Making my way again through the book that may very well be the best work of literature produced in our country in the last fifty years, Gilead, the very book an attempt to answer Jeremiah’s question with blessed less certainty and blessed more sincerity than the sung spiritual. Yes, there is a balm, and there […]
Category: Pastries
Ensaimadas and Flo on the Go
I was beginning to exhibit snail behavior, slowing to near-imperceptible movement, curling my face downward, shelling most everything, things I’d like to say, feelings. Thank God I have a day off to sleep in, uncurl, put on my sneakers and leave some silver streaks around the neighborhood. Actually feel the sun on my body. Here […]
Paris-Worst, an Attempt at Paris-Brest
Once again I make a fool of myself with another “learning experience,” a.k.a: a failed Daring Bakers Challenge. Lots of laughter and approximately two and a half tears. It was all going so well. I made a break-through in my annals of praline, discovered the ribbon stage of an egg, and then—I blew it on […]
Moravian Kolaches for Theological Fermionic Bakers
This is the second time I have made kolache, but my first time ever working with quark outside of a particle physics context. Quark. I just love the word. So Anglo-Saxon, full of consonant and bark and spit. Seamus Heaney sort of gravel. The particle physicist who discovered and hence named the quark found the […]
Honeyed Fig Crostatas and the Post Call Ritual
Eventually I will detail how I made these delicious Honeyed Fig Crostatas, for Sourdough Surprises, my favorite online sourdough community, www.sourdoughsurprises.blogspot.com But first, I want to wrap my Medicine Sub-I in saran with a little discussion on the aftermath of call schedules. There is a wonderful thing in medicine called the “Post-call Ritual.” For some […]
Kurtoskalacs—Chimney Bread, or Dracula’s Esophagus
Confession, since it’s Sunday: I joined yet another baking community—The Daring Bakers. I admit to my higher power that I have lost control. This club appealed to my wild side, both with its title and the cartoons, a ninja cook and diva singing into a whisk on the website; I could not resist. The first […]
Kolache with Cream Cheese and Currants
This really could be the perfect weekend. It began with a bouquet of my favorite smells—which in itself was the undoing of what had been a slow passing of my least favorite smell: Izzy’s dumping her displeasure thrice around the house (once in my favorite grey suede boot!) to let us know she does not […]
Espresso Profiteroles
To celebrate my graduation, KP and I are taking a week together to drive around Colorado, create space to enjoy the sense of achievement before it tumbles down the mountainside to collect along the roadsides like any other run of the mill boulder. What better than a larger than life Scrabble game at Zephyr Mountain? […]
Pain Au Lait: Cream Cheese Snails
Woo hoo, all of the serious French breads in the book chapter I’m going through have been completed, only sweet, enriched breads and foo-foo pastries lay ahead until we get to Italy. This pain au lait (milk bread) is easy enough, similar to the pastry dough found in croissants or Danish pastries, except for the […]