All of it

Hi, all. I’ve received a number of concerned e-mails and comments in the past few days, wondering if the quiet around here meant that the baby has arrived, so let me say first: NO BABY YET.

I am, however, in my 36th week of pregnancy. And as of about ten days ago, I finished writing the manuscript for my next book - or this draft of it, anyway. There’s still plenty of revising and hand-wringing to do, but at least I now have something to improve upon.  And Essex, the bar we’re putting in next door to Delancey, is opening in less than a week. (!) Lots of Big Life Stuff. Huge Life Stuff. Giant Life Stuff.

Oddly enough, or oddly for me, I’ve been feeling okay with it. It was only this past Tuesday afternoon - as I stood in the dining room at Delancey, surrounded by power tools, cases of newly delivered wine and vegetables, upended chairs, slips of paper, wine samples, and dozens of jars of housemade bitters and liqueurs - that, for the first time, I felt like cowering in a corner. And screaming. Just briefly.

But mostly, it’s been okay. And I’m glad for that, because I want to be present for all of it, for every stupidly stupidly stupidly full minute of these last pre-child weeks: the late-night pizza at Delancey, the Essex menu-planning meetings and spot prawn tastings and cultured butter tastings and beer-boiled pretzel tastings, the errands, the quiet moments between errands, our fifth wedding anniversary, the half-days off, the feeling of driving around with the stereo* up and no baby yet in the backseat, no one to take care of but myself.  It feels right to pay attention now - to this summer, to my life Before. I know that sounds very final and dramatic and sort of sad and possibly even apocalyptic (dun dun DUUNNNN), but I don’t mean it that way. I just mean that it feels good to be in the middle of so much, and to pause and look around. Because I know everything will look different soon.

I took the photographs in this post over the past two weeks.  The ones of Essex, in particular, were taken last Friday. They’re already out of date. Along that wallpapered wall, there’s now a walnut banquette and a row of porcelain sconces, and there’s white marble on top of the bar and walnut cladding along its face. About an hour ago, pendant lights were being hung. I cannot possibly say enough complimentary things about our friend Joe Burmeister, the man who’s overseeing the whole mess and making it into something with actual shape. This time - unlike three years ago this Sunday, when we opened Delancey - Brandon and I are not the ones swinging the hammers. That may be part of why I’m not writing this from a psychiatric ward.

Instead, I’m eating my weight in tomatoes. No small feat, given that my weight is something special lately.

I’ve also made that blueberry crumble I mentioned in my previous post, and a fresh blueberry pie, and a peach crumble, and a loaf of zucchini bread. It was all tasty.

But to be 100% honest, none of it made me feel like writing about it. The truth is, I think I like a bowl of raw blueberries, or a few slices of peach, or a pile of plain roasted zucchini, more than anything interesting that I could make or bake from them.  The Life Lessons of Molly Wizenberg, age 33¾.

(Alice shares my sentiment.)

More soon.

* I’ve been listening to R.E.M.’s Murmur since I was 14, and I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of it. The best song, in my opinion, begins at 26:51.

P.S. Sarah Coffey! Are you reading this? You sent me (via Delancey) a very, very kind card and baby gift, but in a moment of overzealous straightening-up, I threw away the envelope with your address on it. Gah. If you’re reading this: thank you.

Lately

Last night I went to the grocery store for milk and yogurt and the usuals, and the cashier smiled and commented on how much my belly has grown since she last rang me up.  For the past couple of months, each time I’ve gone grocery shopping, no matter who my cashier is, he or she has asked about my progress and said a few nice words.  I don’t know any of these people. No idea what their names are.  A few of them might have been to Delancey, since it’s in the same neighborhood, but I don’t think that’s it.  I think they know me by the round appendage on the front of my body.  I hadn’t expected to like being That Pregnant Lady, but today I’m starting to think I might actually miss it, this feeling of having a cheering squad wherever I go.

Anyway, that’s what’s going on around here.  Just, you know, talking about my body with strangers in the checkout line.  That, and continuing to work on my manuscript, and helping Brandon try to get Essex open before we fall into the Black Hole of Infant-Related Sleep Deprivation.  There will be custom walnut bar stools.  And wallpaper with herbs and whales on it!  Lacquered, smoked pork shoulder! Housemade amaro!

