Strange Signs of Spring and Red Velvet Cupcakes

At work the other day, the tree outside my window all of a sudden became full with fat, feathery robins.

"Look, look!" I exclaim to my coworkers. "Robins are here! Spring is coming!"

They just looked at each other and laughed. I guess every single day I'm going to say something that sounds like common sense and learn that over here, it is pretty much the opposite. 

"Where do you think the robins were back in December?"

I don't know where they went, but I'm pretty sure they weren't around here. I mean, I think I would know. I watch out for birds a lot. But I didn't say anything.

"Come here. Let me show you something." Now my self-doubt has moved to full on coworker-skepticism, but I follow him into the office next door. He points to a tree full of red berries. "You see that tree? When spring is REALLY coming, all the robins will start eating the berries off that tree. They aren't eating them now, because the berries aren't ready. They need to be fermented to a certain degree. The robins eat them, get drunk, and lay around on the ground. THAT'S when you know spring is coming."

"So you're telling me that seeing robins alone is not an indication of spring, its a group of robins getting collectively drunk."

"Yes."

I was fairly certain he had made the whole thing up when wouldn't you know it, a day or two later the woman from the next office -- who wasn't there the day of our discussion-- shouts out: "They're eating the berries! They're doing it!"

I guess it's really going to take at least a full year before I can start to understand the strange norms and traditions of the Palouse. Also, I'm less inclined to believe them now that it's been snowing for the past 14 hours.

Anyway, I like hanging out with the girls in Rob's program because they all come from seemingly more normal places and can understand the adjustments it takes to live out here. So when it was a new friend's birthday, obviously I felt inclined to make some cupcakes, something way better than what you can get at the town's only bakery, Sweet Mutiny. 

I did some research into what would make the perfect red velvet cupcake. I wanted a recipe that had a good technique for making that bright red color. I liked the idea of making a paste from cocoa powder, vanilla extract and red food coloring to get the chocolate nice and bright before adding red to an already-chocolatey-brown cake batter. Only a scant amount of white vinegar. Buttermilk was fine, but I'd have to make my own with lemon juice and milk. No other weird ingredients aside from the sugar, eggs, flour basics. I decided on this recipe from Brown Eyed Baker, which came out great. 

As for the frosting, I didn't want the cream cheese kind. I read that the real traditional frosting for red velvet cakes were "cooked", but I didn't know what that meant. So a little further investigation proved that indeed, you cook down milk and flour into a non-buttery roux, cool it completely and add it to a whipped butter-sugar mixture. It's alluring because it winds up super fluffy, like whipped cream, and only slightly sweet, as the milk/flour tempers that pure sweet flavor of regular icing. I went with this recipe because I liked the pictures and the step-by-step instructions, which I needed because I was doing this on my lunch break and needed these done stat.

Anyway, I sort of botched this whole thing because after one batch of cupcakes I realized I'd need to make another, but I didn't think I had any more red food coloring, so I made them regular. Of course I found more red food coloring tucked away a few days later. And as for the frosting, all my butter was frozen, and I'm not the best at defrosting the proper way. So the consistency was all wrong. But boy I know the potential is there. 

Don't let my semi-failure deter you and try this cake+frosting combination out! Because regardless of what the drunk robins are telling you, spring's not here and bikini diets can wait.

Snowy Befuddlements and Homemade Candles

I know I've already done that blog post ranting about how bad the roads are here in the winter. But the winter's still not over and I'm still not done complaining about it.

"You made it!" They might say when I huff into the office in the morning, looking like an angry Eskimo wrapped in way more winter gear than anyone else. "Yeah," I'd grunt. "I'm a little late because I got stuck behind a zamboni on my way here." They'll look at me funny because they don't quite get my humor yet, and I don't make it any easier by not smiling.

Obviously, there is no street-zamboni. But after it snows and melts a little and then freezes again, the roads are about as slippery as the skating rink I could never stay upright on as a teenager. And when everyone lives on a steep hill, they close down the super steep ones and you just have to pray your way down the lesser -- but still very scary -- ski jump of a neighborhood road.

