Tough Cookies Won't Crumble

DEAR TAYLOR THE GIRL SCOUT,

I see from your video you wish me to boycott Girl Scout Cookies this year.  Your video was very well made, and your speech was succinct.  As an American who believes in the strictest letter of Constitutional Freedom of Speech, I fully support your right to voice your opinion on this matter.  

Now I am voicing mine

And I might not be nice.  Because you seem to be a young woman, not a child, and appear to be indignant to point of excluding several important factors when considering your opinion, chief among them reason, humanity and compassion.

You are a terrible Girl Scout.  I know girls your age are very concerned about Rules and Fairness.  What the hell else do your parents hear about day and night?  “It’s not FAIR!!!”  

What is really not fair is to be born a person whose genetics placed them in a corporal body drastically out of step with their mind and spirit.  I have seen interviews with transgender individuals from ages 6 and up and not one of them casually or cavalierly gazed into the camera and stated they just did it for kicks.  They were born that way and get nothing but kicked.  Often.  Usually by people like you or the people incited to do so by your words of condemnation.

Even in the blessed instance where their transgender nature is obvious from an early age and a supportive family recognizes and celebrates them for who they are, these individuals have a long and rocky road before them until gender reassignment surgeries can be undertaken.  The first step is legal and social recognition

This means the parents have to subject their beloved child to a battery of psychological testing and petition to have the birth certificate changed to reflect their offspring’s true inner gender.  By this time the child has already dressed and presented socially as that other gender.  Sometimes it means simply changing the way they dress and coming up with a new name if they’re young enough, but mostly it means a painful and awkward series of changes-- at the least a new school, but sometimes moving the family to make a clean break.

Yah, this is sooo easy.  And to support their daughter--yes, their daughter-- as a girl, to affirm her nature and place her in a nurturing and educative environment with other girls, they sign her up with Girl Scouts.

OOOPS!  Sorry, I have it all wrong.  They just did it so their 7-year-old could jeopardize your safety.  So in ten years, when she is 17, and has already taken all the abuse you could not possibly imagine in your righteous little ivory tower, some other girl just like you could discover all this and raise the alarm because obviously the other poor kid’s lifelong plan was to take a kicking just long enough to sleep in the same tent with her.

Safety?  Safety????  I have also visited The Honest Girl Scout site you have affiliated with, where Girl Scouts are lambasted as Pro-Lesbian, Pro-Abortion, and, for some reason, Evil-y Pro-United Nations, among other things.  There are so many breathless hyper-link screeds on the front page alone, I cannot fathom what deeper danger lies beneath while the presenters still claim to be Girl Scouts.

The atmosphere this site seeks to create encroaches on the safety of those who are different from you.  It’s that simple. You have aligned yourself with misogynists and bigots.  It’s not FAIR.

As a Human, as an American, when that transgender child enters the world, they are one of Us.  Deserving of compassion, respect and equality under the law and as part of the social contract that binds us as a human society. As a Girl Scout, when that little transgender girl joins your troop, she is LEGALLY a female, and she becomes your sister. You should be standing up for each other.  When the rest of the school, the rest of the town, the rest of the world come to knock her down for being different in a way that is deeply painful, personal and was in no way her choice, your job is close ranks and defend her.

Instead you want her outed. Purged and smacked with the label “OUTCAST” so everyone knows she doesn’t belong on either side.  You poor, sad girl.  To defend your right to speak your mind I will stand up to anyone who says you should stay silent.  But when you come to knock that little girl down, you just watch.

I will stand in your way, I will take the kicks, I will give just as good.  You will see what a real woman does for her sisters, her daughters, her fellow humans.  I was never a Girl Scout but I can eat a cookie like a mofo.  I will buy every box I see and order more.  I have already spread the word to my friends on FaceBook, Google+ and Twitter.  You just watch.

That little girl is one sweet little cookie, but we are one bunch of tough cookies, and we will NOT crumble.

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Danger IS Her Middle Name

So my newest niece, daughter of my dearest friend, Jedi Jasmin, has made her debut.  

In accordance with the First Universal Law of Babies, we were five days out from Sharkbean Shower (which had just topped 40 attendees, lest she think she was not highly anticipated), and 3.5 weeks out from Release Date, when I read on Facebook yesterday morning J had heartburn.  Mhmmmm....


