ladies

after work, 2014

I am held up by my female friends in little and big ways, but the support is so interwoven into the structure of things that it can easily be taken for granted. Some of the best practical advice I've gotten in my adult life has come from a pool of shared knowledge among women.  There's a real loneliness in needing answers and feeling ashamed of the questions. I feel very lucky, very changed, by having come up through my twenties among women who don't blink an eye.

_____


Today I borrowed a swimsuit from my friend who, in the past, has also lent me a beautiful dress for a wedding, shown me how to cut my own hair, coached me through drinking glasses of baking soda water while I was waitressing with a UTI, talked with me about beautiful and infuriating things at 7:00 am while we set up a cafe.

I received a package from a friend far away containing pajamas I'd lent her, homemade dried Moon Tea (!!!) and a dream pillow filled with herbs.

I walked to Fort Greene with my pal who knows all of my secrets and is still my friend, who sat with me in a cafe that smelled like bacon even though she is a vegetarian, who somehow knows all of my ugliness and my brightness, when I am sludge on the floor and a balloon in the sky, who lends me books and gives immediately applicable advice. I showed her the poison oak on my leg while we were standing on a street corner.

And anyway, that was just today. I know so many women who lead by example, who give the gifts they can give. Plants, time, acceptance. Who write long letters and figure it out and share what they've found. My whole life is filled with the echo of this influence.





Bless you all women, who will talk about hemorrhoids, who will tell you when you have spinach in your teeth, who will help decode the fine print, who will make the space they can make.

someone else's steps

everywhere

what it looks like when things are drying

what it looks like when things are getting cut out

everywhere

door waves 

third floor backyard

Mary Oliver's book of poems A Thousand Mornings is helping me to appreciate this marshy fall. The leaves on the trees outside of our window are bright, bright gold. I'm not sure what it is about this year, but the seasons feel so pronounced. What can we learn from our preoccupations? Or, what am I talking about when I talk about trees? The book is full of beauty and insight. I dog-eared this one:



            Poem of One World

            This morning
            the beautiful white heron
            was floating along above the water

            and then into the sky of this
            the one world
            we all belong to

            where everything
            sooner or later
            is a part of everything else

            which thought made me feel
            for a little while
            quite beautiful myself.

raining, pouring // how to make cranberry orange scones

pre

post

how to get rid of your stuff and hang onto your money
how to adopt a dog and not regret it
how to turn your ability to spot the same strangers around the city over the span of several months into a lucrative career
how to go on 100 walks by yourself
how to fulfill your maximum potential
how to install a ceiling fan
how to bake cranberry orange scones*




how to bake cranberry orange scones
makes 8-10 scones

2 cups all purpose flour
1/2 tsp salt
2 1/2 tsp baking powder
3/4 cup dried cranberries  (or any dried fruit!)
2 tbs sugar
5 tbs cold butter, cubed
2 eggs
5 tbs heavy cream
zest of one orange
few drops of vanilla

In a medium bowl, sift together the flour, salt, baking powder and sugar. Mix in the cranberries, then cut in the butter with a pastry cutter. Once everything is combined, the consistency should be similar to cornmeal.  

In a small bowl, whisk together the eggs, cream, orange zest and vanilla. Gently stir the wet ingredients into the dry ones. They'll combine quickly to form a rough dough.  

Scrape the dough onto a lightly floured surface. Knead it several times, until it comes together, then shape it into a circle about 3/4 of an inch thick. Brush it with the remnants of the egg/cream mixture, and sprinkle lightly with sugar. 