Last week I learned that it's not even safe to leave the parking lot for lunch! Because they don't shovel or salt the parking lot. Well, they don't salt ANYTHING, because salt might ruin the crops in the springtime, and we can't risk not having wheat or garbanzos come spring! We must risk every human life in favor of a few more legumes, lest the Lentil Festival become just another lackluster day! But I digress, the parking lot was iced to this fun degree where the harder you break the faster you move forward? So as I'm barreling towards the road there is, of course, a very unaware pedestrian walking down the sidewalk, minding his own business, maybe playing with his phone, maybe looking at his shoes.

And I can't stop!

BEEP BEEP BEEEEP.

Frantically tapping on the horn is all I can think of to do, since the whole pumping-the-brakes thing doesn't seem to stick.

He hops out of the way just in time, and my car brushes his side on his warpath back to the street. I gain control of the car and check my rear view mirror. He's waving me on as if to say, I'm fine, this happens every day, don't worry about me. Kind of like the British guy in European Vacation who acts like everything's kosher even though blood is spurting out of his wrist. In England and in Pullman, before all else, you gotta be polite. 

The whole townwide and collegewide refusal to handle snow here will probably never stop baffling me.

But to prove I'm not all moans and groans, here's a fun soy candle recipe to try! Because if you're not a fan of ice, might as well make a little fire.

HOW TO MAKE SOY CANDLES

You'll need:

• Soy chips
• Thermometer
• Essential Oil
• Wicks
• Jars

Put jars in the oven at 125 degrees to pre-heat them. I like squat mason jars.

 
Set up a double boiler. Pour in the soy chips into the bowl and stir as they melt. I've found that measuring or weighing gets confusing, and who has time for that anyway? So instead, use the jar or container as a measuring cup and multiply by about four (so four jars of soy chips would equal about one jar of melted wax). Better to overestimate than underestimate. You can always put the extra wax in tea light candles, if you have those laying around.

Melt the wax to 185 degrees. In that time, the wax will go from melted and soapy, to clear with dollops of cloudiness, to straight up clear liquid. It's all normal.

Now turn off the heat! And take the bowl off the double boiler to bring it back down to temperature quicker. Now is when you want to add your essential oil. They usually say about an ounce of fragrance per pound of wax, but if you ask me, that's not enough! Pour that stuff in with a confident and steady hand. Some of it will evaporate anyway, even though you aren't still heating the wax. I used orange, which doesn't have the medicinal stink of teatree or eucalyptus. 

Wait til you're down to 125 before you pour wax into the pre-heated jars. Stick the wicks in. It's hard to keep them centered, but before you buy something dumb like a wick bar, just place scissors and pens and other miscellany around them to keep them in place. 

Let dry overnight, and hurray! A little ray of light to keep you warm until spring. Just make sure you cut down the wick so you don't burn the house down.

Stay tuned! Your favorite Brooklynite-turned-Pullmanite might try cheesemaking next.


*If you noticed that I was going for four candles and only had enough wax for three, maybe you'll remember why I said its best to overestimate a tad.

Brunch in Spokane

If there's anything I need to really stress about living here, it is this: It is REALLY tough to be a food-loving transplant living in Pullman. All the Chinese restaurants here in Pullman are oversauced and undersalted, the Thai places mess up on balance, even the simple sandwich places slog through with underwhelming deli meat (which, considering the lack of decent meat around here, isn't entirely their fault, I guess). I've been getting better at cooking at home and it's certainly become more natural. 

But I miss brunch. I miss that big heavy meal that I eat early in the day to fuel the shopping and running around that lies ahead on the weekends.

Thank God that Spokane is only about an hour and a half away, a drive that seems to get shorter and more reasonable the longer I live here. I'm starting to understand that time is a totally different thing out here in the middle of nowhere. I'm reading Stephen Hawking's A Brief History of Time right now and maybe I can explain it soon. But for now, all I can say is that having restaurant eggs less than two hours away is suddenly not unreasonable.

