Chicken Man

I somehow ended up with 3 bottles of toasted sesame oil in my pantry. Toasted sesame oil? That's potent stuff. What the heck ever am I gonna do with 3 bottles of something that I normally use as sparingly as Spam in my kitchen? Not that I'd equate sesame oil with Spam or anything... it's just that I don't know much about Asian cooking. I ended up with those little bottles after I overbought for a cooking demo awhile ago, and not one to toss, waste, or give away anything (not when you're livin' on a student budget, sugar), I put them on the shelf and wished for the fairy of Asian Cookery to descend upon my kitchen in a flourish of kimono and chopsticks spouting inspiration and Zen wisdom... Or at least just hand me a copy of Better Homes and Gardens with the dog-eared section "Fourth of July Egg Foo Young for 40!"

But eventually, and slowly, I began to use that oil on more and more dishes. I began putting it into salad dressings, tossing it with maple syrup, rice vinegar, soy sauce and hot peppers to pour over noodles, I started to think of it more as just another oil (albeit one with lots of personality) to use on things that, well, I use oil on all the time.

But opening myself up to using that oil meant I also began to use much more ginger, soy sauce, garlic and lime. What a revelation. I started cooking 'Asian' all the time. Yes, I know that using Asian ingredients doesn't mean the dish is 'Asian' but you gotta start somewhere. So when I was planning out our Sunday night supper to be shared with our friend Austin (who when asked what he liked to eat, he replied "meat"), I decided to do some sort of creative take on sweet and sour chicken. I don't cook chicken much, but I like to think that it's just like tofu, but with blood and stuff. Not too hard really.

So I pulled out that sesame oil, some organic chicken, and grabbed a recipe for Spicy Orange Tofu from Vegetarian Times (I realize now you may be appalled). In my head I pictured the plate, tasted the chicken and thought, "coconut rice." A chewy, creamy mound of Basmati rice with coconut milk and lemongrass would go so well lying right underneath that tangy and spicy skewer of chicken.

The dish turned out well enough that our meat-boy Austin was impressed, and the other meat-boy Mark couldn't help but eat the leftovers the next night for dinner - straight outta the skillet.

That's my boys.

Spicy Orange Chicken Skewers
adapted from a recipe from Vegetarian Times Magazine
serves 4 -6

1.5 pounds boneless, skinless organic chicken breasts
1/3 cup orange juice
1/3 cup lime juice
1/3 cup maple syrup
2 tablespoons toasted sesame oil
2 teaspoons dried hot chili pepper (whatever's spicy and hanging around your spice rack)
4 large garlic cloves, minced
2 tablespoons fresh ginger, minced
2 tablespoons grated orange zest
1 small sweet onion, diced
handful chopped cilantro
1 tablespoon soy sauce or tamari
bamboo skewers

Cut the chicken breast into pieces small enough to skewer. Skewer the chicken on the bamboo, making sure to leave a few millimeters of space between each piece. Prepare the marinade. Mix all of the rest of the ingredients together and marinate the skewers from 1 hour to 1 day. The longer the better.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Remove the skewers from the marinade and reserve the marinade. Place skewers on a broiler pan with a slotted sheet so that the liquid and fats may collect underneath. Cook until your tester skewer is no longer pink in the middle. A few times through baking, brush the skewers with the marinade. Add all of the marinade toward the end, so that it reduces a bit and gets syrupy. Serve the skewers with the sauce over coconut rice.

Coconut Basmati Rice
serves 4 - 6

You may use fresh lemongrass in this recipe, if available, but the dried is a good option too if you don't have access to an Asian market.

1.5 cups brown Basmati rice
2 cups coconut milk (lite or full fat)
1 cup water
2 tablespoons dried lemongrass

Bring the water to boil. Steep the dried lemongrass to make a strong tea. Strain out the lemongrass and set water aside. Bring the coconut milk and lemongrass water to a boil, then add rice. Stir once, then cover and cook until all the liquid is absorbed, about 50 minutes to 1 hour.