 Cut the circle into 8 wedges, and place the wedges on an ungreased baking sheet. Bake at 400° for 15 minutes.

catch a feeling put it in a jar

here this is for lunch, I pulled it from the ground

light up the evening with little fires and plants in jars and pies on cracked plates, show me your badminton victory dance, show me your full moon square dance, show me your four-beer july dance.

what a lot of light to bake drippy fruit-filled things only, to set a table, read a different book, look at it all from above. in every person, in babies in strollers on the subway and aunts in the backyard swatting bugs, do you see it? like a firefly glowing then going out, glowing than going out, making the ground look a lot like a big, holy sky.

on getting inspired

here are some basics, for a day when you feel like human sludge:



1. have a soft belly. breathe deeply. sit for a little while. grow your spine. open your eyes. (literally, open your eyes.)

2.  leave your house. this is key on the really sludgy days. keep eyes open. taking public transportation will seem unappealing, but it might help. music might be nice, or maybe you'll want to eavesdrop? grow your spine.

3.  respond to things. hold a door open, say hello. if someone complains to you about how long the train is taking, you don't have to really talk to them, but you should at least smile. be with the people you're with. open yourself up*.

4.  put your hand on the trunk of a tree.  do it for longer than feels normal. try to figure out what kind of tree it is. it's okay to use your phone for this. in fact, it's okay to use your phone. it's okay to instagram a picture of yourself, or tweet a thing about yourself. the internet is not going away. but after doing that, quickly get back to the business of existing quietly. (imagine that it is 100 years ago, imagine that it is 1,000 years ago.) if a person interrupts this, that's totally fine. be present with them. maybe even tell them what you learned about the tree.

5. get a library card and actually use it. you can just walk into a library and get one! it's crazy! reading will heal you up and crack your thoughts open. if reading isn't your thing, listen to one of the million podcasts that will teach you something that you didn't know. they're free. visit the inside of another person's brain. for FREE!

6. at this point, or at whatever point, at some point: take stock of your creative impulses, then follow your favorite one. this could mean you make something that not even your MOM would think was good. a clay pot, a big drawing, a pile of sticks. or conduct an interview. or write a weird song. write anything about anything that you just saw. call someone and ask them something you've always meant to ask.


VERY IMPORTANT: You don't have to be "good" at something for it to be worth doing.


You don't have to be "good" at something for it to be worth doing.

You don't have to be "good at something for it to be worth doing.




take stock. be gentle. be intentional. look at your project and be kind. display it proudly or put it in the back of a closet. take stock. be gentle. be intentional. you don't have to be good at something for it to be worth doing.




love,
heather









*closing yourself off can be a vital skill. feel free to close off when necessary. just don't forget to open back up.

check in

drinking lots of water: does this help 

y or n

taking flowers off of the plants on your fire escape and putting them in your hair when you are alone in your apartment: does this help 

y or n

baking a pie for yourself. is this activity

a) meditative

b) a waste of unsalted butter

if someone asks you if you have 'goals,' do you tell them that sometimes in Ireland people spell jail 'gaol?'

when you walk down the street do you have an inner monologue that you deem 

a) publishable

b) noteworthy

c) important

d) all of the above

is this

a) vain

b) human

c) something worth mining in therapy

d) all of the above

when you do things are you

a) constantly comparing yourself to others

b) never comparing yourself to others 

c) aware of the possibility for comparison, but able to avoid it simply by creating a secret list of people who will never be invited over to your apartment

are you

a) afraid of losing it

b) afraid of never having it

c) afraid of wasting it

d) unafraid

plant diary #1

we're gardeners! (sort of! sort of.) 

simplified

basil, sage, rosemary, mint, parsley, rosemary, lavender, tomatoes, nasturtiums, begonias, and escarole now live on our fire escape, on our front steps, on the windowsills.

