go outside // pie crust debate

O life! You beauty, you vessel of weirdness and despair and joy unending. Tiny green things in the beds around the trees on our street. Perfect green; bright and clean.


Because we moved into our apartment in November, my relationship to our neighborhood has been limited by sleet. Yesterday I went on a walk, and in the 30 minutes that I was outside, I discovered that the park three blocks away has a small amphitheater, that the giant mural one block away honoring Shirley Chisolm and other NYC female activists is slated for demolition this spring, that we're surrounded on ALL SIDES by small green spaces cultivated in abandoned lots, and that we're four blocks away from a community garden that houses a Magnolia grandiflora, the last remaining tree designated as a historical landmark in NYC. The garden was founded by a woman named Hattie Carthan in the 1970's motivated by the changes she observed in her neighborhood. In an early fundraiser solicitation: “The magnolia tree will thus become a living symbol of man’s concern and love for nature, and…this symbol will hasten the day when our city of New York will be a natural garden.” Read more about her/this garden, here . 

New York inevitably inspires lots of thinking about change and impermanence. Storefronts shift, are rebuilt, disappear in a not so slow time lapse. Neighborhoods become different neighborhoods become different neighborhoods, are on fire, are home to families, are home to no one, are home to families again. It is possible to know so little about the space you inhabit, (and how strange it is to live in that unknown.) How many people have looked out these windows, asked different questions, found different answers? Many. Many!

Very, extremely important to remember our newness. On the planet and in our neighborhoods. (With all of the change, what is it that remains? a spirit of a place? A mission, a garden, an energy? How can I be a part of preservation and growth as a relative interloper?)

Thank you, Hattie, for these trees.






I baked a lemon meringue pie this week, (recipe here,) but I'd rather talk about pie crust, which I haven't quite figured out. Here is the recipe for pie dough that has been most frequently successful for me:

all butter crust recipe (from the four and twenty blackbirds pie book)

• 1 1/4cups unbleached all-purpose flour
• 1/2teaspoon kosher salt
• 1 1/2teaspoons granulated sugar
• 1/4pound (1 stick) cold unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
• 1/2 cup cold water
• 2tablespoons cider vinegar
• 1/2cup ice
  
  

1. Stir the flour, salt, and sugar together in a large bowl. 
2. Add the butter pieces and coat with the flour mixture using a bench scraper or spatula.* 
3. With a pastry blender, cut the butter into the flour mixture, working quickly until mostly pea-size pieces of butter remain (a few larger pieces are okay; be careful not to overblend).
4. Combine the water, cider vinegar, and ice in a large measuring cup or small bowl. 
5. Sprinkle 2 tablespoons of the ice water mixture over the flour mixture, and mix and cut it in with a bench scraper or spatula until it is fully incorporated.
6. Add more of the ice water mixture, 1 to 2 tablespoons at a time, using the bench scraper or your hands (or both) to mix until the dough comes together in a ball, with some dry bits remaining. 
7. Squeeze and pinch with your fingertips to bring all the dough together, sprinkling dry bits with more small drops of the ice water mixture, if necessary, to combine. 
8. Shape the dough into a flat disc, wrap in plastic, and refrigerate for at least 1 hour, preferably overnight, to give the crust time to mellow. 
9. If making the double-crust version, divide the dough in half before shaping each portion into flat discs.
10. Wrapped tightly, the dough can be refrigerated for 3 days or frozen for 1 month

                                   


*I like to add the butter to half of the flour mixture first, coat it, and then add in the remaining flour/salt/sugar.

what recipe has worked the best for you? tips? thoughts?

community building // coffee cake

The air in New York today is damp and earthy. It's still cold, but this wind on the skin feels like lake wind, like we're standing at the edge of water. Which we are. I always forget.

This week: I keep getting distracted from the tangle of my own neurosis by the sight of friends, acquaintances and strangers speaking out through their art, singing from their guts, leaving it all somewhere for someone to find. (A man on the subway with these heartbeat bongoes finishes up, does not ask for any money, says "LOVE IS ALL THERE IS. You've got to exercise your love like you work out at the gym!")

I'm also watching many friends in the daylight hours of their money-making lives, parsing, sorting, rearranging the structure to try to accommodate their creative pursuits. Putting forth such valiant effort to understand wellness and work and balance even though it's the work/life balance that might not ever be just exactly right.

here is what is useless: comparison and jealousy. I am an authority on this. They weave metal threads, make for heavy mornings and sour tasting food. I've just been feeling like: free your mind from envy in whatever way you can and you'll see how much good work is going on and how much ROOM there is for more. Easier said than done, I guess, but take a walk read a book do fifteen pushups call your mom kiss your arm make a drawing and send it to your friend who lives five states away.

I've been going to the Bronx to shadow a teaching artist friend, and if there's anything to reinforce a belief that this creative work is important it's 30 sixth graders finally settling for three minutes to do a physical warm up, and feeling the way their energy changes the room.


SO: thank you for the inspiration, and if you want, you could bake this coffee cake* for your friend who is coming to stay with you for grad school auditions. You could share it at your rehearsal, you could make a big breakfast on a Wednesday morning (so your server and barista friends can come,) for advanced crossword work and a reminder that we have a community. (It's a giant cake and so shareable and really nice with coffee.)