My Cookie's Better

These days, anything can become famous. If you want to pass around a funny video of your kid on YouTube drugged up and babbling after his dentist appointment in a manner of hilarity approximating your putting a little herb into his brownies, it can become famous. If you want to create an internet community, linking your friends with each other and then their friends with each other until you prove beyond a reasonable doubt the Kevin Bacon phenomenon, you can become famous. If you decide to use your first karmic lifetime as the blond, snotty daughter of a hotel investment baron and flash your cookie to the cameras upon exiting your limo, well… you get the picture. Hey, I want my cookie to become famous too. However, before I go showing it off to you shamelessly, I must express to you the utter superiority of the cookie in question.

First, a bit of history. My cookie was actually discovered quite by accident. You see, I was fooling around in the kitchen one afternoon, feeling experimental and even a little shy with having to tinker with someone else’s cookie. I’m usually not so shy about these things (normally I go at it with wild abandon), but this cookie was so delicate and, may I say, tasty to begin with that I hesitated to even begin flirting with that seductive, addictive thing. But I had to. There was no way around it. I needed a cookie, and I needed one right away. I was out of my usual cookie-making supplies and I had to do something. Fast. I knew I had to win that cookie over, romance it even, with chocolate.

But no chocolate bars? No hot coconut oil either? Would this rendezvous end in calamity?

The cookie would eventually see it my way.

Yes, the cookie yielded, and became mine. Cocoa powder was thrown into the air, olive oil slicked the kitchen tiles as the intense heat poured from the oven, steaming the windows and increasing my passion. I stirred and sifted and poured molasses all over. I rolled and sweated and used all the sugar in the house. The cookie looked pleased, covered in chocolate, hot and chewy. Yes! Yes! Yes! My cookie is the one! My cookie must be shown to the world, displayed in all its gooey sweet goodness!

My cookie is special. My cookie should be famous. If the requirement to be famous these days means you gotta show a little cookie, then that’s just what I’ll do.

The Money Shot

Chocolate Passion Cookies

Recipe by Chrissy and Mark

And now a word from Mark, my baker in crime. “I love chocolate chip cookies, so what could bring out the spontaneity, the passion, the indulgence, and a unique turn on the established, supreme reign of the traditional chocolate chip cookie? Bring on the chocolate-chocolate chip cookie. But what about a nod to fudge? What about dark chocolate? What about molten-lava cake? This cookie combines all three. It’s about richness, it’s about the moist draw of something…. I needed a cookie that fulfilled a special place—in my tummy—and fulfilled a special role in my heart.

Behold… the modified recipe!

I propose two of the most interesting qualities of this cookie: The molasses that gives it the edge of a very slight fudgy-ness, and the final step: gingerly pressing 3-5 chocolate chips into the tops of the cookies as they are cooling. Yay to spontaneity! And in that spontaneity, may you all find your inspiration to create something—anything—and may it be something new.

1 cup whole wheat pastry flour

1/2 cup white flour (spelt or all-purpose)

1/2 cup cocoa powder

1/2 cup finely shredded unsweetened coconut

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/4 teaspoon sea salt

1/2 cup butter, olive oil OR coconut butter

1/2 cup sugar

2 heaping tablespoons of molasses

1/2 cup maple syrup (the real stuff)

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Chocolate chips (see below for variable quantity)

Preheat oven to 350, combine flours, coconut, baking powder and salt in a large bowl. Melt butter in small pan, combine with sugars, maple syrup, molasses and vanilla. Beat well with large whisk or electric beater. The mixture should be creamy & integrated.
Add the wet ingredients to the dry. Bake 10 - 12 minutes. No more, no less. The cookies should almost seem underdone, but as they cool they will remain chewy and perfect!
After coming out of the oven carefully and gingerly push approximately 5 chocolate chips into each cookie (depending on size of cookie: if smaller cookies, go with 3, or simply add or subtract to your heart's delight).
Let chocolate melt into cookies, and let cool completely.