In the meantime:

I bought apricots at the market this morning, and though I mostly want to stand around and sniff them, I think I’ll turn them into a crumble.  I’m going to try a new recipe, and if it turns out to be worth sharing, I’ll pass it along.

And after that, whenever blueberries are ready, I want to make this.  If any of you have tried it, please report.

And I highly recommend this.  I’ve made it twice in the past three weeks, mostly to eat for breakfast, but then I wind up stealing a slice after lunch and another in mid-afternoon. One note: I use Bulgarian buttermilk, which is creamier and sexier than the usual low-fat kind.  It’s available at my local grocery store, Ballard Market.  And I use white whole wheat flour instead of the regular whole wheat flour, because that’s what I currently have around.  And I buy whole raw flax seeds and grind them in a spice grinder.  FYI. 

Since reading Megan’s post, I’ve been thinking about making my own yogurt.  We’ll see if anything comes of this, however, given that I first started thinking about making my own yogurt a year and a half ago, when I read this piece.  I’ll get there someday.

If I weren’t supposed to go easy on caffeine and yadda yadda blah blah blah, I would be drinking cold-brewed iced coffee every morning right now.  Have an extra glass for me.

I love it when Tommy talks food.

Youngna drew my attention to this E. B. White piece, which she calls "the ultimate summer essay."  I think she’s right.

Katie has a lovely, delicate eye, and she’s been on fire lately.  For example, this.  Which is a photo of this strawberry cake, which is also on my to-make list.

Last: I went to visit an old friend and her brand-new son, and when she showed me his nursery upstairs, I suddenly had a vision of him a few years from now, building a blanket fort in the corner, under the eaves.  And then I thought, A BLANKET FORT!  I get to build blanket forts again! And maybe eat strawberry cake in them.

I took the pictures in this post earlier this week, while on a 36-hour mini-vacation with Brandon.  We went to Whidbey Island, ate mussels, read the newspaper, saw a bad movie, visited a farm that grows some of Delancey’s produce, and met a dog named Peanut.

I hope summer is being good to you.

Let's wing it

Before I say anything else, I want to thank you for your kindness about my aunt.  I was very nervous when I put up that post, but I felt much better for having written it, and I hoped that meant something.  Thank you for reading, and for saying what you did, and mostly, for understanding.

There is no smooth transition to be made from talking about death to discussing Thai food.  Let’s wing it.

I don’t know why that fried egg looks like it has no yolk. It definitely had one, because before I took this picture, I punctured it with that spoon. I think this is my punishment for not taking a proper photograph: my iPhone ate the yolk. Anyway, please imagine that it’s there. And while you’re at it, imagine that I’m totally, totally, 100% prepared to have a baby. Go on.

I found out a few weeks ago that I’m anemic, which at least partly explained why I had nearly dozed off at a stoplight a couple of times and once cried when I couldn’t get a kitchen drawer to open.  My doctor prescribed iron supplements and plenty of beef.  The good, grass-fed kind, he said. It’s a very nice thing to be ordered by one’s physician to eat more meat, and I was excited about it - except that, because I was busy dozing off at stoplights, I couldn’t think of what to eat.  A person can only go so far with hamburgers and steak.  That was when I called up Matthew, and he told me to make a Thai dish: stir-fried ground beef with chiles and basil, served on a bed of rice, with a fried egg.

I’ve made it four times since, and one of those times was in Oklahoma, for my mother and cousins, so they can vouch for it.  In fact, maybe this will tell you something.  It’s thunderstorm season in Oklahoma, an annual event that I spent my entire childhood dreading, and a giant hailstorm hit that night, as we were finishing our meal.  The windows along the back of the house began to shatter, and as we ran to the closets for cover, you could hear the wind screaming through the rooms. But the Thai beef was tasty enough that, after we had come out of hiding, my cousin Jason hovered over the wok, tempted to dip in for seconds, even though the leftovers shimmered with tiny shards of glass.  It’s a very good recipe.

