CreativeSpace

the lemons of life

Some days it just doesn't do to write a blog post. There have been times recently when I couldn't sit down at the computer and write a single positive word. All that came out was angst and general snittiness. Yes, that's an actual word. Those of us who are capable of epic snits know that word well, thank you very much. During one of these emotional days of dark clouds and impending storm fronts, I found myself at the grocery store eyeing the lemons. I don't buy bags of them, you see. Their yellow skin was so cheery, so bright that I felt compelled to purchase an entire bag, as if they'd somehow impart their glowing good nature.

They looked gorgeous on my counter but even better in the sauce pan. Oh yes, with so many lemons at my disposal I indulged in my favorite lemony pastime...lemon curd. LEMON CURD! (Sorry for the shouting. It's the sugar rush.) Have you had it before? Have you slathered it over scones or spread it between layers of sponge cake? Great googly-moogly, I love the stuff. Which is why I rarely make it, because if left to my own devices I would eat an entire jar in one sitting. Yes, I'm mad. MAD FOR LEMON CURD! (Apologies once again for the shouting.)

Lemon Curd

3 oz. (6 TBS) unsalted butter, softened at room temperature

1 C sugar

2 large eggs

2 large egg yolks

2/3 C fresh lemon juice

1 tsp grated lemon zest

In a large bowl beat butter and sugar with an electric mixer about 2 minutes. Slowly add the eggs and yolks. Beat for 1 minute. Mix in the lemon juice. The mixture will look curdled, but it will smooth out as it cooks.

In a medium, heavy saucepan, cook the mixture over low heat until it looks smooth. The mixture may look foamy, keep stirring over low heat until it begins to thicken, about 15 minutes. Don’t let it boil. The color will turn a clear lemon color, and you’ll know it’s done when you draw a spoon along the top and it leaves a path.

Remove the curd from the heat; stir in the lemon zest. Transfer the curd to a bowl. Press plastic wrap on the surface of the lemon curd to keep a skin from forming and chill in the refrigerator. It will thicken further as it cools. Covered tightly, it will keep in the refrigerator for a week and in the freezer for 2 months.

 

The next step for my lemon curd is to be the lovely companion to a sponge cake. Maybe even a roly-poly. Stay tuned!

 

 

 

does this sweater vest make me look Minion of Misery?

"Remember, Tommy, this next serve is mine. Muss my tennis vest with your wild swing again, and I'll lock you in the basement. Now who's mommy's little minion?" 

(This is proof that exercising in sweaters will only lead to heatstroke and cheerful madness.)

 

Ah yes, who doesn't love a minion or need one? One could argue that children would make ideal minions, but no, as a responsible parent you must raise them to be independent and differentiated from you. Minions need to be subservient and useful, not filled with their own opinions and agenda. They need to be able to facilitate your plan for world domination without giving a second of consideration to whether it's a good plan or not. Minions are with you day and night, rain or shine, jail sentence or not. Frankly, I need twenty of 'em, but they're still on back-order. 

Although my minion dreams are still unatainable, I had a small ray of minion hope in my life recently. (let the excitement build...) I was awarded the prestigious Minions of Misery Award! The award is the brainchild of Anne Michaud and Angela Addams, two brilliant authors. The recipient of the award must do the following: recommend a dark book, suggest a dark movie and admit one dark secret to their blog readers. Then the MoMA must be passed on to three other deserving bloggers. Muahahahahaha!

Colin Barnes was the previous MoMA winner who tagged me. You can read his dark musings here and claim that I'm "secretly very dark behind all that baking and craft work." It's true, of course. All you have to do is read my stories to catch a glimpse of it. (Mom, close your eyes.) 

So without further ado, here are my dark recommendations:

Drood is based on the autobiographical events surrounding Charles Dickens in the final dark days of his life. I think I had a permanent case of goosebumps the entire time I was reading it. Imagine the thick fog clogging the twisting alleyways of Victorian London as we follow Dickens and his growing obsession with mystery of Edwin Drood. The reader can never see too far ahead to anticipate what awaits around the corner. I admit that I had to put the book down periodically so I could go take a walk outside in the sunshine to combat the haunting dread that overwhelmed me.

Drood is the name and nightmare that obsesses Charles Dickens for the last five years of his life. On June 9, 1865, Dickens and his mistress are secretly returning to London, when their express train hurtles over a gap in a trestle. All of the first-class carriages except the one carrying Dickens are smashed to bits in the valley below. When Dickens descends into the that valley to confront the dead and dying, his life will be changed forever. And at the core of that ensuing five-year nightmare is Drood.

