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Reflections on life lived by a coast

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Slowing Down

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After the multi-year adren­a­line rush of a high-tech career, I’m down-shift­ing: learn­ing how to slow down and savor each moment as it comes. I’m test­ing out what it might feel like to be retired — what­ever that means these days.

Bak­ing arti­san bread at home (French boule style)

Pur­pose­fully down-shift­ing is a form of mind­ful­ness prac­tice in its own right. It’s harder than it looks.

Slow Mo, Slow Cooking

I’m try­ing out how it feels to pur­sue slow-paced, inher­ently time-con­sum­ing activ­i­ties, such as:

  • Bak­ing no-knead, slow rise arti­san bread — a process that takes 24 hours or more
  • Knit­ting shawls and sweaters — projects that take weeks to com­plete
  • Plan­ning, shop­ping and prepar­ing slow-cooked meals, gourmet din­ners that sim­mer in a slow cooker for 6–8 hours
  • Learn­ing how to adapt a vari­ety of dishes to the slow cooker
  • Walk­ing for 4–6 miles most days

This lifestyle is slower, but not bor­ing. I wake up each day happy to under­take mul­ti­ple hands-on crafts, tasks and projects.

Food for the Brain

On a less pos­i­tive note I haven’t fig­ured out how to keep my brain as actively engaged as it used to be. This is a chal­lenge for some­one who earned her liv­ing as a con­sul­tant and excelled as a big-pic­ture thinker…

But it’s more than just an iden­tity cri­sis. I don’t want to end up like my mother, addicted to cross­word and sudoku puz­zles. My hus­band and I are talk­ing about down­siz­ing, so I’m not ready to buy or learn to play the piano.

Sci­en­tists say that using a sec­ond lan­guage keeps the brain plas­tic and youth­ful. Before embark­ing on a high-tech career, I was flu­ent in French and pass­able in Span­ish, but those skills eroded through lack of use.

Last year I worked to regain some French lan­guage skills, while prepar­ing for a 3-week trek across south­west­ern France. Now that I’m back in Seat­tle, it’s not so easy to speak French on a reg­u­lar basis, so I rely on Net­flix and French movies as a fall­back.

Clearly I need to find some activ­i­ties or pur­suits that engage my brain as thor­oughly as my crafts, hikes and slow-mo cook­ing engage my hands and eyes.

Spice Up Your Life with Slow Cooking

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slow-cooking-cookbooksWhen the rains return and clouds build up, North­west­ern­ers talk about feel­ing cozy. The locals smile about the lumi­nous skies. It’s time to plunge into juicy nov­els, go on a Net­flix binge, or get back to last winter’s knit­ting project. Haul out the fleece and the down sweaters. Go for long walks in the rain.

For me the fall weather also sig­nals the sea­son for slow cook­ing.

On rainy week­ends like the one we’ve just had, I take the time for slow-paced foodie projects that will reward us with mouth-water­ing fla­vors:

  • Slow-cooked lentil stews brim­ming with root veg­eta­bles
  • Savory lentil soups à la Française
  • Roasted veg­eta­bles: car­rots, pota­toes, sugar pump­kin, sweet pota­toes, onions and leeks
  • Lamb cur­ries, North African style
  • Pot roasts and boeuf bour­guignon

When you embrace slow cook­ing, you learn to accept delayed grat­i­fi­ca­tion, wel­com­ing the tan­ta­liz­ing aro­mas that per­me­ate your home as things sim­mer. From a yoga per­spec­tive it’s a prac­tice of “mind­ful­ness for the nose.”

Not Just for Vegetarians

Ours is not a veg­e­tar­ian house­hold. We love poul­try and tasty cuts of meat.

That said, we’ve begun a delib­er­ate quest to cut back on meat con­sump­tion, espe­cially red meats. Despite the self-pro­mo­tional denials by the meat pack­ing indus­try, we’re con­cerned by the lat­est sci­en­tific reports that link increased risk of can­cer to the con­sump­tion of red meats and processed meats.

As a health­ier alter­na­tive to red meats, we’ve begun exper­i­ment­ing with savory veg­e­tar­ian-inspired dishes. This in turn has dri­ven us to go look­ing for exotic spices, nutri­tious grains and fresher ingre­di­ents that will punch up the fla­vors and aro­mas.