The original version of it comes from David Thompson’s excellent book Thai Street Food, and as Thai street foods go, he says, it’s fairly new - maybe only fifty years old.  He recommends using as many chiles as you can handle, because the dish is meant to be spicy. As he explains, the "supple richness" of the fried egg is meant to offset the heat.  What I like about it, other than the fact that it’s fragrant and bright and hot, is that it’s nearly instant.  You can make it in less than ten minutes, with ingredients that you might well have lying around.  The original recipe calls for holy basil, but I used regular basil.  I used beef, but Matthew likes pork.  And if you can’t find Thai chiles, you could easily substitute serranos.  The important part is hard to mess up, and that’s chewy, saucy union of rice, egg yolk, and beef.



Stir-fried Minced Beef with Chiles and Basil
Adapted from Matthew-Amster Burton and Thai Street Food, by David Thompson

In Thailand, the eggs would be fried in the wok, either before or after cooking the rest of the dish. But Matthew claims that he always breaks the yolk when he does it that way, and he’s ten times better at stir-frying than I am, so I cook the eggs separately, in a skillet.

As for the chiles, the number that you use is up to you. I used five chiles the first time I made this, and it was pleasantly fiery. The second time I made it, I was eating solo and decided to go a little milder, so I used only three chiles. (You can always remove some of the seeds, too.)  Oh, and if you have an exhaust fan over your stove, turn it on. I always forget until the chiles hit the hot wok and I have a coughing fit.

Also note: this dish comes together very, very quickly, so be sure that you’ve measured out and prepped your ingredients and have them close at hand.

3 to 4 large garlic cloves, chopped
4 to 10 Thai (also called bird’s eye) chiles, sliced
A pinch of salt
2 Tbsp. peanut oil, divided
6 oz. (170 grams) ground beef
1 Tbsp. fish sauce, or more to taste
A pinch of sugar
1/4 cup (60 ml) chicken stock or water
2 large handfuls of basil leaves
Hot cooked jasmine rice
2 large eggs
2 lime wedges

Stir together the garlic, chiles, and salt. Heat a wok or large skillet over high heat, add 1 tablespoon oil, and add the garlic, chiles, and salt. Stir-fry for a few seconds until fragrant, then add the beef. Continue to cook, stirring, until the beef is cooked through and just starting to brown. Add 1 tablespoon fish sauce and the sugar. Add the basil and stock or water, and stir just until the basil is wilted. Remove from the heat. 

Meanwhile, warm the remaining 1 tablespoon oil in a separate skillet, and fry the eggs. The proper fried egg for this dish, Matthew says, has a runny yolk but a browned and crispy underside.

Scoop the rice into bowls, and then divide the beef and its juices over the top. Crown with the fried eggs. Serve immediately, with a good squeeze of lime.

Yield: 2 servings

She felt like cheering

I have three half-siblings.  I know I’ve told you that before, probably lots of times. My half-siblings are a decent bit older than me, so growing up, they often seemed more like uncles and an aunt.  I was an only child, mostly.  But my mother came from a big family, and she had an identical twin sister named Tina. Though Tina lived in California and we lived in Oklahoma, she and my mother did their best to make sure that their children, my cousins Sarah and Katie and I, would feel close as we grew up.  I fell in love with the West Coast  - and, I’m sure, wound up living here - because of trips we took to visit Tina and her family when I was a kid.

In the mornings, when it’s still cool outside, Tina’s neighborhood smells like eucalyptus.  In the afternoons, Katie and I would walk through the backyard to old convenience store across the street, where we would buy beef jerky from a plastic tub.  There’s now a fancy grocery store where the convenience store used to be, but a little further down the street is a mall that still looks pretty much the same, a outdoor mall, something we didn’t have in Oklahoma.  It was at that mall that Sarah and I, then pre-teens, went on my first and only shoplifting spree.  We got a paper shopping bag at a department store, put my denim jacket in it, and then proceeded to hit a few other stores, hiding our loot under the jacket.  Our primary target was a Hallmark shop, where I scored a few calligraphy pens and a tiny carpenter’s bubble level on a keychain, the kind with yellow liquid in a clear tube.  I had no idea what a level was, but it looked awesome, and I was too scared of being caught to spend a lot of time puzzling over it before I shoved it into the bag.  Our mothers didn’t catch us, but back at Tina’s house, with our booty stashed safely in the closet, I was still terrified.  I was not cut out for a life in crime.  I don’t know if Tina ever found out about what we did, but I remember that closet so clearly.  I remember her house so clearly, the way it smells, the way it slopes slightly toward the street, so that every door needs a doorstop. When I’m falling asleep, I sometimes picture myself there.

