but it’s the stopping that makes it fun…
* I call this “part 1” because it was so enjoyable, I’m bound to do it again.
** Forgive the rookie mistake of vertical video taking. Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea culpa.
…
I have seen you young.
I have seen you old.
I have seen you in love with someone else.
I have seen you hurt.
I have seen you laugh.
I have seen you rage, and weep, and crumble.
I have seen you win.
I have seen you steal.
I have seen you give without want.
I have seen you play.
I have seen you sleep.
I have seen you smile, and wonder, and pause.
We’re going to make some Irish Butter to put on that soda bread you made on Day 19.
It’s also rock-steady good on pancakes or buttermilk bread or cooked carrots or fingers (do not chew fingers).
Irish butter is typically not as salty as “American” butter, so you can either use an Irish Butter (like Kerrygold) or mix 4 Tablespoons of salted butter and 4 Tablespoons of unsalted butter together.
Let your butters come to room temperature and cream them with a mixer. Start it up on high and slowly drizzle 3 Tablespoons of the Raisin Whiskey Juice until it’s incorporated.
#1: If it’s in butter, it’s not considered alcohol and kids can eat it.
#2: While incorporating whiskey into butter and residual whiskey sloshes out of the mixer and sprays onto your forearms and cheek, it is perfectly acceptable to lick your wrists and bathe yourself like a cat to get the little drops off your face. (Counter licking is optional, but please, leave the spoon alone.)
This is best done with silicone ice cube trays. Just spoon heaps of butter into the cavities and scrape it off the top.
Chill until the butter is set, wrap in wax paper bundles,
and label with love.
I have made more loaves of Irish Soda Bread than I care to count (calorically speaking) in search of THE ONE. This is pretty close….
Take these:
and throw one cup of raisins into a half cup of whiskey, like this:
and let them sit for AT LEAST 30 minutes, OR you can leave them on your counter overnight to soak in the whiskey goodness.
In due time, strain the raisins and set them aside, but…VERY IMPORTANT!
Don’t start baking until your raisins are plumped.
Mix all your dry ingredients into the bowl and then plop the cold butter in 1/2” cubes onto the flour.
Now you’re going to “cut in” the butter, by pinching it between your fingertips while combining it to the flour. Pinching out the large clumps, it should look like this:
Then, plop your plumped raisins in:
and gently mix them until they’re all coated.
Add your buttermilk and combine until there is no dry flour.
This bread will only require a soft knead: basically fold the dough over onto itself about 8-10 times. It’s a’gonna be sticky!
Soft kneads are more easily done by scraping the dough up and over with a bench scraper (not pictured), a bowl scraper,
or a chef’s knife will do in a pinch.
Otherwise, roll up your sleeves and get to it. (You don’t want to know what my camera looked like when I was done with this post… I’m insured):
Mound your dough into a 6” dome onto a cookie sheet or baking stone. Slice a large X onto the top of your loaf to keep away the evil spirits. (Not making this up. I love the Irish.)
Check for doneness by inserting a metal skewer into the middle of the loaf (my mom always used a knife) and making sure it comes out clean. If it’s still wet inside, turn down your heat to prevent over-browning the crust and bake another 5-10 minutes.
Now, you can stop here and your bread will look like this*…
1. Set aside 3 Tablespoons of the Raisin Whiskey juice (that you saved, remember!?!?) and don’t touch it until tomorrow. Trust Me.
2. Put what remains (about 2 Tablespoons) into a small saucepan and heat it up until it boils and your bubbles start to pop rapidly. Watch it. You’ll see it thicken a bit. Pull it off the heat before it starts to blacken.
3. Brush the top of the loaf with the syrup and if you want to get REALLY fancy, sprinkle sugar on top. REALLY, REALLY fancy? make it Turbinado Sugar. Hmm. Look at you…
until she shines…
Oh! and come back tomorrow. We’re making Whisky Butter.
Yep.
*let your bread cool wrapped in a flour sack dish cloth. It will keep the crust from drying out but still allow the steam to escape and not make your bread soggy.
When I cannot find a note on my instrument, I close my eyes to hear it.
When I seek the center of a character, it comes in the cloister of backstage.
When I want to taste every flavor, I shut out all sensation past my tongue.
When I lose my sense of direction, I stop to see where shadows lie,
and thus discover the light.
“Because no man can ever feel his own identity aright except his eyes be closed, as if darkness were indeed the proper element of our essences, though light be more congenial to our clayey part.”
-Herman Melville, from Moby Dick
Sometimes, 547.5 days seem so far away I worry my heart could not possibly mend without going numb or falling asleep or forgetting what I learned or unfeeling what it felt so I remind myself that everything will someday be alright and even when the hurt hurts more than hurt should hurt, I know I’ll keep going because all the things that were hard in my past are now over and have colored who I am today, I think for the better, and so one must keep getting to the next day or even just to the next word, because some sentences are too long but eventually they end and you’re on to writing the next one.
