
But can you stop for just one minute? Maybe two, if you read slowly?
I just saw this on the interwebs, Purveyor of Many Things Great and Terrible, and I feel like maybe you (yes, YOU), need to read this today.
You will, of course, need a snack.
It is, as you may realize, the tail end of citrus season. When I was growing up, my parents would ship my brother and I off, solo, to family in Miami over the holidays. We would leave a cold, sleety, dark place and be discharged from an airplane into balmy, breezy air and a week of (often) unchaperoned adventures in either my grandparents’ development or my cousin’s apartment complex.
There was a kumquat tree in the front yard of my grandmother’s house.
Kumquats. Even the name is exotic and unusual and complex and way sunnier than this past week has been, and I’m not just talking about the weather.
They are the strangest citrus; you eat the whole thing. Nearly every website that talks about kumquats has a click-baity title like “The one astonishing thing about kumquats,” or “The strangely counterintuitive thing to do with kumquats,” as if kumquats are somehow built into our intuition about things in general.
But I digress.
Kumquats start out mouth-puckeringly tart, with less bitterness in the peel and pith (sweetness, even), and end up with a marvelous caramelly sweetness that spreads over your tongue and completely erases the initial tart flavor. even slightly unripe or slightly over-ripe the process of flavor is pretty much the same, with minor variations in intensity.
I don’t know that we gorged ourselves on these, but I do remember eating my fill whenever I felt like it, or just mindlessly reaching up and grabbing one as I passed by the tree. Kumquats were as much a part of my childhood as any other memory I have that was good and innocent and as sweet and beautiful as the nighttime Miami breeze on my bare shoulders in December, a thousand miles away from home.
I saw kumquats again in the grocery store this week and finally grabbed a few after years of passing them by. As my birthday fell on the snow day, and I happened to have the will, the time, and the ingredients, this lovely concoction came about and emerged, damn near perfect, on the very first try. So simple and complex and utterly delicious.
Today’s assigned reading is below the recipe. For those of you in tl;dr mode, there will not be a test on the reading, and maybe you don’t want to hear some of what I have to say (beyond the food). So if you take it upon yourself to skip the reading and just make the snack, that’s cool.
I know you’re busy.
Honey-Roasted Kumquats With Homemade Ricotta on Gluten-Free Whole-Grain Bread
Note: Hell, YES, I made all of this. Not. Hard. Full disclosure: I was trying to just link to the bread recipe from America’s Test Kitchen How Can It Be Gluten-Free cookbook, but it’s not published online. Which sucks, because now, just for you, I have typed it all out. This took awhile. If you are gluten-free, you can send your appreciation in the form of good old American dollars because it was a royal PITA. If you are not gluten-free, you can skip the recipe and use any old crusty bread you like.
Unlike other recipes on this blog, each component is written out completely, and they are organized in the order in which they should be made.
Ingredients
GF-Whole Grain Bread (this takes awhile, so maybe start here)
1 1/2 cups warm water (110 degrees)
2 large eggs
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
2 tablespoons honey
11 1/2 ounces (2 1/3 cups, plus 1/4 cup) gluten-free all-purpose flour (I used my own flour blend, but see recipe notes)
4 ounces (3/4 cup) Bob’s Red Mill Gluten-Free Mighty Tasty Hot Cereal
1 1/2 ounces (1/2 cup) nonfat dry milk powder (in the baking aisle)
3 tablespoons powdered psyllium husk
1 tablespoon instant or rapid-rise yeast
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
Optional: 2 tablespoons unsalted sunflower seeds
Method
Spray 8 1/2″ x 4 1/2″ (or 8″ x 4″) loaf pan with cooking spray. Tear off a sheet of aluminum foil that will fit around the loaf pan. Fold it so it is double, lengthwise, then forma collar around the top of the loaf pan so that a double thickness of aluminum foil rises at least one inch above the top of the loaf pan. Staple to keep collar in place and set aside.
Whisk water, eggs, oil, and honey together in a bowl.
In a stand mixer with the paddle attachment, mix flour, hot cereal mix, milk powder, psyllium, yeast, baking powder, and salt until combined.
Slowly add water and mix on low until dough comes together, about one minute. Increase speed to medium and beat until sticky and uniform, about six minutes. If using sunflower seeds, reduce speed to low and add them now, mixing until combined.
Scrape dough into prepared pan and use wet fingertips to smooth dough into pan. Smooth the top of dough and spray with water. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and set aside to rise at least 90 minutes in a warm, non-drafty place.