That’s my mother on the left in both of the pictures, and Tina on the right.  They didn’t always dress alike, but they weren’t opposed to it.  Actually, the older they got, the more often they did.  They even wore their hair the same way: a couple of inches below the shoulder, usually pulled back into a ponytail. There’s a set of elderly twins who are famous around San Francisco, Marian and Vivian Brown, and we ran into them once in Union Square, both impeccably dressed.  My twins are not the type to pencil in their eyebrows or go for animal-skin cowboy hats, but I always pictured them getting old together the way the Brown twins have, making a scene, making trouble.

In early February, Tina was diagnosed suddenly with pancreatic cancer. She went to my mother’s house in Oklahoma to stay for a while and receive treatment.  My cousins and I took turns flying in to help, and we tried our best not to spend too much time Googling pancreatic cancer, because that kind of thing will scare the crap out of you. But it was hard to ignore the fact that, as all the literature says, the illness moves quickly.  Tina passed away at home, my mother’s home, on May 29, with five of us around her.

The Internet is an awkward place to write about death.  It doesn’t have the right weight.  I don’t like it. But I’ve been trying to figure out what to write here instead, and nothing else came.  Over the past few months, whenever I’ve told someone about Tina, it’s been hard to explain why it should feel so difficult to lose an aunt, as opposed to, say, a parent.  For me, Tina was somewhere between the two. In high school biology, when I learned about genes and DNA, I remember being thrilled by the thought that my mother and Tina had identical DNA, and that, maybe, on some level that an actual scientist would probably scoff at, it meant that Katie and Sarah were my half-sisters.  I loved that idea. Maybe, on that same questionable level, it meant that Tina was more than my aunt.

She was the only person in the world who called me Margaret, my legal name.  She sort of sang it, actually, Maaaaar-GRIT, her voice rising as she went.  When I was in college, I lived with her during the summers.  She introduced me to Dungeness crab and to the giant chocolate-covered coconut macaroons at Max’s.  She was the first person I knew who really loved the place where she lived.  It doesn’t sound like much to say, but it had never occurred to me that a person could fall in love with a city and actually get to live there, not just visit.  I didn’t dislike Oklahoma City, but I didn’t love it, and my parents didn’t, either.  I didn’t know what it might be like to feel another way.  But Tina and I were once driving across the Golden Gate Bridge, and I remember her saying that she never got tired of it, of that drive, even after forty years in the Bay Area, and that she each time she crossed the bridge, she felt like cheering, I LIVE HERE!  I didn’t know then that Seattle would make me feel that way, that it would be my place. But now, whenever I catch myself silently cheering, I think of her.

I also think of Tina when I cook in my cast-iron skillets, because the summer that I was twenty and living at her house, I once used a cast-iron skillet and then left it overnight, rinsed but still dirty, in her white kitchen sink.  The next morning, when she found it there, she also found beneath it a dark, angry ring of rust that hung on for months.  I am now a champ at the prompt cleaning and drying of cast-iron skillets.

I don’t know who took this picture, but I found it on Tina’s desk last weekend.  It must have been taken in the 80s, because this was her hairstyle then.  I love the lens flare, how relaxed she looks, how pretty she was.  She looked very different when I last saw her, but she was still beautiful.

About a month ago, when the author Maurice Sendak died, NPR re-released a number of interviews that he did over the years with Terry Gross of Fresh Air.  I listened to all of them, and I listened twice to the last one. (It starts about 27 minutes in.)  I hope I can someday feel the way he did about aging and dying. I’ve known so many people who, like Tina, didn’t really get a chance to get old. There was something he said that I keep thinking about: "I don’t believe in an afterlife, but I still fully expect to see my brother again." Most days, I don’t believe in an afterlife, either, but I hope for my mother, and for all of us, that Mr. Sendak was right.

You know me well

My manuscript is due on June 1.  Hello from the Cave - or, as I first typed, "Hell from the Cave," which has a nice slasher-movie ring to it.  Hi.

For those keeping track, no, you are not crazy: the book was supposed to be due in March.  I had to ask for an extension, unfortunately, because of the small human under my shirt who makes me very tired, and because there’s been a difficult health situation in my family.  2012 came in roaring, and though I wish it would settle down and start acting its age, I doubt it’s going to.  I am, however, going to FINISH THIS BOOK.  If I can stay awake long enough.