I Yam Sexy

Saturday night we had our first dinner party at the new place.  A real dinner party, grown-up style, in our grown-up place.  The furniture doesn’t match, our dining room table is a shaky little version surrounded by director’s chairs that our landlords left for us, and there is no light in the main room (the lights of the city are really all we need) – but it’s still a grown-up house, in my opinion.  Our kitchen is large and the shelves are stocked with glassware for 10 different kinds of alcohol.  The framed vintage Vogue magazine covers from the 40’s that decorate the walls speak “I’m a retro kitchen and I know it... we’re going for irony here, people.”  The bamboo floors are new and pristine, and we have a fireplace in a separate room, a room just for sitting and contemplating the view out over the port, the ships coming in and coming out.  It’s a grown-up place alright.  Even if we don’t feel quite like grownups in it yet.

So we’re having a dinner party.  I suppose that’s no surprise.  I would have a dinner party even if I somehow ended up in a refrigerator box under I-90.  I would be the bum with the best dumpster meals, I swear.  And I’d always break out the Dixie cups to share my 40 ouncer of King Cobra.  Yes, it’s just my nature.  Let the food and spirits flow.

Thankful I had a real fridge and not just a box, I rolled some food ideas around in my head.  To accommodate everyone, the meal was to be vegetarian with no fish, so I didn’t have to think too hard to come up with a menu.  But I thought hard anyway.  I do that.  If you come up with one solution easily and quickly - scrap it because creativity comes when you try to think a little bit outside the box (yes, the fridge box).  Not that creativity is tough, but it may take a little push to get away from the obvious sometimes.

The first menu I came up with would have taken me two days to make.  Knowing I had more than just a meal to accomplish this weekend, I decided to go with simplicity.  Multi-day prep? Hmm, maybe not.  So I pared down some of the items and came up with a balanced meal that was fresh, colorful, and just a little bit sensuous.  Valentine’s Day is coming up, and a girl shouldn’t be oblivious to that, surely. 

I’ll make my massaged kale salad (oooooo massage…) and then Heidi’s recipe for tempeh (sweet and salty) with roasted yams, smothered in saged olive oil, coarse sea salt, maple syrup and cayenne (sweet and spicy).  Those potatoes were to be my creative and sexy contribution to it all.  Yeah baby, sexy.  Sweet with a kick.  Just like me.  Ahem.

I scrubbed those big brown-skinned yams, and chopped them into large chunks.  Before the sun went down, I trotted out to the back yard and plucked the largest sage leaves I could find on our poor, winter-weary plant.  I minced the sage very fine, and steeped the little bits in a nice jar of golden olive oil.  A bit of cayenne, the oil, maple syrup and then the large grains of sea salt dancing and bouncing off the hunks of potato as I sprinkled generously.  With oily hands I tossed them on the baking sheet, my fingers remembering how to manipulate each piece.  I spread them all out to bake, tipping and scooting them into their own little hot spots.  Big trays of big oily pieces.  Reminds me of the thousands of croutons that I scooted and prodded on oily sheets this past summer at the restaurant.  My fingers remembered just how.

Our friends arrived and we stood laughing and drinking wine in our ironic, grownup kitchen.  Our friend and her guest brought us a box of dark chocolate truffles and a bottle of petite syrah.  Our first Valentine’s gift.  The dinner turned out lovely, laid out on our red tablecloth with large grown-up glasses of red wine.  This is what I've always wanted.  A table set with candles, four people with red wine, eating food I felt proud to serve, in a home I felt proud to live in.  Big spaces, high ceilings and windows as tall as me.  Friends and food, people who appreciate you for all your wackiness (I wear black turbans and purple sparkly tracksuit jackets as inspirational cooking attire.)  Mark breaks out his doumbek and hands a djembe to our other guest who's purported to have real coordination.  The boys drum and later the girls twirl around a little, even if to pose just for the camera.  