I still planned to go sort the cake.  I texted her about a detail.  She texted back "Busy, talk to you soon."

And so, with the greatest tearful squelchiness,  we welcome Little Miz Danger Knitmore to our family.  Here is her birthday cake:

It's literally the only birthday candle we have in our house.  Notice she only gets the good china. 

Also the much-tagged and annotated JOC in the background, cuz it's time to cook and box and fill the family fridge with easy-to-heat dinners. The menu:

Roasted Butternut Squash and Apple Soup

Meatloaf (Veal, Pork and Beef, Bacon on top)

Risotto (Mushroom and Pea with Tarragon)

Mac N Cheese

The delightful Madame Lisbèth, herself a new-ish Yummy Mummy is pitching in with her deeeelishus Pot Roast, cuz going to college and having a 9-month-old just ain't enough for her.  Like ever.  I never know how she does it, but she does it with artistry and style that goggles my brain.

So our Dr Seuss-ical Shower will rain another day-- the time for Snuggling and Squealing is Nigh.

To my dearly beloved friends, J & A, there are no words to express how happy we are that your hopes and dreams are made real in this tiny squiggly little person.

To Miz D:  Live up to your name.  Resist the Dark side.  Mostly.  Call me when you can't and I'll drive.  Then I'll never tell unless we get caught, and at my age I totally have plausible deniability so we're golden.  I cannot tell you in words how much your parents hoped and dreamed to have you, and how very much they love you more than anything in the universe. No matter where you are, no matter what you do, nothing will change that.  Ever.

Now go cause some Trouble.

Love, Auntie Laura

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FAIRY 2012: DUNGEONS AND FLAGONS OF JOY

Okay, people. As has been my only firm assertion of certainty in life, formulated a little over 10 years ago, the one thing I have come to rely on is the fact that whatsoever I may decree to be so, or possible, or myself capable or incapable of accomplishing; the Universal Force will nearly immediately, and with due prejudice, slap me in the face with it and prove me wrong.  Or foolishly over assertive, under-considered and, perhaps, lacking finesse and tact.

But it is grossly unfair to employ GingerMan in it’s disapprobation.  Yet equally heartwarming the number of persons engaged to steer me toward my first ever Statement of Resolution which, you may recall from the other day, I said I never do. Smack!

First, My Transgression: 

In the course of beginning this blog, I may have, at the expense of other perfectly fine and useful cookbooks, extolled the heavenly virtues of my beloved Joy of Cooking 2006 Anniversary Edition.  I might have snooted, just a bit, at the lovely Marion Cunningham and the equally beloved Fanny Farmer cookbook.  The fact is, I snoot and snark quite a bit about, well...

Too many things to account for.  My inner Old Man, Bern, grows crustier by the year and I fear I may do less to mask his bilious outpourings at times.  In the Interwebic Universe, however, I am often both a Refined Genius and Gentle Angel of Compassion. Step into Reddit.com’s giddily adolescent chat rooms, anywhere on Fark.com or Ars Technica, even lovely crafty communities which shall remain nameless but whose boards contain the same veiled snipes, condescension, and haughtiness.

Thus, I had to laugh till I wet my ducky pajama pants when GM sent me this link, a pastiche of what would surely be the role-playing game community’s ‘expertly’ affected examination of a JOC-type cookbook: “Killjoy Cooking With the Dungeons and Dragons Crowd” http://www.wired.com/culture/lifestyle/commentary/alttext/2008/06/alttext_0618 . ‘Scuze me, hafta go dry the tears, I may have just cracked a rib laughing.

Where’s the Joy??

As discussed last time, it’s time to grab it like a bad-ass and run with it, SOOOOOOOO, LADIES AND JELLYSPOONS, I PRESENT YOU WITH, FOR THE VERY FIRST TIME EVER ON STAGE, SCREEN OR INTERWEBS......

FAIRY 2012: LICK THE SPOON!




And in that spirit, MORE CAKE!  CHOCOLATE CAKE! TWO WAYS!

From Joy Of Cooking, you will need TWO (2) Recipes of COCOA DEVIL’S FOOD CAKE, pg 718.  