Each night, when I get into bed, I’ve been reading a few pages of Nina Planck.  Her books were recommended to me by a couple of you, and clearly, you know me well.  For obvious reasons, I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what I eat and why, and Planck’s defense of traditional whole foods like butter, eggs, and meat feels intuitive to me.  It’s been a nice, sensible way to close out my long days. (And so, I should note, has Friday Night Lights, which I just finished.  I miss Tim Riggins already.  I’m not proud to have fallen for the brooding-hunk routine, but I’m willing to own it.  I would also be willing, for the record, to watch an entire hour of close-ups of Taylor Kitsch’s lips, if the producers of the show ever decide to make a Best of Tim Riggins’s Makeout Scenes DVD.)

In any case, I was doing some research the other day, looking up granola bar recipes for a forthcoming Spilled Milk episode.  When I came across one on Smitten Kitchen, it leapt out at me - not only because it made a chewy granola bar, which I like, and because it came from Deb, who knows her way around a kitchen, but mostly because I loved the no-nonsense ingredients: oats, nuts, nut butter, dried fruits, butter, honey, and very little else.  The list of ingredients resonated with much of what I’ve been reading in Planck’s book, and that sealed the deal.  I decided to try it.  Of course, I did add chocolate.  Let’s be clear about that.

I love these granola bars.  They straddle the line between nutritious afternoon pick-me-up, which I’ve been needing lately, and dessert, which I never really need but want anyway.  For the most part, I followed Deb’s recipe - which she, in turn, adapted from King Arthur Flour - but I tailored the flavorings to suit my tastes.  For a nut, I used pecans, because I like them in granola.  I also threw in some big flakes of coconut.  And some dried cherries, though only a few.  (I don’t like a lot of fruit in my granola.)  And the chocolate.  I grew up on packaged granola bars with chocolate chips, and you know how I’ve come to feel about granola with chocolate, so it felt natural to throw in some chocolate chips that had been kicking around in the cupboard.  I didn’t bother to chop anything, not even the pecan halves, and I was glad for it later.  I liked all the lumps and bumps.  The whole process took less than an hour, most of which was oven time, and 72 hours later, only a couple of bars are left.  Brandon has been eating them for breakfast, and I took two to Matthew, and you can figure out the rest.  I’m already planning another batch.


Chewy Granola Bars with Pecans, Chocolate, and Cherries
Adapted from Smitten Kitchen

For my first go at this recipe, I used ½ cup (100 grams) sugar.  That amount yielded a balanced, mildly sweet bar, but whenever I got a bite with cherries or chocolate, I wished that the base mixture were even a little less sweet.  Next time, I’ll try cutting the sugar back to 1/3 cup (67 grams).  Oh, and I should tell you that I used unrefined cane sugar.  Like this.  It’s what we use at Delancey, and over the past year, I’ve been using it more and more at home.  I find it to be 100% interchangeable with regular white sugar.

Also, I might leave out the cinnamon next time.  Maybe.  It’s nice, but there’s already a lot of good stuff going on in here.

For chocolate, I used Ghirardelli 60% chocolate chips, but you could chop up and use any chocolate you like, preferably bittersweet.  And if you’re confused by the thought of coconut chips, as I’ve been in the past, they’re the big, flat flakes. (Here’s a photograph.)  Last, you don’t have to use the pecan-coconut-chocolate-cherry flavor combination that I chose, of course.  You’re welcome to use a mixture of any fruits and/or nuts you want, ideally 2 to 3 cups in all.

2 cups (190 grams) quick-cooking oats, divided
1/3 cup (67 grams) to ½ cup (100 grams) sugar (see above)
1 cup (110 grams) raw pecan halves
½ cup (25 grams) unsweetened coconut chips
½ cup (85 grams) chocolate chips or chopped chocolate of similar size
¼ cup (40 grams) dried cherries
½ tsp. fine salt
¼ tsp. ground cinnamon (optional)
1/3 cup (85 grams) peanut butter
1 tsp. vanilla extract
6 Tbsp. (85 grams) unsalted butter, melted
6 Tbsp. (120 grams) honey
1 Tbsp. water

Preheat the oven to 350°F.  Lightly butter an 8-inch square baking pan, or grease it with cooking spray. Cut a rectangle of parchment paper to line the bottom and two sides of the dish, leaving a little overhang.  Press the parchment paper into the dish.  Lightly grease the parchment paper.