I water them every morning. I make coffee for myself, open the window, touch the dirt, feel new astonishment that these everyday processes can take place, even on a fire escape, even in new york. purple flowers and lemon verbena reaching for light, soil smells like soil even when it's on newspaper in my living room.

there are still so many opportunities for introduction. here we are, getting acquainted with a root system. Squeeze the plastic container gently, hold the plant by the stem, settle it into a new pot, fill the pot with dirt. You are still a child, holding a little thing that will delight you with its perfect complexity.

the dirt dries out quickly, especially for those brave ones on our front steps. those are the tomatoes, nasturtiums, begonias. the tomato plants have doubled in size in two weeks, the nasturtiums are this astonishing explosion of orange blossoms. they inspire wild thoughts, like "I will make a gigantic salad covered in orange flowers, I will host a dinner at a long table, I will share everything I have with everyone I know!"

your scrambled senses // hungarian shortbread

it wasn’t until her initial panic had subsided that she regained her ability to perceive the outline of people’s bodies with clarity. figures had, for the past five years, remained globular in form, swirls of illogical tempera color, their voices a clak claw clam folk calk of tone and meaning. she was able to move through the world unassisted, but trusted smell and touch alone to guide her, nose perpetually upturned, hand held out, like a fox in pause, like a person sealing a questionable deal. sans smell, it might be her roommate approaching, or it might be the car she'd parked on a nameless side street sometime in 2011, now, could it be? drifting down the sidewalk in second gear? once, when coping with seasonal allergies, she really thought she’d seen it as she rounded a corner, but it turned out to have been a doberman pinscher.

the air outside, so full of water, did quiet the caterwauling of her brain. she could sit on her front steps and inhale and exhale and inhale without even having to think about it, and maybe petals were pulled off of trees by the slightest wind or moss grew on the shaded side of a rock or the wet concrete radiated heat and it all could have been anything else but for the way these things alone landed with such certainty in her mind. it seemed in these moments that her body took such care of her, if only sometimes.

bring this to a birthday party OR eat it all yourself! is the tagline of this blog.

hungarian shortbread
serves 8-10
(slightly adapted) from saveur magazine 

2 cups flour, plus more as needed
1 tsp. baking powder
1⁄8 tsp. fine salt
1⁄2 lb. unsalted butter, plus more for
   pan (all at room temperature)
1 cup sugar
2 egg yolks
1/2 cup raspberry jam

::  Using a sieve over a bowl, sift together flour, baking powder, and salt; set aside. Cream butter in a large bowl, using a hand mixer on high speed, until fluffy, about 2 minutes. Add sugar and egg yolks; mix until sugar is dissolved and mixture is light, about 4 minutes. With mixer on low speed, slowly add flour mixture; mix until dough just begins to come together, about 1 minute.

:: Turn dough onto a lightly floured surface; bring it together with your hands. Divide dough in half and form 2 balls. Wrap each ball in plastic wrap; freeze for at least 30 minutes. The recipe says "or up to three hours," but I froze them overnight and continued baking a few hours before I needed the finished shortbread.

:: Arrange an oven rack in center of oven; heat to 350°. A springform pan or a tart pan with a removable bottom would be easiest to use for this recipe, but I used a regular 9 inch cake pan and it ended up being fine. (Round is best so that every piece has crust!) Grease whatever pan you're using with butter. 

:: Remove a ball of dough from freezer, unwrap, and grate, using the large holes of a box grater, directly into prepared pan. Gently pat grated dough to even it out. Bake this bottom layer for about 20 minutes.

:: Remove from oven, and spread jam evenly over dough, leaving about a 1⁄2" border around edges. Grate remaining dough over jam layer; pat gently until surface is even. Bake until light golden brown, another 25–30 minutes. Let cool completely in pan, on a rack.

If you're using a pan with a removable bottom, you'll be able to easily lift the shortbread out. If you're like me and left the bottom of your tart pan at someone's house three months ago, gently turn the shortbread out onto an even surface. Do this in whatever way seems least likely to allow the shortbread to crack. I usually turn cakes out onto my hand (wearing an oven mitt,) because it makes contact with most of the 9 inch surface. Than I'll hold a plate or the rack to the top, and flip it over. If that makes sense, I'm glad, and if it doesn't, my point is just that you'll have to be gentle and whatever you're baking will need to be supported or it risks falling apart. Like a person?

