Jadeite
Lately I’ve been loving jadeite, with its milky mint-colour transparency, pretty indentations, glossy surface and way of picking up sunlight just-so. It would look so pretty on my wide white windowsill: I think an antique market trip is in order.
[photos, clockwise L to R, via: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10]
Oatmeal candy
Try as I may to convince myself otherwise, I’ll never be much of a baker. I’m impatient. Can’t follow a recipe to save my life. Hate measuring cups. Never have flour in the cupboards. Or eggs in the fridge. I think box mixes are kind of scary, and don’t like fussy things – mixers and fondants and whipping buttercream until my arms turn to jell-o.
I’m a cook at heart, who stirs and braises and chops and substitutes and judges cookbooks by their photos and stories, ’cause I know I’ll never actually follow a recipe as I find it.
That said, I do have a sweet tooth – and despite my love of mangoes and apple slices with almond butter – sometimes only butter and sugar do the trick. This recipe was born of that necessity and ingredients I always have kicking around: oats, brown sugar, cinnamon, unsweetened coconut, salt and butter. They get tossed together, spread on a cookie sheet and baked in a medium oven – and the result is magical. 10 minutes later, I have crunchy and sweet and buttery little pieces of candy, which hint at salted caramel and apple crumble topping. They’re at once incredibly complex and completely unfussy.
A couple pieces with Earl Grey tea make the perfect snack on a rainy afternoon or after-dinner sweet.
Oatmeal candy
(makes 10 small pieces)
The eight-minute bake is a very rough guide. Depending on your oven’s temperament, it could be slightly more or less. Just watch for edges that are slightly golden, and a toasty smell that pulls you toward the oven. If you have it, unsweetened coconut is a star ingredient in this candy. And don’t omit the salt!
Ingredients
1c quick-cooking rolled oats
1/2c brown sugar
3Tbsp unsalted butter, melted (or salted, just omit the pinch of salt)
heavy pinch of sea salt
cinnamon, to taste
coarse sea salt, to finish
optional: shredded unsweetened coconut, chopped nuts, chopped dried fruit
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. In bowl, combine all ingredients. The butter should just barely coat the dry ingredients so they stick together. Spread mixture about 1/4 inch thick on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper, pat firmly into place. Sprinkle with coarse salt. Bake for approx. 8 minutes, until just golden. Remove from oven and lift parchment off cookie sheet to a counter to cool. While still warm, score with a knife for even pieces. Alternatively, keep in one large piece and break off bites as needed.
Will keep, covered, for a few days in a cool cupboard.
Collide
“We were walking down the street, holding hands. There’s a playground at the end of the block and I run to the swings and climb on, and Henry takes the one next to me, facing the opposite direction, and we swing higher and higher, passing each other, sometimes in synch and sometimes streaming past each other so fast it seems like we’re going to collide, and we laugh, and laugh, and nothing can ever be sad, no one can be lost, or dead, or far away: right now we are here, and nothing can mar our perfection, or steal the joy of this perfect moment.”
[photo via]
Banana-almond soup
When it’s cold, I eat a lot of oatmeal for breakfast. But – even with Toronto’s cooler-than-usual summer – it’s a bit warm mid-July for bowls of steaming oats.
Lately, bowls of oats have been replaced with bowls of frozen goodness.
I love frozen concoctions. The thought of it makes me cringe a little now, but when I was little I adored that first summer Slurpee (though I hated the glowing fluorescent tongue that came along with it). Garden raspberries found their way to the freezer and then mashed up into a make-shift sorbet. Same with grapes, which became little self-contained spheres of icy granita.
Lately for breakfast, I tuck into a bowl of green soup, but nothing tops cold banana-almond soup. A couple frozen bananas get whizzed in the blender with some unsweetened almond milk, a couple ice cubes and a huge scoop of raw almond butter. The result is unlike anything else – smooth, sweet, creamy, with flecks of nutty almonds and thick enough to eat with a spoon. Like a bowl of slightly-melted banana ice cream. It’s so, so good. Sometimes I top it with sprouted cereal for crunch, but more often then not I dig into a bowl as-is.