The other weekend we finally made it to Sante, one of the more highly recommended restaurants in the Spokane area. It's as close to Brooklyn as it can be with its nose-to-tail, farm-to-table approach to food. Everything we got was heavy and creamy and made us just a liiiittle too slow for me to make it back for my gym class in time, which was just fine with me. 

We started with a latte and a mocha. The caffeinated indulgence necessary to any decent brunch.

Then we got a shared a heavenly gnocci dish with guanciale, sweet potato and sage. The creamy sauce made it even more disgustingly delicious.

I had a benedict of some sort, which despite the presence of another heavy topping in the hollandaise, was much welcomed after a canned hollandaise at the (sadly much-loved) Breakfast Club in Moscow the weekend or so before. Rob had some kind of shirred eggs which were really tasty but also strangely fishy considering they didn't list anything seafoody on the menu. Hrmm.

Well, it was like old times again, heading off from brunch and walking straight for some shopping, albeit in a mall and not Bedford or the Brooklyn flea. It was better for the wedding shopping we needed to do, anyway.

Before heading home we did a crazy free-for-all spree at Trader Joe's, as we usually do when we're in Spokane. It always seems indulgent at the time, but I thank myself weeks and weeks later as I'm making awesome berry smoothies or snacking on vanilla bean flecked yogurt or reheating frozen pizza when we're in a pinch. And this time we've discovered something amazing, thanks to a tipoff from some Pullmanite friends: Trader Joe's frozen chocolate and almond croissants! Look how they puff up overnight and then bake into buttery perfection!

This morning we noshed on these puppies as we perused online stores for registry items in our PJs. Not quite as good as a brunch/shopping weekend in Spokane, but pretty close.

From Bumpkin to Brooklynite and Back Again

The first trip back to NYC after a long absence was a funny experience. In some ways it was like I hadn't left at all. I'd picked up right where I'd left off and was back to speedwalking and running for trains and just riding the energy of the city. And then I'd realize that my bed was on the other side of the country and my Brooklyn apartment belonged to someone else now and it stung my heart. But then I'd sip a fantastic mocha and feel blissed out all over again. It's a confusing thing to feel like you're right where you belong and yet not really have a place there anymore. I kept saying it's a good thing I have a dog back in Pullman waiting for me or else I might never go back.

Because c'mon, how could I ever abandon this face.

Well, feelings of belonging and confusion and whatever else aside, I got to fill up on some great food while I was back in the city. I'd been deprived of so much -- bagels, oysters! -- for months, that the things I loved when I had them every day were appreciated so, so much more.

There was the spicy bowl of Akamaru Modern at Ippudo, with a seasoned soft boiled egg that added creaminess to the bone warming bites of thin noodles and fatty pork. The spicy soppressata sandwich from Faicco's with fresh mozzarella and artichokes, and the BLT from Murray's with burrata cheese and bacon that we're pretty sure was fried in butter. Around the corner I had my favorite dish at Annisa, the miso sable with silken tofu in a bonito broth brimming with roe. In the mornings I alternated chocolate croissants with almond croissants and a cup of Stumptown coffee with plenty of cream. At Bagelsmith, I alternated smearing fresh bagels -- egg sesame, pumpernickel --  with jalepeno cheddar cream cheese and hot butter.

At Sripraphai, I piled crispy basil pork onto coconut rice, crunching the porky shards into the sweet scented rice. At Cull & Pistol and of course at Maison Premier, I threw back freshly shucked oysters with tiny squeezes of lemon, keeping the shells level with salty liquid while the tiny fork did its job. I bit into a perfectly greasy double cheeseburger at Shake Shack and had a celebratory New Years waffle from the Waffles & Dinges truck parked in Forest Hills. 

In Jackson Heights, I had Nepalese food in the middle of a blizzard, warming up with some spicy chickpeas and beef dumplings. Another night I joined the vegetarians for dosas and spicy soup. In Long Island City, I savored the French trifecta of crepe: Swiss, ham, egg on top.