Before we end the evening, we eat something chocolatey I made for dessert and then open a bottle of cherry wine.  Now this is sexy.  Valentine's day I've never made a big deal out of - I prefer to show subtle ways of saying I love you all year long.  Subtle is sexy.  Understatement is sexy too.  I believe in sensuousness year round.  

We won't be making a big deal out of the 14th this year, but we will open up a bottle of wine and share food that is sweet then sneaks up on you with a little kick.  Just like love.

Spicy Maple Yams with Sage

serves 6

I hesitated to even write a recipe for this one, as you should feel free to toss in more oil, herbs and hot spices than what it calls for - and how big is a 'large' yam anyway?  So go on and toss and slather and sprinkle and make it all up sexy-like.  Let go. That's sexy too.

3-4 large yams

1/4 tsp Cayenne (more or less to taste)

1/4 cup maple syrup

1/4 cup +  olive oil

Big handful of sage, chopped fine

Coarse sea salt 

Mince the sage finely and steep in olive oil for 30 minutes.  Meanwhile, chop the yams into large chunks and preheat the oven to 450 degrees.  Toss yams with olive oil mixture, cayenne and maple syrup.  Sprinkle with salt.  Spread out on a baking sheet sparsely (if the chunks are too close they will steam more than brown and roast) and roast until a fork piercing shows them soft and the outside golden brown.  

25 Things

I’m exhausted.  Yeah, I know, that statement isn’t exactly the grabber that I should be writing to pull you into this post.  When I first began writing this blog, I promised myself that I would write about beautiful food, sharing food with friends and nourishing loved ones, about life in Seattle and how food has become a large part of how I experience the world.  I promised myself I would inspire others to believe in food and life, never write anything that I wouldn’t enjoy reading myself, and last but not least, never misrepresent my world. 

When you write for others, there is a strong pull to focus on the positive (who wants to read a downer?) and cherry-pick the details of your day.  On the days I’m feeling down, sometimes writing a positive post pulls me right up into feeling full of smiles again.  The words may act as inspiration, as salve, or as a way to make myself laugh when I don’t have my family around to nudge me into guffaws of outrageousness.

So in an effort at full disclosure – I’m tired.  But hey, I’m still cookin’.  Last night I made a killer spicy orange tofu dish that my faithful friend Orli and Mark just loved (I'll post it soon, promise.)  Despite my fatigue, yesterday I read completely through my current issue of Vegetarian Times and earmarked more than a few recipes to try out (all adventurous, of course, as my resolution still stands.) 

I may be a little down, but not out.  This past week of clinicals pushed my mind and body to the limit.  So now I find myself on a Sunday night with many things still left undone.  Over a quick dinner of soba and noodles with peanut sauce (Mark’s favorite, as you know) I was lamenting my To Do List.  “I still have to call my folks, and a few friends, make a lunch for tomorrow, and post a blog!” I whined.  Mark looked at me with playfulness “Well, I’ll do it for you – I can write about Melba Toast”.  Great, that will be just great. 

My Mark. So helpful.

So to save you from profound musings on Melba Toast, I give you 25 things.  I was tagged on Facebook this week to post 25 random things about myself.  With a focus on food, and in an effort at full disclosure, here goes.