NOTE:  This recipe brings up an interesting lesson about cocoa powders.  You may have noted, when shopping, that there is often a choice of “Cocoa Powder” and “Dutch(ed) Cocoa Powder”.  From JOC pp. 969-970 (in the section “Know Your Ingredients”), we learn Cocoa Powder is chocolate “...pulverized and partially defatted...”, processed to it’s dry state.  


Harold McGee, in On Food and Cooking (pg. 557, pg.705) describes the journey of solid cacao bean to powder to arrive at this, the most concentrated essence of chocolate flavor, then the further processing required to achieve Dutch(ed) cocoa by neutralizing the acidity.  Due to this alkalinization, Dutched will react differently in baking recipes where Chemistry Matters.  


This recipe calls for “Non-Alkalized Cocoa Powder”, so what you are shopping for is “Regular”, “Natural” or just plain “Cocoa” powder.  No “Dutch(ed)”, and of course, ensure it’s not sweetened drinking cocoa of any sort.

ROUND ONE:

COCOA JAMMY CAKE

Make one recipe, using two (2) 9-inch round layers.  I used buttermilk and used the 1 tsp vanilla as well as 1tsp almond extract. Yummy. I used no other additions in this recipe, instead treating it as a chocolatey version of a Victoria Sponge, a British classic involving two layers of cake with jam in the middle and whipped cream on top.  For the jam I used my own CRANBERRY-GINGER JAM.  Cranberries are very special fruits which contain enough pectin, a natural gelling agent, to create their own jam with very little prodding!  Prod them a bit anyway, they're really fun when they start to pop...

CRANBERRY-GINGER JAM

INGREDIENTS:

1- 16-oz bag Fresh Cranberries- Can be frozen, does not matter in the least, will merely take slightly longer on the stove.

SPICY, SWEET CANDY LOVE!

1/2 Cup Candied or Preserved Ginger (not plain dried, this stuff is soft and so chewable you can snack on it.  Whole Foods has it bagged as well as bulk, Trader Joe’s often has it in bags with the dried fruits and nuts, or it’s available from Penzeys Spices 

in-store or online)

3 Tbs Orange Juice

1 Tbs Orange Zest

2 Tbs Lemon Juice

1 Tbs Lemon Zest

1 tsp Kosher Salt

2/3 Cup White Sugar

1/3 Cup Honey
1 tsp Cinnamon
.5 tsp Ground Star Anise (optional)

INSTRUCTIONS:

*LARGE SAUCPAN

*MEDIUM HEAT

*TIME: 20-25 MINUTES

1. Toss everything into a large saucepot.  You want plenty of head-room as this basically becomes Culinary Napalm.  

2. Cook over Medium Heat. Stir gently and thoroughly every 4-5 minutes, JUST UNTIL it resembles slightly runny jam.  

3. TASTE IT after the first five minutes and see where the sweetness is going.  At this point the cranberries are bursting and the sour factor is coming into play.  What you thought was an out-RAAAAGE-yus amount of sugar is, in fact, barely enough to counteract the berries.  Taste again at ten minutes.

4. It should coat the spoon very well and feel quite thick as you stir but in no way be stiff or pasty, it WILL tighten up as it cools and you need to spread this on the cake.

5. Place bottom cake layer on a nice plate, spread jam liberally and thickly over top of layer, leaving 1/4-inch margin all round the edge.

6. Apply second layer of cake and allow it to settle.  Do not press down or squash, just let the layers get their Snuggle on.

7. Just before serving you may spread whipped cream evenly over the top layer or serve it on the side if you wish.  Ice creams of every description are also divine and leaving it plain is the very definition of Simplicity as Elegance.

 ROUND TWO:

CRANBERRY-NUT CHOCOLATE BUNDT

INGREDIENTS:

1- Chocolate cake recipe batter in bowl

1 Cup Chopped Nuts-Walnuts or Pecans are best, no need to toast beforehand.

1- Bag Fresh Cranberries

1 tsp Orange Extract *in addition to vanilla called for in recipe

1/8 tsp Ground Cardamom

1 Tbs Dry Minced Orange Peel
Several shaves of Fresh Nutmeg, OR
1/4 tsp Ground Nutmeg
2 tsp Ground Cinnamon
1/2 tsp Ground Star Anise (optional, some people don't like the licorice-ness)

*OPTIONAL: ADD OR TRADE WITH CRANBERRIES AND NUTS

1/2 Cup Chopped Candied/Preserved Ginger

1- to 1.5 Cups Semi-Sweet to Dark Chocolate Chips or Chunks of your choice.