Adjust rack in oven to middle position and preheat oven to 325 degrees. Remove plastic wrap and spray loaf with water. Bake until top is golden brown, crust is firm, and sounds hollow when tapped (Side Note: I cannot tell when bread is done by tapping it. If you can, more power to you. But that’s the direction America’s Test Kitchen gives, so I am reporting for you. #YoureWelcome), about 1 1/2 hours, rotating pan halfway through (Side Note the Second: I forgot to rotate. Bread still fabulous.).
Transfer to wire rack and let cool in pan for ten minutes. Remove from pan and cool completely for another two hours.
Bread can be double-wrapped in plastic and stored at room temperature for 3 days, or you can slice it all up, wrap in plastic and store in a freezer bag in the freezer.
Recipe Notes
Flour substitutions America’s Test Kitchen recommends (but that I did not test myself) include King Arthur’s Gluten-Free Multi-Purpose Flour and Bob’s Red Mill GF All-Purpose Baking Flour, but King Arthur’s makes the crumb of the bread denser and Bob’s Red Mill is drier with a bean taste. Seriously, people. Just send me a note on the Let Me Cook For You page and I will give you a price for some of my flour.
Please, if you are a gluten-free baker, buy a scale. The best $20 you’ll spend.
Homemade Ricotta
1 cup whole milk (see Recipe Notes)
1/2 cup heavy cream
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 tablespoons champagne vinegar (or any white vinegar)
Method
Bring milk, heavy cream, and salt to a rolling boil. Remove from heat and stir in vinegar. Let sit until it begins to curdle, about 2 minutes, then pour into a strainer lined with cheesecloth. Strain at room temperature for at least 20 minutes. For thicker cheese, twist the cheesecloth into a tight ball to get even more water out.
Recipe Notes
Milk can be pasteurized, but not ultra-pasteurized. Ultra-pasteurized milk doesn’t work. #AskMeHowIKnow
You can discard the whey (the liquid that drains from the solid ricotta), use it to bake bread with, or give it to your dogs or chickens.
Honey-Roasted Kumquats
Kumquats, sliced in 1/4″ rounds, seeds removed (see Recipe Notes)
4 tablespoons champagne vinegar
2 tablespoons honey
Method
Slice kumquats and place in a bowl with vinegar and honey. Macerate for at least 30 minutes and up to four hours.
When you are ready to eat, preheat oven to 350 degrees and line a baking sheet with aluminum foil. Spray with cooking spray.
Place kumquats on cooking spray and roast for about 20 minutes until honey begins to caramelize. I didn’t flip them over, but I suppose you could if you like.
Recipe Notes
I used kumquats that are approximately the size of a ping-pong ball if that ping-pong ball was more of an oval. There are also smaller varieties with different variations of flavor. For this, I used about six kumquats, but honestly? I could have eaten eleventy million more. So there’s that.
ASSEMBLY
You need bread, ricotta, kumquats, fresh basil, freshly cracked black pepper, and maybe honey and fleur de sel.
Slice bread and toast lightly.
Slather ricotta on toast.
Place fresh basil leaves on ricotta, then top with roasted kumquats. Add a few grinds of freshly cracked black pepper, and if you want a little more sweetness, just a wee drizzle of honey and a flake or two of salt.
Assemble your toasts, have a seat, and get to reading.
RULES FOR BEING HUMAN
1. You will receive a body. You may like it or hate it, but it will be yours for the entire period.
2. You will learn lessons. You are enrolled in a full-time informal school, called life. Each day in this school you will have the opportunity to learn lessons. You may like the lessons or think them irrelevant or stupid.
3. There are no mistakes, only lessons. Growth is a process of trial and error – experimentation. The “failed” experiments are as much a part of the process as the experiment that ultimately “works.”
4. A lesson is repeated until learned. A lesson will be presented to you in various forms until you have learned it. When you have learned it, you can then go on to the next lesson.
5. Learning lessons does not end. There is no part of life that does not contain its lessons. If you are alive, there are lessons to be learned.
6. “There” is no better than “Here”. When your “There” has become a “Here”, you will simply obtain another “There” that will, again, look better than “Here.”
7. Others are merely mirrors of you. You cannot love or hate something about another person unless it reflects something you love or hate about yourself.
8. What you make of your life is up to you. You have all the tools and resources you need. What you do with them is up to you. The choice is yours.
9. Your answer to life’s questions lie inside you. All you need to do is look, listen, and trust.
10. You will forget all this.
11. You can remember it whenever you want to.
These are not my rules; I am just reporting on them. What would you add?
Especially when the thing you are starting is somewhat of a secret, kept that way so it can be a big surprise when it’s all done.
But it starts today, no foolin’, and already I am stuck.
Anyone who reads even a blog or two of mine knows that motivation and I have not always walked well together.