25 Things

1. I like whole wheat pita bread stuffed with ripe honeydew and crunchy salted peanut butter.
2. My dream vacation is to spend a few months cycling across Europe.  All day, on my road bike cycling for miles, stopping to camp some nights in small villages with good food and cheap wine.
3. I spent almost a year as a flight attendant before starting grad school, just so I could travel.  It didn’t really work.  I spent most of my time ‘on call’ and grounded.  I was the only flight attendant at the company who didn’t eat McDonald’s and smoke Marlboros for breakfast.
4. I push myself too hard sometimes.  I’m my worst critic and a perfectionist, but I’m learning to accept myself and my faults, and take comfort in them.
5. I get frustrated about being 30 and not having a career yet.  I get upset when my life doesn’t look exactly the way I want it to. 
6. I grew up Catholic, but I would now describe myself as more of a Buddhist. 
7. The two professions that I would be other than a clinical dietitian?  A doctor or a chef.  A clinical dietitian is a blend of the two, I think.
8. Otherwise, I’d be a professional food writer. 
9. I miss my family like crazy every day, and wonder if I’ll ever stop missing them like I still do after 2 years of living in Seattle.
10. I’m a terrible escapist. I’ll run off into adventure, hide in a book, or dream and dream about traveling.  I’m a Pisces and I think we’re supposed to be good at that.
11. I eat organic Lundberg rice cakes like they’re crack.  I leave little rice cake crumbs all around the house.
12. In a former life I was a Spanish Flamenco dancer.  How else can I explain my penchant for Spanish, my ability to dance to anything latin, and my deep guttural voice (not to mention the part of me that is dark and stormy with a touch of melodrama?) 
13. I don’t like candy.  But I do like dark chocolate and genuine licorice, made with molasses.  Do those count?
14. I get all choked up at the end of every episode of Grey’s Anatomy.  It’s really just my outlet to cry.  As if I should feel less embarrassed to cry at a TV show than about real life.
15. I reminisce about living in Chicago way too much.
16. Self-reinvention is only positive if your new outside still matches your inside.  You can’t change who you are at the core.
17. I don’t believe death to be a terrible thing.  The way we view death is what is terrible.
18. That said, I want to live a long life and drink many bottles of good wine with good friends before I kick it.
19. Every day I remind myself how lucky I am to be living.  My legs pedal the bicycle.  My heart loves.  My hands feel the cold air.
20. I don’t dance enough.  I feel best when I crank up U2 and twirl around. 
21. I love coffee with cream and sugar.  I love espresso.  Caffeine makes me crazy, so I have to be careful. 
22. Being light, feeling lighthearted has never come easily to me.  I was a serious child, and spent most of my life feeling very heavy and serious and worried.  It took a long time to unlearn that. 
23. This blog is the result of letting go, not being afraid to give everything I’ve got to the world.
24. I am very thankful for Mark.  He’s my sunshine.
25. The reason I’m here, why I’ve gone through all I have in this life, is so that I may help others to heal.

Pampered Kale

I’ve been so stuck on baking lately. In this foggy, chilly weather the only thing that sounds appealing is snuggling up with cookies and muffins and a good DVD. But I gotta get out of this rut… not that it’s such a terribly bad thing really. But I have baked more cookies and looked up more dessert recipes than this nutritionist would care to admit (David Lebovitz, you know you’ve succeeded when the nutrition girl wants nothing but the variations of your ice cream sandwiches for a week straight). So before my carbohydrate count gets higher than my credit score (which really isn’t saying much anyway). I’ll opt to make an effort toward something a bit more, shall we say, not birthday-treat-like.

I’m still having my fun with vegetables, despite the winter weather. Even cold salads can still be so appealing when paired with a hot stew or toasted sandwich. I was reminded of this last week when I was fortunate enough to take another mini cooking class from one of my favorite Bastyr instructors. We learned three different salads, all cold, that were appealing for any season. The class reminded me yet again that a poor student shouldn’t be afraid of loading up her shopping card with 15 different colorful vegetables to make a single salad. It’s worth it. So thank you, Jennifer, for re-inspiring me in the middle of January.

If you want an energy-boosting addition to your lunch, try this massaged kale salad (yes, us nutritionists pamper our vegetables with spa-like treatments on occasion). Kale is a powerhouse of nutrition – lots of vitamin A, K, tons of fiber, and the texture has such a satisfying chew. You can buy kale as either curly, or the lacinato (a.k.a ‘dinosaur’) variety. Both are great, and both would work well in this salad. If you’re the type who goes to the market and skips the entire leafy green section because you have trouble identifying the collards from the chard – then don’t worry, this salad works well with just about any bunch of winter leafies that you mistakenly buy. Well, except for mustard greens that is (back away… far, far away.)