Put 1/3 cup (30 to 35 grams) of the quick-cooking oats in the bowl of a food processor.  Process until finely ground.

In a large bowl, stir together the remaining 1 2/3 cup oats, ground oats, sugar, pecans, coconut chips, chocolate chips, dried cherries, salt, and, if using, cinnamon.

In a medium bowl, whisk together the peanut butter, vanilla extract, melted butter, honey, and water. Pour the wet ingredients over the dry ingredients, and stir well, until the mixture is evenly moistened. Transfer to the prepared pan, pressing the mixture firmly to ensure that it molds to the shape of the pan. (A piece of plastic wrap helps: just lay it over the pan before you begin pressing.  Much less stickiness.)

Bake the bars for about 30 minutes, or until they’re brown around the edges and just beginning to color on top, too.  (I set a timer for 25 minutes and began checking on them at that point, and I was surprised to find that they were already browning at the edges.  I left them in, however, for another 5 minutes or so, until the tops had a hint of color.)  The mixture will still seem soft and almost underbaked if you press on it, but it’ll set as it cools.

Transfer the pan to a rack, and allow the bars to cool completely in the pan.  When cool, run a sharp knife along the edges of the pan; then pull up on the parchment paper to lift the sheet of bars out of the pan.  Cut the bars into squares.  Or, heck, rectangles.  Whatever you want.

Note:  I let my bars cool for a number of hours, and they cut very neatly, but I noticed that some commenters on Deb’s post mentioned issues with crumbling.  Here’s what she suggested:  If your bars seem crumbly, refrigerate them in the pan for 30 minutes to further set them, and then try cutting them while cold.

Another note: I stored my bars on a cutting board wrapped in plastic wrap, but if you’d like to put them in an airtight container, consider layering them between sheets of wax paper, so they don’t stick to one another.  In hot weather, you might need to refrigerate them.

Yield: 16 squares

No such thing

Earlier this week, I think it was, one of you kindly wrote to me, asking if I might do a post about what I’ve been eating for lunch lately. The reader who wrote to me is pregnant, and there are a number of foods that us pregnant ladies are told to avoid, making quick, easy lunches hard to come by: no deli meats, no (uncooked) cured meats, no high-mercury fish (tuna, for example), no cheeses of certain types, and so on. I am going to spare you, however, a post on what I’ve been eating at my desk lately, because my lunches are about as riveting as C-SPAN. The post would go something like this: nut butter sandwich, carrots, tangerine, nut butter sandwich, carrots, tangerine, nut butter sandwich, carrots, tangerine, hard-boiled egg, bowl of soup, nut butter sandwich, carrots, tangerine, and if you are still awake at this point, you win a pound cake.

A pistachio pound cake. With citrus.

I haven’t found myself with much time for cooking lately, or not outside of recipe testing for my manuscript, but this cake caught my eye as I was thumbing through the latest issue of Bon Appétit. The merest mention of the word “pistachio” can turn my head, and not surprisingly, this cake shot to the top of my to-do list, above more sensible tasks like making spinach-cilantro soup or poaching chicken for salad. This, for the record, is how a 33-year-old woman winds up lunching on nut butter sandwiches and carrot sticks, the official midday meal of American first graders. I blame the editor at Bon Appétit who, as the headnote explained, ate this pound cake at a restaurant in Houston and declared it her “dream dessert.” You can’t use words like that and expect people to go on living their lives as though nothing had happened, as though there were not a pistachio pound cake recipe to be tried.

So one night last weekend, I baked a pistachio pound cake. It should be called a pistachio-citrus pound cake, really, because it contains juice and zest from three different citrus fruits. The basic batter is classic pound cake - plenty of butter, sugar, eggs, and flour - but into that go fresh lemon juice, fresh orange juice (or juice from a Pixie tangerine, if you happen to have some on hand; I highly recommend it), some zest from that same orange (or Pixie tangerine), and some zest from a lime. Then you fold in a generous dose of coarsely chopped pistachios, scoop the batter into its loaf pan, and put another generous dose of pistachios on top. Actually, I should warn you: it may seem as though you have too much chopped pistachio to cram onto the top of the cake, but you must persevere. There’s no such thing as too much pistachio.