Frozen banana-almond soup
(makes 1 serving)
I keep a dozen or so very ripe bananas sliced and in the freezer, ready for whenever I want to make something sweet and frozen. Letting bananas get very ripe (i.e. brown and spotted) before freezing makes all the difference. I use almond milk and butter in this recipe, but other milks and nut butters would work equally well. Popping the mixture in the freezer for 30 minutes gives it a firmer ice-cream texture. It also makes great popsicles.
Ingredients
2 sliced, frozen bananas
1c unsweetened almond milk (Almond Breeze is great and easy to find)
1 heaping tablespoon raw almond butter (MaraNatha is my favourite)
a few ice cubes
Whiz everything but the almond butter in blender until smooth. Add the butter and blend to combine. Serve in a bowl with a spoon, or as a smoothie. Sprinkle with sprouted cereal or granola, for optional crunch.
Unexpected
As a bit of a colour fiend, I always have my eye open for singing combinations. Like this one: an unexpected pairing of deep navy, coral, orange sherbet and buttercup playing off milky white accents. So, so good.
Up
This morning, I floated high in the clouds, up in the sky, watching the sun rise with a dear friend.
It was the most perfect morning.
Being alone
Depending on the season, my little self was more often than not curled up on the couch reading – or in the industrial kitchen at my parents’ restaurant, burning the pads off my tiny fingers – or standing in pouring rain under the broken eaves-trough at Uncle Ron’ s ramshackle house – or maybe tucked neatly into our backyard zucchini patch inspecting the specimens.
Most people are surprised to learn just how introverted I am. That I can stow away in my apartment for whole long weekends in the quiet, maybe venturing out for a walk or market trip or book and coffee, but often not even. I like to see movies alone, and lunch as one in a pretty dress, and sit in the park on a blanket making up love stories for the squirrels. I’m a lot like my little self, actually, who went about things deliberately and quietly and alone.
Time and time as one has been in my thoughts quite a bit of late.
My sister moved out recently, but a point of contention when we lived together was my need for silence and space. It was difficult for us both to deal with this – she wanting to dive into our days as I walked through the door, me seeking a few minutes space before dinner as repos. I get her frustration – I probably would be, too. Trying to articulate to someone you love that you just need time alone after a day spent in constant communication seems selfish, and perhaps it is.
I love cooking whole dinner parties, but there’s something special about a meal for one. I have a well-thumbed anthology of essays called “Alone in the Kitchen with Eggplant” that documents the act of dining in solitude. Some folks are totally averse to the idea: Laura Calder goes so far as to say one should never ever eat alone if it can be avoided. But I find great comfort in cooking for one – knowing what I prepare is exactly what I want, no compromises or fretting because I’m eating avocado on toast for the fifth night in a row. Setting the table – one spoon, one fork, one knife, one pretty napkin, one tealight – has a nice ritualistic sensibility about it.
At big gatherings, my family is used to their niece/daughter/granddaughter/cousin who slips out to the porch or up to a spare bedroom or away to the kitchen to methodically rinse dishes. A friend suggested to me that this isn’t introversion at all – just sensitivity to loud voices and noises, but I think the two are inextricable. Space, to someone who seeks solitude, is necessary, sacred – and can be invaded in many ways. My Greek relatives live loudly and tactilely, ruffling hair and pinching cheeks and clinking glasses and sparring about politics – and I love this. But it’s life lived without a space barrier, be it physical or acoustic or imagined.
There are exceptions, sure: I love spending one-on-one time with a close friend. Dinners in and out, exploring, long walks, conversations on the couch with glasses of wine or steaming mugs of tea. The best company in the world, I think, is sitting in an armchair reading, with a favourite person close-by – each of us doing our own thing – occasionally looking up to smile or share a passage. The welcome being of quiet company. Feeling someone around without words, indulging in the reverent dead air.
“In solitude, where we are least alone.”
I realize – and I grapple with the idea – that I’ll never be able to force myself to be happily busy-bodied or to embrace a packed schedule. Nine of ten times, I am heading home after work to my pyjamas over dinner and drinks. I’ll always need a little space when I walk through the front door on a weekday night. Surely there are more of me out there, who embrace this idea of being together, alone. Or sometimes just alone.
[photo via]
Pops of chartreuse
Alberta Ferretti, I will happily wear most of your Resort 2010 collection. Preferably riding on the back of a scooter through the Italian countryside with my hair flying behind me. Pops of chartreuse, just enough structure, whimsical but classic prints, perfect styling (those shoes!). Gorgeous.
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