I’m putting away my measuring cups and wooden spoons for now, so I can begin to focus on more color and creative dressings, stir-frys and food that involves more than my go-to staples and the tried-and-true. Time to open up my thinking and let in unfamiliar ingredients and combinations. This is quite possibly my one and only resolution this year. Crack open that neglected cookbook! Play with stuff you can barely pronounce! Try a recipe that doesn’t sound like something you’d like to make! Savor the unknown!

…just as long as I can do it with my favorite comfort foods on hold in the fridge and a warm blanket waiting for me on the couch.

Behind every adventuresome cook is a good plate of mac ‘n cheese.

Massaged Kale Salad
Makes 6 servings
Original recipe by Jennifer Adler, CN www.realizehealth.com

Jennifer claims this salad just keeps getting better with time – she loves hers best on the 10th day. I doubt mine will stick around the fridge that long. Feel free to experiment with the ingredients, try different crumbly cheeses and nuts according to what you have on hand.

1 bunch kale, de-stemmed, cut into bite-sized pieces
1 teaspoon sea salt
¼ cup olive oil
2-3 tablespoons raw apple cider vinegar
¼ cup diced red onion
1/3 cup currants
¾ cup diced apple
1/3 cup sunflower seeds, toasted
1/3 cup gorgonzola cheese, crumbled

Put kale in a large mixing bowl. Add salt, massage salt into kale for 2 minutes. Gently stir in remaining ingredients except for cheese. Taste and adjust for salt and vinegar. When at desired flavor gently stir in cheese.

Out from under the Pots and Pans

Whew. It's been a heck of a month. December now behind me, weeks of moving and packing and unpacking, cookies baked and Christmas dinner made, travels back to Indiana for New Year's celebration... I can scarcely catch my breath. Wait, I'm catching it now, bear with me while I remember my breath as I write these words.

It's been a busy month, filled with new beginnings and some tough emotional stuff. This past month I've learned what love means, and commitment too (well, I knew about it before but now I really get it). Commitment to the one you love in times of haul-the-50lb-desk-into-the-truck-in-blinding-snow stress. Commitment to creativity and beauty when you're so exhausted you can barely stir the cookie batter for the cookies you promised for Christmas. It's tough out there, kids. Change is tough, transition is tough, but real love is tougher.

So I return to you, my friends, after a month of stress and moving and transition into a new life in our house on 35th Avenue. And you know what? I survived the weeks without internet. I survived my own terrible and uncontrollable desire for order amidst chaos (thanks, Mark, for enduring my neurotic perfectionism.) I even survived well enough to make Christmas dinner and two batches of cookies Christmas day, 4 days after moving. Yes, I know I'm a bit masochistic.

But you must be able to imagine how sweet and beautiful it was to make food in a new space, with (most) everything put in its place. I reached for my spices and GASP! they were there, and on their own shelf! Imagine my satisfaction, as this past year I've lived with my little jars of cardamom and cloves, coriander and chipotle in a small cardboard box tucked into the dark maw of our back walk-in closet. I was tired Christmas day, but I cooked. I cooked and baked and Mark chopped and sipped - we both sipped, of course.

For me, it was a mad expression of love and commitment. For food, for happiness, for survival of all the things that really matter to us. Beauty, comfort, creativity and family. Christmas day, though we were both away from our families, baking cookies felt like family to me. I even brought a few of these cookies home to my family in Indiana for a post-Christmas visit... soft ginger cookies. I've been tinkering with this recipe for a few years, but now I think I've found my formula. With or without chocolate chips, they're heavenly. They signify the cool months, and I look forward to them as soon as the leaves drop from the trees.

So starting this year, starting with the knowledge that things will come together (eventually), I will believe. I'll believe that all things resolve, all emotions pass, and all cookies, with some tinkering, will come out just right.