INSTRUCTIONS:

*Again, prepare one recipe COCOA DEVIL’S FOOD CAKE, JOC pg. 718.  Use Tube Pan instructions. LEAVE BATTER IN BOWL

*PREHEAT OVEN TO 350 DEGREES FAHRENHEIT 

*LUBE AND FLOUR TUBE OR BUNDT PAN

*TIME: 45-55 MINUTES

CAKE WALTZ:  PREP, DRY, WET, MIX!

1. Add Nuts through Dry Minced Orange Peel and/or Optional Stuff into Batter and mix gently with rubber spatula.  

2. Pour into Tube/Bundt Pan and bake according to instructions.

3. Serves best with a simple glaze (see pg. 796) if ya wanna, or just lots and lots of whipped cream and ice cream.

SOOOOOO... Here’s to 2012, to health and happiness, and, come to think of it, don’t stop at the spoon--

LICK THE BOWL AND THE BEATER TOO!  HAPPY NEW YEAR!

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JOY 2012

Joy of 2012

So many of my friends and fellow bloggers have long-standing annual resolution traditions. Jedi Jasmin’s Jasmin 2012 is her latest iteration and she is a rare individual who crafts these ideas and finds it interesting to live by, in and around them throughout the year.

I can’t seem to do that.  Years seems so long, and yet so blindingly short.  I committed to GingerMan 10 years ago, but for some reason this seems without the bounds of the discussion, for two main reasons.

1) 2001 was CLEARLY only 5 minutes ago.

2) Marrying him didn’t so much seem a commitment or huge undertaking or...I don’t know what... any of the things people usually describe it as in books or essays and columns.  It was more just, ummmmm...uploading to The Cloud.  The Us Cloud.  Like it was always there and always would be and that was just sort of it.  I cannot remember a moment where I seriously had to consider if he was The One.  The Cake was No Lie. (It was three tier and deeleeeshus).

My life has always been about catching up, jumping in the middle, trying to get my bearings in a mess of crazy, and The Mindfulness Project this fall has been a breakthrough.  So no Fairy 2012, unless I find some truly unusual inspiration. And because it’s a Tuesday, and still a couple weeks out from Xmas, it's generally just in the middle of everything so I give you my gift of wisdom now:

> ALWAYS lick the spoon

> Eat your dinner.  Feed yourself to love yourself.

> You may Resolve, Schedule and Organise, but Life may Smack You Upside the Head anyway.  Live in it, around it and through it because you will be stronger.  Love yourself for that.  

I do.

Now here’s some cake!

This is the Magic Persimmon Cake.  Because I used to make this with my grandparents at their house, which had a persimmon tree, which I had never seen before in my life, and persimmons are Magically Delicious.  This is The Only Fruitcake I Will Ever Love.  This recipe calls for the flat, jovial-looking Fuyu persimmons.

INGREDIENTS:

-3 Cups Persimmons:  Peeled, chopped small

-2 tsp Baking Soda

-1/2 Cup Butter (Zoh. Mah. Lawd.  This calls for Margarine. DON’T DO IT)

-1 2/3 Cup White Sugar (Actually, this could probably be very good with raw crystalized sugar, just not regular brown sugar--I tried once and it changed the flavor)

-2 Eggs

-2 tsp Lemon Juice

-2 tsp Vanilla

-2 Cups Unsifted All-Purpose Flour

-1 tsp Baking Powder

-1 tsp Salt

-1 tsp Ground Cloves

-1 tsp Ground Cinnamon 

-1/2 tsp Ground Nutmeg

-1/2 tsp Ground Star Anise (Optional-this is a life-long favorite and reminds me of Grandma’s kitchen.  Some people don’t like it’s licorice-y-ness)

--OPTIONAL ADD-INS:  3/4 Cup of Walnuts, Pecans, Raisins, Currants or Chocolate Chips.