Slow cook­ing is a great way to get the tasti­est results from dishes that rely on grains or dried beans. It’s also a very effec­tive way to be sat­is­fied with poorer cuts of meat, or smaller pro­por­tions of meat, rel­a­tive to the veg­etable com­po­nent.

New Discoveries

Star anise

Star anise

My inspi­ra­tion for this season’s slow cook­ing comes from some cook­books that go well beyond the sim­ple plea­sures of Joy of Cook­ing (listed below.)

Another cat­a­lyst was last year’s quirky Christ­mas gift for my hus­band, a spice dis­cov­ery kit that has brought us year­long joy. (He loves cook­ing too.)

I’ve also been moti­vated by the ease of sourc­ing ultra fresh spices and herbs thanks to local and online mer­chants, includ­ing Ama­zon for hard-to-find ingre­di­ents from other coun­tries.

I’ve exper­i­mented with Le Puy lentils and red rice from Camar­gue, and have quickly used up my trial orders of these tra­di­tional French grains. So much bet­ter than dried out and bor­ing lentils or boxed rice from the gro­cery store chains! Now it’s time to find local stores with bulk sup­plies of these upscale ingre­di­ents.

My new fave source for dried herbs and freshly ground spice blends: Seattle’s World Spice Mer­chants (avail­able at Pike Place Mar­ket or online.) Thanks to Pen­zeys and World Spice Mer­chants I’ve been refresh­ing our spice stocks, throw­ing away jars with dubi­ous ingre­di­ents that are too old or faded. I’ve finally learned to ignore my mother’s voice whis­per­ing in my ear, “Hold on to your spices until the jars are empty…”

As a result our kitchen is redo­lent with pun­gent aro­mas from star anise, bay leaves, kaf­fir lime leaves, car­damom pods, freshly ground cur­ries, Ras el Hanout and other exotic ingre­di­ents.

These spices and ingre­di­ents lend them­selves to North and East African stews, North Indian style cur­ries, world fusion soups, and France-meets-Morocco dishes.

Some have even spiced up my bak­ing projects. Yesterday’s dessert fea­tured Comice pears poached in a spicy honey syrup with star anise, vanilla beans, car­damom pods and cin­na­mon sticks. The syrup included freshly squeezed orange and lemon juice, along with a gen­er­ous quan­tity of cit­rus zests.

Next on my list of cook­ing exper­i­ments: Curry Bread Pud­ding with Car­damom Cream.

My adven­tur­ous hus­band is delighted to join me for the fun of explor­ing new spices and slow-cooked foods from dis­tant coun­tries.

Food for Thought

To learn how to com­bine these new-to-us ingre­di­ents in pleas­ing ways, I’ve relied on cook­books, sup­ple­mented by online research:

The Inter­net has been a great source of authen­tic recipes from coastal African coun­tries, Afghani and Mid­dle East­ern-inspired dishes. We’re still enjoy­ing Thai cui­sine, thanks to my husband’s child­hood there, but we’re rel­ish­ing this oppor­tu­nity to broaden our reper­toire.

We wish you the savory joys of new dis­cov­er­ies. Happy cook­ing!

The Soul of a Great Kitchen

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Isarn-Thai-KitchenI fell in love with a great kitchen last night. It wasn’t a one-night stand; I’d vis­ited this restau­rant before. But last night, just a plain old week­day night, Isarn Thai Soul Kitchen man­aged to cap­ture my heart.

It was my sec­ond visit; my husband’s third.

We snuck in late, a cou­ple of hours before the offi­cial clos­ing time. Prac­ti­cally speak­ing, most of the ear­lier arrivals fin­ished their meals before our entrees were served.

Subtle, Authentic Cuisine

To our delight, the chefs cooked with heart and soul even though clos­ing time was draw­ing near. It’s a small­ish place, and the chefs take the time to pre­pare authen­tic Thai dishes, many of which are labor inten­sive.

Just ask the maitre d’ about the green papaya salad, the work to pre­pare its ingre­di­ents with a mor­tar and pes­tle… It’s a labor of love. Meals here are a tri­umph of pas­sion over pro­duc­tiv­ity.

Dinner menu at Isarn Thai Soul Kitchen

It was a chilly night, so my hus­band and I were attracted to menu items fea­tur­ing north­ern Thai com­fort food.