As I toured the city for my familiar favorites and sought out new specialties, I realized how lucky I was to have at my disposal the array of all types of cuisines, low end to high end, fast food to slow dine to elbowing at the bar. I immersed myself in it and tried to forget that the Thai and Chinese restaurants in Pullman aren't even sort of palatable.

I had a nice high end lunch with my family at Union Square Cafe and indulged in hours of omakase at Momo Sushi Shack. I got a ceremonious hug from Phil, the owner, and Rob got a print of Phil one on of his travels. 

I miss the randomness. I think it fed my creativity. Now I have to rely on endorphins from Jillian Michaels videos.

Anyway, this being New York, I had to stay on top of what's new and visit a highly recommended small plates spot in Nolita, Pearl & Ash. 

I really have missed the whole experience of dining out on a Friday night. Making a last minute reservation, rushing the train to get there on time, sliding across the sidewalk and trying not to get sidetracked by glorious things in windows -- like chocolately rice pudding at Rice to Riches. I miss taking in new atmospheres and people watching and overhearing ridiculous things that boys say to girls on dates because we're all squeezed into our tables shoulder to shoulder.

I didn't take many pictures while I was in the city, but I couldn't help snapping a few crappy iPhone pics when each new dish came. It's old habit, I guess.

Ahh. New flavors. Exotic ingredients. One plate after another of eyes-rolling-back-in-your-head bites. 

From top left:

Fluke crudo with cucumber -- a nice palate cleansing start

Dessert of blood orange, pistachio and graham cracker -- so much more than the sum of its parts. 

Diver scallop with green tomatillo and crispy corn nuts on a creamy white sauce... revelatory.

The BEST crispy sweetbread I've ever had, warm and crunchy with sherry and heart of palm.

Not shown: 
lamb belly with black garlic, gamey and fatty
cod as soft and mild as butter, colored by Thai flavors: coconut, Thai basil, lemongrass
butternut squash with mascarpone

Long story short, it was great to be back. It fed my desire for new things and familiar things simultaneously. Seeing old friends and joining them for brunch and beers and other normal things helped remind me that I'll still have a place in Brooklyn when I get home, and that I can jump back into things pretty easily.

For now, I'm back to homecooked meals and liver cleanse tea and couch snuggling with the above mentioned pooch. I think I'll be okay for another six months.

We Made it to December/Pullman Sucks in Winter

I know it shows a total lack of continuity to go from a happy post about flower picking to an unhappy post about cold and snow, but hey, this is my blog and there are no rules here. 

December has arrived and I feel like we deserve pats on the back for making it through our first six months in a wildly new environment. I was just starting to feel comfortable and well-adjusted and into a swing of things when boom! Here comes winter and I feel homesick for my people. East coasters that say "soda" instead of "pop" and know the value of a good sandwich and don't say things like "12 degrees is pretty warm" and define common sense in more or less the same terms. 

So here's the thing about Pullman: everyone knows each other. Everyone loves each other. Everyone goes to church and praises Jesus and sings in the choir. So can someone please explain to me why it's okay to leave 3 inches of snow on the ground, and not plow it, and let it get compacted and icy and let everyone slide around on these roller coaster-like hills that everyone lives on? 

I guess I'd understand if it was a town where everyone hated each other, but I mean, a single mother skidded on the "highway" (they call it a highway) going towards Moscow and was killed and everyone knew her of course so they all went to the funeral today and how is no one but me really upset that they don't bother to plow the roads?!

It kind of surprises me how much this infuriates me, but this kind of thing is so unnecessary and preventable. But when I mention how this is how things should be done, I get called a wimp and a New York snob and I guess if that's what common sense makes me, then so be it.

In the meantime I'm driving as slowly and carefully as I can, which is not easy on this really steep hill we live on, and it's literally under 10 degrees every morning which does not make the icy any less slippery. I'm following some Pullmanite advice to "tap gently as though an egg is under your brakes" and trying not to make an omelette of a disaster of my life. I refuse to let this winter kill me. Refuse to! But last time I gave myself an internal pep talk I was mid death defiance and took a pretty hard tumble in the parking lot. It was a church parking lot. The whole thing was so icy it could have been a skating rink. C'mon, pastor! Or minister, or whoever. This is straight up sinful neglect. And my ankle hurts.