Soft Ginger Chocolate Cookies

Makes 4 – 5 dozen cookies, depending on size

Adapted from a Ginger Snaps recipe from The Joy of Cooking copyright 1997

This recipe can be tweaked for whether you want the cookie a bit drier and cakey (reduce the butter by half) or a bit harder (replace the honey with all sugar) or without the chocolate chips for a purist experience. This recipe is my personal favorite of all the variations I’ve tried.

3 ¾ cups whole wheat pastry flour, spelt flour (or flour of choice)

1 ½ teaspoons baking powder

½ teaspoon baking soda

1 tablespoon ground ginger

2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

½ teaspoon ground cloves

½ teaspoon sea salt

1 ½ sticks unsalted butter, softened

1/2 cup honey

2/3 cup sugar

2 large eggs

½ cup dark molasses

¼ cup finely minced fresh ginger

1 cup dark chocolate chips (optional)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F and grease cookie sheets. Whisk or sift together thoroughly the first seven ingredients. In a separate bowl, beat together the next six ingredients until well-blended. Stir the wet and dry mixtures together until smooth. Add the chocolate chips and stir if using.

Scoop cookie dough into 3 heaping tablespoon size cookies to bake. Bake 10 – 13 minutes, rotating cookie sheets halfway through, until cookie looks uniform and set.

A first

Last night was our first snow of the season. It was also my first attempt at baking a chocolate truffle layer cake. This year has been a big ball of firsts, and now that it’s coming to a close, it only seems appropriate to end with a few more.

Mark turned the big 4-0 this week. I was more excited for it than he was. Forever the optimist and the one wise enough to mention that ‘life is what you make it’ - even he thought the number to be daunting, strange and not quite something to jump up and down about. As for me, I thought it was terribly cool to have my sophisticated older and wiser guy (who looks not his age and acts definitely not his age… but in a good way) turn 40. To mark the occasion, I did nothing other than turn to chocolate. Not only because Mark is obsessed with chocolate in any form, but because it seemed the most decadent, rich and celebratory of all the things I could fathom to mark a milestone. Besides, chocolate makes people happy… and if you’re going to be depressed about your age you might as well stuff your face with butter cream frosting and have a beer.

When we woke up this morning it was freezing. The clouds were in a strange state of in-between, their high and wispy thinness showing patches of black, opening up to the sky and letting the sun shine through. The wind was whipping around, blowing the bamboo in the front yard all over the place. I knew it was cold, because the linoleum on the kitchen floor is always a fairly accurate thermometer of the chill outside our front door. I put on my slippers, Mark put a blanket around his ‘jamas, and we made coffee. Mark drank his hot in front of the computer while I let my go cold – I had to finish the birthday cake.

I wanted to try out a recipe for ‘Mile-High Chocolate Cake’ that I found on gourmet.com. Mark mentioned at one point that a chocolate truffle cake would be yummy, so I found a recipe for chocolate truffles (also something I had never tackled before) and hoped that the two would come together nicely in a decadent, orgasmic marriage of rich dark chocolatey-ness that would put him into a solid age-amnesia-causing sugar coma. Well, one could only hope.

The recipe was a lot of fun, even if I didn’t have the correct cake pans and disgustedly refused to use 6 sticks of butter for the frosting (ok, I used 5). I’m just not used to going whole-hog on the decadent dessert front. I’m more the girl who shows up at the dessert and cocktails party with the carrot cake made with whole wheat pastry flour and honey. I’m my mother’s daughter, what can I say? It’s my first truly decadent dessert, made with all the ingredients that usually send a shiver up my spine. White all-purpose flour? Check. White sugar? Check. Heavy whipping cream? Check. Mind you, all ingredients were totally organic. A girl has her principles, you know.

After my morning of fussy cake preparations, licking chocolate spoons before 11am and drinking cold coffee, I felt fairly satisfied in my work. I put on my running tights and fleece headband and went for a run in the whipping cold air. The sea water crashed on Alki beach, and the shores at Lincoln Park were cluttered with huge logs washed in from logging on the Olympic Peninsula. It’s amazing to see the force of the water on days like today. The cold wind working alongside the waves, reminding you where you are and where you come from.