I ordered Lamb Mass­samun with Roti, Bruce opted for the North­ern Style Sweet Curry (din­ner menu). Thanks to lov­ing chefs, these are slow-cooked stews with braised meats that sim­mer for hours in com­plex yet sub­tle sauces. We had fun try­ing to guess some of the ingre­di­ents, and then later com­pared notes with the maitre d’ who sur­prised us with some of the more unusual spice fla­vor­ings.

We love Thai food, but rarely go out to Thai restau­rants. We’ve been dis­ap­pointed too many times, even here in Seat­tle, a foodie cap­i­tal with lots of peo­ple who’ve lived in or trav­eled through­out Thai­land.

My hus­band spent his child­hood in north­ern Thai­land, so he wants authen­tic Thai cui­sine, rather than the crap that most so-called Thai restau­rants serve to Amer­i­can din­ers.

Most Thai restau­rants serve fast-food-style dishes with sim­pli­fied ingre­di­ents, fiery but lack­ing in sub­tlety — just the oppo­site of the prin­ci­ples at the heart of Thai cui­sine. They omit key spices and spe­cialty ingre­di­ents, like tamarind, rhi­zome pow­der or kaf­fir lime leaves, thereby sac­ri­fic­ing fla­vors and aro­mas that are required by authen­tic Thai cui­sine.

As a result the typ­i­cal Thai restau­rant serves dumbed-down meals that taste like Chi­nese food pre­pared by Mex­i­can chefs, larded up with extra help­ings of cilantro and curry pow­der.

Isarn Thai Soul Kitchen is a delight­ful excep­tion.

Recipe for ginger beerAs a final grace note to a delight­ful evening, the maitre d’ shared his recipe for non­al­co­holic gin­ger beer. I’d sung its praises. Now I just have to find an Asian mar­ket where I can buy sev­eral pounds of fresh gin­ger with­out break­ing our gro­cery bud­get…

I look for­ward to shar­ing his gin­ger beer with our friends.

[Note: images from Isarn Thai Soul Kitchen’s web­site, except for the guest check.]

Remembering Mom

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Letters Home

Planting flowers for Mothers' Day

Plant­ing flow­ers for Moth­ers’ Day

These days I cringe when­ever mer­chants start spam­ming peo­ple with spe­cial offers for Moth­ers’ Day.

My mom died two years ago, shortly after Moth­ers’ Day. My griev­ing con­tin­ues, trig­gered by mem­o­ries or fam­ily sto­ry­telling. It’s height­ened around Moth­ers’ Day, although it’s now more muted and bit­ter­sweet than before.

Some­how the crass­ness of the overly com­mer­cial approach to Moth­ers’ Day makes the run up to Moth­ers’ Day week­end all the more painful…

It would be so lovely to have a mom to whom I could send some­thing spe­cial for this hol­i­day, espe­cially if it were home­made. But my mom, like most of my friends’ moth­ers, has gone on to the next chap­ter in her jour­ney…

Think­ing about Moth­ers’ Days past, I find myself dig­ging through the dig­i­tal mem­o­ra­bilia on my com­puter, look­ing for scanned images or copies of things I cre­ated and sent to my par­ents, such as this old hand­writ­ten let­ter from col­lege days.

Or my trans­la­tion of a to-die-for choco­late mousse recipe from Madame Florin, who owned the apart­ment where I lived as a stu­dent in Paris. Mme. Florin cared for nine chil­dren in that apart­ment (two of whom she adopted after her sis­ter was killed in an acci­dent) — plus two Amer­i­can stu­dent lodgers.

So in honor of my mother, who loved cook­ing for fam­ily and friends, here’s a really spe­cial choco­late mousse recipe — for peo­ple who aren’t afraid to indulge in rich choco­late and but­ter.

[Note: Eng­lish trans­la­tion fol­lows the orig­i­nal French ver­sion of the recipe.]

The Worms in Paradise

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papaya-mango-fruit-plate

To-die-for papaya and mango fruit plates

Over din­ner with friends last night we shared sto­ries and pho­tos from our recent vaca­tion in Sayulita, Mex­ico. We enthused about the heir­loom qual­ity fruits and veg­eta­bles, the ultra-fresh fish, the intense choco­late desserts, the mel­low cof­fee beans, the sun­set views over the Pacific ocean.