And again! I slid pretty hard in my car on the turn up the hill towards home yesterday. The oncoming car blared at me, and I gained control and sped out of the way just in time. I was pretty shook up and was ready to have a full-on meltdown in the carport but then I saw Christmas presents from the future in-laws on the porch and decided to put meltdown on hold and get a Christmas tree instead. Yay holidays?

Every year, me and lots of other adults have a hard time feeling "Christmassy" and getting into the spirit, but it's going to come a lot easier for me this year. I have the anticipation of going home and finally seeing my family and friends. I haven't been to Connecticut since May, and that visit doesn't even count because it was for my grandmother's funeral, and how is that even possible I haven't been home since then? I've been across America since my last hometown trip and deserve a warm reunion with family and friends and puppies and babies. And to get there on roads that are not slicked with ice from last week's snowfall.  

Amen.

My New Flower Hobby and Anti-Florist Rant

Hobbies are not my things. They never have been. I'm not crafty and I don't have a long attention span. Plus, I have this problem of doing things for the sake of themselves. 

But now things are different. I have a ton of free time on my hands and I get antsy to do something other than housework and job hunting. And I'm trying to plan a wedding on a big question mark of a budget, which lends itself to all questions of DIY.

Everyone thinks I'm nuts that I started thinking about doing my own wedding flowers. But they weren't there for the multiple cross-country florist phone calls and tears of frustration and floral quotes about three times as much as I was hoping to pay. They're flowers! They grow out of the ground! Where are you coming up with these numbers in the thousands?

So it was kind of a happy accident when I realized that I could start practicing my craft before committing to it. I spotted a small U-Pick flowers pointing off a road I'd never been down in Pullman. So after a particularly stressful day (as far as stressful days for me goes in Pullman), I followed the arrow, took a left at the second arrow, and then I was up at the top of a hill on Old Moscow Road, heading up to a private little farmhouse.

I didn't see a single person the whole time I was there. It's all entirely self serve.

You grab a little bucket, fill it up, come back with flowers, transfer them to milk jugs. They have a water spigot and free packets of flower food. It's $7 per bucketful. 

But where do you pay if you don't see the owners? Well, duh, using the pay box nailed to a tree.

These things still crack me up because I can't imagine how this would go if it were in NYC. There's a good wad of cash in there. It is not locked with some slot at the end for the money to go into. People are so trusting here... and rightfully so! It might never stop being bizarre to me. 

For the next half or or so it was just me in the flower fields, finding what I liked, picking the ones with the fewest amount of bees on them, filling up the bucket. I felt like a happy, unsupervised child in a meadow. 

 Here's what I came home with on this first attempt at floral design. Keep in mind that mayyybe I didn't see the shears until it was too late and I had just snapped these poor flowers off with my hands. I told you I wasn't crafty.

The first step is fun because it's so calming. It's kind of like when adults give children coloring books. It keeps them occupied. Do kids still color? Or do they only play with iPads now? Kids these days.

Oh right, but the first step: cleaning of all the little leaves and dead parts, tidying them up before they go into the treated water. I learned that you can't put flowers with leaves into the water because those leaves are what dies and makes the water all mucky and maybe that's why my flowers get so gross so fast all the time.

So turn up the music, breathe easy and get to work. It feels meditative and you'll be done before you know it. Then, get down to the arranging. Start with two main "anchor" flowers, wrap them together with floral tape. Add another flower, rewrap. They don't tell you that its not easy working with floral tape because its sticky on both sides, but almost not sticky enough to stay where you want it to. I've found that it helps to use one continuous piece of tape, although I've read you should do the opposite. But this way, at least, there aren't all those odds and ends sticking out that you have to deal with.

As you're arranging, make sure to get in enough greenery and "filler". That's something that isn't second nature to me yet, but I'm working on it. And play by the rules of three: there should always be an odd number of each type of flower. Makes it more appealing, I guess, when it isn't all Noah's Arc-ish.