INSTRUCTIONS:

*PREHEAT OVEN: 350 DEGREES FARENHEIT

*LUBE AND FLOUR A TUBE OR BUNDT PAN

*TIME:  55-60 MINUTES


1. Peel the fruit like an apple.  The green tops will often twist right off or cut out if you angle a paring knife at an angle right under it and turn THE FRUIT, not the knife, and it will pop off as there is really no stem going deep into the middle.  

2. Cut into quarters, lay the quarters onto one side, then make an angled cut to remove the center fibrous bit.  Again, there is really no big core with pips so there is little, if anything to remove.






3. Continue to chop the fruit into fairly small bits.  The point is you don’t want big chunks in the cake, so use your judgement.  When finished, add the 2 tsp Baking Soda and mix thoroughly.

4. PREP:  In a large separate bowl, blend together the  2 Cups Flour, 1 tsp Baking Powder, 1 tsp each of Salt, Cloves and Cinnamon and 1/2 tsp each of Nutmeg and Star Anise.  Set Aside.


5. At your mixer, you will employ The Creaming Method, i.e. whipping up the fat all fluffy-like, then adding in the sugar and whipping till it’s all light and airy.  So toss the Butter and Sugar into the bowl and beat on medium for a few minutes until creamy and light looking. 

5. Lower the speed all the way down to Add 2 Eggs, 2 tsp Lemon Juice and 2 tsp Vanilla to the bowl-- this prevents Eggy Armageddon--then raise the speed back to medium and keep keep beating till everything is fluffy.




6. Stop the mixer, add in the Persimmon Mixture, then mix on the lowest setting for *just* 2 minutes.








7. Employ the Muffin Method:  Pour the wet stuff into the large bowl of dry stuff and mix gingerly until it is all only just well-incorporated.  Don’t overdo it.

YUM-IN-POTENTIA

8. Pour into your waiting cake pan and place in oven for 55-60 minutes.  Use a skewer, toothpick or, in a pinch, a slim steak knife or paring knife to test the cake by poking into the middle of the cake- away from the sides.  When it comes out clean, or with just a few crumbs on it, your are DONE!

9. Set the finished cake, in the pan, on a wire rack to cool for 15 minutes.  Jiggle the pan  and watch the cake loosen from the sides.  If it seems a bit set, use a smooth-blade knife to gently loosen the sides.  Then place a wire rack face-down on top of the pan. 

 Hold the rim of the cake pan to the rack, turn the whole thing over, then jiggle a bit more and the cake should come to rest on the rack.

 

Place a plate on top of what will be the bottom of the cake, then flip that bad baby! Voilà!

Sauce:  Any kind of sauce or icing will do with this, as the cake is dense enough to take anything.  I do about 2 cups Sour Cream plus 1.5 Fat Tbs Powdered Sugar plus 1 Tbs Orange Juice, whisked together and served to spoon over as desired.

Happy Christmas!!!

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HIGH ON POT (ROAST)

In the spirit of freezin’ mah arse off, I’ve continued my Winter Dinner Campaign, which, after conquering Roasted Tomato Soup and Roasted Squash Soup, I added Pot Roast and decided it was a formal endeavor. There will be points and a possible badge in the offing.

A few weeks ago, GingerMan’s favorite uncle passed away after a long term with prostate cancer, necessitating a quick trip to Belfast, NI.  I stayed behind due to work and the fact I can’t travel 5 time zones both ways in 4 days without losing my mind.  Jedi Jasmin invited me for dinner that Saturday night and served a meal theretofore forgotten to me and her hunky squeeze, the inimitable A.: Pot Roast. Paradise Reclaimed.

Two days later, having the day of Ginger’s return free, I reached for my Joy.  

What a lovely phrase.

Reach for your Joy.  No matter the circumstance, no matter the drastic event that has befallen you, for comfort, for sustenance, reach for your Joy.  No matter the depths this Seasonal Affective BS has dragged me to, cooking has somehow seemed my small triumph.  Food in the fridge, victory in the mental bank.  I picked the man up and we returned to a home redolent of comfort.