We raved about the amaz­ing place we’d rented on AirBnB, our gra­cious host, his friendly staff.

We talked about the fun we’d had, tool­ing around town in an under-pow­ered golf cart, shop­ping at tiny stores, exer­cis­ing our lim­ited Span­ish, chuck­ling at the surfer dudes parad­ing through town after a day on the water. That said, we were less enthu­si­as­tic about the local wine…

We down­played our three encoun­ters with scor­pi­ons, old news to friends who’ve lived in hot weather cli­mates.

Perfect fruit smoothie in Sayulita

Per­fect fruit smoothie in Sayulita

Ripe avocados every day

Ripe avo­ca­dos every day

We talked about the aston­ish­ing bird watch­ing, the nearby trails through old growth for­est with 300-year-old stran­gler figs — the won­ders we’d seen dur­ing an 8-mile hike through sev­eral river­ine ecosys­tems.

Mean­while, our friends couldn’t stop talk­ing about the drug car­tel vio­lence that had bro­ken out in Jalisco state, a few hun­dred miles south/southeast of our vaca­tion spot. They were so wor­ried about the drug wars they could hardly focus on our sto­ries.

Sim­i­larly, my fam­ily had asked why we were head­ing to such a dan­ger­ous spot — not know­ing how near or far we’d be from Guadala­jara and the hot spots for Jalisco drug vio­lence.

After­wards we assured friends and fam­ily that we had felt per­fectly safe and wel­comed the entire time we were in Mex­ico. We had expe­ri­enced mul­ti­ple inter­ac­tions with warm, friendly peo­ple who went out of their way to ensure we enjoyed our stay. Quite a con­trast to other places where we’ve vaca­tioned in the past…

We took pre­cau­tions, of course. We stayed in vil­lage loca­tions, did not ven­ture into Puerto Val­larta or risk rent­ing a car. We asked long-time expat res­i­dents about drug car­tel pres­ence in Sayulita, and were told the locals were work­ing hard to keep out the big­ger gangs. (Who knows if that’s true.)

And yes, for years we had avoided vis­it­ing Mex­ico out of con­cerns about police cor­rup­tion, increas­ing drug car­tel vio­lence, fear of the unknown. In my case two recent trips to Mex­ico to par­tic­i­pate in yoga retreats had alle­vi­ated my fears.

As a result I was will­ing to step up to the chal­lenge of a self-guided tour, despite lim­ited Span­ish, in order to intro­duce my hus­band to some of the best that Mex­ico has to offer.

Will we return? Prob­a­bly, but the closer the drug vio­lence gets to Sayulita, the less likely we’ll go back. For the sake of the hard-work­ing farm­ers and small busi­ness­peo­ple in Mex­ico, we sin­cerely hope there’s a peace­ful solu­tion to these strug­gles soon.

Orcas Island Birthday Getaway

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Looking toward Vancouver Island

Look­ing toward Van­cou­ver Island

Island map

Map of Orcas Island and nearby San Juan Islands

We cel­e­brated my birth­day with a quick trip to Orcas Island, mid­way between north­west­ern Wash­ing­ton and Canada’s Van­cou­ver Island.

Orcas Island is lushly green, blessed with beau­ti­ful views of the Sal­ish Sea as well as rolling val­leys, forested hills and moun­tains.

It’s a mag­net for hik­ers and bik­ers — but not a place to visit if you’re addicted to always-on smart­phone access or tex­ting. Cel­lu­lar cov­er­age is spotty, at best.

Deer Harbor

Beautiful inn, even on rainy days

Beau­ti­ful inn, even on rainy days

Old boats near the inn

Old boats near the inn

Kayaking and boating in Deer Harbor

Kayak­ing and boat­ing in Deer Har­bor

We stayed at The Inn at Orcas Island in Deer Har­bor, at the south­west­ern cor­ner of Orcas Island.

The inn is an upscale B&B, much like a Euro­pean bou­tique hotel. Its set­ting is glo­ri­ous, per­fect for sun­set watch­ing or canoe­ing the tidal inlet that leads to Deer Har­bor. The innkeeper is very wel­com­ing, and makes guests feel quickly at home.

