Baking again, in small batches

Now that I’ve gotten a bit settled, I’ve begun baking again when I’m not marching through reading for my Japanese Modernity class (why am I taking this again?).  I’m not on the grand scale I used to be back in Orlando, and I’m still missing some baking tins I need to buy or maybe even have shipped to me, but still, I’ve been making things here and there, and I hope to make some more things soon.  I’ve gotten a bit of help from my friends Lucy and Jim who managed to hook me up with some unused baking tins.  The little loaf pan I got from them can be seen in the photo with the banana bread.

Anyway, here are a couple photos of what I’ve been up to in my tiny kitchen.  The banana bread was a nice morning baking project this past Wednesday.  No nuts in it, as I normally am not a fan of nuts in baked goods (though I am getting better and more tolerant of them), so it’s just kind of plain.

Next time, though, I think I’ll add some chocolate bits, and maybe even walnuts if I’m going to share the bread with folks.  This particular loaf, though, was pretty much exclusively devoured by me, except for a slice I brought to my manager at work.

The coconut lime cookies in the photo were made for my friend Paul’s Day of the Dead party at his place in Green Lanes.  I think they were quite popular; David told me he ate something like nine of them.  That might be an exaggeration.

I wound up making similar cookies with cocoa instead of lime for Fireworks Day at Victoria Park.  I still have a few little rounds unbaked that I might throw in the oven sometime soon when I want something sweet and cookie-ish, but don’t have the time nor ingredients to fix up something from scratch.

This evening or perhaps tomorrow evening I’m going to have a go at making the dessert I plan on bringing for Lucy and Jim’s farewell dinner for Lotte and James this Wednesday.  It’s going to be a surprise, but I will say that chocolate will be involved, as Lucy informed me that Jim wouldn’t have been fond of the other options of flavours I gave: coconut, banana or apple.  This batch I will be making is going to be a test-run for the main event, and I won’t be eating all of it myself, so I told Aru that I will be making it so she can come by my flat and take some back to the old button factory she lives in, where I currently am at the moment, writing this entry (I’m an honorary button).

Thanksgiving celebrations among my Food friends are coming up at the end of this month, so I will be planning on making an apple crumble for that (or two, depending on the amount of people invited), along with biscuits, American-style.  I need to find a baker’s blade here so I can fix up some biscuits and scones–I haven’t made scones in ages!

Bake Sale at the Thread Swap

This Thursday evening, I will be selling tasty homemade vegan baked goods at the Thread Swap happening at the Black Box Collective on West Central Boulevard, just a smidge west of downtown proper.

That’s right, I am having a bake sale.

Per the Facebook event invite:

THIRD THURSDAY
June 18th
7:00pm-?

Bring your old clothes, shoes, and pretty much anything else you don’t want anymore! Clean out your closets and come find free new(to you) stuff!  All proceeds from the door ($3-donate more?) will go to shipping costs of clothes to India! Left over cash will also be donated to villages of friends in need in India! All clothes/shoes we can’t ship will be given to our friends in need right here in Orlando!

So come out! Eat, Drink, Share, and most of all- be merry!

REMEMBER: FIRST COME FIRST SERVE ON FREE STUFF!

*Open Mic poetry sharing hours from 7:00-8:00pm
If you plan to recite, show up in time to get your name on the list

A sweet afternoon/evening of live MUSIC, POETRY, DRINKS, FOOD, AND BEST OF ALL: FREE CLOTHES!
AND LET’S NOT FORGET SOCIAL INTERACTION

Confirmed performance by:
Open Windows
Dani Shay
Amy White

Vegan baked items available for purchase, made by Doreen. Come early before all the sweets are sold out.

At the Thread Swap, there will be $2 PBR, Miller and (thank goodness) Yuengling throughout the evening.  Wine will also be available.

Tentatively, the list of vegan edibles I will be providing will include chocolate cupcakes with peanut butter icing (or maybe coconut… I haven’t decided), vegan chocolate chip cookies, blueberry scones and allspice muffins with crumble topping.  I’ve cleared my ingredients with the appropriate Vegan KGB representative–so yes, it’s really all going to be vegan–and much of the ingredients I will be using, such as flour and sugar, will be organic as well.