That night we went out to dinner, to 35th Street Bistro in Fremont. It’s become Mark’s favorite place for a burger, and mine for the wine and the carefully and mindfully prepared food. We sat in front of the large front window, tables lit by candlelight, and told each other how lucky we were to have the other as a partner in life. The words weren’t this direct, but in so many other words and sweet smiles we both understood. Small snowflakes began to fall outside, in front of street lamps and onto the sidewalk. The small flakes turned to large ones, and pretty soon all the diners in the house were looking out the window, smiling and pointing because snowfalls in Seattle don’t happen every day.

By the time we got home the ground was covered in a thin, wet layer of white stuff. It felt sort of magical, since neither of us are used to very much snow anymore. The bamboo trees off our front porch were leaning all the way over to the ground, weighed down by wet snow. We both thought it a novelty, a cozy snowstorm… and chocolate birthday cake!

With a scoop of vanilla bean ice cream alongside, the cake turned out pretty well, even though it was more like a milk chocolate cake than a dark chocolate cake. The truffles made up for the richness, and I would classify those as a definite success.

Mark didn’t seem too critical. Of course I wouldn’t know exactly because his mouth was too full to answer my inquiries of what needed a little more of this or that. He just kept taking the truffles and smashing each one into the top of his layer cake, cackling a mischievous ha ha HA! each time. Well, some things deserve few words I guess.

We’ve weathered this year much like the beaches at Lincoln Park. We’ve taken the waves and let them crash against us, changing our sands in the process, but never letting them wear us away completely. Driftwood washes against our shores, and we don’t know what for. The wind turns cold and we don’t know when it will turn warm and soft again. This year we hung tight, stuck together and we’re still not going to let too many firsts rock us from our foundation, though the sands seem to be shifting underneath.


As the snow falls outside the bamboo hut, we look outside and know that the first snow of the season will be the last in our little place. We can only look forward, no matter how scary or beautiful or unbelievable it may seem, even with the number 40 attached.

Mocha Truffles
Adapted from a recipe from Ina Garten from the Food Network 2008
Makes about 20 – 25 truffles, depending on size

These are decadent, sweet and rich but not overwhelmingly so. You can omit the coffee and simply use cocoa for rolling, or you can get creative and add cinnamon, cloves or ginger too. Truffles are fun for flavor experimentation. Try adding peppermint essence instead of the vanilla for the holidays, or add whiskey or a flavored liqueur to really get a surprised reaction. Have fun!

1/2 pound good dark chocolate such as Green & Black’s organic 70%
1/2 cup heavy cream
1 tablespoons Grand Marnier, optional, add if you like orange flavor
1 tablespoon prepared coffee
1 teaspoon good vanilla extract
2 teaspoons confectioner’s sugar (omit if you end up using a 60% chocolate or less)

Rolling mixture:
2 tablespoons cocoa powder
3 teaspoons finely ground coffee beans (espresso ground)
1 teaspoon confectioner’s sugar

Chop the chocolates finely with a sharp knife. Place them in a heat-proof mixing bowl.
Heat the cream in a small saucepan until just before it boils. Turn off the heat and pour the cream into the bowl with chocolate. With a wire whisk, slowly stir the cream and chocolates together until the chocolate is completely melted. Whisk in the Grand Marnier, if using, coffee, confectioner’s sugar and vanilla. Set aside at room temperature for 1 hour or refrigerate for 10-15 minutes until it sets into a stiff ‘dough’.

With 2 teaspoons, spoon round balls of the chocolate mixture onto a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Refrigerate for 30 minutes, until firm. Roll each dollop of chocolate in your hands to roughly make a round ball. Roll in the rolling mixture until coated. These will keep refrigerated for weeks, but serve at room temperature.