...and if you're free on April 2nd you should go see this beautiful web at dixon place; if you're waiting for your water to boil or relaxing after work you should check out this web series; if you're free on an April eve you should get to know edward II for the very first time; if you're on your computer right now you should listen these crazy guys and also these crazy guys. VIVA.

*sour cream coffee cake  by ina "butter" garten

the only changes I made to this recipe were to omit the glaze, (because it "started" to feel a little "excessive") and to omit the nuts from the streusel because 50% my apartment does not like walnuts. OH also, I didn't use cake flour. I used this substitution (all purpose flour and cornstarch,) and it worked just fine.

for the cake:

12 tablespoons (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter at room temperature

1 1/2 cups granulated sugar

3 extra-large eggs at room temperature

1 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

1 1/4 cups sour cream

2 1/2 cups cake flour (not self-rising)

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

For the streusel:

1/4 cup light brown sugar, packed

1/2 cup all-purpose flour

1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon kosher salt

3 tablespoons cold unsalted butter, cut into pieces



Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Grease and flour a 10-inch tube pan.

Cream the butter and sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment for 4 to 5 minutes, until light. Add the eggs 1 at a time, then add the vanilla and sour cream. In a separate bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. With the mixer on low, add the flour mixture to the batter until just combined. Finish stirring with a spatula to be sure the batter is completely mixed.
For the streusel, place the brown sugar, flour, cinnamon, salt, and butter in a bowl and pinch together with your fingers until it forms a crumble. Mix in the walnuts, if desired.
Spoon half the batter into the pan and spread it out with a knife. Sprinkle with 3/4 cup streusel. Spoon the rest of the batter in the pan, spread it out, and scatter the remaining streusel on top. Bake for 50 to 60 minutes, until a cake tester comes out clean.
Let cool on a wire rack for at least 30 minutes. Carefully transfer the cake, streusel side up, onto a serving plate. 

spring prayer

i hope that i will grow to understand, more than I do now, what it means to take care, to be careful, to give care, to be full, all year and especially in the spring, when everything is fragile and sturdy, tentative and determined. I hope that I will be open and ready to watch things reveal themselves for what they might be.

i know that there is a lesson in the push and pull of the tides, in the fall down get up manner of toddlers, in the slow and deliberate movements of someone 60 years older than I am now. maybe the prayer is: may I (may you) quiet the hum enough to be moved by the things we see, may they grow our care, fill us up, help us to better understand all of these natural cycles of loss and gain, of risk and grace.

reframing // cardamom coffee

this week, my girlfriend Maggie and I drove up the coast of California in a red car the size of a large suitcase. we saw the best friends, we saw stands of trees that felt like church, flowers that moved like waves in the grass, hills that felt slow and inevitable, a reflective ocean and the sun setting and setting and setting. it all felt full and loud and quiet and somehow female. mother earth, indeed. I also got poison oak, spent some time with a gigantic skunk at our campsite in pfieffer state park and became irrationally afraid of mountain lions. we couldn't get our water to boil. our google maps never really worked. the week was perfect.

we decided to take the trip largely because I accused Maggie of Never Wanting to Go On Trips and she booked our plane tickets in demonstrative defiance. it is liberating to just DO something, even if it is a little challenging logistically, even if it doesn't quite make perfect sense in that moment, because it proves that things don't have to be perfect to be perfect. which is something I struggle with. in pursuit of perfection, I'm often stuck in a maze of indecision, which I find frequently leads to an excess of waitressing.

standing in the giant outside, under stars that I could actually see, next to an ocean so large and unknowable, I felt like every ice-related complaint and career anxiety I entertain could (potentially) be released (forever?) through deep breath. (it's easier to have perspective when there are one million stars reminding you of your size.) seeing my friends from as far back as middle school in their beautiful, changing lives made me feel unafraid of whatever is coming. I kept talking too loudly because I was so happy.

we came home to a blizzard and some new construction blocking our admittedly outrageous unobstructed view of the empire state building. (we live in bedstuy, it was never going to last.)  this morning I made coffee*, unpacked all of our borrowed camping gear and in so doing, covered our floor in sand from 2,000 miles away. I felt different/I felt the same/I wondered about the duration of a bout with poison oak.


change is inevitable and it is important, and I am not stuck, (I am not stuck! we are not stuck!) and the ocean is still there. it all makes me feel like sometimes, you've just got to get in the car and drive.

* cardamom coffee

beautify your bedstuy morning
spice up your camping coffee

prepare to brew your coffee however you prefer. (that means french press or drip, probably.)

add 1 cracked cardamom** pod per cup that you're preparing. (you can crack the pods with the flat side of a knife, then throw the whole thing in with the grounds.)

you could also add one pinch of salt per cup, or however much cinnamon you want! wowee.

brew the coffee as usual. the cardamom will make the coffee taste slightly nutty and spicy.

\\ This isn't really a recipe so much as it is a suggestion to do something a little differently. The same effect could be easily achieved by doing a long and luxurious stretch. Welcome, March!

**Cardomom is absurdly expensive in many stores, but you can buy it in bulk for a reasonable price at international groceries. Also enticing for things like this, but I have really got to stop baking cakes and eating them in their entirety.