:: Cut into wedges. This shortbread should have a slightly crunchy bottom and a chewy top. I refrigerated it for a few hours before serving, and it was fine! yumm.

first three minutes // raspberry ricotta cake

her sleeping form lies beneath a quickly retreating fog, which rolls and roils backwards and towards the bedroom door, sucking itself down into a vent, exhaling and dissipating onto the street near the sidewalk with a thin and elegant hiss. dampness and the smell of mulch remain. each morning the air is new in perpetuum, and hangs above her head like time suspended night upended, space prepared to wait without hurry for eyes to open up into it. a sheen of sweat on a forehead, an exhale of decay, the room gives a final unobserved heave, the molecules rearrange and then settle. 

she wakes to rain. trees just outside are laced with new green. she is blank and full and she watches the rivulets on the window by her bed, shifts in the sheets to touch a giant leaf from the potted plant on the windowsill, it is smooth and rubbery and thin. under the canopy of her own ceiling there is the smell of coffee from the kitchen, there are dust motes light and drifting, she holds loosely to the plant, she is heavy inside of herself, alert and childlike and newly landed.




for a balanced breakfast:

raspberry ricotta cake           from bon appétit 

vegetable oil spray
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup sugar
2 tsp. baking powder
3/4 tsp salt
3 large eggs
 1 1/2 cups ricotta
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, melted
1 cup frozen raspberries

:: preheat oven to 350°. Lightly coat a 9" round cake pan with the cooking spray.

:: whisk flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt in a large bowl.

:: whisk eggs, ricotta and vanilla in a medium bowl until smooth; fold into the dry ingredients until
    just blended.

:: fold in butter, followed by 3/4 cups of raspberries.

:: scrape batter into the pan, and scatter the remaining 1/4 cup raspberries over the top.

: bake until golden brown and a cake tester comes out clean, approx. 50-60 minutes. Let cool for at
  least 20 minutes before removing from the pan.

first week of april // cardamom orange yogurt cake

today you could:
go to work and even still! open some windows, make some coffee, feel the weight of a stone in your hand, shake out the sheets of your bed, paint something with bold and irregular stripes.

this week saw:
the acquisition of a giant plant for our bedroom. welcome, monstera deliciosa.
a first spring walk through red hook.
this cardamom and orange yogurt cake*
nighttime rehearsals in the financial district. (stony and damp outside, brightly lit and filled with freshly cut wood inside. elements of nature even at the epicenter of capitalism and commerce, ascend the subway stairs and see a freedom tower in the waltzing fog.)

and I learned this word: archipelago. an expanse of water with many scattered islands, or a group or scattering of similar things. like a crowded street. arched ceilings pelicans flying long long ago.

*cardamom orange yogurt cake 

ever so slightly adapted from this recipe. (made mostly because I had all of these ingredients already, which absolutely never happens.)

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 tsp baking soda
3/4 tsp kosher salt
1 1/2 tsp cardamom
1 1/2 tsp orange zest
1 cup of sugar
3/4 cup plain greek yogurt
1/2 cup olive oil
2 eggs
1/2 tsp vanilla extract



:: preheat oven to 350

:: butter and flour a standard loaf pan. tap out excess flour.

:: whisk flour, baking soda, salt, and cardamom in a medium bowl.

:: rub the orange zest into the sugar with your fingers, then mix well with yogurt, olive oil, eggs and
   vanilla in a large bowl.

:: gently fold dry ingredients into wet ingredients. mix until just combined.

:: pour into loaf pan and place on a rack in the middle of the oven. Bake for 50-55 minutes, or until
  the top is lightly browned and a cake tester comes out clean.





ps. if you're interested, check out our apartment tour on Scissors and Sage this week!

rate of change // best birthday cake

I've been thinking about the sculpture court at the met. Where there is light and it is cool, where things are smooth, where the echoes bounce up and all of the toes seem similarly clenched against their marble slabs.