This reminds me of the story about Jesus walking with someone on the beach (two sets of footprints) and when times got tough there was only one set of footprints because Jesus was carrying the person. This story makes me a little nauseous (and only a little nauseous because I would like to have a long conversation with Jesus, for real, not praying, like hang out with the man and say what the fuck, Jesus.), but it would be super awesome if motivation would just swoop down and cradle me in loving arms.
Motivation for me is more like a sharp, pointy stick. Or a cattle prod. And that’s no day at the beach.
Especially perceptive people who have read even a blog or two of mine might even recognize that this here blog post itself is really just a clever avoidance tactic. Or maybe not so clever.
Regardless. Here we are. At an impasse.
Sometimes, as right now with The Secret Thing, the issue is just too many choices.
I could literally go in 100 different directions with This Secret Thing, but if I commit to one, 99 of them fall away and become impossible.
And I am on a deadline, so I have basically this weekend to commit.
And anyone who knows me well knows that commitment and I are also not always walking together on the beach either. And commitment is too fucking lazy to pick me up. And super heavy for me, even with all of the yoga.
The answer to this is very, very simple: off to market.
Not only does this allow me to procrastinate, but it also gives me a great excuse to check out the new MOM’s that opened up this very morning in The Rotunda in Hampden. It was, as expected, a madhouse, so much so that any designs of leisurely strolling the aisles looking for inspiration fell away when the doors opened.
The samples. And the fresh mozzarella. And Greek yogurt. And bulk section. And the sheer number of people who really should all be at work and not shopping right now so that I can have the store to myself. #OtherPeopleRuinEverything
But THE STRAWBERRIES.
If we were still in Georgia, I would have already been harvesting the first tender shoots of asparagus and small, juicy strawberries, but here in Maryland not much is coming out of the ground beyond greens and brassicas, and even then only for really good garden planners.
These strawberries weren’t local, but they were organic and sweet and deep, ruby red and sexy as hell.
And on sale.
I bought two clamshells, planning something with the aforementioned Greek yogurt (so thick like vanilla-scented crème fraiche) but then came home to other choices.
Quickly staled gluten-free bread, optimistically baked a couple days ago and not consumed. Four egg yolks leftover from the bread’s mother, also still quietly growing delicious in the ‘fridge. Vanilla beans to spare. Almond milk, bought for another purpose and then forgotten, but still good and unopened.
Sophie’s choice: strawberry bread pudding. Christ on a bike, this was good. The perfect bridge between the sunny, spring-like weather of this morning and the 30-degree temps and flurries forecast for Sunday night. Dollop of the Greek yogurt on top.
Perfect for ignoring the other choices I am avoiding. You’re welcome.
Strawberry Bread Pudding
Hey, man. This is totally unfussy. I am putting amounts here, but really, go with what you have. Leave the strawberries out, or add chocolate chips and a touch of cinnamon. Or maybe dried fruit. Or no fruit. Or whatever. Regular milk. Less sugar. Two eggs instead of just yolks. Whatever. No real choices need to be made until you are damn good and ready.
Ingredients
1 1/2 cups milk (cow, almond, soy. Whatever. Whole milk is the more reliable choice, to be sure, but don’t let dairy hold you back.)
1/3 cup sugar (or more. Or less.)
1 vanilla bean, scraped (or 2 teaspoons of vanilla extract)
pinch of salt (or 1 teaspoon if you like to measure)
2 T. butter
2 eggs (or 4 egg yolks if that’s what you have in the ‘fridge)
one leftover loaf of gluten-free bread, cubed into maybe 3 cups (or stale, gluten-filled french bread, brioche, challah, or….)
1 cup chopped strawberries (or a handful of chips, or nothing)
Method
Preheat oven to 350 degrees and butter a ceramic baking dish big enough for your bread and berries. Set aside.
Heat milk, sugar, vanilla bean scraping, salt, and butter until the butter is just melted. Cool if you have that kind of patience, or, if not, slowly, slowly, slowly – whisking constantly – drizzle the hot milk into the eggs in a large bowl. If you do it too fast, you will have vanilla-flavored scrambled eggs. Drizzle slowly, slower than you think, while whisking frantically.
Place bread and strawberries in the buttered dish (I used a high-sided white ceramic baking dish). Pour milk-egg mixture over the bread, soaking thoroughly.
Allow the bread to sit in this mixture for 30 minutes in the ‘fridge. Longer, if you like. This is to soak up some of the liquid so the custard does not “break” (scramble the eggs) in the heat of the oven.
Bake for 30-45 minutes (seriously. Big range), until the custard is just a little tiny bit wobbly (but not raw. GROSS). For more gentle cooking, cook the pudding in a bain marie.
Again, cool slightly if you can, or grab a spoon and eat IMMEDIATELY with unsweetened whipped cream, crème fraiche, or super thick Greek yogurt.
