5 second rule

Make it a good one.

Each fingernail sported a different color.

That's the first thing I noticed. One sparkly blue, one goldish, one pink, and so on. She wore frayed jeans and cowboy boots. She had rings on her thumbs. But I noticed her nails first.

Then I saw her phone.

It sat on her purse, shoved under the seat in front of her. When we reached elevation, she bent over to fetch it. This teenage girl, right across from me, in seat 10B, now clutched her phone.

What I'd noticed before, while the phone lay beyond reach, now became clear. Her phone was wrapped with a thick band of masking tape emblazoned with these words:

HEALTHY 
{gym, food, don't bite nails} 

It was a private note, in public view, penned in thick Sharpie. A reminder to hold herself accountable. A teen girl's checklist, and aspirations, in 6 words flat.

I didn't know this girl, this fellow passenger on a short-haul flight. But she moved me. With her long hair, her stylish clothes, her painted nails, her pretty face, this teenager -- maybe 16? 17 years old? -- moved me with her imperfection, and her desire for betterment. 

I wanted to talk to her.

To tell her she was doing a good job.

That her nails looked great, and long. 

That her body looked fit, and strong.

That she was doing everything right.

But then I'd add one thing. Just a small tip. That despite her hard work, and her determination, and her goals, and her masking tape, she could still, on occasion, indulge -- if she felt like it.

A cookie's okay, every now and then.

Just make it a good one.

...

Recipe for Chocolate Chip Cookies with currants, allspice, and fleur de sel

You'll see Tollhouse's influence here. That said, I've doused these cookies with allspice, speckled them with currants, reduced the sugars, and blended in oats. Because I needed a ton of cookies for a potluck and various gifts, this recipe yields a lot. Please make the full quantity of batter, and freeze most in balls after scooping, or else cut the recipe in half. Just don't forgo the fleur de sel on top.

Makes 110 cookies

2 cups (dried) currants
3 cups all-purpose flour
1-3/4 cups old fashioned rolled oats, pulsed a few times in a food processor (do not turn to flour) 
5 teaspoons ground allspice (I used Jamaican) 
2 teaspoons baking soda
1-1/2 teaspoons sea salt
1 pound unsalted butter, at room temperature 
1 cup granulated sugar
1-1/4 cups brown sugar
2-1/2 teaspoons vanilla
4 eggs, at room temperature
3 cups semi-sweet morsels 
Fleur de sel, for sprinkling 

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Line several rimmed baking sheets with parchment or silicone liners.

Bring a kettle of water to a boil.

Place the currants in a small bowl. Cover with boiling water. Let stand while you prepare the batter.

In a large mixing bowl, whisk the flour, oats, allspice, baking soda, and sea salt.

In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the butter, two sugars, and vanilla until creamy. Beat in the eggs, one at a time, until fully incorporated. 

With the mixer on low speed, beat in the flour/oat mixture in three additions. Remove the mixing bowl from its apparatus. 

Drain the currants and pat dry with paper towels. Fold the currants and chocolate chips into the batter, sweeping the bottom of the mixing bowl to ensure you've incorporated any floury bits.

Using a 1-1/2 inch scoop, divide the batter among the prepared baking sheets. (Bake as many as you want. Freeze the remaining scooped, unbaked dough until hard. Then transfer to a freezer-safe bag and keep frozen until ready to bake.)

Bake in the upper two thirds of the oven (not on the bottom rack!) for about 12 minutes, until golden brown, reversing the baking sheets halfway through. Sprinkle with fleur de sel while still warm.

printable pdf

Fig Pistachio Brown Butter: it's all good.

Go grab some bread. It's for toast. (For later.)

Or you could do what I did and make the challah in Sarabeth's Bakery: From My Hands to Yours by Sarabeth Levine. But only if you really feel like making challah. Plain jane toast will do, as will an English muffin, or a muffin of indeterminate national origin. Even a dry, stale cracker will do. You know what will not do? Nothing. Move on.

Now fetch your food processor, a small, light-colored skillet, a bowl, and a kettle. Get some butter, pistachios, dried figs, and salt. We're going to play. And then you're going to eat.

Brown some butter. Don't wander off, or you'll end up with soot. Just brown some butter, and pay attention to it. Watch it foam. Listen to it cackle and spit. After it's got some mojo, dial your heat way down so the popping subsides and the butter stops flailing.

You are a watchman, a sentinel. In your robe or your pajamas or your suit or your fancy watchman's outfit with the embroidered lapel, you have one task and one task only: don't let the butter burn. Okay, you have two tasks: don't let it burn, and give the pan a calm swirl every now and again.

When it's brown -- and by brown, I don't mean tan, taupe, amber, or, god forbid, beige -- pull your skillet. It should smell like success.

Now take a breath. The hard part's over.

The rest is easy. Soak the figs and pistachios in boiling water. Let them hang out while your brown butter cools. You can take a quick shower at this point, or check your Twitter feed to see if it's National Nilla Wafer day or whatever. Nothing's going to happen until you get back. Make your bed. Make my bed. 