Guillermo del Toro (writer and director of Pan's Labyrinth) summarized it best. "A dazzling journey through a crooked, gaslit labyrinth and a tenebrous portraiture of the tortured minotaurs that dwell within. Genius is the true mystery, and its edge - the abyss." It was this quote that sold me on the book. How could I resist a man who used the words tenebrous AND minotaur in the same sentence? (I have a soft spot for minotaurs.)

 

This movie scares the ever-living-snot out of me every time I see it. Yet I still want to watch it again. (By peeking through the cracks in my fingers as they cover my eyes.) I generally avoid scary movies, but this movie is so perfect in its balance of suspense and horror that I'm unable to resist. The Shining is a mind-bender full of ghosts, madness and an evil presence that haunts the Overlook Hotel. The novel by Stephen King is also damn spectacular, but it was Stanley Kubrick's cinematic vision that took this story to the heights of dark cinema. Plus, we can all relate to writer's block being slightly maddening. Right?  

 

And finally, there's my dark secret. I had to give this some thought, because my secret list is long. Too long for this entry, as a matter of fact. (Mom, close your eyes again.) I don't want to horrify anyone unduly, so I'll start of slowly.

My dark secret is that I enjoy fresh Cheetos straight out of the bag. AND I lick my fingers afterwards. Now, if you've read my blog, you know that I'm a bit of a food snob. So you'll understand just how hard it is for me to admit that. I LOVE Cheetos.

Sigh.

I really, really do. 

that's how the custard curdles

My mother tells me that I loved the custard my Great-Grandma Viola used to cook. I don't remember the custard specifically like I do her soft boiled eggs and roasted squash, or how she kept a steady supply of Honeycomb cereal stashed in the tin pail that used to carry her girlhood lunches. That was the first sugared cereal I ever tasted, and my cousins and I raided that tin pail every chance we got. Not only did she supply us with forbidden sugar, but Great-Grandma also had CABLE TELEVISION. Not that we had a chance to watch anything remotely scandalous like Happy Days reruns. (That Fonzie had very tight pants.) No, Great-Grandma had an inexplicable fondness for religious programming, specifically Jerry Falwell. Even at that tender age, I would have rather cleaned the cat box with a teaspoon than watched Mr. Falwell in action. But I digress...

CUSTARD, my friends. It's glorious, don't you think so? I began my custard ruminations after a lively discussion with some UK writer friends about its fine qualities. I kept testing the limits of their custard devotion until finally I proposed digging a giant pit in the back yard and filling it with the stuff. This is what happens when writerly imaginations run amok, you end up battling your editor in custard. In our hypothetical bout my money's on Ren. She's an Essex girl who hates to lose. (Apparently being from Essex makes you terribly gritty and determined.)

As organizer of the event (and trainer of otters, but that's a completely different flight of fancy that we shan't explore at the moment) it's my job to make the custard. Believe it or not, I'm a complete and utter custard novice. I dug out my trusted 1965 Fanny Farmer Cookbook and set about cooking. Within minutes I had a curdled icky mess in the double boiler. Fanny made it seem so quick and easy. My mother's reply when regaled with the tragedy was, "didn't you temper the eggs?" Um, no. Fanny didn't tell me to. Clouded by custard confusion, I surveyed my culinary friends. 

Erik is a chef, and when he says things like "break down the proteins" and "ice bath," I sit up in attention and take notes. As y'all know, cooking chemistry just rings my chimes. He took my basic recipe and tweaked it significantly, all the while explaining how the ingredients would react and come together. I didn't follow his instructions exactly, because his recipe was for a stiff custard that would be baked in cups, as for a creme brulee. I wanted soft velvety custard. 

Custard

3 eggs, 1/4 Cup sugar, 2 Cups cream, 1 Tbs vanilla, dash salt

Combine eggs and sugar in double boiler and whisk. (this is where the proteins are being broken down) I put the saucepan on very low heat. 

In a second saucepan combine cream, vanilla, and salt. Heat until just under boiling. Remove from heat.

In tiny increments, drip scalded cream mixture into eggs, whisking the entire time. (This is advice from a different culinary friend who makes custard tarts. I'm already bothering him for the recipe.) It's imperative that you do this slowly and in tiny quantities so the eggs don't cook rapidly and chunk up the custard. Continue whisking for seven minutes or so until mixture coats a spoon. Take it from someone who has done this several times now. It's a thin line between curdled chunky custard and smooth as satin custard. The second it clings to a spoon, pour the custard into an ice bath. This halts the cooking and will allow the custard to set. After a few minutes, place it in the fridge to finish chilling. 