I have had a protein shake for breakfast nearly every day for the last 5 years. The basic ingredients include: fruit, nut butter, coconut milk, protein powder, and GREENS.
Lots and lots o’greens.
And the worst protein shake there could ever be is the one made with stinky, green, slimy, sludge from a clamshell that was just purchased two days ago.
You know what I’m talking about:
I don’t even know what that is.
but I’m pretty sure it’s going to taste like this…
I bought the humongo bag of greens,
Blended the petunias out of ‘em and threw them in ice cube trays*,
and now have tasty Green Ice to make my shakes even colder.
*I recommend silicone trays so you can pop the cubes out more easily… Mine are from IKEA.
**Add water when blending, as needed.
I’ve become a mother eight times over. Three of my children were never born. Five of my children thrive. I’ve had a mother for all the days of my life and sometimes more than one at a time. I’ve watched my Grandmothers and have been in awe of their age, hearty laughs, and sober stares.
And when I pool our collective mothering together and reflect in that pond, I see two rules that seem to get the job done right:
Number One: HOLD ON.
Number Two: LET GO.
The trick is knowing when to employ which one…
I went to a play called “Little Wars,” written by Steven Carl McCasland. I am not a theater reviewer, nor is this an attempted play review. I am an audience member who is filled with gratitude that people can be honest enough to write, produce, direct, act, and convey the following with such sincerity that it left tears on my cheek and lungs without air.
I have often wondered what it would be like to be “normal”. I have questioned my sanity and searched for my “normalness” and I have stood in the yard with my hands clenched in fists yelling into the sky because even though I’m not sure there is a man in the sky, even though I’m not sure there is a God or a Higher Power or a Holy Spirit and even though I have questions, so many questions, who doesn’t have questions, I have stood in the yard with my hands clenched in fists yelling into the sky and asking why I was not “normal”!
But I have also often wondered, oh, I have wondered… if “normal” even exists…
and there I was in all my ugliness in all my rage in all my not normalness and I was looking at the sky when I should’ve been looking at myself.
This is a time that passes but it takes time like a stone in your kidney like a rock in your chest. In your heart. But when it passes when the time passes and you finally realize, it is oh so very normal oh so very quiet oh so very Yes. Yes. Yes.
(excerpts taken from the script)
Little Wars is produced by Prime Productions, directed by Shelli Place, and is currently playing at Mixed Blood Theatre
Sometimes necessity is the mother of invention. Other times, food that’s going to spoil makes this mother invent.
I went to get A Key lime. But I was at a huge, box store so I could only buy TEN Key limes. Needless to say, I had left over limes. I also had left over egg whites. So, I decided to take the two orphans under my baker’s wing before they gave us all salmonella, and concocted:
….yee-haw!
The beauty of this recipe: I think it would pair nicely with Tequila AND it will possibly cure you of scurvy.
Preheat your oven to 375º. Start by beating the lime juice, corn syrup, sweetened condensed milk, egg whites, vanilla and coconut extracts, and salt together until you have a nice little froth:
Add your coconut, lime zest, and flour, and mix.
Refrigerate the dough for 15-20 minutes before shaping.
While you’re waiting, pound the nuts. Macadamia nuts will turn to butter if you grind or food process, so stick to chopping (for larger chunks) or smashing (for a fine grain).
To smash the nuts, put the macadamias in a plastic bag like this,
get yourself a wooden spoon and smack the bag with the back of the spoon until the macadamias look like this:
Good. Now set the nuts aside and get your cookie sheets lined with parchment paper, take the cool dough out, and shape it into haystacks.
Put the macaroons in the oven, close the door, and reduce the heat to 350º. Bake at 350º for 20 minutes, switching the trays around half way through baking.
As soon as they come out of the oven, sprinkle a pinch of Pink Himalayan salt on the top:
After the cookies have cooled, melt your white chocolate in short bursts of microwave heat (15-20 seconds at a time),
stirring in between each nuke until it’s smooth:
set up a frosting station:
spread the white chocolate on the base of the cookie:
and press it into the crushed macadamias:
And rest the finished cookie on wax paper until the chocolate has set:
You are finished. Get the tequila…
*If I’d had it, I’d have used 3 1/3 cups sweetened shredded coconut and 2 cups unsweetened desiccated coconut for crunchier texture.
**coconut flour would be an alternative, if desired. The flour makes this cookie a little chewier. If you like a drier, crisper macaroon, use more unsweetened desiccated coconut in lieu of the flour.
(Translation? It means “Cheers! May you continue to live all the days of your life.”)