Pour off the liquid. Then blitz the hell out of the nuts and figs, adding in a hefty pinch of sea salt and streaming in the brown butter towards the end. It will all come together. It will look like comfort, with jade flecks. 

Now you can make your toast. Or slice your challah. Or get out your sad, stale cracker.

It's all good now.

It's all good.

...

Recipe for Fig Pistachio Brown Butter

Makes 2 cups 

6 tablespoons unsalted butter
8 ounces dried figs, stemmed and rough-chopped
1 cup unsalted pistachios
Sea salt

Brown the butter in a small saucepan. (To brown butter, melt in a small skillet over medium heat until it bubbles and foams. Reduce the to low and cook slowly for a good 10-15 minutes, watching carefully and swirling the pan now and again to prevent burning. You want a "nutty" brown color and aroma when you're done.) Remove from the heat and let cool slightly.

Meanwhile, place the figs and pistachios in a medium bowl or 32-ounce, lipped glass measuring cup. Add boiling water to cover (about 2 cups). Cover tightly with plastic wrap and let stand 20 minutes. Pour off the liquid.

Transfer the figs and pistachios to a food processor fitted with the metal blade. Add a generous pinch (or two) of salt. Process until finely ground and sticky. With the machine running, slowly stream in all the brown butter, scraping in all the lovely bits. Continue processing until the mixture comes together and looks thick, sticky, cohesive, and wonderful. Transfer to a bowl or jar.

Use immediately. (Store any leftovers, covered, in the refrigerator. For best spreadability, return to room temperature before serving.)

printable pdf

On a magic carpet ride.

I think about magic carpets, and where they'd take me. I'd cross borders, for sure, and boundaries. I'd move from my comfort zone to my uncomfort zone. I'd go far.

To places that shock my system, with vistas so wide I could see peace, and eternity. Where people speak way too fast, in tongues I can't understand. I want to hear them chant.

Then they'll smile, and I'll smile back, and we'll all go eat eggplant.

Because in this vision, there's always eggplant. It's just there, on a cloth-covered table, a table so low it floats on the floor. There's eggplant with garlic, eggplant with yogurt, eggplant with pomegranate molasses and honey and sumac. There's other stuff, too -- a curvy pewter teapot, a cavernous bowl filled with bright, green pistachios.

Try one. They're warm.

Look out the window. The light's different here. It's pale orange, like a cantaloupe wrapped in gauze. Melon-light that makes the streets glow, that makes faces kind.

Close your eyes. Can you see it all? Are you with me?

Escape the black and white.

Move towards the color.

Grab your carpet.

Let's fly.

...

Recipe for Eggplant with Coconut, Mint, and Pistachio 

Eat these little disks like soft tacos. Just fold them gently and pop them in your mouth, one by one by one. If you have a mandoline, it makes slicing the eggplant into neat, thin slices very easy. If you don't have a mandoline, please don't sweat it. It hardly makes a difference.

Serves 8 (ish), with some coconut mint topping left over (store airtight)

1 globe eggplant of fairly uniform thickness, unpeeled, sliced between 1/8 and 1/4 inch thick
2-1/2 tablespoons olive oil
Salt and pepper
1 cup (unsweetened) desiccated coconut
1/2 cup unsalted pistachios
1/2 teaspoon ground cardamom
1/2 cup loosely packed fresh mint leaves

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Line 2 to 3 baking sheets with parchment or a silicone liner.

Drizzle the eggplant slices evenly on both sides with the olive oil, rubbing in with your fingers. Season with salt and pepper. Arrange in a single layer on your lined baking sheets. Bake for 10 minutes, or until nearly cooked through.

Meanwhile, make the topping. In a food processor, combine the coconut, pistachios, cardamom, mint, and a scant 1/4 teaspoon each salt and pepper. Pulse about 10 times, or until finely ground.

Drop the oven temperature to 350 degrees. Flip the eggplant slices (if you feel like it) and sprinkle evenly with the topping. Return to the oven for 5 minutes, or until the topping is lightly golden. Serve.

printable pdf

Don't sit on my lap.

I'm still on tomatoes.

Apples can wait.

There's time, later, for sweaters, cool breezes, red leaves, and damp fog. 

But not yet. Not yet.

My house is quiet. Where's the boy laughter? No one needs snacks? Hello? 

A writer craves peace. Unfettered headspace for thought, planning, creative endeavor. Silence, unmoored, for words to flow, crash, tumble, and loop. Time, above all, so ideas can barge in, look around, and find a nice comfy chair in the corner.

But she's a fickle mistress, that quiet. She teases and taunts, tempts and withdraws. All summer long she prances, laughing, just out of reach, all beckoning curves and sweet-smelling hair.

Suddenly, the air shifts.

September.

She approaches, once and for all, that quiet. Eyes wide, and soft. She cuddles in, right there on my lap.

And I want nothing to do with her.

So, yes, I'm still on tomatoes.

Apples can wait.

...

Details on upcoming events. (Paulette will be with me in San Francisco and Berkeley. Join us.)