Like other pound cakes I’ve made, this one bakes for a while (about 90 minutes) in a low-to-moderate oven, which is convenient, because it gives you time to redeem yourself by cooking something nutritious - or, if you prefer, to rest your feet and nurture your two-decades-long fascination with Sexy Frankenstein, also known as Jonny Greenwood, by reading that Radiohead story in the current Rolling Stone. Meanwhile, the house will fill with the scent of toasted pistachio and orange, heady and almost exotic. When you open the oven door to check on your cake, you’ll be rewarded with the sight of a tall, pistachio-crusted, perfectly browned loaf. I’ve done a lot of baking, and I can’t remember another time when I felt so giddy or so proud as I pulled a cake out of the oven. It’s a handsome thing.

We ate the cake plain, in sturdy slices, for breakfast or after lunch, and while it was very good right away, it gets even better, more delicate, once the flavors settle for a day. Like a proper pound cake, it’s firm and buttery, but it gets a gentle lift from the citrus, both in flavor and in fragrance, and then, behind it, there comes the deep, toasty, rumbling flavor of the pistachios. It’s an ideal afternoon cake. If I were going to dress it up for company, I might cut up some strawberries, soften them in a little sugar, and heap them on top of a slice, maybe with some lightly whipped cream - or, wait, even better, just spoon on some strawberry conserve. Or I might do nothing at all.


Pistachio-Citrus Pound Cake
Adapted slightly from Bon Appétit (April 2012) and Raymond Vandergaag of The Tasting Room at CityCentre

2 cups (260 grams) all-purpose flour
1 ½ tsp. kosher salt
1 tsp. baking powder
2 sticks (226 grams) unsalted butter, at room temperature
2 cups (400 grams) sugar
5 large eggs
2 Tbsp. fresh lemon juice
2 Tbsp. fresh orange juice
2 tsp. finely grated orange zest
1 tsp. finely grated lime zest
1 cup (125 grams) shelled, unsalted pistachios, coarsely chopped

Position a rack in the middle of the oven, and preheat the oven to 325°F. Lightly butter a 9”x5” loaf pan, or grease it with cooking spray. Cut a rectangle of parchment paper to line the bottom and the two long sides of the pan, leaving a little overhang. Press the parchment paper into the dish, and grease it lightly, too.

In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, salt, and baking powder. Using an electric mixer, beat the butter on medium speed until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Add the sugar, and beat until well incorporated, 1 to 2 minutes more. Add the eggs one at a time, beating to blend between additions. Add the juices and the zests, and beat until well combined. (Don’t worry if the batter looks curdled.) Add the flour mixture, reduce the speed to low, and beat until just incorporated. Add ¾ cup of the pistachios, and fold in gently. Pour the batter into the prepared pan, smoothing the top. Sprinkle the remaining ¼ cup pistachios over the top.

Bake the cake, rotating it halfway through, until a tester inserted into the center comes out clean, about 1 ½ hours. Transfer it to a wire rack, and let it cool completely in the pan. Run a sharp knife along the short ends of the pan to loosen the cake; then pull up on the parchment paper to lift the cake out of the pan.

Note: The flavor of this cake is best on the day after it’s made.

Yield: 8 to 12 servings, depending on how thickly you slice it.

P.S. True story, and yes: a bar (probably) in July + a baby (probably) in September = we are nuts. But happy.

P.P.S. It’s a girl(!).

The first night

Hi from here.




I should clarify: not here exactly. These photos were taken at our dinner table, but I’m currently sitting at my desk. I would much rather be there than here. Oh well.




These shots are from the first night of 2012, with our friends Ben, Bonnie, and Sam. We had wanted to go crabbing and catch our New Year’s dinner ourselves, but Ben and Brandon wound up with food poisoning on New Year’s Eve, so we decided to scale back the plan. We bought the crabs instead. We cooked them and cleaned them and heaped them in a bowl, and then we covered the table with garbage bags and set out cutting boards, crab picks, and ice cream scoops-cum-crab mallets. That, plus couple of baguettes, and we had a feast.




And this afternoon, that’s where my head is.




Wherever yours is, I hope you’re well.