After the ice bath, Erik advised to pour the custard into cups, place in a water bath and bake at 225 degrees until custard had firmly set. I skipped the final steps, mostly because I'm lazy. Instead, I allowed it to chill several hours and then gleefully ate it.

 

I'm fully aware that this is actually a chocolate cup, but it's still too hot to contemplate hot chocolate. It turned out to be perfect for custard, and it didn't make me sweat. (I borrowed Little Bear's wee spoon to compliment it.)

 

the bears and the bees

 

Contrary to her bear nature, Little Bear isn't a fanatic about honey. She has recently discovered the joy of peanut butter, as have my pants, my hair and the window sills. She dissects her prey, I mean sandwich, with the precision of a surgeon, carefully peeling apart the slices of bread and then licks it clean of peanut butter. Sometimes she eats the bread, but most of the time it is abandoned in ragged pieces on the plate. Recently I've begun adding just a dollop or two of honey, and after a tentative lick, she proceeds with her usual enthusiasm.

Have you ever noticed the differences in honey? At one point I blithely purchased honey at the grocery with nary a thought as to the source. It wasn't until my friend, Phil, began keeping bees that I gave it much consideration. The average grocery brand is actually a combination of honey from a variety of hives, and as one of my friends put it, is only good as an addition to yogurt. Or when you're desperate, was the implication. 

My favorite honey is orange blossom or clover which I buy from the organic Amish farmer when I head north to visit my mother. During my first trip to the farmer's market here, I purchased a small jar of honey from a local farmer that declared, BLESSED BEES! across the front. The jar was $8.00, and my mother muttered that it cost that much to have the preacher drive out to the hives every day for a blessing. The honey is good, light and sweet, but at that price it should have healing properties.

For Little Bear, honey and peanut butter is only an appetizer. Real breakfast consists of her favorite food, bacon. The bear is a bacon bandit. I have to place the cooling strips high up on the counter or else she steals them. She acts like she'll share, but I know better.

 

snap out of it!

Nothing like a dramatic title to herald a new blog entry! It's a quote from one of my favorite movies, Moonstruck.

Moonstruck is the story of widowed Loretta Castorini, a middle-age book keeper, determined to marry Mr. Right. She believes that due to a cloud of bad luck (she married her husband down at City Hall) her husband was hit by a bus. She lives at home with her mother, father and Italian grandfather with his collection of mutts. The Right Man in question is Johnny Cammareri and after she coaches him through the correct way to propose, they become engaged. Trouble begins when Johnny must go to Sicily to say goodbye to his dying mother. He tasks Loretta with calling his estranged brother, Rohnny, to invite him to the wedding. Johnny alludes to the bad blood between them, but Loretta has no idea what she's in for. Hilarity ensues.

My favorite theme of the movie is summed up by Ronny.

"Loretta, I love you. Not like they told you love is, and I didn't know this either, but love don't make things nice - it ruins everything. It breaks your heart. It makes things a mess. We aren't here to make things perfect. The snowflakes are perfect. The stars are perfect. Not us. Not us! We are here to ruin ourselves and to break our hearts and love the wrong people and *die*. The storybooks are *bull****. Now I want you to come upstairs with me and *get* in my bed!"

I'm not a big romcom fan, but this movie has smart dialogue and amazing performances. Olympia Dukakis almost steals the movie as Loretta's mother. Because it's a romantic comedy, everything goes wrong in a delightful way and the prerequisite happy ending isn't obnoxiously saccharine sweet. Dramatic gestures and fantastic quips abound. Plus there's food and beautiful music, two of my favorite things in life.

This movie was my first introduction to egg in a basket. Or toad in a hole as my mother says which is just gross in my humble opinion. In the movie Mrs. Castorini made eggs in a basket with a side of roasted red peppers. The first time I watched it (which was 954 times ago) I thought the peppers were bacon. Note to Self: make it with bacon next time.

Egg in a basket is simplicity itself. Made with homemade white bread and creamy farm butter, it's heartily satisfying. Just cut a circle in the middle of the bread for the egg and cook the buttered bread in a skillet until the bread is toasted and the egg slightly runny. That's the trick, not overcooking it.

Part of me says it's still too hot for comfort food, but when you need it, you need it.