Deer Har­bor is a favored des­ti­na­tion for boaters and hik­ers — peo­ple who want to avoid the tourist con­ges­tion in East­sound. The islanders who live there con­sider it to be very remote (a 20-minute drive from East­sound).

We had hoped to bring kayaks and/or our tan­dem bike, but were dis­cour­aged by a rainy weather fore­cast. (Luck­ily, the rain storm arrived a day late.) The weather would have been per­fect for either kayak­ing or bik­ing.

Hiking Along the Shore

Instead we spent the morn­ing on a 6-mile hike, bask­ing in the unex­pected June sun­shine, and work­ing out kinks from the long drive. Our walk took us to the end of the road, along the shore­line. The pub­lic path fea­tured har­bor views, long vis­tas over­look­ing the Sal­ish Sea — and bloom­ing trees and gar­dens every­where.

Pacific Northwest driftwood

Pacific North­west drift­wood

Along the way we strolled through a tidal pre­serve at low tide. Mul­ti­ple types of sea­weed, algae and tidal pool crea­tures were on dis­play. My hus­band, a for­mer biol­o­gist, could have spent hours exam­in­ing that beach…

Exten­sive log­ging through­out Cas­ca­dia means it’s easy to spot mag­nif­i­cent exam­ples of drift­wood along the water’s edge. Atlantic drift­wood seems puny when com­pared to these West­ern giants.

Farm-to-Table Mecca

Island trees block the wind

Island trees block the wind

Much of Orcas Island is rural, home to small fam­ily farm­ers and crafts peo­ple. As a result the Sat­ur­day morn­ing farm­ers’ mar­ket abounds with hand­i­crafts, arti­sanal cheeses, fresh pro­duce, local fish, meat and dairy prod­ucts.

At the farm­ers’ mar­ket we dis­cov­ered and fell in love with Monastery Cheese from nearby Shaw Island, a raw cow’s milk cheese with a flavor/aroma pro­file rem­i­nis­cent of French cheese. This cheese is made in tiny batches by an order of Bene­dic­tine nuns who live in the Our Lady of the Rock com­mu­nity.

East­sound restau­rant own­ers pride them­selves on buy­ing from local farm­ers, for­agers and fish­er­men — their source of ultra-fresh, farm-to-table good­ies and shell­fish.

We had planned to explore sev­eral restau­rants, but found our innkeeper’s break­fast to be so boun­ti­ful that it was easy to skip lunch. On Thurs­day night we enjoyed a spec­tac­u­lar din­ner at Sazio di Notte, an Ital­ian eatery in East­sound — one we highly rec­om­mend. The chef waited on us per­son­ally, and explained the prove­nance of all the key ingre­di­ents and his inspi­ra­tion for each prepa­ra­tion.

On Fri­day night we were invited to dine at a friend’s nearby home. We feasted on wild salmon he had caught the day before, as well as fresh greens and peas picked shortly before din­ner. Hap­pily, we had brought along a bot­tle of Avennia’s sauvi­gnon blanc to com­ple­ment the meal.

Home to Artists and Craftsmen

Orcas Island Pottery

Orcas Island Pot­tery

Seaside shopping

Sea­side shop­ping

We recov­ered from our hike with tours of local art stu­dios and pot­tery shops, before head­ing back to the inn for show­ers and din­ner.

We fell in love with Orcas Island Pot­tery, a sea­side stu­dio that fea­tures a truly spec­tac­u­lar set­ting for dis­play­ing hand­made pot­tery. Many of the wares are dis­played out­doors in the gar­dens, grouped by color, artist or style. On a sunny day the ocean view must dis­tract the shop­pers…

My hus­band had a fun time shop­ping there, choos­ing a set of serv­ing bowls for my birth­day gift. We put them to good use when we got home, fill­ing them with super ripe straw­ber­ries and cher­ries from a road­side stand in Ana­cortes.

Getting There

Orcas has become a pop­u­lar get­away des­ti­na­tion, so ferry lines can be long. If you miss the ferry, you could wait sev­eral hours.

We mis­read the ferry sched­ule, and found our­selves with 3 unex­pected hours to spend in Ana­cortes. Luck­ily, we stum­bled upon a fab­u­lous spot for lunch, the A’Town Bistro, located in the his­toric sec­tion of Ana­cortes. Like the Orcas Island restau­rants this bistro prides itself on local farm-to-table ingre­di­ents and hand-crafted beers and ales.