Our reading today comes from page 477 of the 2006 Joy of Cooking.  Actually, let’s back up the bus and refer to page 466,  where full discourse is given to different cuts suitable to Pot Roasting, Stewing and Braising Meat.  If you are Crock Pottin’ this sucker, time-travel to page 99 for recipe conversion information.  See?  Knowledge is Joy! Raaa-men.

Your next consideration after Procurement is obviously Soundtrack.  Today is 80’s Classic Hits, including Supertramp, Billy Joel, Duran Duran and Journey.  If you think "Don’t Stop Believin’" is an auto-tuned ditty sung by high-school be-boppers, stop here and hit iTunes right now. Search Journey.  Download "Don’t Stop", "Any Way You Want It", "Lights" (an ode to San Francisco) and "Separate Ways".  It’s Music for Red Meat.  And don’t forget the Scorpions. Rock your Chuck Roast like a Hurricane!

The recipe gives exact directions for pan/ dutch oven procedures. Follow those exactly, and if you have cast iron, this is the precise moment to employ it. I crock pot it.  If you haven’t given yourself this gift yet, DOOOO EEET!  I cannot express to you just how tender and gorgeous this formerly tough, chewy hunk of meat becomes after 8 hours on high--8 hours of cooking you do not have to be present for.  

Okay, start by reading through all the instructions.  Pull out all your aromatics.  I go for onion, garlic, carrot and leek. Pro Tip for onion cutting: do it last (duh), dump in a bowl and cover with a cold, wet paper towel.  This occurred to me as a naval recruit immediately after stepping out of the teargas chamber. As it was Illinois in February, we had had to wait days for this training exercise because cold wet air disperses the gas. 

Wage war on the bulb with Brawny.

Put them in bowls so they are handy when you have the hot pan going.  

 

This is called Mis-En-Place, basically meaning everything in place, ready to go. I mix kosher salt and freshly ground pepper in a small bowl ready for rubbing on the meat.  I also mix my spices.  This go-round I’m experimenting with Penzeys Spices Forward! seasoning.  It’s like their seasoned salt, but without the salt, so I can control the amount the overall dish has.  

As Usual, I'm Smokey, Hot and Saucy

It’s made up of black pepper, onion and garlic powder, celery extract, paprika and a good amount of tumeric. Lovely, earthy, and evah-so-slightly hot but not overly so.  I add smoked paprika to nearly everything in the universe and the recipe calls for the traditional bay leaves that grace every soup and stew.

Oh, the hot pan?  Yes, this is the secret to successful Crock Potting.  Building flavor with a quick trip to the stovetop.  So a little oil in the pan and the aromatics hop in till soft.  I like to leave the leeks and carrots in a tiny bit longer for a bit of color, so I do these as a second batch and they all go in the crock as a nest for the hunk o’ beast. 

I like to deglaze the pan with some red wine and pour that in, then re-oil the pan liberally for the main event.

A word about The Taming of the Beasties.  

Warm up yer meat.  Take it out of the fridge before cooking, and if frozen, defrost in the fridge first.  Why?  No-one likes hopping from the A/C to the hot, mean streets, my friends.  We don’t and neither does our dinner, so give it a fighting chance or it will tend to seize up in an interesting and unattractive way.  It will also cook very, very unevenly.  Think spa treatment and everyone will be happier. Salt and pepper, pat lightly on all sides, and let it relax for a while.

Place the meat in the hot, oiled pan, then just leave it alone.  Sear it for color.  Sear it for flavor.  You will not be searing it to “seal in the juices”, as this is a myth.  Science has shown that this is not true, that the same amount of fluid is lost from seared meat as from meat placed directly in the long-term cooking vessel.  


But hummm-daddy, that Maillard Reaction, the gorgeous browning that imparts the incomparable flavor to seared meat will add that lip-smackin’ somethin’ special to your final dish.  You will need to turn the beastie, 5 minute per flat side, then use your tongs to hold it on the two long sides for a few minutes per. 

Voooy-ola!  Now just lay it on the bed of aromatics, deglaze the pan again and pour it over the meat.  

Pour in the requisite amount of liquid (I mix red wine and beef stock), place the crock in the machine, program and LEAVE IT!

BWOOOOHAHAHAHA!!!!!  Serious cooking, 1/2 hour of prep!

And that’s how I do (crock) pot.

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