When you're done adding flowers, its time to wrap, starting at the top and working your way down and then up again. I got some tulle as a tester. I like it when it's tightly wrapped like a mummy, not all tulle-d out and puffy. Secure with a pin on the back, and you're done!

I'm still trying to work out how to get the right texture, too. It's more challenging than I expected. Ignore that little texture abomination on the side of this one. But how cute is that billyball!

Then I played around making boutineers. These are just rosemary springs that act as a backdrop to a small billyball or small purple flowers, or both. Obviously like the twine wrapping best here. Here, you strip everything off at the halfway point, wrap it with floral wire this time, and then cover the wire with ribbon, tulle, twine, whatever.

 My second attempt was a little more successful. I think it was heartening to see that I'd improved. First, i made sure I picked a better selection of flowers to work with. And I cut each one further down so there was more flexibility when arranging. You want them all to be the same length so when you stick them in water, they all get nourished. Plus, it just looks better that way.

I ran out of floral tape (see, I guess I am using too much) so I only had enough flowers for one small bouquet. As for the rest, I practiced making arrangements. 

See? Who needs to waste upwards of $300 per bouquet with a florist? As long as Blooms in a Box delivers to its standards, I think this will be totally doable. 

And the final product will be special because so many of us came together to do it.

Right? Guys? Bridesmaids? Friends?

... Please?

Drink the Kool-Aid & Vote for Me!

So I just entered a picture of the animal I like to call Coyote Pretty in this Share the Experience photo contest -- take a look and vote for me! After all we've been through on this road trip, doesn't the Subaru deserve a little maintenance cash? I took her to the dealership four times this week. C'mon. Do it for the vehicular children.

Coyote Pretty

As for the Kool-Aid thing, ok, it's not really Kool-Aid, but it's much better! Today I made an orange-lime-cucumber-lemon infused water because I read it flushes fat and with a full pork shoulder in the crock this weekend lord knows I could use it. But after a sip or two I thought, you know what would make this a million times better? Soda-ifying it. Or, as a Washington resident now, should I be saying pop-ify? So I revved up the Sodastream, topped off the fruit water and boom, now it's like a cross between lemon water and orange soda. I'm pretty pleased with myself.

For a quick recap of other kitchen creations, because I'm sure you're dying to know...

We got some beets at the farmers market. I cooked them for almost an hour, sauteed the greens separately with a chopped onion, tossed it altogether with a little balsamic and a little goat cheese. It was very minimally dressed and the flavors were amazing. I'd never had beet greens before, but now I'll never throw them out again.

As for that aforementioned pork, ugh, I hate how disgustingly good it came out. A full 10 hours in the crock pot with a little garlic, onion and chicken broth and out comes tender, juicy perfeection. Luckily Rob froze the remainder before we went too bananas with it. But not before soft tacos with mango-avocado-black bean salsa and a sandwich with cheddar-jack and avocado on fresh Pugliese.  

Now that Rob's in school about 32 hours a day I have to come up with cheap ways to feed and entertain myself. So as a two-fer I thought it'd be a good idea to make ravioli, PORK ravioli, and went through the whole egg-flour dough process before I realized I have no idea where the ravoili press is or if it's even been unpacked or what. So I made orichette with my massive thumbprints and they obviously came out way too doughy; I tried to make pesto but ran short on homegrown basil and substituted mostly with store bought mint and did I just make boiled flour balls with chimichurri? I guess they can't all be winners. And I should probably cool it with the overzealous kitchen whims.

But this salad-y apple of my eye was first rate, for sure. I felt inspired to go completely off recipe with my idea to house-toast walnuts and concoct a vinaigrette of honey mustard, horse radish, lime juice and olive oil. My first taste was pretty terrible but I managed to salvage it with agave and salt. The sweetness went well with the farmers market strawberries and contrasted nicely with the herbed goat cheese. Avocado, well, that just goes in everything these days. Hasn't made anything worse so far. 

Anyway, go vote for Coyote Pretty! :)