So please, after you’re done sifting through the discarded contents of other people’s closets, stop by and buy a cupcake or cookie from yours truly.  The proceeds aren’t quite as noble as that of the Thread Swap (don’t worry, I’ll be donating clothes, too), but would be just as appreciated, not just by me, but by the friends I’ll be visiting on the West Coast before I move to London.  Hopefully I will remember to bring the paper bags I bought today at Whole Foods for people to take some of these yummies home with them for breakfast or snack time the following day.

If you’re interested in learning more about the Black Box Collective, visit their MySpace page or their website, BlackBoxCollective.com.  They are on 630 West Central Blvd, 32801, and you can see a photo of the space on their MySpace page.  It sounds like it’s going to be a fun night, but I won’t be there for all of it, as I do have my day job to get to in the morning.  Speaking of which, I put in my notice at the Library today!  My final day as a library clerk will the the 15th of July.  Hooray!

Hope to see you Thursday night!

A Startling Revelation

After recently making a few things in the kitchen for dinner and having them turn out… not quite right… or even inedible, I’ve decided to suck it up and face something I’ve been long suspecting….

I can’t cook.

Now, I can bake.  Oh yes, I can bake.  Granted, I can’t make a seven-layer cake with raspberry ganache.  I haven’t even tried pie yet (I know, I’m such a chicken).  But I can make bundt cakes, various cookies, scones, cupcakes and bars from scratch, thus solidly putting me in the “amateur baker” category.

But, my stovetop cooking is haphazard at best.  I’ve had a few incidents where I’ve scurried away from the sizzle of oil on a frying pan, or when I’ve cursed at the burnt pancake I’ve produced once again, and Clark, my roommate, has seen me and shaken his head.

“There are two kinds of people,” he sagely intones as I shake a spatula at the stove in a threatening manner. “There are those who are cooks, and those who are bakers.  Guess which one you are.”

Yes, despite my love of food, I am not much of a cook.  I can make sandwiches, I can fix basic salads, I can make rice with the help of a rice cooker, which doesn’t say much.  I can fix up pasta, actually, and make a nice lemon-butter sauce for it, or dump a glug of marinara into a pot from the jar, so I’m not completely forsaken to a life of take-out and frozen pizza.  I used to make fried rice fairly often.  But don’t ask for more than that, unless you’re asking someone else.

This doesn’t mean I won’t try to cook any more.  I have too many cookbooks with too many recipes I’d like to attempt, even if the end result winds up being me crumpled in a heap in the corner, sobbing.  Learning from our mistakes is what makes us more experienced in the kitchen, whether we are baking or cooking.  The same philosophy can be applied to life as well.

How deep.

Still, if you invite me over to your potluck, you can count on me for the cake or cookies.  At least for now, anyway, while I build up my bruised cooking ego after the horrible peanut butter tofu disaster.

Sunday at Stardust

This afternoon I went to Stardust Coffee & Video to read the book I’m currently enjoying, Alain de Botton’s The Art of Travel, and to work on my application essay for the School of Oriental and African Studies of the University of London.  I am looking to start their MA program(me) in Anthropology of Food in the fall.  Perfect subject for me, isn’t it?

Now, some people don’t like to write, read or do homework in public spaces such as cafes, but for me, a place like Stardust is the perfect spot for such activities.  At home, I am often too distracted by mundane tasks, or wind up fettering away my time online or playing video games.  I’m usually not very productive.  In the environment of a third space, though, I can focus enough on my work (or my leisure, as the case with the book), with the perfect amount of distraction to alleviate writer’s block.  If I’m hungry, instead of putting effort into sussing out my fridge and preparing a meal, I can simply ask for a sandwich and work or read until the Five Easy Pieces appears.

Interestingly, Alain de Botton touches on a similar topic in his book, The Art of Travel.  In chapter 2, “On Travelling Places,” de Botton discusses halfway places such as airports, airplanes, service stations, train cars, hotels and the like through the lenses of Baudelaire and Edward Hopper.  Part of his writing focuses on loneliness.  De Botton writes, “In roadside diners and late-night cafeterias, hotel lobbies and station cafes, we may dilute our feeling of isolation in a lonely public place and hence rediscover a distinctive sense of community.” When observing some Stardust patrons, with laptops open and the surrounding chairs empty, this idea of communal loneliness is rather strikingly appropriate.  Within this communal loneliness, however, we can be removed from our home environments of distractions and tackle the tasks that have been dogging us for days, weeks, or months.  In discussing his experiences on trains, the flow of consciousness is aided “by the possibility of looking out the window, locking on to object and following it for a few seconds, until a new coil of thought is ready to form and can unravel without pressure.”  I find this applicable in a cafe setting as well, where one can watch a couple eating sandwiches or overhear another couple discussing Michelle Obama’s outfits, or simply pausing to drink a cup of coffee or take a bite of food.