This week marked my last brunch shift as a waitress. It was also the week that a gas explosion caused a building to burn to the ground on Second Avenue, one block from the cafe where I work. Thick smoke on a familiar street. If life is so random and unpredictable, then how have I stayed at this job for so long? What glues a person to a place despite the constant shifting of the plates? I once saw a yellow cab crash into a Staples on Fourth Avenue; and/or I keep thinking: we're like the moon, we have phases. The breadth of rates of change.

This week also contained celebration and more vernal rebirth! (Go ahead and cheerfully say that to someone you don't know.) Best friends turned 26, everybody ate many vats of pasta and this cake*, rehearsals started, things kept growing, shifts took place with varying degrees of perceptibility.

Yesterday I was babysitting and my babysittee lay down on the floor, unmoving, and said "look at me, I'm a glacier!" No statues here.

*best (dare I??) best birthday cake      (adapted from this recipe)

a rich chocolate cake. not too sweet. just right. 

cake

• Nonstick vegetable oil spray

• 2 cups unbleached all purpose flour

• 1 3/4 cups sugar

• 3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

• 2 teaspoons baking soda

• 1/4 teaspoon salt

• 1 cup freshly brewed coffee  (I stuck mine in the fridge to cool it down a bit.)

• 3/4 cup buttermilk

• 3/4 cup vegetable oil

• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla

• 3 large eggs

ganache

• 2 1/4 cups heavy whipping cream

• 6 tablespoons seedless raspberry jam
• 18 ounces bittersweet chocolate (do not exceed 61% cacao), chopped

and (optional) loose raspberries for serving

// (to make)

• :: preheat oven to 350°F and place rack in the middle of the oven. Coat two 9-inch-diameter cake pans with 2-inch-high sides with nonstick spray. Line bottoms with parchment paper rounds; spray rounds. Sift flour, sugar, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt into large bowl; whisk to blend and form well in center. Whisk 1 cup water, buttermilk, oil, vanilla extract and eggs in medium bowl to blend. Pour wet ingredients into well in dry ingredients; whisk just to blend. Divide cake batter between prepared pans (about 3 cups each).
  
  
  :: Bake cakes until tester inserted into center comes out clean, about 30 minutes. (If cakes form domes, place kitchen towel atop hot cakes, then press gently with palm of hand to level.) (Satisfying.) Cool completely in pans on cooling racks. (Cakes can be made one day ahead! if you do this, cover in pans and leave out on counter.)
  
  
  
  

  • :: Place chopped chocolate in medium bowl. Bring cream just to boil in a saucepan. Pour over chocolate. Let stand 1 minute, then stir until ganache is melted and smooth. Transfer 1 1/4 (ish) cups ganache to small bowl. Cover and refrigerate until ganache is thick enough to spread, stirring occasionally, about 1 hour. Let remaining ganache stand at room temperature to cool until barely lukewarm.
    
    
    :: Place the rack inside of a rimmed baking sheet, (or on a cutting board, or over whatever you don't mind getting covered in ganache.) carefully remove the first cake from its pan, and place it on a cardboard round, or the removable bottom of a 9-inch tart pan, or a plate is also fine if you don't have either of those. (This will just make the cake more easily transferable from the cooling rack.) Peel off the parchment paper. (Flat side of the cake should be up.)
    
    
    :: Spread 3 tablespoons jam over top. Spoon dollops of chilled ganache over, then spread evenly. Carefully invert second cake, and place it flat side down on the first cake.  Spread remaining 3 tablespoons raspberry jam over top of second cake layer. Pour half of barely lukewarm ganache over cake, spreading over sides to cover. Freeze until ganache sets, about 30 minutes. Pour remaining ganache over cake, allowing to drip down sides and spreading over sides if needed. (I had to do a lot of spreading on mine! no big.)
    
    
    ((the original recipe calls for concentric circles of raspberries on top of the cake, but I just served a few on the plate with each slice.))
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    

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.