Plan on at least 5 hours to get to Orcas Island from the Seat­tle area (dri­ving + ferry + wait times). For week­end com­muters with plenty of money, fly­ing to Orcas is a faster alter­na­tive.

No mat­ter how you get to Orcas, it’s well worth the trip for food­ies, week­end ath­letes or boaters. Or peo­ple who just want to relax at an island inn, or hang out in the charm­ing shops and cafes in East­sound.

We can’t wait to return to Orcas.

Missing Barcelona

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Fans in Barcelona shop window

Fans in Barcelona shop win­dow

A year ago today I spent the day wan­der­ing around Barcelona, tour­ing the old city and neigh­bor­ing Eix­am­ple on foot. My hus­band was work­ing with col­leagues to set up their company’s booth for Mobile World Con­gress, and I had all day to reac­quaint myself with Barcelona via a walk­ing tour.

Because it was my sec­ond week­long visit in twelve months, I had the lux­ury of wan­der­ing the city with no fixed des­ti­na­tion in mind. Just walk­ing wher­ever the spirit moved me…

It was a freez­ing, cold day. Every­one was bun­dled up in hats, scarves and puffy coats. Snow capped the sum­mits of the nearby hills and moun­tains — very unusual for Barcelona. The sun flirted, peek­ing out now and then, but most of the time thick clouds cov­ered the sky.

Barcelona in February

Barcelona in Feb­ru­ary

Despite the win­try weather I loved the city’s energy, the col­ors, the aro­mas waft­ing out when peo­ple left bak­eries or cof­fee shops. I rested my tired feet in a cou­ple of those shops, and fell in love with a café that roasted cof­fee beans on site.

As I sit here in Seat­tle look­ing out at cold win­try skies, I’m remem­ber­ing my strolls around Barcelona last year and the year before.

I envy my hus­band who is back in Barcelona for the week. Sadly, he will work long hours with lit­tle time off to enjoy the city’s charms or its tiny foodie des­ti­na­tions. But even so, he’ll find some won­der­ful tapas bars and maybe a mem­o­rable restau­rant or two after the trade show ends each day.

¡Hola Barcelona!

Wonderful Cake to Fight the Winter Blues

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Spanish Orange Almond Cake

Span­ish Orange Almond Cake

My friends and I have fallen in love with a dessert from Spain, Orange Almond Cake. It’s a moist gluten-free cake burst­ing with orange fla­vors, and a crunchy almond tex­ture. I made it on request for a friend’s birth­day last month, and since then sev­eral of us have exper­i­mented with dif­fer­ent vari­a­tions on this theme. So far we’ve loved all the ver­sions that we have tried.

Variations on a Theme

My first ver­sion relied heav­ily on the Orange and Almond Cake recipe pub­lished by the James Beard Foun­da­tion. The final results were deli­cious, but the recipe’s rec­om­men­da­tion of a 400 degree oven for one hour or more was too hot, and too long for my Dacor oven. Mid­way through the bak­ing, my nose warned me that the oven was too hot, so I reduced the tem­per­a­ture first to 350 degrees and later on to 325.

The instruc­tion to but­ter and flour the pan for ease of removal did not work well enough. Using the but­tered pan method, my first cake required some dis­crete patch­ing before we served it… We cov­ered up the patch­work using thin slices of an orange dis­played in an attrac­tive pat­tern on top.

Variation #2

For my sec­ond bak­ing exper­i­ment I lined the pan with but­tered parch­ment paper. This allowed me to remove the cake from the pan with­out los­ing any pieces in the process. I also sub­sti­tuted lemon for some of the orange; instead of using two large oranges, I used  one-and-a-half oranges and one full lemon. It was good but we pre­ferred the all-orange recipe.

The sec­ond time I baked the cake, I sep­a­rated the eggs and whipped both yokes and egg whites quite a lot. This made for a higher, fluffier cake that was still plenty moist. My hus­band and I thought this han­dling of the eggs was much bet­ter than the orig­i­nal James Beard recipe.

For my sec­ond attempt I used a spring­form pan lined with parch­ment paper. No pieces were bro­ken when I removed the cake from the pan.