Stardust’s ready stock of tasty food and beverages were appreciated today as they were back when I was going to school at Rollins.  I would stop by there as I rode my scooter to class, taking in a beer or IZZE before class while working on homework that was due that day or reading a chapter on anthropological or literary theory to be discussed that day.  After class, I would stop in for another beer or IZZE and work on short story assignments from my writing classes or read one of the zillions of books Dr Pequeno liked to assign for his classes.  It was nice, because I would talk to people behind the counter and the regulars about all things wonderful and weird, and at the same time be wonderfully productive.  This afternoon I finished a fourth draft of my application essay that was good enough for me to retype (and reedit) on the computer at home earlier this evening and send it out to a few friends who offered to have a look at it (well, really two who offered, and two who didn’t…).

Today at the Dust, I saw and overheard a few regulars, like Gary (hello!), and spoke with Bret, who gave me an open-door with regards to baking again for Stardust, which was awesome to hear.  Thanks to the acupuncture treatments I’ve been getting from FICM, my left wrist and elbow has felt much better, despite being told I have the beginning signs of carpal tunnel (wooo…).  Because of my condition, I’ve been hesitant to approach Bret and the Stardusters about starting again with baking on weekends, but it is something I enjoy, and with Bret’s laissez faire approach to my employment, I may just have another go at it sometime soon, provided my wrist holds up.  These x-rays shown were taken last year in the fall sometime at an orthopedist who was in the running for the worst doctor ever.

Applications for SOAS are due on the 30th of June for fall semester (seriously!), but I want to have mine turned in prior to March to make the deadline for a couple of scholarships. Once my application essay has been looked over and I make some changes suggested by my proofreaders, I’ll be ready to send out my application… provided I figure out where my degree from Rollins is.  Apparently, the University of London wants a photocopy of my Bachelor’s degree, and I can’t remember where I put it.  I wish my father had taken me seriously when I asked if we could hang it in the bathroom.

If you would like to know more about Alain de Botton’s thoughts on loneliness or Edward Hopper, you may be interested in this article from Tate Etc., The Pleasures of Sadness.  The article includes images, such as Hopper’s 1927 painting Automat, which I love, love, love, so it’s well worth a look.  After The Art of Travel, I have at least two other books by de Botton lined up to read, killing the fiction kick I had previously been on with Jonathan Carroll’s The Ghost in Love and The City of Dreaming Books by Walter Moers.

Shift change at Stardust

Due to a recent opportunity for Saturday-morning overtime at my main job, I’ll be working Sunday mornings at Stardust instead of Saturdays until further notice.  So, arrange your planned scone breakfast-noshing accordingly!

Although it’s intended to be a temporary move, I think I might like baking on Sundays better than Saturdays, as it gives me more time to get ingredients I might need over the weekend, like fresh fruit and additional things Stardust could be out of that I need, like butter or eggs.  Plus, I will have Saturday mornings to go to the Winter Park Farmer’s Market before it gets too hot and all the good French pastries sell out.

Anyway, this past Sunday was my first Sunday shift, and I was able to turn out blackberry and blueberry scones, a vegan coffee cake *and* these brownie/coconut things I called “crack bars” due to Greg’s comment about my bench scraper that I used to cut the thing up into squares with, although I think the correct term is Black-Bottomed Coconut Bars.  But doesn’t the moniker “crack bars” sound better-suited for Stardust?  It’s edgy and straight-to-the-point, dammit.

And, in other news, today I finally broke down and bought something I’ve been wanting for a very long time: a madeleine pan!

I wish I could say that I went home and baked madeleines right away, but as my roommate Clark was occupying the kitchen, I didn’t.  Even if he wasn’t puttering around with his rosemary lamb burgers, I probably wouldn’t have thrown together some madeleines anyway.  It’s a bit odd, but I feel my first batch of madeleines requires the right moment, perhaps a special Saturday afternoon when it’s raining, or a nice visit from some friends when I have some time to make some tea.

Right now, though, I actually want to make some more of those crack bars instead.  And this time add chocolate chips to the coconut-blondie half of the batter.