Tuesday, January 1, 2019

a beginning


I promised myself at the beginning of last year that I would start a cooking blog as a way to keep notes on the food I make. It's the first day of a new year and I am a perfectionist – so here I am.

I have a life-plan for myself that goes something like this: I will spend the next ten or so years of my life working towards a career in photography, that is – get an MFA, make some pictures I am proud of, have a few solo exhibits, maybe land a cool residency or two, and teach, definitely teach. There's nothing more appealing to me than making a photography course syllabus. I literally think about it in the shower.

But then, say in my mid-to-late thirties, the plan is to switch careers. I'll go to cooking school, or apprentice under some chef at a café in Italy, preferably in Trastevere or a small hill town in Umbria. We'll have a few kids and A. and I will pack our bags and live in a tiny apartment above a bakery, and I'll cook a lot. Our kids will learn Italian. Maybe I'll write a cookbook, or just keep taking notes.

When the kids are a bit older, we'll move back home and put some roots down near our friends and family. We'll have a big piece of land and I'll be responsible for the large garden in the backyard. We'll have a two-story garage studio like we've always dreamt of, and A. will have the first floor for his music studio and I will have the upper floor for my own studio. I'll make more pictures (I won't have ever stopped, of course). I'll cook meals in the kitchen, which will have butcher block countertops and a large window overlooking the garden. I'll garden, a lot. And I might go back to school, become a wise, old lady-priest with salt-and-pepper hair (probably more salt than pepper) inching down my back. I'll go on a lot of long walks. I'll write some sermons (I'll have something to say by then, right?), or maybe a few poems.

That's the plan. But I figure if I want to switch careers in my mid-to-late thirties, I better at least have practiced some of my own recipe-making ahead of time, i.e. now. And anyway, amidst grad school and too much time in a dark studio lab scanning film, there is nothing that I want more at the end of a day than to cut a potato, stir a risotto, or roll out some scones.

Every Christmas in our three years of marriage, Austin and I have celebrated together ourselves before heading home to one of our respective families. Each year, we've made the same Christmas breakfast: baked eggs with cream, buckwheat scones with raspberry jam, and blood oranges (often fresh out of the stocking – it's a tradition). It's a quaint breakfast – a little out of the ordinary, but nothing too elaborate. The bitterness of the buckwheat in the scones perfectly cuts the richness of the cream and butter while being countered by the sweetness of the jam. And it seems like a fitting place to start this blog, because I have a hunch these scones will follow us wherever we go.




Buckwheat Scones with Raspberry Jam
adapted from a recipe by Kim Boyce in Good to the Grain

dry ingredients
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1/2 cup buckwheat flour
1/2 cup light brown sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 1/4 teaspoon salt

wet ingredients
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, cold
1/2 cup whole milk yogurt or buttermilk
1 egg

finish
1/2 cup raspberry jam
heavy cream

Cover a baking sheet with parchment paper, or coat it lightly with melted butter.

Combine the dry ingredients in a large bowl. Cut butter into 1/2 inch pieces and add them to the dry mixture. Either using your hands, two knives, or a pastry cutter, cut the butter into the flour mixture. Continue until the butter is in sizes ranging from rice grains to flattened peas.

In a separate bowl, whisk together the yogurt (or buttermilk) and egg. Add this mixture to the dry mixture and mix until it forms a wet dough. Turn out onto a lightly floured surface.

Knead the dough lightly until it keeps its shape and form it into a ball. Cut the ball evenly into two and roll each half out into a circle about 8 inches in diameter and 3/4 inch thick.

Cover one disk with the raspberry jam, keeping it a quarter-inch from every edge. Top this with the other disk and press down gently so the jam spreads all the way to the edges. Use a sharp knife to slice the circle into 8 even, triangular wedges, like a pie. Carefully (sometimes I use a spatula) place each wedge a few inches apart on the prepared baking sheet.

Place in refrigerator for two hours (or, sometimes, I'll place it in the freezer for a half-hour). Preheat oven to 350. Take the cooled scones out and brush the tops of each scone generously with heavy cream, then sprinkle with sugar. Bake for 25-30 minutes, or until the edges are golden brown. These are best eaten warm from the oven!

Pictured: the first kitchen I had all to myself and which I think will always be my favorite, in North Carolina; and the scones, ready for the oven this past Christmas.