Variation #3

For our Super Bowl party my girl­friend made this cake, using my vari­a­tions. She was the birth­day girl for whom I made the cake last month. She loved it so much that she decided to make it for her next party…

Her cre­ative con­tri­bu­tion was a glaze made of mar­malade and Coin­treau that replaced the whipped cream. Scrump­tious!

 

Feasting with Friends

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Thanksgiving invitationThanks­giv­ing is 2 days away, and we’re host­ing the cel­e­bra­tion for 8 peo­ple. I’ve finally begun detailed menu plan­ning and the long shop­ping list.

Advance prep on some of the dishes starts today, so I can take a yin yoga class Thurs­day morn­ing with­out feel­ing guilty.

We’ve planned it as a gourmet potluck meal — every­one con­tributes some­thing. As hosts, we’ll roast the turkey, bake two pies and pre­pare the basic side dishes.

What’s on the menu?

  • Roast turkey for 8
  • Corn­bread stuff­ing, made with home­made corn­bread
  • Old-fash­ioned cran­berry pre­serves with gin­ger, raisins and wal­nuts
  • Wal­dorf salad
  • A spe­cial multi-grain wild rice con­coc­tion
  • Brus­sels sprouts with wal­nuts
  • But­ter­nut squash with orange and gin­ger
  • Mince­meat pie
  • Pump­kin gin­ger pie with lots of spices

Every­thing on the menu will be pre­pared from scratch, includ­ing the pie crusts and stuff­ing.

Of course, we’ll have a selec­tion of local Wash­ing­ton wines and some cham­pagne-style sparklers to pair with the feast. Some light appe­tiz­ers to munch on while wait­ing for the turkey to come out of the oven.

One of our artis­tic friends will beau­tify the table.

It’s lovely to cel­e­brate with the con­tri­bu­tions of mul­ti­ple hands!

Packing for a Sailing Adventure

•

After much antic­i­pa­tion and email plan­ning, we’re head­ing to Des­o­la­tion Sound for a week of sail­ing with friends. One is an expe­ri­enced cap­tain, so we’ve bravely signed up for a bare boat char­ter. (He’s also a for­mer crab fish­er­man!)

Photo of deck shoes for sailboat

Non-mark­ing deck shoes

Com­pil­ing our shop­ping and “must bring” lists has been an adven­ture in its own right.

We’re food­ies, so the generic pro­vi­sions stocked by the char­ter com­pany don’t appeal to us. Instead every­one will bring food and spe­cial ingre­di­ents from home, sup­ple­ment­ing them with fresh meats and veg­eta­bles pur­chased locally. Or crabs we catch while sail­ing off­shore.

Some of us don’t sail on a reg­u­lar basis, so we’ve had to shop for non-mark­ing boat shoes. In the process we’ve learned that the boat­ing apparel indus­try focuses pri­mar­ily on men, with few real choices for women. What’s pro­moted for women as boat shoes, more often than not, are moc­casins designed for fash­ion rather than func­tion. Find­ing and then buy­ing grippy boat shoes (rather than fash­ion moc­casins) on short notice has been a chal­lenge.

We face a 30-degree tem­per­a­ture range in British Colum­bia, from highs around 80° to lows in the 40’s or 50’s. With weather that spans late sum­mer to fall, from sun­shine to rain pro­tec­tion, pack­ing lightly is almost impos­si­ble.

We’re techies, so our elec­tron­ics list is daunt­ing. Beside DSLR cam­eras, binoc­u­lars and marine spe­cialty items, we’re bring­ing:

  • Solar bat­tery charg­ers
  • Sine wave invert­ers (for DC to AC con­ver­sion)
  • Smart­phones and e-read­ers
  • Charg­ers for mul­ti­ple devices
  • Blue­tooth key­boards
  • Garmin GPS nav­i­ga­tion devices to get us to the marina in time for our map brief­ing

For leisure activ­i­ties we’re also bring­ing:

  • Yoga mats
  • Snor­kel­ing gear
  • Kayak­ing gear
  • Bird­watch­ing resources

And foul weather gear, just in case.

Wish us luck!

Sadly, my new deck shoes are fuch­sia. Not my pref­er­ence, but the only grippy boat shoes avail­able online in my size. Why is it that male-ori­ented brands default to offer­ing women’s ver­sions in pink? When will brand man­agers wise up to the fact that women are more nuanced and sophis­ti­cated than lit­tle girls?